2022-01-06
Celebrating one year Linux only
I read somewhere that once you go free, you never go back. This week, after one year, i'm celebrating my exclusive OS relationship with Linux. I wrote many new tools in my first months, a lot in Bash, and of course, mostly in Perl. Windows Batch and PowerShell are no longer accepted. By doing this, i cleaned up the mess. I combined most of them into two large pocket multi-tools, reducing overhead and enabling me to faster workflows.
I added many new features to my skills, because i had to adapt to a new world. All the noise is gone, and the signal is strong. I didn't need to change too much, since i was already a terminal user before, and a developer anyway. And the Free Software collection was nothing new to me.
If something doesn't work or isn't there yet, i probably can make it work and available. For example, a GIMP plugin stopped working for me after going from Buster to Bullseye, so i wrote a complete replacement in Perl, including GUI, and used ImageMagick instead. I updated my older tools for the new environment, basically making them survive in any Unix-like system.
I do a fresh Debian install every week, so if i happen to catch something, it doesn't stay long. I streamlined the whole process to minimize my downtime. Many settings are recovered, and important data is symlinked to persistent paths. I automated this to a point where i just need to hit enter, and if needed, with options to change things at any moment.