“Have a program do one thing, do it completely, and don’t do other things.” -the Unix philosophy
The operating system is a piece of computer software that controls all of the main functions of the computer – using the CPU and GPU to perform calculations, storing the results in RAM and Hard Drive memory, and displaying the results on screens and creating a feedback loop with the keyboard and mouse (or touchscreen).
Linux - the only free OS
There are many flavors of Linux, but Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint are great starting points (and end points) for most users. I’ve used Debian for years now, and it’s fantastic.
Linux is free, like doesn’t cost money to download, but also open source. You would think that would make Linux more prone to attack, but actually it makes Linux extremely safe and secure since basically every computer nerd uses Linux, and it has a very active community of maintainers.
MacOS - if you don’t want Linux
Generally follows the Unix philosophy of computing, easy to use, terminal is baked in natively.
Windows - if you must
You can do all the things on Windows, but only if you have to.
Applications
“If minimum wasn’t good enough, it wouldn’t be the minimum.”
I have the following applications installed on my laptop:
- Firefox (browser)
- Brave (browser)
- Blackbox (terminal)
- Python and packages (programming language)
- Obsidian (text editor)
- VSCode (text editor)
- Cursor (text editor)
- Gimp (image editor)
- Zathura (pdf/epub reader)
- Hugo (static site generator)