Choosing a display manager, or not
One thing that happens when you come to Linux from Windows, is you start seeing the different parts that make up your system. For instance, on Windows when you power up your computer, you have a boot logo, then you enter your password and there's your desktop. All of that, like the rest, it's all "Windows".
You don't have to known about the different parts of that whole process, and Microsoft usually likes to hide it from you anyways. In Linux, it's not that you need to known about them, but you can. And with Arch, chances are you will.
It's not a bad thing though, far from it, because as with pretty much everything else on Linux, if there's something you don't like, you can change it. Chances are there are a few alternatives our there, and if not and assuming you have the knowledge and time for it, you can also just make your own replacement.
Automatic backups with rsync
As I've explained
before,
one of the first things I did upon installation of Arch was to set up a
backup solution. This was done simply using a little bash script, which itself
would launch rsync to do the actual backup.
But after using this system for a little while, I decided that it needed a rewrite. This was mainly due to two reasons:
- A "bug" in rsync
- A flaw in the script/system
Precious data, not to be lost
One of the first things I did, after having installed
Arch, was to think about a backup
solution. Well, in fact I had been thinking about that before I even knew which
distro I would use, and I had decided to set up a mirroring of my "main" drive,
containing both the system (/ and its friends) and my data (/home), which
actually are on the same partition (for now?).
Logically, what I did was play with mdadm, and started setting up a RAID1
array. This went well, mdadm allowing to do things very easily, and since this
was all done in a VM I could without a problem make a disk disappear, bring a
new one and see how rebuilding the array would work (in brief: couldn't be
easier, and it was pretty fast, too).
On my way to Arch...
Windows or Linux?
If you were to ask me, the answer would have to be Windows, I am running Windows. Not really per choice, mind you. Of course no one is forcing me, it's more simply that, back in the days, I started using a Microsoft operating system, and since then I have kept doing so, only updating it from time to time but never leaving it.
Of course I have been tempted to switch and enter the joyful world of open source, but it's just not something you can do like that. Not when you're used to a system, know your way around it, and have a set of tools that fits your work flow and is the result of years and years of testing & careful selection.
But I have finally decided to switch to Linux, and for that I gave myself one year. One year to find/pick the software I'll need/use, get familiarized with this new environment and its eco-system, one year to get ready, and probably adapt my work flow here and there. One year until I take Linux out of the VM and get rid of Windows.