I could write dozens of pages on why I choose linux over any other operating system. Let me save us both the time and break it down here.

  • Customization. If you can dream it, you can make it. From purely aesthetic enhancements to low level system changes, linux gives you choices that simply are not available on other platforms.

  • Philosophy. Every program does one thing and does it well. Linux comes with free and open source software, and respects your privacy.

  • Control. When you run Linux, you truly own your system. There is no corporate overlord renting you a license for your OS. Any possible system action and change is only a few commands away.

On my main machine, I run a distrobution called Arch Linux. This distro is a rolling release, meaning the repositories are constantly updated with new packages. In addition to this, it is a lightweight distro, and comes with practically nothing installed. By the time your workflow is complete, it will be a full fledged system.

If you take a look at the above screenshot, you will notice that the screen is divided into multiple black panes. Each of these panes are terminals, that allow me to launch and use pretty much any program on my system. Instead of managing a bunch of shortcuts and launchers, I simply spawn a terminal and tell it what to do.

In addition to this, I am using a tiling window manager called i3-gaps. Tiling window managers allow you to more efficently move and interact with windows. Ever gotten frustrated when you have a million windows open and you’re just dragging them around frantically trying to find the right one? Tiling window managers like i3 let you tile all programs to prevent this. Works great with a terminal workflow, because terminals scale well and work fine at a small size.

In my next post, I will be going into more detail about some of the configuration I’ve done to i3 to improve my workflow. Until then, check out my dotfiles for the configs.