One of the really fun things about switching to Linux is realizing just how much you can accomplish with a few lines of Bash. Especially when those lines are taking advantage of, not just built-in programs, but other things you made before.
Today I published a couple of tiny tools I use to make my life easier, and I'd like to talk about them a little bit.
$ stat / | grep Birth | cut -d ' ' -f 3 2022-01-24
Today (although this won't go live until the 25th in my time zone) is three years since the day I finally kicked Windows to the curb and installed Linux on my home desktop. I'd used Linux before, but all my life I'd had a habit of just using whatever OS was provided to me, without really giving it much thought.
In late 2021, Windows Update told me — entirely unprompted — that my system didn't meet minimum specs to run Windows 11. (Perhaps it would now — I understand that the declared requirements have been relaxed, even if nothing has been optimized or stripped down — but I don't care to check. I'm also told that people still on Windows 10 are under increasing pressure to switch, even though they're still comfortably in the majority — unless something has radically changed in the last few months.)
I found this impolite — as I hadn't asked, and didn't consider anything wrong or inadequate about my computer — and a bit absurd (whatever they're offering now that requires more computing power, I'm not interested; especially not if it's anything to do with Cortana). So I took that as my cue to switch. I bought a new SSD (figuring I would need the space anyway) and attempted to set up a dual boot — GRUB never worked properly for me, but I could still use the BIOS screen to boot Windows from the old SSD.
And I never looked back.
Today, I'd like to relate a few anecdotes about that experience.