Comment by theYipster

I've been playing with Linux desktops since the 90s. Every few years I load up a few distros in a VM to see what's going on, and I just did that again over the holidays with some free time and a recent urge just to tinker with stuff. Some random, recent thoughts:

- Knowing how Linux works (and having the skill to use it) is hugely advantageous for most software developers and IT professionals--I personally wouldn't hire an IT or DevOps admin who didn't have some level of familiarity and comfort around Linux. Reckoning with the modularity and composability of Linux helps to build a deeper understanding of how computers work, and many of the most important IT topics of today (containers, cloud management) are built off Linux/Unix fundamentals such as chroot and cgroups.

- I tried Arch for the first time and enjoyed it as a nostalgia trip. It reminded me of installing Redhat or Suse or Mandrake back in the 90s. I appreciate it for what it is--a tinkerer's distro. I don't understand the meme around it though, and found nothing esoteric about setting it up... Is manually partitioning a disk drive supposed to be a feat of strength today?

- On the other side of the distro spectrum, I'm mightily impressed by Zorin. Less so these days with Ubuntu. I get folks' distaste for Snaps over Flatpacks.

- I don't get folks aversion to bloat. For me, finding the ideal setup was about installing everything a distro had to offer and then chiseling down. The exploration was always the fun in using Linux. I remember installing Suse back in the 90s with 10 different window managers and I loved fiddling with them all.

- Hyprland is really neat.