Switcher 2026: The Zen of Linux ⭐

A few weeks back, we were preparing for our return to Pennsylvania from Mexico City, and I spent a few hours the previous Saturday resetting and decommissioning several laptops that I wouldn't need during our last days in that apartment. I was surprised by two things in the wake of this work, the first being the electrical explosion described in From the Editor’s Desk: All’s Well That Ends Well ⭐️ that distracted me for the next 24 hours. And the other being that I found myself missing Linux each day: Some of those laptops were running whatever Linux distributions and I had worked them into my daily workflow.

Interesting. Also, unexpected.

One of the oddities of my life is that I end up flying between Mexico City and PA with multiple laptops, and the reality of this particular flight was that I was already planning to bring four laptops back to PA. So keeping a Linux-based laptop up and running didn't really make sense. And I knew that when I returned to PA, I'd have access to all kinds of laptops, including many based on 12th and 13th generation Intel chipsets that would be ideal for testing Linux. All I had to do was wait a few days.

But it bothered me. I installed the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x Gen 11 that I was bringing back to PA to review, thinking that maybe doing so would satisfy some need. And it did, to some degree. But in thinking about what it was that I was missing, I started listing out a few major conceptual differences between Linux and Windows, and how these things can be stumbling blocks for anyone hoping to switch or at least add a Linux PC to their lives. Part of this thinking led to Switcher 2026: Minimizing the Microsoft in Windows 11 ⭐. Some of the underlying principles in there--using a local account and not an online account for sign-in, using a package manager to install apps, and so on--might be viewed as using Windows but with a Linux mentality.

At a high level, Windows and Linux are similar enough, and those similarities can help make any transition easier. Linux has a desktop with a taskbar-like dock and a quick settings interface, and those basic UIs will be familiar to Windows users, as will apps like Settings, Files, and Software (which is like an app store). But Linux was also made in the image of Unix, the OS platform that Windows, in the guise of NT over 30 years ago, was positioned against. And there are differences, many of which are conceptual or philosophical in nature. Understanding these differences is, I think, important. As is embracing the Linux way, so to speak, if you're going to use that platform. I think of this as the Zen of Linux.

Here's what I mean.
Software is installed with package managers
As I noted in Switcher 2026: Debian is Too Complex For Its Own Good ⭐, Windows users are trained to find the apps they need on the web; we Google it, we download an EXE, and we install it. And that's the way it's been for the past 25 years ago. It...