I feel like people using ducking computers, phones, servers, and stuff are forgetting about one thing… and it is a big one.
I’d just like to interject for a moment
What you’re referring to as GNU/Linux, is in fact, Linux and I will call it Linux because technically, you can viably use Linux without GNU but because that would require me to learn new commands and I am lazy, when I am referring to Linux, I in fact mean, GNU/Linux.
Love
Guys, I did it. I found the perfect distro. It is MX Linux and I love it. The beautiful bastards… they did it. And hits so close to my home; my virgin distro Debian.
After a 3+ years on arch-based distros, I am back to apt-get baby and it never felt to ssh home. It is like finding that perfect pair of shoes that just fit or that hoodie that should have disintegrated 20 years ago, was $20 and somehow is still the most comfortable thing in the world?
That is MX Linux.
I am sorry for being a fanboy. I do not want to be overly dramatic, but MX Linux might be the best distro in 2024, possibly even ever.
KDE.org
I will talk about MX Linux at length, trust me. However, the brunt of the Linux Desktop Experience is carried by a hacker group operating under the legal name KDE.org. These guys mean business. Their crown jewel
Plasma
I do not really want to get into Wayland, X.org, Compositors, GPU Drivers, DPI-Scaling, and other stuff. I am a duck, sorry I am a ducking duck. I am a user, quack.
Userspace
I think of userspace of what I can access as a user, without typing in the root password. I absolutely freaking love to fiddle with Plasma… it is… it is an acquired taste. But once learn to wrangle those panels and discover widgets, krunner, meta+W and so much more, it is just… wow.
That is all inside KDE Plasma. With the upcoming release of KDE Plasma 6, I know we are all in for a treat. KDE Plasma will cement itself as the release candidate of the Year of The Desktop 2024.
Details
You know why I use MX Linux?
- It is not Windows
- It is Linux, and I mostly use and support FOSS software
- KDE Plasma 6 is plain superior to GNOME 31
I currently use Linux on my main PC, laptop, and on my self-hosted server. I started with Debian. After I stopped distrohopping, I finally landed on my endgame distro:
CachyOS
Honorable mention. I am going to be much more brief, but it is my arch-based distro of the year 2023/2024. The main differentiator? A small number of builds, sane defaults, focus on KDE Plasma, own theming, own kernels, and file system modified for pure speed…
But it breaks… often. For me it just… I am too old for this stuff. Like… I adore it and respect it, but I can’t stand it as I age. I am 36, that is like 72 in IT years, trust me bro.
Later
2024 will be the year of the Linux desktop for me, for sure. The year after as well. I will start with my personal computers, send tons of feedback and I will summarize my experience in 2025.
The new guy in Linux world
I will blog a lot about Linux and I will say some dumb stuff. I apologize in advance, lads. Do not forget, I majored in Advertising… it was just so easy I learned Linux on the side because of job security, and look at me now, 10 years, successfully jugglin’ multiple jobs like the proud millennial that I am.
Stripes
I earned my stripes. I might not be the best, but I semi-successfully host my own VPS for over a decade, I know how to spin up a LAMP server and you can keep your fancy docker setups I am doing boring, stable but nimble, with good’ol trusty PHP and MySQL-like databases you can easily edit.
I am a very self-aware Linux noob. I know I do things that are not completely safe but I do my best to mitigate my shortcomings and of course… backup hygiene.
We are all in this together
Remember the human. If you like Linux it does not matter what DE or tiling manager are you using, if it is GNOME or it sucks less, Gentoo or arch or nix or debian… Fedora is imho amazing as well, Nobara for the curious as well. Who can forget about SUSE!
There is so much to do in Linux, that is why I decided to help.