Linux on the Desktop is Actually Good Now

My Opinion On Why Linux on the Desktop is (Finally) Good, And A Recommended Setup

If you wish to skip the “why” and get straight to the “what”, skip straight to getting started.

Good news!

I’ve got great news everyone - Linux is ready for the primetime. There are some exceptions, that I’m going to list right now just to get this unfortunate reality out of the way:

• If you’re a graphic designer/artist type, the tools you probably use (cough, Adobe) are simply not ready for Linux. There are free alternatives, but I’m not about to tell a professional to change their tools.
• If you have absolutely no interest in computing (i.e., using a general purpose computer such as your laptop) or learning how to use a computer effectively to improve your day-to-day life, just keep using what you’re using. This article is for those with a bit of curiosity.
• If your livelihood depends on what’s currently installed on your computer - I’m not going to recommend you switch to Linux. I’m not going to be responsible for that.

On the other hand, if you use your computer for:

• Gaming
• Browsing the internet
• Watching videos, online or locally
• Checking your email
• Its office suite (Documents, slideshows, spreadsheets)
• Listening to music
• Chatting with friends
• Reading
• Coding

And you’ve thought about switching to Linux, but haven’t due to its perceived difficulty - then this article is for you. You! This article details my recommended Linux setup.

Who Even Are You? Why Now?

I’m not writing this for profit or because it’s my job - I’m writing this on my free time because I believe it to be true.

I recently switched myself, from Windows to Linux. I was a staunch believer – for good reason – that Windows (or macOS, if that’s your style) was the best desktop operating system. I game a lot, I work in IT, and Windows simply had the best support for the tasks that I did. I needed my PC to be stable, and to not have to fiddle with it. I’ve tried switching several times in the past, and the experience of Linux on the desktop simply was not all there. That’s all changed for me in the last month — my overall experience has been good. Great even. Enough to recommend it over Windows or macOS, even for casual users. I’ve installed Linux on my laptop and my desktop, and it has been absolutely rock solid.

What’s So Good About Linux Anyways?

Before we really get into it, let me add a bit more carrot to the proverbial stick. Here are the tangible benefits you stand to gain, switching to Linux from Windows, roughly in order of the importance I believe them to be to the average user.

1. Linux is small

This point doesn’t seem so important on the surface, but let me paint a picture for you. Imagine a world where Microsoft didn’t automagically install software onto your computer. Candy Crush? Absolutely not. Windows Hello? I already have a password and fingerprint set up, why are you doing this to me? I don’t want to use your horrible maps app. I don’t want to use Windows mail. Why does Windows update take so long? And DO NOT make me sign into my Windows account just to access my computer for the first time. “Do you want to enable targeted ads” Does anyone? I don’t want Copilot on my taskbar. And no, my Excel spreadsheet is not a virus - please don’t just quarantine it for me, Windows Defender.

I could keep going for a fair while, but my point is - Windows is heavily, HEAVILY bloated. We’ve all struggled through it, but just because we clicked “Do not ask again” doesn’t mean that software isn’t still there taking up space, or worse yet, CPU and RAM.

It doesn’t have to be like that. In general, Linux is just… Linux. Linux is just the things you tell it to install, and not much else. You want to play videos? You install VLC. Copilot is just not a thing, thank goodness - if you want to use AI, you already know where and how you want to use it, so just set it up yourself.

2. The software is good

Day-to-day OS tasks such as locating files or altering system settings are simply better on Linux. There’s a glut of examples I could point to, but it makes more sense to point to the motivations and restrictions of Windows vs Linux: Windows is driven by profit, and there are a ton of restrictions they adhere to as to when and why they change basic functionality. Think things like “Mail” or the file explorer. The community surrounding Linux is not beholden to those same restrictions and they have their own motivations, so they’ve been able to iterate through things faster, making generational improvements. It makes a big difference.

3. Customization

Linux is simply more customizable. Change colors, font sizes, backgrounds, startup processes - with zero restrictions or handholding. You can really make it yours.

The Primer

Just like learning how to use a Windows PC, you’re going to need to learn a few concepts about using a Linux PC. Most guides don’t go into this, so let’s do it now. This is a quick primer on common terms you’ll hear and use on a Linux PC. Don’t worry, there won’t be a test.

• Kernel: It sounds complex, and behind the scenes it is, but to you? It’s just the software that marries hardware and software. Think plugging in your mouse and keyboard, and being able to type. The Linux kernel does stuff like that. It does a lot of other stuff, but you don’t need to worry about that until you are interested in more advanced topics.
• Linux: What is Linux? Well, it’s the kernel. There are other kernels, like the one for Windows, but this is Linux’s, and you get to use it for free. Linux isn’t made by one corporation; in fact, a lot of people consider it to be developed by a guy named Linus Torvalds, in cooperation with many other individual or corporate contributors. Moving on.
• Distro, distribution: A distro is what makes Linux usable. A distro is something someone (or some group) made and maintains, and at its core it’s just software installed on top of Linux. We’ll get into what kind of software next. Examples of distros include Ubuntu, Debian, or Arch.
• Package Manager: A package manager is usually one of the most recognizable aspects of a distribution. Package managers are powerful tools. If you’re familiar with the Windows Store, a package manager is kind of like it, but on a much more fundamental level - it can (typically) also install the low level aspects of your chosen distro, such as tools to manage your boot process.
• Desktop Environment: Windows looks like Windows, and macOS looks like macOS. You know this. macOS is all bubbly and fun, Windows is boxy and corporate. These are examples of desktop environments. The boundaries of what constitutes the desktop environment can be a little fuzzy at times, but don’t worry too much about it. The two main desktop environments for Linux are KDE and Gnome. In this guide, we will install KDE.
• The terminal: The heart and soul of Linux. Generally, everything you could ever want to do in your graphical user interface, is possible via the terminal. You should use it! Yes, you! The terminal reads commands such as ls, evaluates them, and prints a response, all in text. On basic Linux distributions, the terminal is the first thing you’ll see when you start the computer. In this guide, we’ll use the terminal during setup, but once your computer is set up, you won’t need to touch it much.
  • The terminal is text based. Programs read text, and return text. For all intents and purposes, you cannot use a mouse with a terminal - you interact with the terminal using your keyboard.
• Filesystem: The filesystem is just that - it’s a system for organizing files. On Linux, the filesystem starts at the root, represented as /. It’s hierarchical - For example, /home is a subdirectory in /, and /home/cooper/ is a subdirectory again. On Linux, everything (EVERYTHING) is a file. Even things you wouldn’t consider a file in your mind, like hardware. This is a great concept to keep in mind.
• Maintainers, developers: Linux is free as in money, so who exactly is making the software? Well, everyday people do, like you and me, on their own time, out of the goodness of their hearts! These people are the developers and maintainers of Linux and its surrounding ecosystem. Each software project has its own bespoke list of developers (people who actually make the software) and maintainers (people who obtain said software, bundle it up into a neat little package for you, and distribute it to you via your Linux distro’s package manager)
• Boot Medium/Install Disk/Bootable Disk: To nobody’s surprise, you need to install Linux. To install Linux, you need to first create a bootable medium. This is usually a USB stick. During the creation process, you will wipe this medium.

An Opinionated Guide For Installing a Linux Desktop

Choosing a Linux Distro

First up is selecting your Linux distro. There are a lot of options. You should use Arch. This is a hotly debated topic among Linux users, and Arch is not typically recommended for first time users, so I’ll give my reasoning on why I think it’s the best choice below.

• Arch is a rolling release distribution, meaning software is constantly being updated. For Desktop users, this is important - Desktop users generally need to keep their software up to date, or else they get nagged - see Google Chrome, or Discord, which constantly ping you to update them
• Arch is very popular. It has an active community. This means you can reasonably expect it to stay around for a long, long time. Smaller distros come and go often.
• Arch has a massive repository of user contributed software that is kept very up to date. This is called the AUR, for Arch User Repository. This is software that users want, that the official Arch developers/maintainers don’t want to take on. This means you can almost always find an easy way to install the software you need.
• Arch’s official repository contains both free and non-free software. This means a lot of popular software can be packaged and maintained by Arch. This is good for desktop users.
  • I want to make clear that by non-free I don’t mean free as in money, I mean free as in software freedom. No money will be changing hands here. I am a staunch open source advocate for my servers, but I’ll admit that non-free software is the way of the world on desktop.

A quick comparison of Linux distros

Installation

Next, you’ll need to install Arch. Follow this guide, and make sure to make use of archinstall, a helper to make installing Arch easier. It will hold your hand during the installation process.

• This guide in and of itself is the second reason to install Arch - it has by far the best installation guide/wiki out there. If you have questions, the Arch wiki has the answer.
• archinstall is what, in my opinion, allows Arch Linux to be recommended to the masses. Installing Arch using archinstall is quite easy, and should be even faster than installing Windows.

Installing your Desktop Environment

Once Arch is up and running, if you didn’t install one already during archinstall, you’ll need a desktop. Install KDE. Gnome is also an option, but I prefer KDE as it’s similar to Windows, and easily customizable

Congrats, your Linux desktop is now mostly ready for use. You’ll want to install some more software probably. Learn how to here

• If the software you want isn’t in Arch’s official repositories, you’ll make use of the AUR, or Arch User Repository. Install paru. paru is like pacman but for packages only available on the AUR. Now finish setting up and customize your PC for you.
• If you want to optimize settings for your laptop, the Arch wiki has you covered.
• If you want to increase the level of security on your laptop, the Arch wiki has you covered.
• If you want to make booting your PC faster, the Arch wiki has you covered
• If you want to back up your PC, the Arch wiki has you covered
• Are you sensing a theme here? If you have any questions, the Arch wiki will usually have the answer.

Installing Arch Linux

We will be installing Arch Linux. This sounds impressive, and it is! But it’s not hard. Arch has a reputation for being complex, but honestly it’s overstated. Once it’s set up, it’s easy. But what about the setup? Luckily, someone has graced us with a program to hold your hand as you install Arch Linux, something called archinstall. We’ll get into that later.

And with that, I will hand you off to the most impressive technical documentation I’ve ever seen. The Arch Linux wiki. If you have any questions, I all but guarantee that your question will be contained within.

Link

Now before you get too deep into the installation process - a couple notes. Once you boot into Arch and you’re faced with your terminal, you’re going to follow this guide. This is archinstall. It makes installing Arch easy. It will ask you if you want to install some packages. Say yes. Install the desktop package. This contains basic utilities you will want.

You should also learn about Arch’s package manager. It’s called pacman. It’s really quite good, and it contains very up to date software - Arch is well known for keeping software in its package manager up to date. All you really need to know is one command, the one to install packages. It’s pacman -S <package name>. That’s it! I will leave it to you to learn how to uninstall packages and update packages using pacman.

Getting Graphical

Congrats! You installed Arch. It doesn’t look quite like a computer you could call home yet though, does it? It’s time to install a desktop environment. As we touched upon in the primer, the desktop environment is the thing that you point around with your mouse - like, the desktop. Technicalities aside, it’s the login screen, the task bar, the start menu, the settings app. You want one of these to log into. We’re going to install KDE (also referred to as KDE Plasma, Plasma). KDE is known for being high quality, and closer to the look and feel of Windows instead of macOS. Follow the instructions here.