This isn’t a tutorial. This isn’t a war cry. It’s a confession. A strange love letter to an operating system that gave me hope, broke my heart, and later taught me peace. Linux was never the enemy — but he sure was difficult.
It started with Puppy Linux. Not on an old clunker, but on the family PC — just to see if it would run. I’d burned the ISO to a CD, booted it up, and... it just worked. My curiosity was electric. I wasn’t trying to “switch” — I just wanted to explore. Puppy didn’t even install itself, it lived in RAM like a ghost. I was hooked.
I wasn’t just poking around anymore. I was installing Ubuntu, then Linux Mint. Testing Fedora. Admiring OpenSUSE. Dualbooting became my new ritual. I would fill entire afternoons with tinkering, swapping DEs, and browsing forums. Live DVDs and VirtualBox were my tools of escape and expression.
Linux gave me root access, and for a young teen, that felt like superpowers. Everything was customizable — everything breakable.
By the time I started middle school, I wanted Linux to be my main OS. But it didn’t always cooperate. My sound card would vanish. Graphics drivers would fail. Certain hardware just refused to speak Linux.
I wanted it to be perfect. It wasn’t. I kept trying anyway.
In high school, it got worse. I wasn’t experimenting anymore — I was fighting. Fighting to make KDE stop crashing. Fighting PulseAudio. Fighting with strangers on forums who told me I was the problem.
I wanted to create videos — but Kdenlive would crash mid-export. I wanted a smooth desktop — but updates would brick something or another. I loved Linux, but it didn’t love me back. Or at least, that’s how it felt.
"Give me all your poison, and give me all your pills..." — My Chemical Romance
University started, and I gave up. The time I used to spend fixing things was now needed for actual work. My PC ran Windows 10 again, and it was... peaceful. Stable. Boring.
I felt guilty, like I’d betrayed something sacred. But deep down, I was just tired.
Then came the ThinkPad X220i. I bought it used — a side-project, really. I installed Manjaro, then Mint. And this time... I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t demanding. I was just curious again.
It didn’t have to be my everything. It could just be something.
Today, I use Fedora on my T495, sometimes alongside Windows 11. Dualboot. No drama. No pressure. Mint is for writing, tinkering, sometimes web design. Windows is for work, games, and full compatibility(though currently I temporarly removed Windows from the laptop due to weird glitches, while keeping it on my home computer.).
I no longer feel like I have to “choose sides.” It’s not about loyalty. It’s about sanity.
"We’ll carry on..." — My Chemical Romance
Linux was never the enemy. But making it your identity? That can be a trap.
There’s no shame in using both. Or only one. Or switching back and forth.
Use what serves you. Customize what inspires you. Don’t break yourself trying to fix what you didn’t break in the first place.
"Because the hardest part of this, is leaving you..." — My Chemical Romance
Linux can still be magic — especially on older machines. It can turn an unused laptop into a cozy creative den. A rescue mission for tech that Windows left behind.
Just remember, Linux doesn't have to be everything. Sometimes, it's enough for it to be something.