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+---
+title: "Why I Try to Customize Everything About My System"
+date: 2022-07-19T01:28:07+05:30
+---
+
+I love customizing things. I always go out of my way to make sure my phone, or my laptop, is doing what I want, the way I want.
+Recommended usage? Pre-defined shortcuts? Don't tell me how to use my computer. I tell my computer how I want to use it. And make it adapt to that!
+
+I like to make my desktop/phone look good (doesn't matter if other people find it pretty though), and I love it when everything is easily accessible and all that.
+Moreover, I like when all my devices look similar, and work similarly. It starts from my laptop and my phone having an anime wallpaper to radiate max weeb energy,
+but also includes everything being of my favourite color, etc.
+
+## It's actually a learning experience
+
+Going out of the way to customize software is actually a learning experience, if you're very serious about it, that is.
+I learned to flash phones in like 2018 because I wanted to install a newer version of android on my phone, and now I only run custom ROMs on my phone. 
+And that's for a very good reason.
+
+All phones are built differently, and nowadays phone manufacturers add new features and remove old features for various reasons that I won't cover,
+but basically 2 phones both running the same OS still have many differences. I don't like it because when I use a device (i.e a phone), I don't want to waste my
+time learning some new system or missing some (software) feature because the manufacturer decided to remove it. This is why always use LineageOS 
+(or another AOSP-based operating system, but Lineage is my preferred choice) on my phones. Really because I'm used to the UI, I love the Trebuchet launcher,
+and the default ringtone is awesome (literally the only default ringtone that isn't cringe)
+
+And this has taught me how to work with fastboot, twrp, etc to flash phones and install different operating systems on it. It's not very hard 
+(but kinda dangerous for your device, I will say) to do but spending hours putting different OSs on my phone has helped me understand how 
+phone operating systems really work.
+
+Similarly, on the desktop side, my quest to get the best desktop experience, with an interface which works hand-in-hand with my thought process,
+and everything being plastered with my favourite color, purple, I learned a lot about the command line, linux, etc.
+
+So if you want to learn more about computers, I highly recommend trying to customize them. I.e tweak your desktop to your liking, try out different programs,
+or (if you want to learn programming), try to build alternatives to the programs you already use, with a different UI or colorscheme that you like.
+
+## It boosts my productivity
+
+I use tiling window managers and CLI apps, because these are very configurable/extensible. This not only helps me understand how my operating system really works, 
+but also lets me tweak everything to my liking and "match how I really think". What that means is if I like to work with the keyboard I can configure my system to 
+be as keyboard-driven as possible so not only it tires my mind less, it really boosts my productivity. And this isn't something you can achieve with proprietary 
+software since it's not very configurable. This is a very good reason to use only free and open source software since it boosts your productivity.
+
+I'm not saying that oh you should use XMonad and spend hours configuring it. I'm saying you should try out different things, window managers, apps, whatever.
+You should find out what suits your workflow and use that. Or, you can even fork/create one of your programs that fulfil one specific requirement you have. 
+Trying out different things is always a good thing. And it really teaches you about the different ways a task can be performed on a computer.
+
+Those "things" can be anything, right, maybe just switch to firefox if you use chrome (seriously, don't use chrome/opera/edge), or if you're on firefox install icecat.
+Play around with different software, tweak it to your liking. See what differences the alternatives have. 
+Maybe install a different operating system, try dual booting, just try out different stuff! And learn from it!
+
+## Conclusion
+
+I just want my phone/computer to do what I want. And I want the UI to match my tastes. And I think this kinda adds "personality" to my devices!
+I think anyone who wants to learn computers should play around with the different settings, etc because this in my opinion is one of the best ways to 
+understand how your system actually works.
+
+Also, if you're a programmer (doesn't matter if you're learning) it could inspire you to work on different projects. Which is always helpful.
+Personally, I learned shell scripting just because I wanted to share my linux desktop audio and mic input on discord at the same time, and I 
+created a shell script for that! It solved my problem, and added shell scripting to my skill set!