After numerous installs of Linux since the late 90's that ultimately ended up returning to the prevalent Windows version of the time, I have now adopted Linux as my full time home PC OS of choice (starting Spring 2008).
Settled with Fedora as my distribution. The majority of my early experimentation was done with RedHat distros so it made sense to try a modern Fedora (as the community led distro with RedHat roots). I also like the philosophy of the project of using open software. The Fedora Project contributes back to the Linux community and adopts the latest and greatest versions of everything. New and shiny is good - except when it breaks!
So far I've not found any reason to look back. Sure, there are times where I have to experiment a bit to find how to do things, but that's only the same as sometimes in Windows.
The guys at Fedora Forum always came through with advice and solutions when problems appeared.
If you want to keep up with the day-to-day trials/problems I encounter I started a linux blog to document my experiences. I'll try to add articles here to explain the more interesting stuff.
Fedora has proven itself more responsive than the windows I was running on the same hardware (WinXP vs Fedora Core 8, started on 3200 Athlon with 1Gb RAM) and so far no real unsolvable problems.
Of course using Linux in my job as a software developer helps ;)
My current setup (will try to remember to update this as it changes!):
Last updated: Apr 2021
Software
- Fedora Core 33
- Music is handled by Banshee Clementine, including managing music on devices
- Photo editing with The Gimp
- Photo management with DigiKam / Shotwell. I've now settled on DigiKam
- Scripted backups using rsync to sync to my Synology NAS
- Programming with IntelliJ
- LibreOffice provides a perfectly function office suite
- Browser - Firefox (sometimes Chromium / Chrome)
Hardware
- Dell XPS laptop (Intel i7-8750H, 15Gb RAM, 512Gb NVMe, 4k touchscreen)
- Docking station
- 27" monitor