Linux Is Not an Operating System. It’s a Philosophy That Changed How I Think.

Most people see Linux as an operating system. For me, it became a philosophy long before I realized that was happening. I didn’t start my journey chasing minimalism, freedom, or control. I started it because my old laptop couldn’t run Minecraft.

But somewhere between breaking partitions, configuring window managers, patching source code, and rebuilding my environment by hand, Linux stopped being software. It’s the story of how my 13-year-old self installing Ubuntu to run Minecraft eventually learned a way of thinking that shaped my approach to engineering, creativity, and control.

This is my Linux journey from 2016 to today, and why I believe more people should stop looking at Linux as an OS and start looking at Unix as a philosophy.

2016: The Accidental Hacker Phase

March 2016. I was 13, and my toaster (laptop) with Windows XP couldn’t run Minecraft no matter how much I yelled at it.
Some random forum post said Linux might make the game run better. Good enough.
My first Ubuntu install broke my Windows partition.
My second attempt worked, but I didn’t have space, so I booted it from a USB pendrive that ran slower than a dying snail.

The OS ran painfully slow due to the USB read/write speeds, but when that purple login screen finally appeared, it felt like I had unlocked a new dimension of computing. I didn’t care about terminals or kernels or open source. I just wanted Minecraft to launch.

It did. I declared victory and moved on.
I didn’t realize it then, but this was the first time I tasted the feeling of owning my system.

2017: Movies, Games, and the Bash Awakening

Early 2017 changed things. I watched the Anonymous movie, played Watch Dogs 2 on a friend’s laptop, and watched a friend binge the “Learn Ethical Hacking in 10 Hours” YouTube tutorial. All of that pushed me straight into Kali Linux. My only experience with the command line was the Windows CMD Batch files, through which I made some useless virus pranks.

I didn’t become a hacker, but I did learn:
• bash scripting
• file permissions
• users and groups
• daemons and services
• Linux directory hierarchy
• networking basics
• tools like Metasploit, Aircrack, BurpSuite, SQLMap
I even ran Kali NetHunter on my phone (more about that in the upcoming blogs).

This was my first real exposure to UNIX principles. None of this turned me into a hacker, but it did something far more important. It exposed me to the power of UNIX design. Everything was text. Everything was transparent. Everything could be combined.

Still, the curiosity fizzled out as I dove into game development. Linux went dormant for almost 5 years.

2021: The Return, The Rabbit Hole, and the Arch Revelation

November 2021.
JEE was over. I had a new gaming laptop and a friend deep in the Linux rabbit hole, I felt the pull again. This time, I approached it with intention.

This time I wasn’t a kid hacking Minecraft. I was someone who wanted control.
So I skipped Ubuntu and went Arch-based right away.

I chose an Arch-based distro because everyone talked about the AUR. I tried Manjaro first and hated it. Driver issues. Random lag. Something felt off. Eventually I wiped everything and installed pure Arch.

This changed everything.
Installing a system from scratch forces you to understand it.
No hand-holding. No abstractions. No “magic scripts.”

I discovered:
• window managers
• dotfiles
• compositors
• terminals and shells
• the Arch rolling release model
• YouTube channels like DistroTube, Luke Smith, Bugswriter, Mental Outlaw

My friend was deep into BSPWM. I picked i3wm (not the vanilla one, but i3-gaps). The picom compositor. dmenu. Hotkeys. X11 quirks. Rolling release updates. Breaking things and fixing them. Reading the Arch Wiki at 3 AM. This was the true beginning of my Linux journey. Not the Ubuntu attempt. Not Kali. Arch.

For the first time in my life, my computer felt like my craft.

I was obsessed. I tried running Windows games on Linux through Wine and Lutris. I built my first rice. I posted it on r/unixporn. It performed decently.

The Problem That Broke Me and the Loop of Distro-Hopping

Around this time I was heavy into Unity game development. GPU light baking worked on Windows but stayed stubbornly greyed out on Linux. Every Linux person knows the pain of niche software compatibility.

I tried everything:
• Pop OS
• Debian
• Artix
• Nix
• Gentoo

Nothing fixed it. So I accepted the reality. Sometimes Linux loses battles. But it still wins wars.

I returned to Arch and rebuilt everything clean.

P.S Unity finally enabled proper GPU lightmapper support for Linux in 2024 with Unity 6.

2022 to 2023: The Philosophy Era

This was the year I stopped seeing Linux as “the cool hacker OS” and started seeing the underlying culture and ideology.

I discovered:
• suckless software
• DWM and minimalist window managers
• OpenRC and the anti-systemd movement
• Free-as-in-freedom software
• simplicity over convenience
• the charm of old 90s style websites
• librebooting culture
• self hosting and privacy

I don’t know, something about those old looking websites fascinated me very much.

Anyway, DWM hit me like a truck.
A window manager you compile from source.
A system you patch instead of configure.
Software designed to be modified. And not just DWM, all the suckless software are meant to be like this.
Tools that do one thing and do it well, the core of the UNIX Philosophy.

I built my own stack:
• custom DWM using flexipatch
• patched st
• custom dmenu
• dwmblocks for modular status
• a red themed rice built from scratch
• Neovim configured into my personal IDE
• custom zsh environment
• Picom fork with blur and animations

I posted the final setup on r/unixporn.
It blew up with around 1200 upvotes.

I still use this setup after 3 years. I know people nowadays use Arch + Hyprland for those funky animations but I’m too lazy to do that migration now.

The Trap of Purism

I experimented with Devuan, Artix, and Gentoo because I thought systemd was “bad” and “bloated,” like the internet loves saying.

Then reality hit.

OpenRC and runit were clean but impractical for desktop needs.
Gentoo compile times were absurd.
Patching your way around packages was a painful life.

Too much minimalism becomes its own form of bloat.
Ideological purity is expensive.
And sometimes unnecessary.

systemd, despite all the memes, works.
It solves real problems.
It’s battle tested and predictable.

Why You Should Look at Linux Differently

I am not here to convince anyone to dual boot.
I am here to show that Linux is not an alternative to Windows.
It’s an alternative to a passive relationship with technology.

Linux teaches you that:
• you can shape your environment
• you can read the source
• you can remove what you dislike
• you can build tools that reflect your personality
• you don’t have to accept defaults
• you own your machine

Most people never experience that because modern computing hides the internals. Linux forces you to confront them. And once you understand your system, you understand your craft.

That is the real power of the Unix philosophy.

This image basically summarizes what I’ve tried to convey in this blog. I have gone through every stage shown in the above image, and I realized that there must be a balance between privacy and convenience. For e.g. it is not practical to disable JavaScript because of it’s flaws, completely replace WhatsApp with Signal because of the privacy issues, or use an old librebooting ThinkPad because that’s what the culture promotes.

You realise there has to be a balance.
Freedom without convenience collapses.
Convenience without control becomes dependence.

Conclusion: Why This Story Matters

This blog isn’t about nostalgia or distro-hopping.
It’s about how Linux took a kid trying to run Minecraft and turned him into someone who thinks about systems, autonomy, philosophy, minimalism, and engineering at a deeper level.

People think Linux is for hackers or hobbyists. The truth is that Linux forces you to understand the computer as a system instead of a product. It teaches discipline in debugging, clarity in engineering, and a mindset that scales into every tech field.

It makes you a builder instead of a consumer.

My root-to-present Linux journey wasn’t consistent. There were breaks, failures, wrong turns, and restarts. But every stage taught me to think more clearly about the machines I rely on.

And that is why the Unix world still matters today. Not because it is old school.
But because it gives you something modern computing has almost forgotten.
Control.

And if even one person reads this and starts exploring the Unix world not as an OS but as a philosophy, then the journey was worth writing about.

In the upcoming parts, I will write about self-hosting journey and Raspberry Pi side of things, and my Android open-source journey. Stay tuned!