381 days in Linux

🐧

I was waiting to complete a year exclusively in Linux to say that: I did it!
After many years and too many installations I said goodbye to Windows forever.

But how did I make it?
I didn’t learn much more terminal commands from the time of my previous installation and I didn’t find the perfect distribution which magically solved all of my problems.

I could say I’ve had a change of mindset. Something not so simple when you’ve been using Windows for all of your life. But looking back, that was the only thing I did.

I found out that my failed attempts had to do with a misconception. I was expecting to find applications from the Linux world that would mimic exactly the ones from Windows I was using. Of course that would never happen and I would continue to switch operating systems back and forth, telling myself that Linux wasn’t yet mature, and I didn’t have time for that.

And then I’ve had an epiphany: What if I could completely redesign my work-flow and choose my tools again?
That was a bit time consuming, but I’m just a home user, not a business. I made the conscious effort. And eventually it worked. Not because Linux came to me, but because I went to it. I shifted my world for it. Open source software worth it.

So to all of you out there who face the same problem, this is my advice: Don’t expect to work with exactly the same way. Think a little different, invest a bit and the change will be inevitable.

And of course take regular backups of your installations because if you break it you will feel lost and head back to Windows…