Using Linux Mint As My Daily Driver: Four Years On. This Year’s Theme: Settling Down.
Life update
It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
Truth be told, I did mean to write more for this blog, but since then, a lot of things have happened. For one thing, I am now one-and-a-half years into my PhD! 2-and-a-half-more years and a viva/thesis defence to go before I finally get to call myself a Doctor (no, not that kind of doctor) (or the Time Lord). As a result, I’ve also got incredibly busy since then. I’ve even still got a few outstanding projects, issues and pull requests on GitHub that I still need to complete, which I rather foolishly hoped would never happen. I really should tend to those again as soon as I get the chance. Or maybe get other folks to cover for me.
I began work as a TA in September last year, and I’ve put a lot of hours and effort into being a great TA for my students. I’ve even been nominated for a TA of the Year award! I want to thank all of my students who put me forward for that. It was a pleasure to teach you and I look forward to teaching more of you as the next academic year begins.
During October, I also went to the USA for my first in-person conference! My supervisor submitted a paper for the “Pattern Languages of Programs, People & Practices” conference, abbreviated as “PLoP”, taking the work from our funded project from last year and focusing entirely on the work oriented towards design patterns, specifically creating newer patterns out of the existing classic software architecture and design patterns. The paper’s called “Design Patterns for Software Sustainability”. The official version of the paper should hopefully get published this year via ACM, but a preprint version of it can be found online if you know where to look. The conference was an incredibly fun experience, and also a rather unique one given how they approach things (they have writers’ workshops instead of traditional conference presentations, for example). They also had a bunch of “Imagination Run Wild” workshops, some of which I took part in as well.
Since then, I’ve been busy working as a TA, continuing with my research, trying to seek some part-time work during the summer and pursuing some extracurricular activities. The latter means a bit more going out and exploring opportunities, and a bit less time on my small screens. I’ve seen old friends, I’ve made new friends, I’ve been to old places, I’ve been to new places. I’ve been indulging in all kinds of extracurricular activities and hobbies. I’ve been to two fan conventions. I’ve been catching up on some TV and movies I meant to watch for so long. And by doing that, I just feel more mentally active and… better as a person. I’m constantly trying to better myself every day. That’s what we should all strive for after all, right?
To make my work as a PhD researcher more visible to those who actively seek it, I’ve set up an ORCiD profile, as well as a Google Scholar account, a ResearchGate profile and a presence on KCL’s Pure research portal, so that I have places where any papers I helped co-author can be searched up and seen. All of these are linked to in a few places on this very site right now!
Settling Down on Mint
Truth be told, not much has changed with regards to how I use Mint since I wrote the last of these posts. After I got my new, and current, laptop from the university and started settling down with it and using it for just about everything I used my old red Acer laptop for, it seems that nothing much really had to change. I reinstalled pretty much everything I used to use before I had to stop using it.
I actually bought the USB-C hub and external SATA reader I said I wanted to buy in my life update post from last year, using some of the money I earned as a TA, so I could finally take out the SSD from that red laptop and access my old files, and I discovered my old uni files from back in the day (I switched in the summer of 2021, back when I was just about to enter my second year). It was a relief to finally get access to my old files back… though, if I’m being honest, the more I did that and kept looking back, the less I really needed from there, for my work, anyway.
One of the few things that have changed is that I am finally making more use of Wine and Flashpoint. I still haven’t had to touch Wine or a VM running a different OS because I need to for my research; if I end up doing either of those things, it’s usually for my own endeavours, rather than because I have no other choice if I am to carry out my work. It also takes out the whole latency thing I’ve been facing with the native Linux version of Flash since I now use the Windows versions bundled with Flashpoint (I might just end up using the Windows version of the Flash projector as well, but don’t quote me on that).
Another thing that’s changed: I use Floorp instead of Firefox now. Recently, Mozilla ran into some trouble that completely broke my trust in them (I did the same thing when Muse Group ran into similar trouble with Audacity, so I switched to Tenacity instead). I’ve been meaning to switch to Waterfox so that I could use my same passwords on my phone, which was incredibly useful and saved me a lot of time and hassle with the Firefox mobile app (Waterfox has one, Floorp doesn’t yet). Other than all of that, Floorp (and Waterfox) work almost exactly as you’d expect them to; they’re basically alternative builds of Firefox.
I do still use Flatpaks alongside regular software packages on my system (and, yes, that does include Flatseal), but I admittedly have been updating them less and less, as these other aforementioned things in my life have taken hold. I should really get back onto those outstanding issues and PRs.
Other than that, well…
- I still use KBibTeX for handling BibTeX files.
- I still use Gittyup as my Git client.
- Nemo, xed and GNOME Terminal still see constant use.
- I’m still with VSCodium for now, but I am considering switching to Zed at some point.
- I still use my uni laptop for basically everything.
- I still upgrade my operating system (I’m now running Linux Mint 22.1 with the Cinnamon desktop, hence Nemo, xed and GNOME terminal still seeing constant use).
- I’m still learning to build software from source, even though I don’t need to do that as much, at least right now.
- Timeshift is still there when I need it.
- As I mentioned earlier, I’m still using Wine to run some Windows executables, as well as Proton to run some Steam games.
- I still am making music with LMMS when I get the chance and have the ideas.
- I am still dabbling in other things (mainly creative endeavours and learning about various software stuff) when I get the chance, such as Blender and Sonic Pi (and more).
And, well… I’ve just been busy working and doing my things!
And before I forget: No, I still do not regret switching to Linux!
And that’s it!
I almost can’t believe that much time has flown so quickly since I made that first article talking about my switch to Linux Mint back in 2021. I know four years may not sound like a lot, but it sure seems so far away now, at least to me. Perhaps I just did a lot since then? I was an undergraduate student back then, after all, and now I’m doing a PhD!
Even so, it’s been fun to look back and realise I’ve settled in quite well into this minty world! What I like about Mint is that it’s well geared towards constant daily general use. I can do my research, my gaming, my browsing, my creative endeavours, just about anything I want to, as I used to do on Windows before I switched 4 years ago. It’s been a wild, fun and interesting ride, and long may it continue!
My first anniversary article went over, quite comprehensively, how I started daily-driving Linux since I installed it. My second anniversary article was rushed. If I recall correctly, I literally planned and wrote it on the day! Last year’s “anniversary article” was a lot longer and went into a bit more depth into specific things I did since I switched, partly because I didn’t get to do that for the previous article. I only started planning this article a week or so in advance, and I only started writing it 2 days in advance, so of course I wasn’t going to be able to make it any longer than it is right now. I do apologise if it sounds a bit rushed like my second anniversary post. I’ll likely have some small number of regrets as to what I could’ve put in or left out after this gets published.
Still though, I’m glad I got this one out there on time. I knew that, no matter what life would throw at me, I wouldn’t miss this anniversary. It’s nice to have something to commemorate and to update you, my readers, on every once in a while.
Getting back into blogging to write this article has also made me realise how out-of-date this site really is, particularly with regards to where I am now and what I’ve done since my last post. I’ve been meaning to make this site more representative of my PhD for a good long while now, not by removing anything fun or even remotely interesting from it (far from it, in fact), but by including more about my research and my publications. Now that I have a bit more free time during August, I’ll hopefully get around to that, and I’ll make sure to write more blog posts to let you know how it goes.
I suppose I do have some ideas for some new blog posts. I have been meaning to update my CV on here for a good while now. Or CVs, rather…
And my About page. That still needs adding to.
Right now, though, I’ll be quite busy with my work and other projects, and I guess I should start updating my site as I said I would just now.
Thank you so much for reading this article, the first one in a good while, and I’m very much looking forward to getting the next one written, whatever that next one may be.
Until next time, peace!