After a couple of failed attempts in recent years to install Linux on my decade-old Windows 10 laptop, I finally switched to Linux with KDE a fortnight ago.
What this process into the unfamiliar really exposed was just how bad my eyesight has become. While I am awaiting surgery, I accept that labels in galleries and shops can be read only with extreme difficulty. I have also reluctantly accepted that for the time being, the bubble data visualisations that I enjoy creating have become infeasible.
But with this OS switch, I also now appreciate just how much familiarity with the Windows desktop commands had become a sort of muscle memory enabling me to muddle through on the laptop. Switching to another desktop, even with relatively similar desktop paradigm, is arduous, and remains so after taking steps like enlarging the default fonts.
Asell as the desktop changeover, the command-line changes are awkward. My Linux server is Debian-based. Now having to use different command-line tools for installing software on the laptop brings another layer of squinting and error.
