Why GNU/Linux

This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a univeRsal interface

- Doug McIlroy, the inventor of Unix pipes and one of the founders of the Unix tradition

Linux at its core is the idea of intercompatability born in the body of a kernel. What I love in Linux is not how fast and free it is. Not how amazingly many people contribute to one goal. It is the way I use it and how it allowed me to fit the most bare bones software to my needs.

Examples for the perfect fit

My senior high note taking setup is pretty complex. However it does fit my workflow perfectly.

• neovim note taking
• for long-term sheets
• markdown for short-term notes in lessons
• pandoc turns markdown into \tex
• telescope and todo-comments for todo lists
• anki for everyday learning
• github for backing up and syncing my data (homelab in the future)

With that setup I am albe to quickly make notes in my lessons as well as clearly structure my long-term sheets. With having anki on any of my devices I am able to learn everywhere.

If I want I could even run all of that over ssh from a homelab of server at school.

Intercompatability

My shell runs in alacritty (macOS) and st (arch and void). My most used and centered tool is neovim. With my configuration it is beautiful and works seemlesly. With telescope I quickly open my <subject>.refile.md note and later the week I convert it to <subject.refile.tex with pandoc. The important information gets refiled into <subject>.tex and tagged as ANKI: <subject>. So if I open telescope to see my todos the anki sign reminds me of entering the information to my anki deck. Every evening I push my files to github to be safe for a data loss.

Options (example distributions)

The following are distros I have used.

• Manjaro (Why does it exists exactly)
• Mint (If you would want to cheat)
• Arch (Amazing documentation, pacman, AUR)
• Arco (No systemd arch)
• Gentoo (If you want it you know it)
• Void (small, but no systemd!)

On my x61s ThinkPad I run Arch Linux. It is light weight and has amazing documentary. The arch wiki is one of the best documents and I even refer to it to non specific arch users.

The 2013 Mac mini runs void linux. Not because I don’t like arch as much, but because after inserting a bootable usb and entering grubs “install arch for x86_64” I got a black screen for days. I choose void because I liked the neofetch batch and because it has no systemd elevating the performence and reducing drama. I mainly use that mashine as a ssh server.

Both mashines run suckless software. Namely dwm, dmenu, and st. I am really happy with how good it works, but I do not feel well using X.

My MacBook runs macOS because Asahi sucks at the moment. However I use the tiling window manager yabaii and alacritty to come closer to a linux experience.