Installed Linux for the very first time! 🐧 💾 🖥

I got so fed up of Windows 10, so I installed Linux. I forgot what the last straw was, but there had been a lot of buildup to this point.

Things that led to me jumping ship:
- All the bloatware that comes with Windows that I had to meticulously uninstall, wasting my time.
- The OS itself taking up like 60 gigabytes, much of it presumably being programs like Microsoft Edge that I do not want or need but can't uninstall.
- Noticing how sloppy Microsoft has gotten with the way their OS was put together. Internet Explorer is still in the program files of Windows 10, and is unremovable. For what purpose!? Additionally, it is very obvious that the Control Panel is residual from Windows 7, among other things. I seem to recall that sometimes, when I opened certain things, for a split second I'd see the top of the window would have the Windows 7 look to it but then would immediately load the normal Windows 10 look. Weird...
- My computer constantly having almost maxed out my 4GB RAM when I'm not even doing anything. It ran like an underwater stalagmite.
- Being unable to disable that built-in antivirus utility that farts around in the background constantly against my will and takes up 200mb of RAM, no matter how hard I try, with settings, regedit, etc. Even if I did, it still wouldn't have run too well.
- Privacy concerns. I do not trust a massive corporation with my data, especially in this climate. The data is even enabled to be collected by default, that's not creepy at all. /s
- Constantly trying to goad you into using Microsoft Edge, which is a browser that has embedded advertisements.
- Requiring you to create a Microsoft account when you are first setting up your computer, unless you unplug the Wi-Fi adapter, Ethernet cable, etc. on a desktop or disable Wi-Fi with the airplane button on a laptop. This is likely in an attempt to track you with your ad id.
- ADS EVERYWHERE! I seem to recall one that was installed by default on my computer + would pop up and try to get me to install OneDrive, or was it Dropbox? It was one of those, I know that. I thought I'd never see the day, that adware was embedded into the computer, but here I am. Not to mention the tiles on your start menu.
- I do not trust Cortana, but I wasn't able to uninstall it.
- Lack of customization options. I grew up with a Windows XP, and always wanted that level of customization in my future computers, but was sorely disappointed. I was a user of OpenShell to try and alleviate this, but it just wasn't the same.
- Windows 11's arbitrary hardware requirements, and suspicions that Windows was made bloated on purpose to try and get people to buy new computers rather than sticking with their old ones.
- In the long run, Windows costs money. Thus with every Windows that is discontinued and has security patches ceased for it (not to mention compatibility issues with newer programs!), you'd have to buy a new computer or at least a new OS even if your old one would have worked just fine with the proper lovin. This would pain both me and my wallet. Contrasting this, most Linux distributions are free, many are over a decade old and still supported, + even if your distro becomes dangerously unsupported over time, you can always hop pretty easily or fix the problems yourself.
- Microsoft is financially incentivized to not fix any of these problems, and would even benefit if they were made worse. Most items on my list, if not all of them, are not mistakes, but rather by design, and will likely get worse as time goes on.

Finally, after much tinkering, I got just about everything working on my cool Linux computer !

Now that I have a Linux, here's what I'm happy about:
- SO MUCH MORE FREE SPACE!
- Computer idles at ~400mb and I've only ever seen it go up to ~900MB at most.
- Snappy, runs like a charm! Doesn't take a lot of time to load things.
- The customization options I've always dreamed of, even better than the fondly remembered Windows XP customization!
- Everything's so streamlined. Changing icons and cursors, for example, doesn't have to be done individually. + All the settings are either accessible in the preferences tab or by dicking around with the terminal, whereas with Windows you have to navigate through a trillion different menus to get to what you want and even then the system would fight against you on certain things.
- It's very fast and easy to install programs from trusted sources via the commandline.
- Is actually lightweight, rather than using it as a meaningless buzzword.
- Doesn't try to force me to use programs that I don't want to use.

- Honestly, excellent with gaming. Started playing LISA: The Pointless on it and it ran flawlessly.

- Best of all: NO BUILT IN ADS!!!!

There's a distro for everybody, mine is Debian Slax. There is a bit of a learning curve with just about any Linux distro, but it is SO worth it. It truly feels like MY computer, moreso than even my old XP did all those years ago.

Almost everything works right now, but currently I am having a bit of an issue with KWalletManager:

"Error when attempting to decrypt the wallet kdewallet using GPG. If you're using a SmartCard, please ensure it's inserted then try again.

GPG error was Inappropriate ioctl for device"

Have no idea what's up with that, but I could figure it out eventually.

TLDR: Hated Windows, ventured to Linux (because I am a NEEERD!!), loved it, never looking back.