i meant to install archlinux along with my current ubuntu because i just want to participate in a meme. turns out resizing disk volume is a lot harder than i expected and i accidentally wiped out the only operating system i had.

i had to went along with arch installation and the following 7 hours were absolutely gruesome because i have never went so long without a graphical interface to tweak. even when i have successfully installed arch, i thought i did not, because all i see is a terminal. turns out arch itself only has that terminal and GUI is an add-on.

i can only say i enjoyed the entire process in retrospection, because at the moment of doing it, i had no idea what was going on. but now that i have a browser (literally who needs OS just give me a browser), it is clear that i have never learned so much in such a short time. i learned network things when trying to connect to wifi from shell. i learned MAC and device entrusting when trying to connect to bluetooth from shell. i learned vim and my god has my typing been improved. it has gotten to a point where basic file navigation are getting easier with a terminal than with the graphical interface.

a year from now, i hope, looking back at this, everything that i have described above becomes obvious, like a second nature. but for now, i am so stoked to learn so many new things that i have been taking for granted. the fact that arch does not come with anything is a blessing to me, because by trying to config a tolerable and usable OS, i have to do so much more than before.

one of the things that i have been told once and a while is to “not reinventing the wheel”. stand on the shoulders of giants, learn to use existing modules, move on and build more things upon that. while it is true that i need to move on, and that i cannot practically recreate everything i see, there are a lot of values in reinventing some wheels. i wouldn’t have learnt so much about how storage and file structure works if i wasn’t forced to manage everything from a terminal. inconvenience is helpful and necessary.

arch also make me unlearn the expectations that something will come preinstalled. it doesn’t even have an innate tool to adjust speaker volume (i wasn’t able to listen to anything on my computer until i realize that i have to find something to turn volume on). nothing is there, and if i want it, search, or else make it. generally this is a mindset that i want to have, so another win.

i will continue to play around and potentially delete my operating system one or several more times. but if tinkering is something i enjoy, i can’t really lose anything.

a truly happy accident. 8/10 would recommend. more operating system adventures to come.

Archlinux Neofetch