Introducing chaos into your workflow
Recently, I challenged myself to setup a virtual machine to do some projects with the Flutter SDK. The process was grueling but very rewarding in end. It taught me how to setup a Linux OS without a graphical user interface (GUI) and practice the distribution’s package manager commands.
Boot up
I started first by doing some research on the Distro families. Here’s a link to DistroWatch’s Periodic Table of Linux Distros that I used to help organize my list. In the end, I chose between RHEL and Arch.
CentOS
Being that I have a little bit of experience with RHEL, CentOS was my first choice. It seemed like it would be a good fit for small projects because CentOS is very stable and easy to set up. It does have a drawback in that it doesn’t always have the latest software via the package manager. In some cases, with a little legwork you can install it yourself, but there is no guarantee it will work. In this case, it didn’t.
Arch Linux
This is why I started looking at Arch Linux. I needed a distro that supported the SDK without sacrificing stability. With Arch Linux you get access to the latest software if you’re willing to set up the OS from the command line. The process is time consuming but I promise what you’ll lose in time you’ll gain in experience with systems administration and file system navigation.
Reboot
When you’re done setting up the OS with a boot loader, you will need to download a desktop environment. I used GNOME because it’s what I have experience using. As a side note, anything I couldn’t get from the package manager, I was able to get in the Arch Linux User Repository.
Thoughts
All together, it took a little over a week to get everything the way I needed it. Each time I had to redo a step or restart my virtual machine, my understanding grew and I’m better for it. Sometimes it’s not about where we go, but rather HOW we get there.