my experience with linux began during the COVID era. and at that time i did not even own a PC.
i first came to know about linux from a video that got recommended to me on youtube. it was from NetworkChuck. his video about kali linux got my attention and it developed over time as i started watching more content about it. with that curiosity i wanted to try using linux, but the only way i could get close to it was through my phone.
i emulated kali linux on my samsung j2 with 4 gigs of ram i guess, just to see if was possible. it technically did work, but i had no idea what i was doing. i didnt understand the interface, the tools it had, the terminal. but still it it was good and infact my interest has gone up even higher
a few years later after convincing my dad i finally got access to a desktop PC. it had an i3 4th gen processor with 8 gigs of ram. i felt like i had a supercomputer. i didnt sleep that night.
it shipped with windows 10. and initially for a year i stuck with it. until i got linux on my screen again.
i installed ubuntu, and in the process i learned how operating systems work, what ISOs are, what's a boot menu and a bunch of more nerdy stuff.
right from the first boot, linux felt very different. everything felt very fast, apps loaded faster, and strangely i remember the screen felt fast. in windows, i felt like refresh rate was like 30/45hz even though the screen was 60hz, moving the cursor felt laggy, but in the linux it felt super smooth.
from there i began distro hopping. i moved between ubuntu, fedora, arch based distributions. some worked smoothly, and most of the others were broke in many ways like audio issues, driver problems, and missing dependencies.
this phase of my life taught me how to troubleshoot things about package managers, desktop environments, file systems and how much control an OS can give the user.
