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+date = 2022-06-24
+title = "Rebooting My Love Affair with Linux"
+description = "A quick recap on my migration from macOS to Fedora i3."
+draft = false
++++
+
+## Leaving macOS
+
+As I noted [in a recent post](/blog/foss-macos-apps), I have been planning on 
+migrating from macOS back to a Linux-based OS. I am happy to say that I have 
+finally completed my migration and am now stuck in the wonderful world of Linux 
+again.
+
+My decision to leave macOS really came down to just a few important things:
+
+- Apple Security (Gatekeeper) restricting me from running any software I want. 
+Even if you disable Gatekeeper and allow software to bypass the rest of the 
+device installation security, you still have to repeat that process every time 
+the allowed software is updated.
+- macOS sends out nearly constant connections, pings, telemetry, etc. to a 
+myriad of mysterious Apple services. I'm not even going to dive into how many 
+macOS apps have constant telemetry on, as well.
+- Lastly, I just *really* missed the customization and freedom that comes with 
+Linux. Being able to switch to entirely new kernel, OS, or desktop within 
+minutes is a freedom I took for granted when I switched to macOS.
+
+Now that I've covered macOS, I'm going to move on to more exciting topics: my 
+personal choice of OS, DE, and various customizations I'm using.
+
+## Fedora
+
+After trying a ton of distros (I think I booted and tested around 20-25 
+distros), I finally landed on [Fedora Linux](https://getfedora.org/). I have 
+quite a bit of experience with Fedora and enjoy the `dnf` package manager. 
+Fedora allows me to keep up-to-date with recent software (I'm looking at you, 
+Debian), but still provides a level of stability you don't find in every distro.
+
+In a very close second place was Arch Linux, as well as its spin-off: Garuda 
+Linux (Garuda w/ sway is *beautiful*). Arch is great for compatibility and the 
+massive community it has, but I have just never had the time to properly sit 
+down and learn the methodology behind their packaging systems.
+
+Basically, everything else I tested was unacceptable in at least one way or 
+another.
+Void (`glibc`) was great, but doesn't support all the software I need. 
+Slackware worked well as a tui, but I wasn't skilled enough to get a tiling 
+window manager (WM) working on it.
+
+### i3
+
+One of the reasons I settled on Fedora is that it comes with an official i3 
+spin. Being able to use a tiling WM, such as i3 or sway, is one of the biggest 
+things I wanted to do as soon as I adopted Linux again.
+
+I will probably set up a dotfile repository soon, so that I don't lose any 
+of my configurations, but nothing big has been configured thus far.
+
+The two main things I have updated in i3wm are natural scrolling and binding my 
+brightness keys to the `brightnessctl` program.
+
+#### Natural Scrolling
+
+You can enable natural scrolling by opening the following file:
+
+```sh
+sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
+```
+
+Within the `40-libinput.conf` file, find the following input sections and enable 
+the natural scrolling option.
+
+This is the `pointer` section:
+
+```conf
+Section "InputClass"
+        Identifier "libinput pointer catchall"
+        MatchIsPointer "on"
+        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
+        Driver "libinput"
+        Option "NaturalScrolling" "True"
+EndSection
+```
+
+This is the `touchpad` section:
+
+```conf
+Section "InputClass"
+        Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
+        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
+        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
+        Driver "libinput"
+        Option "NaturalScrolling" "True"
+EndSection
+```
+
+#### Enabling Brightness Keys
+
+Likewise, enabling brightness key functionality is as simple as binding the keys 
+to the `brightnessctl` program.
+
+To do this, open up your i3 config file. Mine is located here:
+
+```sh
+nano /home/<my-user>/.config/i3/config
+```
+
+```conf
+# Use brightnessctl to adjust brightness.
+bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec --no-startup-id brightnessctl --min-val=2 -q set 3%-
+bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec --no-startup-id brightnessctl -q set 3%+
+```
+
+#### `polybar`
+
+Instead of using the default `i3status` bar, I have opted to use `polybar` 
+instead (as you can also see in the screenshot above).
+
+My config for this menu bar is basically just the default settings with modified 
+colors and an added battery block to quickly show me the machine's battery info.
+
+#### `alacritty`
+
+Not much to say on this part yet, as I haven't configured it much, but I 
+installed `alacritty` as my default terminal, and I am using `zsh` and the 
+shell.
+
+## Software Choices
+
+Again, I'm not going to say much that I haven't said yet in other blog 
+posts, so I'll just do a quick rundown of the apps I installed immediately after 
+I set up the environment.
+
+Flatpak Apps:
+
+- Cryptomator
+- pCloud
+- Signal
+
+Fedora Packages:
+
+- gomuks
+- neomutt
+- neofetch
+- Firefox
+  - uBlock Origin
+  - Bitwarden
+  - Stylus
+  - Privacy Redirect
+
+Other:
+
+- exiftool