pictures
2020-06-22
2020-06-24
2020-11-03
while browsing through reddit and youtube in early 2020 and again in 2022, i've always been fascinated by r/unixporn; the posts that i've seen there were compelling me to start using linux, and making my desktop look as good. nowadays, in 2025, i've come to understood why that was so important to me. back then, i wasn't doing anything productive really, just playing games, hanging out with friends, making them, and joining communities. when i started programming (which you will start seeing soon below), that is when the apperance of my desktop started to change, as i had cared less about how my desktop looks like, but more about the practicality, the system components, ease of use and performance.
now, you will see my journey or reviews.
if you'd like a TL;DR, in no particular order:
although, i have to point out, that some of these are difficult to remember, and i have to back it up or help myself to recall by using screenshots and pictures.
i've also decided to give a small review at the end of each distro, based on how well it teached me i suppose; don't expect me to start criticising, just remembering is all. something else i'd like to mention is the times. none of these are accurate to the days, but the dates are only given as when i started that period, based on photographic evidence.
deepin was my first entry into the linux world on my own. i was quite absorbed by the good looking desktop out of the box, and had used it for some time. the reason why i switched back to windows, was due to the game support, as it was poor back then. but i've later come to know it was a chinese linux distribution that may or may not have been filled with spyware. the eyecandy was nice though.
nice looking distro, but not very good management or control over the system.
rating: 6/10
2020-06-22
2020-06-24
2020-11-03
manjaro was unfortunately one of the first linux distros i've used to get familiar with. as for why i chose particularly manjaro? that i do not know. maybe i was looking through youtube finding the right distro. you may also notice that the desktop appearance at installation has changed, that, can be attributed to r/unixporn wink. after some time on being on arch and arco, i went back to it, not sure why, but it was a time where i started experimenting with pywal.
helped me to step up to arch and beyond, manjaro was a handy distro, but i can't quite reccomend it to those who are looking for a challenge or for an actually good linux distro.
rating: 7/10
2021-10-04
of course, it was bound to happen naturally. i always liked the way the arch logo looks, and it damn does a good job making you feel like you're so cool; "i use arch btw", as all of the annoying users say. i believe that this phase is part of every linux users lifetime. i chose cmus as my first linux music player of choice, and even went as far as to use powerlevel or whatever it was called, pfft. i was suprised i managed to install this looking back, i had even started to write arch installation scripts to make it easy, since i reinstall quite often at that time, it was the first repository on my github profile i believe and it was lost to time. it was my first step into shell scripting, and made me understand the steps to make a functional linux system, making me pick the components and such. with arch, i guess i never really worried too much about the components of my system; that later changes however.
after switching to and back from manjaro, i finally got the courage to try out a window manager, and i chose bspwm, with all of the goodies like blur and such.
in and between august and november 2021, is where i was switching back and fourth between ach arch and windows is this is where i discovered suckless and subsequently dwm, and discovered Luke Smith, which got me into shell scripting.
arch is stable (up to debate), and has a very simple setup process, which is quite interesting knowing that the system is bare. nowadays, there is an official installer, but meh. i liked how simple arch was, but i'm not using it again, would rather use void.
rating: 7.3/10
2020-09-06
2020-09-18
as with most arch linux users, they look at arch spins, and this was quite the hype on r/unixporn, since it had a GUI installer. it was my first shot at trying new DEs like XFCE and GNOME (properly). i hope you don't mind the astolfo background :>
wouldn't really reccomend, it's probably dead now.
rating: 4.6/10
again, as with most arch linux users, they stumble upon either going for void or artix for a change of init system. i don't have much to say here either, but artix was pretty bad to deal with when switching and remembering init systems. it was nice, and had compatibility with the AUR, and may have been influenced by the bald guy everyone knows.
rating: 5/10
2020-11-22
2022-04-04
2022-05-22
2022-06-16
2022-07-02
after having some fun with window managers on arch, i looked into minimalism in a system, and discovered void linux. if it wasn't clear enough, this is where the journey takes a very different route, as my "hatred" for systemd began. looking back, it was simply because "muh bloat" :p. i still reccomend void today and may use it if i need a glibc distro. obviously, i had an nVidia graphics card, so i was stuck on glibc. keep in mind that the games were still subpar, so i moved back to windows naturally afterwards.
in early 2022, after some time with arch, and experimenting with dwm, and with the argument of "i hate systemd", now, it gets fueled further. i switched back, and fell deep into shell scripting and minimalism. at this time, i was trying to contribute some packages to the void-packages repository, but the feedback was awful. i did not like the maintainers, how inexcusably long it takes to merge a package submission, but something should be made clear: the maintainers had lives, but took too much of a responsibility, with the amount of architectures and people submitting vs the amount of maintainers on board, other than that, it is still my choice for glibc.
at this time, is where i started to get into actual scripting, making my first project, which was a script to fetch the fastest void linux mirror, since the rest were.. let's just say badly written, and mine was simply better :3
around april of 2022, i discovered solarized, and was using dwmblocks-async, making some issues and having fun with that, and making css themes, and generally gaining alot of experience at this time, there is alot that happened here, so i'm summarizing.
i highly reccomend trying this distro. it is what arch should have been, with a whole new package manager, structure, init system, and a general new style of how to manage and administrate the distro.
rating: 9.1/10
2021-10-10
as with arch linux, a linux user is also bound to use gentoo, as with the memes. i did not learn much, as using gentoo was difficult. not because of the compilcation time, it was because of the usage. portage was a cancer. i chose gentoo after a few days of using arch pfft.
don't use unless you have some sort of sexual attraction to it.
not much to say here. it was a s6 distro, and an alternative to artix, but the init system was terrible to work with.
rating: 1/10
2021-10-10
while i was using gentoo, i decided to give freebsd a shot in virtualbox, and... i did not like it, but don't bite me for it now, the reasons back then were quite funny. firstly, there was no sudo or doas, and secondly, i was so confused as to why there was a "COPYRIGHT" file in the root filesystem. i never used it on bare metal, since i didn't find it as compelling as linux at the time.
meh.
rating: 0/10
2022-08-16
2022-11-04
2022-12-25
2023-01-15
2023-06-23
2023-08-26
2023-11-06
2024-03-23
2024-06-25
as with my knowledge growing and growing with void, i stumbled upon gkiss. not sure how or why, but it changed everything. so much i could write here, but i can't recall much. i had lots of fun making my own repositories, and contributing upstream. around this time is when i started developing my first roblox on linux wrapper in shell, which was a competitor to grapejuice, a python project. as time went on, i had fun writing it, which later on, in 2023, caught the attention of lunarlattice, someone who was making a serious competitor called vinegar, in go. that was the first time i've ever learned go, and with developing, i learnt more and more. i wrote my first C program too. i also tinkered with a DE called shod, and X11 dock programs.
in quarter of 2023, is when i started to get into wayland development, and made the bar patch for dwl. after this point, i started caring less and less for desktop appearance, and focused more on development, so less distrohopping.
the distro would have been nice with some more contributors, but other than that, it really teaches you the components of the distro, and encourages you to make your own repositories, updates, etc, and everything else. i would definitely reccomend this over.. blegh gentoo.
rating: 9.3/10
i installed openbsd on my thinkpad t430 to give it a shot and get comfortable with the system components, but i did not like the performance at all. perhaps it had to do with the cpu of the thinkpad, but other things like system administration were hard to understand, but i can see that once understood, it is quite literally perfect. remember, openbsd is basically a perfect system from top to bottom, built with security in mind and all of the other goodies.
if you're looking for something new to break the weather from linux, openbsd is certainly something interesting to try.
rating: 7/10
2024-06-25
after my computer broke down, i've been looking for something more simple, as i got tired of maintaining repositories and never tired alpine, so i gave it a shot.
this is the nicest distro i've ever used, it's simply so convenient and simple to administrate. the init system is meh, but atleast it is an improvement over a bare runit. would reccomend if youre looking for a clean, lean, simple system to administrate or use on a daily basis.
rating: 10/10
2024-12-23
2025-04-05, now, at the time of this blog
initially when i used chimera for a short period in mid 2024, i did not like it at all. it had used completely foreign components, like a brand new init system and turnstile, both throwing me off, but after giving it a second try, i fell in love with it. i absolutely liked how clean it was compared to alpine, using brand new, modern components. dinit was so fresh and was a night and day difference, and the components such as turnstile really had made sense. in a world of dbus, chimera does it very well. would reccomend over alpine if applicable. i also use it for my server, laptop, and computer.
rating: 12/10
Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 4:48:29 PM - sure: can you give a best to worst list of the distros/oses you tried
Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 4:48:47 PM - sure: pls
Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 4:52:39 PM - sewn: when I get home
...
Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 11:52:24 PM - sure: <@sewn:envs.net "when I get home"> when
Thu, Mar 20, 2025, 11:52:52 PM - sewn: when I make a blog post about it
...
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:21:12 PM - sure: ... and did you do it?
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:21:19 PM - sure: if so, link?
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:21:25 PM - sewn: link to what
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:21:56 PM - sure: you said you'd "do it (blog)" when you got home
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:22:16 PM - sewn: most people also do it when they feel like it
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:22:22 PM - sewn: i do not feel like it rn
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:22:24 PM - sure: "when I make a blog post about it" .
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:22:32 PM - sewn: "most people also do it when they..." .
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:23:18 PM - sure: you could at least say an unrefined version here since you said you would :sob:
Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 11:23:29 PM - sewn: later
...
Sun, Mar 23, 2025, 8:13:29 PM - sure: "later" how long later
Sun, Mar 23, 2025, 8:14:55 PM - sewn: tommorow
...
Mon, Mar 24, 2025, 4:16:41 PM - sure: tomorrow
...
Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:26:06 PM - sewn: oup mb I forgot to reapond
Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:26:08 PM - sewn: uhh
Tue, Mar 25, 2025, 7:26:12 PM - sewn: "tomorrow" 3 days
...
Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 9:15:24 PM - sure: linux reviews?
Sat, Mar 29, 2025, 9:44:34 PM - sewn: tommorow
...
Tue, Apr 1, 2025, 7:52:11 AM - sure: ... well
Tue, Apr 1, 2025, 7:56:35 AM - sure: ?
Tue, Apr 1, 2025, 9:54:56 AM - sewn: tommorow
...
Thu, Apr 3, 2025, 12:16:01 PM - sure: blog is up, post where?
Thu, Apr 3, 2025, 12:17:41 PM - sewn: tommoriw
..
Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 9:19:05 PM - sure: "tommoriw" 👀
Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 9:21:00 PM - sewn: all in a post?
Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 9:21:14 PM - sure: yes
Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 9:21:25 PM - sewn: mk
Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 9:21:27 PM - sewn: give me a kiss
... some nagging later
Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 9:25:44 PM - sure: mwah *ouran hs kiss kiss fall in love theme plays cringely*
Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 9:25:50 PM - sure: now
Fri, Apr 4, 2025, 9:26:27 PM - sure: *holds up banana gun* put the review in the bag