🌟 Why I Chose Arch Linux Over Windows and Other Distros

Arch Linux background

Hey there! If you didn’t know already—yes, I’m using Arch, btw 😎
But not just to flex. This is my honest journey into the world of Linux, and how I eventually landed on Arch.

📚 Table of Contents

  1. 🚪 Starting Out with Windows
  2. 🧪 My First Linux Experience
  3. 🌍 Distro-Hopping Adventures
  4. 🧱 Discovering Tiling Window Managers
  5. 🐧 Why Arch Linux?
  6. 💻 Current Setup & Workflow
  7. 🧠 Final Thoughts

🪟 Starting Out with Windows

Like most people, I began with Windows 10. Sometimes, especially on school computers, I used Windows 11 too. It was all good—until I started doing actual work.

When I was working on some programming projects in VS Code, I noticed it was lagging... a lot. That's when I began wondering:

💭 Should I switch to Linux?

🧪 My First Linux Experience

Actually, I had tried Linux once before. But the first time I installed it, my screen flickered like crazy, and my keyboard started auto-typing like a ghost was controlling it 👻. I blamed Linux at first—but it turned out to be a hardware issue.

🔧 After changing my keyboard and reinstalling, everything worked. My first real Linux distro?
Linux Mint XFCE.

  • First desktop: XFCE — light and fast!
  • Switched to: Cinnamon — looked great, but a bit laggy.
  • Back to: XFCE — smoother, but I started to get bored.

🧭 Distro-Hopping Adventures

Curiosity kicked in. I started exploring new distros like a Linux tourist:

  • 🧊 Zorin OS – clean but heavy.
  • ✨ KDE Neon – beautiful but laggy.
  • 🌲 Manjaro XFCE – fast and stable, but... XFCE again?

I was stuck in the “XFCE cycle”—fast but uninspiring.

🔲 Discovering Tiling Window Managers

Then I found Manjaro i3 — a game changer.
💡 I customized it like crazy and fell in love with the tiling workflow.

Later, I discovered bspwm on YouTube and thought:

“That looks cool. Let’s try it!”

I switched and started customizing it even more. It was lightweight, beautiful, and productive. But I started to feel like Manjaro had too much bloat for my taste...

🐧 Why Arch Linux?

That’s when I made the move to pure Arch Linux. Minimal. Clean. Fast.
No extra stuff I didn’t need. And with bspwm, it felt like my own OS.

🛠️ I've been using Arch with bspwm for almost 6 months now.

It’s not 100% perfect—VS Code still lags sometimes—but I just use Neovim instead, and it's all good.

💻 Current Setup & Workflow

Here’s a quick look at my current setup:

  • OS: Arch Linux
  • Window Manager: bspwm
  • Terminal Editor: Neovim / Vim
  • IDE (sometimes): VS Code (rarely, a bit laggy)
  • Office Suite: WPS Office / Microsoft Office (on Windows)
  • Dual Boot: Windows 10 (rarely used)

Even though I still dual-boot with Windows, I barely use it—mostly for Microsoft Office. Sometimes I don't even need it because WPS Office on Arch does the job.

🧠 Final Thoughts

So yeah, that’s my journey—from Windows to Linux, through many distros, and finally settling with Arch. ❤️

Not because I want to brag about it—but because:

  • It works for me
  • It’s fast and minimal
  • And most importantly, I love customizing my system

Thanks for reading 🙏
And if you’re thinking of trying something new, whether it’s Linux or anything else in life, here’s my advice:

Just do it. Step out of your comfort zone. You'll learn more than you ever expected.