It’s been a year since I installed Linux for the first time and I think it’s a good time to make a quick recap of what happened since then. Everything started here and here
Disclaimer: It is also a good time to recall that all opinions here expressed are my own and do not represent those of my employer. Continue reading means you agree with this.
No more Windows Updates
Now I’m able to see what updates are going to be installed and how long are they going to take. I think no one should resign this.
If Windows is not willing to tell you what is going on when updating, at least they should show a more transparent message. Something like this would be OK:
Wise use of money
Do we need a 10th Gen core i7 and 32 GB RAM to open a browser and a couple of spreadsheets? Answer should be NO, but if our OS is full of bloatware… who knows. And as we all know, hardware costs money.
Wiping out Windows and all its bloatware from my hardware, made it possible to work on my 2013 laptop. On a regular basis I use R with RStudio, git, Firefox, and LibreOffice seamlessly. For reference, this is my hardware:
3rd Gen core i7 (only 4 cores!), 8 GB RAM… pretty old for today’s standards. I seriously doubt about the performance of this hardware under an up-to-date version of Windows 10.
Should I use Linux?
I think the answer here depends on what you use your computer for. Not every one uses the computer to work, and that is fine. And among those of us for whom the computer is a working tool, there are differences as well.
But if we are doing Statistics or Data [something] (Analysis, Engineering, ETL processes, Science, etc.) then Linux definitely is the way to go.
In any of these scenarios we should be writing code and using a version control system. We should also be trying to go cloud.
1) Writing code
Main languages for Data [something] (Analysis, Engineering, ETL processes, Science, etc.), like R, Python, Julia, or Scala are open source projects and they integrate very well with Linux.
2) Version control
These days one of the most important is git. From its Wikepedia entry:
“Git was created by Linus Torvalds in 2005 for development of the Linux kernel, with other kernel developers contributing to its initial development.”
You can imagine what’s next… it also integrates very well with Linux!. Below, git from the Linux terminal while writing this post:
3) Going cloud
Cloud computing is a reality, and if we are dealing with moderate to heavy analyses we should go cloud and do the heavy lift there. One of the main reasons for doing this is that we can scale up and down easily.
My first cloud experience was setting up a Shiny Server in CentOS. Having a working knowledge of Linux beforehand definitely helped me along the way. For example, logging into the server via SSH was straightforward from the Linux terminal. Is not that easy from Windows.
As a closing comment, of course you can do 1), 2), or 3) from Windows but not as easily. For example, for 2) you will need to install git bash.
I learned a lot this past year, and I’m eager to keep learning about the FOSS world!