Switching to Linux
I bought a ThinkPad, threw Ubuntu on it, and it became my favorite machine to code on.
I’d been on Windows for years and, honestly, I’d never really questioned it. It worked, it opened my editor, it compiled, and off I went. But something kept nagging at me: more and more it felt like the system was working for itself rather than for me.
The jump
I bought a ThinkPad T14s, installed Ubuntu and started from scratch. The funny part is that I own a Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2+, a gorgeous and far pricier machine, and yet the ThinkPad has become my favorite computer to code on. It’s not about the specs, it’s about how it feels: fast, quiet, with nothing standing between me and the code.
Sometimes the best tool isn’t the most powerful one, it’s the one that gets out of your way.
What I take from it
The terminal stops being a place you visit and becomes home. Updates don’t interrupt you, the system doesn’t decide things for you, and when something breaks you can almost always fix it yourself. It’s more work up front, sure, but the control you get in return more than pays for it.
If you’ve been thinking about it for a while, my advice is simple: grab a laptop you’re not afraid to break, install a friendly distro and actually use it for a week. For me there’s no going back.