I installed Linux (so should you)

Summary

In a candid and playful video, PewDiePie explains why he's made the leap to Linux, leaving behind Windows and its constraints. The YouTuber shares his reasons for switching, like avoiding irritating ads and unwanted software, a high level of customization, and a newfound freedom in gaming, all while humorously detailing his adventures in customization. However, he admits that Linux isn't perfect and that some things need fixing or won't run at all. Nonetheless, he encourages viewers to give Linux a try, highlighting its presence in various modern technologies and suggesting that more users could drive improvements.

Highlights

• PewDiePie humorously compares using Windows and switching to Linux to breaking free from an annoying babysitter. 🍼
• He praises Linux for letting users remove unwanted bloatware and control their computing experience. 🗑️
• The customization capability of Linux, known as 'rising', is likened to being able to shape reality. 🌌
• The improvement of gaming on Linux has made it a feasible platform for gamers. 🎮
• Despite the learning curve, PewDiePie shares his excitement about discovering new capabilities, like terminal commands. 💻

Key Takeaways

• Linux offers freedom and customization, unmatched by Windows or MacOS. 🐧
• Gaming on Linux is now viable, thanks to developments like Proton by Valve. 🎮
• Switching to Linux requires some sacrifices, but the customization options are worth it. 🎨
• More users on Linux could lead to greater support and improvements. 🚀
• Linux is versatile, powering devices from supercomputers to smartphones. 📱

Overview

PewDiePie opens up about his switch from Windows to Linux in a light-hearted and entertaining manner, poking fun at his own tech noobness. He describes his initial reluctance and the surprise of discovering how liberating Linux can be. His dissatisfaction with Windows’ bloat and ads, alongside a newfound joy in Linux's open-source environment, plays a central theme.

One of the biggest revelations for PewDiePie was gaming on Linux. He narrates how the landscape has changed since he first tried Linux 15 years ago, citing tools like Proton that have made gaming on this platform viable. His enthusiasm is infectious, especially as he talks about the lack of ads and unnecessary software, letting him enjoy a cleaner, more focused computing experience.

While acknowledging some initial hurdles such as software compatibility and the intricate setup processes, PewDiePie appreciates the power and freedom Linux offers. He boldly invites more users to try Linux, believing their participation could enhance the ecosystem. He's particularly taken with the platform’s versatility, powering everything from phones to space technologies.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to Linux Installation The chapter 'Introduction to Linux Installation' seems to take a metaphorical approach to discussing the state of a system, possibly a computer, drawing comparisons to a character or entity described as 'the blob from I have no mouth, but I must scream'. The narrator appears to anthropomorphize the system, referring to it with phrases like 'you little K' and 'disgusting little thing', and questions what might have caused its current condition, speculating whether it was due to the influences of Windows or Mac OS. This suggests that the chapter may explore themes of degradation or malfunction within operating systems, possibly highlighting the benefits of using Linux as a more stable or preferable alternative.
• 01:00 - 02:00: First Impressions with Linux The chapter introduces the topic of installing Linux and shares the personal experience of someone who is not tech-savvy. The speaker humorously describes their expectation and anxiety about using Linux, likening their computer rig to a potential explosive device. The chapter aims to demystify Linux installation by sharing a real-life, relatable narrative.
• 02:00 - 05:00: Reasons to Switch to Linux The chapter explores the reasons for switching to Linux, with various speakers expressing emotions ranging from surprise to excitement over the decision to use Linux instead of Windows. One speaker reflects on their journey, feeling empowered and liberated after escaping the restrictions of Windows, using the metaphor of a 'baby with a rocket launcher' to describe their newfound freedom and ability to explore the capabilities of Linux. Through this transition, they describe a sense of enlightenment, likening it to emerging from shadows into the sunlight, and now sharing their experience with others.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Customization and Gaming on Linux The chapter explores the presenter's personal reasons for switching to Linux, emphasizing the dissatisfaction with Windows. The presenter humorously critiques Windows for treating users condescendingly, offering unnecessary services like Candy Crush and Bing suggestions, and questions the need for such offers. The focus lies on how Linux provides a more mature and customizable user experience in contrast to Windows.
• 08:00 - 10:00: Challenges and Sacrifices of Switching The chapter delves into the differences in user experience between Linux and other operating systems regarding decision-making and control. While other systems, as mentioned in the text, may ask for several confirmations before deleting a file, Linux allows more immediate and direct commands, reflecting a sense of empowerment for some users. The narrator shares a personal experience with Linux, highlighting their initial realization and satisfaction at Linux performing tasks exactly as desired, underscoring a sense of empowerment and capability.
• 10:00 - 13:00: Desktop Setup and Terminal Features In this chapter titled 'Desktop Setup and Terminal Features,' the speaker discusses their minimalist approach to desktop setups and the issues with pre-installed software, or 'bloatware,' on Windows operating systems. They express frustration with having to spend extensive time removing unnecessary software and ads that come with a new Windows installation. The speaker critiques Microsoft's embedding of unwanted features, such as AI integrations, that they find irrelevant or unhelpful. This reflects their desire for a clean and efficient computing environment.
• 13:00 - 17:00: Advanced Configuration with Arch Linux The chapter discusses the advantages of using Arch Linux, particularly focusing on customization and user control. It contrasts this with the perceived shortcomings of using Windows, such as the lack of control and customization options. The speaker expresses a preference for the serenity and freedom that comes with Linux systems, specifically criticizing aspects of the Windows operating system like the taskbar.
• 17:00 - 23:00: Linux Popularity and Appeal Linux's modular design allows users to extensively customize their systems, even to the point of changing or removing the Graphical User Interface (GUI). This flexibility is part of what is known as 'rising'.

I installed Linux (so should you) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Oh, you little K. Oh. Oh, you po. You disgusting little thing. Oh, what happened to you? Oh, look at yourself. You're the blob from I have no mouth, but I must scream. What? Who did this to you? Was it Windows? Oh, Mac OS.
• 00:30 - 01:00 Oh, don't worry. I can save you. Install Linux. What if I told you you can look like this? Anyway, let me start this off by saying I am not a tech guy. You saw my PC building video. Looks all bent. I'm surprised the whole thing hasn't exploded. It's like sitting next to a bomb every day. But what you did see was 0.5 seconds of the video where I installed Linux on the
• 01:00 - 01:30 thing and a lot of people just went, "What? What?" Some people seem surprised and confused. Something possessed him to put Linux on it. Some people were excited. At the time, I didn't know the power that I had. I was like a baby with a rocket launcher. For years, I have been tortured by window. But now, alas, I am finally free. I escaped the Windowscape. I saw the sun. The shadows are gone. It blinded me for a moment and now I'm speaking to you in the cave. Enough
• 01:30 - 02:00 reference. Okay, so I'm going to yap about Linux for as long as this video is and you're going to listen. I want to start off by going through the reasons why I switched to Linux. It's different for everybody. Number one is how backlit this shot is. Number one, Windows talks to me like I'm a baby. Now mentally I might be, but that does not warrant. You want Candy Crush? You want Candy Crush on your computer? You want to use Bing? Yes. Are you sure you want to delete
• 02:00 - 02:30 that file? Are you super duper sure you want to delete the file? That's how the talks to me and I don't like it. Linux, on the other hand, literally puts a gun in your hand and says, "Do it. You're got your now." My first sort of aha moment when I installed Linux or started using it was wait a minute it does exactly what I wanted to do. And this is a really powerful feeling about
• 02:30 - 03:00 that. I do want to show you guys my setup as well. I will get into that. But first, reason number two. As an epic minimalist, the bloat the bloat is real. It always bothered me. Anytime I install a new Windows, I spent like an hour trying to uninstall all the prepackaged BS that I don't want. Windows is like, "I know you paid $100 or whatever for me, but uh I'm still going to put ads in here." Yay. Put a little AI in here. You want that, right? That doesn't benefit me. It's for you, the consumer. Bing. It
• 03:00 - 03:30 doesn't benefit me that you use Bing, but please use Bing. Microsoft is an annoying suite apparently. With Linux, nothing. Serenity, please. Don't even get me started on the Windows taskbar. You control what's on your computer. Duh. It's obvious. How is this not a thing? Reason number three, customization. I discovered this afterwards. Customizing on Linux is a beautiful thing. On Windows, you can
• 03:30 - 04:00 maybe change your wallpaper, change a little bit of colors. Whoopitydoo. On Linux, you can change reality itself. Since Linux is built modular, you can swap out your GUI entirely. You don't even have to use one. You can cut off the head of Linux and it'll still be like, "Hey, I'm here. What's up?" Customizing on Linux is called rising. And I got I got way too into I got way too into it. I cooked hard. I I I can't wait to show you guys. Now, reason number four, gaming. Gaming on Linux is
• 04:00 - 04:30 finally real. I actually installed Linux 15 years ago. That's right. I'm old. And I uninstalled it after like a couple days as a lot of people do when they realize, oh, I can't use the things I need on Linux. And for me, that was gaming back then because it's like, well, then what's the point? But now gaming on Linux is real at last. So Valve came in like Gandals in Hell's Deep riding a Steam Deck with Proton. So I think this is a perfect
• 04:30 - 05:00 example how Linux benefits everyone. the fact that Valve as a company recognized maybe Microsoft has a bit too much power if they wanted to and started being shady locking things down taking cuts they absolutely could and it's not like it would be uncharacteristics for them to do so Valve started improving gaming on Linux boost and driver support and they built on what was already there from open- source software like Wine by doing this Valve benefits consumer benefits ecosystem grows
• 05:00 - 05:30 win it really feels like uh an alternate reality. This totally could not have been a thing. And it also makes me realize just how many things can be better if people just weren't so greedy. Can we just fix them? So, thank you Linux and thank you uh base Gabin. Now, I've gone through the reasons why I switched to Linux. Let me just explain why maybe not switching is a good idea. Because everything good comes with a sacrifice. If you're swapping to Linux,
• 05:30 - 06:00 you'll likely have to give something up. I don't know what that is, but for me it was Photoshop. I used Photoshop again for 15 years. All the shortcuts, all my workflow, it's all baked into my brain. The way I use Photoshop, it's I don't think about it. It's just here's the thumbnail. It's not beautiful, but I get the job done. Unfortunately, Adobe is a garbage company and their software just won't run on Linux. A lot of artists are jumping ship. They don't want to use Adobe anymore because they realize it's a terrible company. me as well. I
• 06:00 - 06:30 thought, you know what, it's time. I'll swap over. I know the open source alternative is [ __ ] I've heard about this forever. And I thought, you know, it'll feel good. I'll feel good leaving Adobe. So, I I'm ready. I go to their website. I click through this thousand pages. I crawl through the bushes just to find the goddamn unsubscribe button. And I was so ready. I was going to be like, "Fuck you, Adobe. Just unsubscribe." You know what happens? You know what
• 06:30 - 07:00 happens? They hit me with an unsubscription fee. Yes. Those I'm sorry, what? I have to pay to not use your software. It was like 65 bucks or some insane. What the? If anything, it just made me realize, okay, it's over. I'm never
• 07:00 - 07:30 going back. So, like I said, the open source alternative is [ __ ] [ __ ] And since this is Linux open source, you can do whatever you want. I downloaded this uh icon pack, then change the icon so they look like the Photoshop icons. That helped a little bit. Then I downloaded a shortcut command list that matches the one on Photoshop. Boom. Made it a little easier. You know, I'm still not 100% used to it, but the fact that I can do stuff like this really helps for me personally, a worthy sacrifice. I hope
• 07:30 - 08:00 this doesn't sound like copium, but genuinely, it feels good that I was able to move on. At the end of the day, some tools are only going to work on Windows and only going to work on Mac, but what you gain on Linux is so much more freedom. Join us. I'm just praying that Adobe is not just going to show up one day and be like, "There's another fee. I'll meet them in a dark alleyway. They'll be like, that's a little fee. Now that I've convinced you to swap to Linux, you have
• 08:00 - 08:30 the wonderful choice of picking a dro. Yay. So many of them. I hear people going like, I don't know which one to pick. What do I do? There's so many. Just pick one. It It's a wonderful thing that you can choose. Don't you understand? The world is your flavor. Look at all these spices. I went with Mint because it's the same one that I installed 15 years ago and I knew that it was a beginner friendly and that it still holds up. It very much feels like Windows just better. Okay, you don't even need to touch the scary terminal.
• 08:30 - 09:00 If you don't want to, you don't have to. It's okay. You should though. Now, let's jump into my computer really quick. Oh, look at that. I'm recording with OBS. Open source is always the best source. Couldn't get bandicked. They didn't have a bed. I can't believe I paid for that. There's like free versions everywhere. That's so much better. Okay. All right. So, this is the terminal. You probably heard about it in Linux. Feels a bit strange in the beginning. Let me just show you how it works. But first, wait.
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• 09:30 - 10:00 shaker free and 33% off all PewDiePie products if you use the code PewDiePie. This is your final chance. only get this deal for seven days. So, take the chance now. Don't wait, please. Uh, Brofish, thank you. Go to gfuel.com/piepie. Enter code pewdie. 33% off. Thank you, Gil for sponsoring this video. Okay, so this is my desktop. I called it Apollo. And then I have my laptop, which I called Dianus cuz I wanted to mess around with it. I Dianis
• 10:00 - 10:30 is the one I really, really went hard on the rising. Uh, but I just wanted to show some terminal commands really quick just so you get an idea how it works. I talked about this in my last video, but the first thing that really blew my mind with the Linux. I just noticed my computer was booting kind of slowly. So, I found this command called system deanalyze and it tells you exactly how long it takes for your computer to actually load and what part takes a certain amount of time. And it used to be like 45 seconds. I was like, dude, this is terrible. So, then I found
• 10:30 - 11:00 another command called blame. And then you can see exactly what part is kind of slowing down your system which got me into like really optimizing it. And I had so much fun doing that. And it just made me realize just like on Windows if my computer is kind of slow you just kind of deal with it. It's like oh okay well what can you do on Linux it's like the world is your oyster. You can fix it. Personally I like that kind of stuff. The second thing that blew my mind with the Linux terminal was uh just how fast it is at searching. Searching on Windows is so annoying. It takes
• 11:00 - 11:30 forever. Sometimes it doesn't even find the file even though you type the name of it perfectly. And a lot of times they just bing it. They're like, "Oh, you want to search for your file? Oh, maybe no. Actually, you you want to you want to look it online. You that's what you want to do." It's like, "No, Linux, you can find any file, whatever you want. This is searching all JPEGs on my computer." That's a bad example, actually. The other thing that I love about it is that you don't have to just search the file. You can also search text inside the file. So let's say you
• 11:30 - 12:00 forgot what the file is called, but you remember roughly some stuff inside it. You can grap it and bada bing, bada boom. What the hell is this Spotify password text balls deep? I did not do that. What? Searching files on Linux is super fast. It made me realize just how it should be on a computer. Again, the most obvious thing with the terminal is that let's say you install the operating system and you need to also put all the
• 12:00 - 12:30 programs that you want to use on it. Usually, you have to go on the browser, Google it, look up their page, go to their download page, dodge all the fake fake ads and all that crap and do that and install and run each one, wait for it to install, yada yada. It takes forever. On Linux, you just go pseudo amp install. Uh, what do we want? We want VCE, Firefox, uh, OBS Studio. Boom. Thank you. And now I can sit and look at
• 12:30 - 13:00 the screen and feel like I'm a hacker. Yes, I know what all of this means. Every single letter I'm soaking in with my brain. There's so much you can do with the terminal. It's insanely powerful. I can make a whole video about it, but I don't want to keep this too longwinding. And in reality, I just want to show you my rise on my laptop. To be honest, that's the whole reason I'm making this video. I had this old laptop. I mean, it's not that old, but I just never used it because I didn't really like using it. I mentioned before there's many distros of Linux, and uh I
• 13:00 - 13:30 wanted to try one called Arch partially because of the meme. It's kind of become a meme because it's a little difficult to install Arch. So, it's like a flex to use it. For some reason, I went on a god run and I had no issue. I always get stuck on the dumbest ever for like 12 hours. So, I don't know what happened that time, but I also wanted to download Arch because it's a minimalist DRO. Whatever you put, or at least 90% of it is there because you decided to put it there. And it's also very highly customizable, which are two elements that I love. So, I knew I was going to love it. All right, let's go into my
• 13:30 - 14:00 laptop. I think it makes sense for me to show it without any customization first because it just be confusing and I need to talk to people that aren't haven't used Linux. My first favorite thing which I have on Mint as well is just shortcuts on my keyboard to open programs, open terminal, open file manager, open browser, close it, whatever. It's all there. It's such a nice workflow and have a more keyboard ccentric way of using your computer, especially on a laptop. But even in general, you know, the whole like, okay,
• 14:00 - 14:30 let me click on the start menu and just find the thing. If I don't have it keybind, I can open roy uh and just search for it and open it. I don't want to overexlain things as well, but yeah, this is my terminal on uh this setup. I'm using elacrity and this is Neoetch, which shows my specs and usually people have an ASI art. It sounds like I'm saying as a Ashley, I'll call it Ashie uh of their dro. And if you saw my mint one earlier, I was like, "Oh, it
• 14:30 - 15:00 wouldn't be cool if I do like my own custom ashy." And then I thought, "Oh, wouldn't it be cool if I do my own animated ashy?" So, I figured out how to do that. It took a little bit of tinkering and shinkering, but it's just so nice to look at. I love it. So, I'm running Hyperland, which is uh this uh beautiful tile manager. It automatically sorts it for me whenever I open something. This is such a nice workflow. And I can close it all as well. Uh you can literally open these until infinite. When you're on a laptop, when
• 15:00 - 15:30 you have limited screen space, it's such a great way to work with it. The fact that they're always there means I never have to look for them because I know they're there. And if my workspace is full, I can get look at this. Swap to another one. This is workspace number two and workspace number four. I've been recording OBS from here. Let's say I'm working on a project on workspace one. I can then work on another thing on workspace 2 and go back and forth vice versa instantly. I love this way of using a computer. It's so sick. The
• 15:30 - 16:00 first thing I really loved about this RH Hyperland setup was just how quick and smooth it looks at least, you know, like boom. Oh, open. It's so nice. Uh, but then I open my browser and it's like, oh, you see that? Ew. Again. Oh, that took forever and it loads so ugly. So, my first thought, okay, well, maybe I can upgrade my SSD to make it snappier and quicker. But then I thought, I'm on Linux. I can do whatever I want. So, let's run a time
• 16:00 - 16:30 here. Firefox. Let's ignore the CSS errors. I tinkered a bit too much. Don't worry about it. What was that? Two seconds. Not good enough. So, I figured out a way. And it's so dumb. I won't explain how I did it, but the fact that I was able to do it. Boom. Instant. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. I love it. I love it so much. It's these small things that makes you really fall in love with using Linux. Uh anyway, the first thing I customized was a way bar. Oh, I forgot
• 16:30 - 17:00 to say I can move around as well if I want to. Anyway, and move them to a different workspace. Uh so yeah, this is my taskbar. It's like the Windows taskbar except you decide exactly what's on it and customizing it. I put calendar, turn it on and off, internet, Bluetooth, quick access to all these things. You know, I really enjoy this as well. It's basically just tells me if I'm connected to NordVPN or not and I can toggle by clicking on it and it tells me which country I'm connected to. Uh up here it shows which workspace I'm using. Since I'm have these reactor in
• 17:00 - 17:30 the background, I thought it'd be cool to like LAR as if each workspace was each reactor. I'm on reactor A. Uh there's reactor B and C and then D where it's recording OBS. Then I have my battery bar which is ASI. I keep call saying ashy versus ashy art. I got the volume and you know look look if my volume goes too low it gets red. It's critical just to really lar the whole
• 17:30 - 18:00 nuclear reactor UI. To me it's cool. I like it. All right. The second thing I did was making widgets with Ew. Ew was a nightmare. I'm not going to lie. Here we go. Let me also change the wallpaper really quick. Was I? All right. So, this is my desktop. Let me play some music actually. So, first I added this visualizer cuz I just saw a lot of people doing it. It's using Cava, but I changed it again with
• 18:00 - 18:30 Ashie. Uh, so it looks a little more matrix than Here we have my up time. Just how long it's been running and how much until my battery is out. I should probably charge my laptop. Uh, CPU temp. I should probably uh change cool it down a bit. All of this is uh it changes uh it's not just like visual flare. Well, it is, but CPU load, which changes, RAM usage, storage. This tells me which uh works base I'm on. Right
• 18:30 - 19:00 now, I'm on reactor B. Power consumption completely useless, but I needed it to look cool. And then we have my two fans for CPU and GPU, and then this little spinny fan thing to show it. uh upload and download latency and then just another VPN thing. It's kind of pointless. And then uh basic weather. And then finally, to make it sort of all work together, I added a script that basically scans if I'm using a window. So if I open or close, it sort of transitions in and out of way bar
• 19:00 - 19:30 because I don't need it on both. That it's just like too much information in my opinion. So this is on my desktop. It's a nice vibe here. We just chill over here and then when I'm in workflow, it blackens it all out. And I can just get going on my shingy thingy. Oh, and and in the middle here, my I forgot to say my it has power profiles my laptop. So, I thought it'd be cool to change them. It's silenced, balanced, or uh power mode, but I changed it to Rason, which means overclock. You see my fans
• 19:30 - 20:00 are spinning. And these are faster as well because uh the fans are spinning more. This is so sick to me because I'm remembering what this laptop used to be running Windows. I never wanted to use it. I hated it. Now it went from a hardware that I never used to my favorite piece of hardware because it not just looks great, it runs great. I love it. It's so sick. I had so much fun customizing this. It was just a blast. Yeah, I hope you guys appreciate it as well. I've been doing so much more. I
• 20:00 - 20:30 built this camera as well. Like I mentioned earlier, you can communicate with Linux even without a graphical user interface GUI. That made me so excited cuz I'm like, wait, that means I can use other computers at my disposal. For some reason, to me, that's just like really cool and I wanted to try what I could do with it. I want to show this in another video maybe cuz I feel like uh it's too much yapping. But my point is I've been having so much fun just tinkering, messing around, feeling like a hacker. But I got to be real as well.
• 20:30 - 21:00 Linux is not perfect. There's a lot of issues. A good example is again my laptop. When I first installed Arch, none of my F keys worked. Actually, sorry. Three out of 12 worked out of the box. So, I had spent a long time bringing them back to life. For me, it was kind of fun. I was like, "Oh, got another one working." Like, "Okay, let's move on to the next one." But I can imagine for a lot of people that just want things to work, you know, maybe
• 21:00 - 21:30 this is not for you. And maybe it should work. You know, I think since Linux is not as popular on desktop as Windows or Mac, this is just the reality. There's just not enough support for it. On Linux, if something doesn't work, it's kind of up to you to fix it. And uh and yeah, that's just how it is. I was trying to update my drivers for my GPU, and I got a black screen six times and had to do a hard restore every time. It's, you know, not the most fun thing in the world. There are other things I could rather be doing, which is why I
• 21:30 - 22:00 need you to install Linux. So the more people we can get together, the better Linux becomes. And I get it now. Like that's why people were so excited about me using Linux because Linux is not a product. It's it's a platform. And it also already exists everywhere. NASA, SpaceX, it runs on Linux. All the supercomputers, your TV, your smart fridge, your phone if it's Android, it's all Linux, baby. I think it's just so cool the fact that this all happened
• 22:00 - 22:30 because one Finnish guy in like the n what was it the '90s just decided, hey, I can write a better kernel. Finnish naivity. Typical Finnish behavior. They think they can do anything. But without that, you know, things would have been very different. At least there wouldn't been alternative. And I I just think it's so cool that people saw what it did, got excited, and wanted to join in. So, please consider joining in. Now, if you're even just a little bit curious, I recommend trying Linux. Maybe try dual booting it if you're not sure. You can still keep your Windows or whatever.
• 22:30 - 23:00 You're going to kill it later. You might as well kill it now. Test it out. Break it. Get upset on Linux. I feel alive at last. At long last. Thank you for watching. Let me just type out my [Music] goodbyes. No.