Patreon Exclusive VLOG #2 (Patreon)

PATREON VLOG #2 - Linux and Digital Minimalism

In this one, I'd like to link minimalism and Linux a little more extensively. Follow me on Twitter : http://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP What I use to make my videos: Microphone: https://amzn.to/2PsNWXl GPU: https://amzn.to/2LHZ5o5 Motherboard: https://amzn.to/2KZt63t CPU: https://amzn.to/2IFjKrw As you might know, I think of myself as a minimalist guy. I try to avoid accumulating possessions that don't serve a purpose, whether they are tools I need or things that bring me pleasure or joy. I don't splurge on anything these days, and try to avoid buying things I now I just lust after but won't really use afterwards. It's tough at first to follow these rules, but once it's ingrained into your brain that you should think a little bit more before spending your hard earned cash, it becomes some kind of second nature, even though it's far from easy sometimes, especially after a few beers. Minimalism is also about intention: it's a way of thinking that brings you to try and think about what you do with your time or your money. Nowadays, we kinda have a weird tendency to just obey our impulses, whether it's buying the newest gadget while our older one works perfectly well, or checking our phone compulsively every 10 minutes without thinking about what we need it for. Minimalism starts to touch eveerything I do, at work, I try to limit distractions, prioritize, avoid spending time on minor issues. My housing needs are now greatly reduced, and all my stuff barely fills my 45 square meters apartment. I chose to buy a very small car that brings me from point A to B just as well as a big sedan would. When I travel, I bring less stuff with me. Linux is the quintessential Minimalist OS. It can be as barebones as you like, or as fully packed as you need. It offers enough choice that you can really use it in an way that suits you. Its interface can be very minimalistic as well, whether you like GNOME, elementary, or a simple tiling window manager, or even a customized KDE desktop, you decide what suits you. Most distros don't come with additional bloatware either, only packing essential tools. This means you have to intentionally pick how you use Linux. First, you need to decide you want to use it. When you buy a computer in a store or online, it mostly ships with Windows, and you don't really think about it. It's already there, you didn't necessarily choose it, but you'll use it anyway. With Linux, you have to make a conscious decision to pick a distro, to research which one might be the best for what you need to do, for your hardware. You then have to intentionally download the ISO, put it on a USB key, and install it. This is more important than you think: not only does it make it a very conscious act, but it also means that it's YOUR choice. Your machine becomes more personal with Linux in it, cause you decided to tweak it, to customize it. The software it runs is your choice: you decided to pick a specific app, install it, replace the default with it. All of these steps make Linux a very minimalist, intentional OS. Then there is the stuff you compiled, which means you took an extra step to download, install the required packages, compile the program. There is the method of distribution: will you use the latest version from flatpak, or the older one in your repos ? Will you decide to keep the default file manager or replace it with something else ? What theme will you use to make your desktop look like what you want ? Most of these steps don't even exist on other Oses. Mac users often use the default apps without really thinking about it. Most Windows users can't change the theme, or replace the default file manager with anything else. Linux does give you these choices. Finally, one could talk of system resources usage, or disk space use, where Linux shines compared to other OSes. Using less space or resources to do the same thing is not only efficient, it's also the very definition of minimalism. Minimalism isn't the main reason I use Linux, but it has become an important one lately. Now, let's move on to the channel itself ! I wanted to share a concern with you guys: while I don't exactly pay attention to the numbers on Youtube, the channel growth has been really nice since I started it. In terms of topics, I still have plenty of stuff on my to do list, but don't forget I set up a little form for you guys so that you can submit your ideas for future videos ! I'll leave its link in the Patreon post so you can tell me what you'd like me to work on in the near future.