This was the step I thought was gonna be easy, but I was proved wrong almost instantly after I picked the wrong one for myself. Initially, I thought that I would go with Linux Mint, and it worked great in the Live environment. But, there was a display scaling issue. Windows by default scales the display to have a nice and big font, as it has the right drivers. Linux, on the other hand, does not have the right drivers to do so (sometimes). And Linux Mint had a very small display scaling (100%) instead of the regular size of Windows (150%). Now, there is “Fractional Scaling”, but since Mint uses X11 desktop environment instead of Wayland, there comes a lot of graphical issues if you try to use it. So, after researching, I decided to go with Kubuntu, as it has a default scaling instead of Fractional scaling. But then I had to install Linux Mint right after one day as I tried to tweak Kubuntu to my personal liking. First, I tried to get rid of snap, but then I ran into issues like KeePassXC not being able to connect to FireFox, no matter what I tried. Then, my other disk had issues mounting, since it was NTFS. So, I had to run a command every time I restarted my laptop, because Dolphin could not mount it correctly causing read and write issues. In the end, I thought that I’d rather have small text than to run that command everytime to mount my disk, getting locked out of websites as my passkey was stored inside of KeePassXC and probably getting more issues in the future. Hence, I picked Linux Mint. The display scaling might get fixed though, as mentioned here, by December 2026 as it might introduce Wayland as the default instead of X11.
To switch to Linux, I had make a few sacrifices. This for me however, was small. As I am a web developer, I do not require software that work only on Windows. For documents and presentations, however, I am using a Windows VM to run Microsoft Office inside it. I am starting to getting the hang of Google Docs, Slides and Sheets, and also LibreOffice as I don’t want to have a VM running just for MS Office. And also Windows optimizes the speaker and microphone output, well Linux ruined the quality. It’s still usable, but not as good as before. Other than that, I don’t need to sacrifice anything else. I use OpenShot for video editing, GIMP for photos, VS Code for development, NodeJS and Python. All of them work on Linux.
To update stuff, it’s pretty easy, especially on Linux Mint with the update manager. To update programs, I simply need to click on the shield icon in the bottom right to search and update all of my programs. It is pretty convenient as you can also update Linux from right there with a GUI. This also works on other Debian based distros, but many of them need a command instead, which is still pretty convenient but mintupdate (Mint’s update manager) gives you a GUI and a system tray icon.
Cinnamon, Linux Mint’s main UI, has a lot of features. Here are some that I found useful.
Since Mint’s Cinnamon uses GNOME at it’s very core, so it has also inherited a very useful feature: Online accounts, which lets you link you Google, Microsoft, and more to Linux Mint. I have linked my Google account, and now it lets me view my Google Drive files directly from the file manager (Nemo) and view and manage my calendar directly from the system tray calendar. It sounds niche until you try it out yourself.
If you’re coming from Windows 11, you are gonna absolutely love the customization offered in Cinnamon. For example, you can place the system tray on the left and the Menu and pinned programs on the right, or do whatever you want, add as many panels as you wish on any side of the screen, place pinned programs center and menu left, literally whatever you want! And you can download more applets and add more things to the panel. You can also get desktop widgets. Mint has only 2 built-in, but you can download more! And the fact that amazes me is that this level of customization is built in, so there will be no extra system resource usage like in Windows, in which customization programs have to “stick” on top on the explorer.exe, which also causes instability and bugs.
There is a that I still have to explore about Linux Mint, and as soon as I hit 1 year of use, I will post my findings so stay tuned and subscribe via the RSS feed. Till then, have a nice day!
]]>Voice ID allows Alexa to recognize different people by their voice. This helps Alexa give personalized responses like your calendar events, music recommendations, reminders, and more.
To set it up:
Once done, try saying:
“Alexa, who am I?”
Routines let you automate multiple actions with a single command.
For example, saying:
“Alexa, good night”
could:
You can create routines in the Alexa app under:
More → Routines
Alexa can do way more than answer questions.
Here are some fun things to try:
Some answers are surprisingly good.
By default, Alexa uses Amazon Music, but you can also connect:
After linking your account, you can simply say:
“Alexa, play my playlist”
Your Echo can work like a normal Bluetooth speaker.
Say:
“Alexa, pair Bluetooth”
Then connect your phone or laptop from Bluetooth settings.
This is great for playing audio from apps Alexa does not support directly.
Skills are basically apps for Alexa.
Some useful categories include:
To browse skills:
Alexa works with smart bulbs, plugs, TVs, ACs, and more.
Once connected, you can say things like:
Even a single smart plug can make everyday devices feel smarter.
One of Alexa’s most useful features is simple reminders.
Examples:
Perfect for cooking, studying, or daily routines.
If you have multiple Echo devices, you can communicate between rooms.
Try saying:
“Alexa, announce dinner is ready”
or
“Alexa, drop in on the living room”
It works almost like an intercom system.
Alexa has tons of hidden tricks and easter eggs.
Some interesting ones:
Half the fun is discovering random commands.
Alexa devices are much more powerful than simple smart speakers. Even basic features like routines, reminders, and smart home controls can genuinely make everyday life easier.
The best way to discover new features is honestly to just keep asking Alexa random things.
]]>After spending way too much time fighting Bundler, Jekyll, themes, plugins, and configuration files, the site is finally up and running.
This website will be a place where I share:
I enjoy building things, understanding how systems work internally, and occasionally breaking stuff just to learn how to fix it again.
The site currently runs on Jekyll with the Minima theme, hosted using GitHub Pages.
More posts and projects coming soon.
]]>_posts directory. Go ahead and edit it and re-build the site to see your changes. You can rebuild the site in many different ways, but the most common way is to run jekyll serve, which launches a web server and auto-regenerates your site when a file is updated.
To add new posts, simply add a file in the _posts directory that follows the convention YYYY-MM-DD-name-of-post.ext and includes the necessary front matter. Take a look at the source for this post to get an idea about how it works.
Jekyll also offers powerful support for code snippets:
def print_hi(name)
puts "Hi, #{name}"
end
print_hi('Tom')
#=> prints 'Hi, Tom' to STDOUT.Check out the Jekyll docs for more info on how to get the most out of Jekyll. File all bugs/feature requests at Jekyll’s GitHub repo. If you have questions, you can ask them on Jekyll Talk.
]]>