October 2020

A Collection of OS Adventures

A Background

I've been a part of the MacOS ecosystem for roughly my entire life (other than a brief stint with a Chromebook in 5th grade). I have, however, had some experience with running Linux on my Raspberry Pi/on my old laptops. But I've never run an alternative OS (by which I mean not Windows or OSX) as a daily driver.

Recently, I acquired my first PC (old enterprise hardware) and I had to decide what OS to use. I have been playing around with installing NetBSD on one particularly old laptop (my Thinkpad T41). Though ultimately unsuccessful, I have heard good things about the BSDs and want to try using one. Regardless of whether I stick with it, I know I ought to at some point, just to broaden my horizons. Maybe I'll love it, maybe I'll switch back within a week.

UPDATE: One Month Later

November 2020

I have decided to switch to Ubuntu. I loved OpenBSD, but there were some dealbreakers. While I enjoy fiddling around to get things working, I need to prioritize getting work done at some point. I was never able to set up printing. Also, although it seemed like Zoom support was always around the corner, I was never able to use it.

In a different time, I could have overlooked both of those issues. However, I'm on Zoom for almost eight hours every day, and many of my school assignments need to be printed out. The final death knell for OpenBSD was when my volume keys worked immediately upon firing up a Ubuntu Live CD. Once again, I may stick with it for a while, or I might yearn for greener pastures. Maybe Arch? Only time will tell.