Hey Fellas,

time for my first real blogpost after the #introduceyoufself.

Quick status update:

I had my wisdomteeth pulled today- So look at those hamster cheeks:

Lucky enough I'm quite passable at cooking and made myself a formidable broccoli-creme-soup. Tasty food without chewing:

Main Topic: How Linux (and Ubuntu) changed my life

"What is it?"

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For those of you who didn't come across Linux in their life. Linux is a kernel (that's the core of an operating system) written by Linus Torvalds that is open source. Open source means everyone can see the code for it online. Anyone can choose to further develop the kernel if they choose to. And everyone is invited to use it for free. That same philosophy also goes into Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a distribution of Linux and also open source. In fact, most of the Programs (or packages) you'll install and use with Ubuntu are also free and open source.
This includes major projects like Libre Office, Open Office, Gimp, Inkscape and many more. Often they aren't inferior to their paid "big brothers" (Microsoft Office, Corel DRAW etc.) in any way. This all appears to be awesome! Free programs, open source developed! This is where you ask yourself the logical question:

"Where's the catch?"

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I also asked myself the question. I looked up info online, explored what's to find about the OS and did my research. I finally decided to give it a try and install it on my notebook. Over time I found my answer to this question: There is no catch. At this point let me tackle some of the general drawbacks of the OS that I had with it, and that you might also have.

1. Why should I invest my time and backup all my data, format my hard drive, install the OS, get used to it import all my data etc. etc.

• It's not a big deal to install Ubuntu (or any other Linux distribution). You download it from here, mount it to a USB stick and you're good to go.
• Linux isn't the "hacker, poweruser, geek" OS it is promoted as. Sure you can execute everything on a black screen with green text l, feeling like you're in the matrix - but you don't have to. Everything is intuitive and well explained nowadays.
• It's not a big adaption when you come from either Windows or Mac, as it looks and works in a very similar way.

2. But i don't like how it looks. It's free, but it looks shabby and i really want i to be stylish.

• No problem. Not one single problem. Linux distributions are 100% modifiable in style. You can choose from different themes, icons (or even distributions, if you don't look how the graphical interface is constructed). This picture shows the current Ubuntu (16.04) in its default look:
  
  And here is my setup in comparison:
  
  What did it take me to modify it this way? 3 clicks. (The screenshots were 1 by the way) This brings me to my third point:

3. My workflow will change a lot. Isn't it too hard to adapt to all new software?

• From my perspective it isn't. It is easy to access Ubuntu and operate it in a normal way. I use it for approximately 2.5 years now and for a long time haven't known any terminal commands or whatnot. It's only when I started programming I learned about the terminal and it's uses. Now I got myself around one or two dozen commands, which makes working faster than it could ever have been on Windows.
• The Terminal (or bash, or command line) is a central tool in Ubuntu. It however, doesn't need to be touched a single time in order to be effective. When you encounter problems however, the solutions you'll find will almost always have some kind of terminal command attached to it. This unifies the solution, and makes it applicable to all Linux users.
  This leads me to what defines Linux, and especially the Ubuntu distro for me:

The Community

No matter which platform you're on: Facebook, Reddit, steemit, IRC, Ubuntu Forums, etc. etc. - There will always be someone with a solution to your problem. Is your sound not working? Can't find a nice program for Instagram filters? Don't know how to setup your mail? Ask someone. Get an answer that will work 90% of the time in no time. I feel like everyone working with this operating system is dedicated to making the most of it for everybody. And that's what really inspires me (Not only to write this post :3). In the meantime you can read the documentation. Each and everything that's on Linux has it's own documentation explaining in great detail what it does and how to use it. It's rad.

Facit

I use Linux on my notebook and would never go back to Windows under any circumstances. The experience of using it is so smooth, so intuitive and so totally enjoyable that there is no reason at all. I get my work done faster, I navigate through stuff faster, the layout is clearer and you can customize everything to your needs. Another super huge plus is that you can uninstall everything you don't need. No more cheeky programs sitting on your pc, nobody knowing what they actually do.
I plan to also install it on my desktop PC, which I mainly use for gaming. You might have heard Linux sucks in terms of gaming because only a few number of games are supported. But numbers are constantly growing, and you can emulate a Windows environment anyways for that purpose.

This is a list of the most common Linux distributions. Each with their own flair.

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When will you try it out? What concerns do or did you have switching over to Linux? Let me know in the comments!
See you next time, when I#ll show you one of my more creative sides. Have a nice day, and enjoy your life.