Why I use Linux

I use Arch, btw.

I have a certain disposition, a specific kind of nature, I'm of a particular mettle. And so are you. So is everyone. Not all things fit all people. Just like you need to wear clothes and shoes that fit you, the tools you use need to fit you as well. Sounds obvious, right? But this is something that somehow eluded me for what now seems like too long.

A bit of a backstory is in order, for clarity and context. I had been using Linux for years until sometime towards the end of 2024 when I decided to make a fundamental change in the tools I used for the two most important hobbies of mine - photography and computing. I talked about the how and why I made this decision in this video on my Youtube channel.

If you want to hear me rant at length on this subject go watch that video, but the gist of it is that I thought I was missing out, that I was using "lesser-than" tools, that I needed to actualise and optimise my workflow, by changing my tools. I was also under the impression that using Linux, which is, frankly, considerably less popular, and somewhat more complicated, only worked to add to my arrogance and feed a misguided feeling of pride and "better-than-though". So I switched from Linux and RawTherapee to Windows 11 and Adobe's Lightroom.

Now, I need to address something that comes up a lot when I talk about these things and fairly enough, because it isn't immediately obvious to anybody except myself, why I can't just dual boot Windows and Linux and switch between them when I want to, or have two separate machines, one running Windows - for work, the other Linux - for play, like a friend recently suggested I did.

Firstly, let's talk about dual booting Windows and Linux. While technically easily achievable it's not something you really want to do because it eventually proves to be more hassle than it's worth. You just need the right kind of Windows update to completely mess up your system, or more fun still, delete your Linux bootloader entirely, leaving you with an unbootable system. So it's easy to see why I wouldn't want to take this risk because this has happened. Not to me personally, but to lots of other people. Then there's the matter of why I don't just use two machines and have Linux on one and Windows on the other and the answer to this is really very simple. It's money... or lack thereof, to be precise. I can't afford to buy a separate computer just for fun, so I have to make a choice, it has to be one or the other, because I can only have one computer. There's yet another reason why this is not feasible and this could very well be the most important one.

Choosing one or the other gives me a sense of ease and leisure, a feeling of peace, order and neatness. A bit OCD? Perhaps. Sightly autistic? Maybe. Knowing that my PC is clean and tidy with a single OS on it makes me feel nice and cosy. Mixing and matching operating systems doesn't feel right to me. It has to be one or the other. It can't be both. Trust me, I can hear myself and I am fully aware how this sounds. It sounds like I've completely lost it, eh? Like I've been smoking the wacky tobaccy. I'll stop here because there's really nothing else I can add, and no other way I can better explain how I feel about this and why I just can't use both. I'm simply an either/or kind of person in general.

I've found lately that Windows doesn't fit me. It's like I'm wearing clothes that are either too loose or too tight. Too short, or too long. Sure, they work, they cover this shameful frame of mine, but they don't feel comfortable. They feel foreign and wrong. It's quite the same with Windows - it does work and it works pretty great - but the experience is completely off and I don't enjoy myself with it.

Linux can and does break, but it does so extremely rarely and even when it does I usually manage to quickly fix it myself and then, that leaves me feeling good with myself, accomplished, productive and satisfied. On top of that I simply enjoy how it looks, feels and functions. It's so much better than Windows. It's snappier, more fluid and responsive, leaner, cooler and more cohesive, way better at using and managing available hardware resources and generally fits my style and personality in a way that Windows doesn't even come close to. Let's not even get into the privacy side of things because in that regard there's no contest. I just love the way Linux functions, I like I can install and update my programs any my system with a command in a terminal. I like that all programs are all available in the same place, the AUR, in the case of Arch and I don't need to scour the internet for .zips and .exes and .msis on dozens of different websites. I just open up Pamac - if I feel like using a GUI - and I search there for anything and everything I might need as far as apps and programs, drivers, utilities and whatnot. I like a lot of things about Linux and I'll not get into more detail.

Now sure, if we're talking about gaming and NVIDIA drivers, it's less optimised than Windows and in some games I am sacrificing up to 20% performance, but it's something I'm willing to live with. I'm not gaming nearly as much as I used to, or would like to, and even if I did, at the rate things are progressing on this front, this might prove to be a non issue real soon.

Video editing works like a charm, DaVinci Resolve has a native Linux app so that's pretty much on par with Windows, however there is an important caveat I need to address and some clarification required because I've seen a lot of talk on the internet about how Resolve doesn't support .mp4s on Linux. That's actually wildly inaccurate. Reality is Resolve DOES support .mp4s on Linux as long as they're not h264, because it's h264 that Resolve doesn't support. And even this requires yet another caveat, because it's only the free version of Resolve on Linux that doesn't support h264, something to do with it being free and licensing, no doubt, because if you upgrade to Resolve Studio, h264 .mp4s work just fine.

My Linux workflow then, requires I transcode all my video to something that the free version of Resolve can use before I can start editing. So I have a bash script that uses ffmpeg to automate this process and I can convert a folder full of multiple files with a single click - right click script and chose Run As Program. OK, that's two clicks, you caught me. I convert to DNXHR HQ, which is basically almost like raw video and this means two things. One is that it generates huge files - take this example for instance - a two minute, 1.6GB .mp4, after conversion becomes an 11.6GB .mov file - and two, Resolve can handle DNXHR video much much better than it can an .mp4. I can edit multiple 4K tracks, with effects, color grading, transitions, titles and graphics, all in realtime, without using proxies, and it's smooth as butter. All this on a mid range laptop from 2021. Exporting times are also much shorter with DNXHR, so what time I lose transcoding video before I start work, I more than make up while working and at the export stage. Storage did prove to be an issue at one point, but since I've upgraded my working drive to a 2TB NVME drive that ceased to be an issue.

Wrapping up, I do need to mention I am very uneasy about the fact that the Linux Foundation itself and most, if not all FOSS organisations seem to be dark and vile congregations of raging, woke, censorious, extreme leftists dead set on banning and cancelling anyone and everyone that disagrees with the woke narrative and that this makes my stomach twist in knots. Here, just a quick anecdote on why I stopped visiting pixls.us, the main hub for photographers using Linux and FOSS, where I was quite an active member. At one time, there was a thread on there about Generation Z and how, despite them practically spending their entire lives online and the stupid amount of photos they take with their smartphones, they seem to have developed a violent aversion to being photographed on the streets, especially by middle-aged or older, white men. To which I made a comment that sounded somewhat like: "As long as this generation can't make up their minds if they're a boy, a girl or a toaster, why should we give anything more than a passing thought to what they think about street photography?". My message was deleted, I was approached via private message by an admin and told I was being all sorts of -phobic and that, I quote: "This platform is not a place for free speech". That was the last I went there, I asked to be deleted along with all the content I contributed to the forums, but apparently it doesn't work like that so I was instead anonymised.

Quite a nasty experience, but then again, I can't imagine there's anything less vile behind Microsoft. I just try to stay away from most Linux communities, and that seems to work out fine, because the Linux operating system, workflow and experience is great and it fits me and my needs very well.

Now if we're talking about Lightroom vs RawTherapee, sure, masks are an extremely tedious affair in RawTherapee, they require a lot of work for the same kind of results it takes seconds to get in Lightroom and in the end, it often feels like it's not worth all that trouble, but that's fine. I like trouble, just ask 20-year-old-me. My workflow hardly ever requires local adjustments and when it does I can make do with RawTherapee. Noise reduction is another area where Lightroom is frankly a whole generation ahead, but I don't mind a noisy image nearly as much as I thought I did and I noticed this while using Lightroom - the more time went on the less I tended to use noise reduction and in ever lesser amounts. A clean, sharp image is such a bourgeois concept anyway.

In most other respects RawTherapee is a fantastic piece of software, it's snappy and quick as far as the interface is concerned, which is not something I can say about Lightroom, which even to this day feels sluggish and slow. RawTherapee is extremely capable, generally well thought out, if perhaps somewhat more complex and complicated than it needs to be for most users. In comparison to Lightroom, processing images with RawTherapee is generally a slower, more methodical and meticulous endeavour and, frankly, a bit more tedious to work with for comparable results, but that's fine. I made a bit of an experiment recently, I tried to edit the same image in both Lightroom and RawTherapee and timed myself. It took me 50 seconds in Lightroom and a little under two minutes in RawTherapee, so that's basically more than twice as slow. The difference is not massive, but it's significant enough to mention and it could perhaps prove to be an issue if I had workloads of thousands of images every week, doing weddings professionally, let's say. When you're doing that much work, a thousand times an extra second adds up to a lot of extra seconds. But I practically never have that kind of workloads, so I guess it doesn't matter. I also very much appreciate the meticulous workflow, the extra granularity RawTherapee offers. It's also why I have a low-key, as-of-yet not manifested and somewhat secret interest in watchmaking, raising bonsai and keeping fish. I enjoy living life slowly.

Now back to RawTherapee, I appreciate there is tons more fine control to how you process images and I enjoy this approach. For instance, when you open up a RAW file in Lightroom, the image is practically 70% already there and there's only very little more you need to do to it to get a good, final photograph. On the other hand RawTherapee makes very few decisions in my stead and I get to be in control of practically 100% of the image processing. Sure, that means slightly more work, but that also means the image I get in the end feels much more like it's really mine, like I made it. Overall, I enjoy processing images in RawTherapee much more so than I do in Lightroom and both the RawTherapee and Linux workflows really appeal to the nerd in me. Think back to the movies of the 90's and those Hacker Man characters, that's the kind of cool I feel, slightly corny, yet cosy, endearing and overwhelmingly nostalgic.

It's all about the experience. Photography and computing are both such tactile, hands-on endeavours that I now understand it's silly and frankly counterproductive to ignore the experience and the tools, to approach them merely pragmatically.

Now, I know I said I was fetishizing my tools and that I should stop doing that and how I treated them as crutches.  That felt like an epiphany, I thought I understood something about myself and I thought I was on the verge of a metamorphosis into somewhat of a more evolved version of me. I thought I had outgrown a superficial phase and a childish approach to my craft and my tools, however I was wrong. What I was actually doing was trying to fit into clothes that were neither mine, nor my size. I thought that if everybody out there processes images with Lightroom on Windows, surely I must do the same and I must like it. But it didn't work out. I now understand it's not a fetish to enjoy the way my tools work and have a specific requirement for specific kinds of tools. It's actually an important part of the process. Not only that, I think it's essential my tools not only work for me, but also with me. While the end result is indeed important, how I get there, the process is important as well. If there's soul in it and not just a barren chore, a series of repetitive motions, if it fits my character and mannerisms, it makes for a process with little friction, one that's easily predictable and reproducible in the future. It means I am more inclined and motivated to do it again soon and often and that translates to practice and practice makes perfect.

Finally, please allow me to address another important thing, because I have given this a lot of thought. In the past I talked about how using Linux gave me an air of undeserved superiority, an elitist feeling of better-than-thou and how I thought that deciding to use Windows, like everyone does, would tame this sinful pride I feel and teach me some humility. All it did was divorce me from myself, because, like I've said earlier, I ignored my nature and character trying to fit into a box I didn't fit in. Two wrongs don't make a right. Furthermore, it was a mistake because what I actually did was to feign accountability and shift the blame and responsibility outside of myself - on my tools. While in truth, I should have kept using exactly what I had always been and instead I should have moved inwards to do the work required to curb my pride and practice a more humble attitude. So this is the plan now. God help me, though, because I do have my work cut out for me. I easily get prideful, especially in the face of success and achievement.