Lucas Zuege's Blog

Life is too short...

Over the last couple of days, I started going down the wonderful rabbit hole of distro-hopping/OS-hopping.

For those that do not know what that is, it is when you jump between different Linux distributions, looking for one that would be better.

For me, it was...

As you can see from my above timeline (which happened in a three day period), I ended up on Windows.

Why?

Because Life is too darn short...

A goodbye to Linux

That's right. I am writing this blog article on Windows 11 running on my Zephyrus G14 laptop.

But, why did I decide to move to Windows?

The paradox of choice

I absolutely love Linux. But I have a problem with choice. If I am given too many options, I easily get overloaded and spend way too much time researching.

As much as I love Linux, it is not a good fit for someone like me.

Not only are there hundreds, if not thousands, of different Linux distributions to choose from, you also have to decide on a choice of a file system (ext4, btrfs, xfs, etc.), a choice of Desktop Environments (GNOME, KDE, cinnamon, XFCE, etc.), and you have to deal with the choice of which packages you want to utilize for application installations (Flatpak, Snap, Appimage, distro-specific app package, etc.).

In the end, it was just too much.

When I did decide on something, I ended up wanting to try something else. I would read something that states that "flatpak isn't the greatest," and I would uninstall my apps and install the packages from my distro.

I would see a new update for a different desktop environment, and I would reinstall linux, or switch my desktop environment.

I would learn about a new distribution and swap to it.

After I sat down and thought about it, I was spending a lot of time on these decisions, and honestly, I was getting sick of it.

Simplifying my life

Around 4 years ago, I learned about something called "minimalism." Although, I am not an "extreme minimalist," I do take to heart a lot of the values of being a minimalist.

I try to be mindful of how I live my life.

Heck, for the most part, I eat the same things every day, I wear the same clothes, and I have gotten rid of most things that do not bring value to my life.

But, one thing I realised I was failing at, was simplification of my digital life.

I have never been a huge data hoarder, so I didn't have to worry about that. However, I realized that I was spending a large amount of time messing around with making sure my computer was working, instead of just using it for what I needed it to do.

And thus, I decided to go with Windows.

It gets me away from the Linux paradox of choice, while allowing me to do everything I want it to do.

I can write on this blog. I can play my games. I can practice PowerShell and other computer languages.

Windows removes that paradox of choice, and allows me to just focus on what I want to do.

But what about privacy?

Yes, of course privacy is a concern. However, as I mentioned earlier in this post, life is too darn short.

Yes, Microsoft will likely get my usage data. But, if that free's up 10+ hours per week of time I would have spent on tinkering/changing software on my Linux install, then I would say it is well worth the tradeoff.

Closing thoughts

Understandably, I am sure many who read this are going to think that I made a bad choice.

Honestly, though, this was the best choice for me. Both for freeing up time, and for my mental health.

I will continue to utilize Linux Servers in my homelab. I'll mess around with Windows subsystem for Linux and boot up some Linux VM's every once in awhile.

Who knows, maybe I will go back to Linux in the future?

That decision rests solely on the evolution of the Linux Desktop.

#Linux #Personal #Windows