so ive been having lots of storage issues recently. i have no idea how i managed to exhaust 128gb of storage within a year but whatever.
this is a half storage issues, half Artix Linux rant so be prepared.
i wanted to film a 2007-style tutorial on how to pirate games starring windows vista. sounds easy right? set up a Vista VM, install a shit ton of programs to make it seem like a legit setup, open notepad, start filming, put Let The Bodies Hit The Floor as background music and boom. ezpz.
well my computer said otherwise. first i had the trouble of getting the Vista ISO. i went on archive.org and typed in "windows vista ultimate" and downloaded the most popular iso. i had already set up virt-manager so i had a vm setup ready. it took me 4 HOURS to download the ISO. direct downloads stopping because my computer crashed multiple times, direct downloads stopping because i ran out of storage and it couldn't download anymore, torrent downloads stopping because i closed my laptop lid, torrent downloads stopping because i left it on idle for a while, me not being able to go back to direct downloading because librewolf wouldnt even START since it couldnt write to the database or whatever bc i ran out of storage, it was a mess!!!
when i DID manage to get it downloaded, the ISO wouldnt boot because it wasnt even bootable. i later found out that virt-manager was lying to me and it was because it didnt have the proper permissions to read the fucking iso.
of course i learned this AFTER i started downloading the ISO for another Vista image, this time the edition being Home Premium. it downloaded without any issues and when i tried to put it in Virt Manager....
my whole system would lock up. i tried multiple times and it would still lock up. i tried VirtualBox since i had that installed as a dependency of Genymotion, an Android emulator (more on dependency hell later), and to my surprise VB worked!
it installed without any issues and it seemed that everything would go smoothly after that point and it kinda did. i was able to install a shit ton of programs including WindowBlinds and Windows Live Messenger (with Escargot) and i was ready to start filming!
BUT, not even 5 seconds into filming, i got a VirtualBox error that the system ran out of storage and i would have to free up some space to continue virtualization. i immediately checked my file manager and there it was, 0 bytes free. so what did i do?
i just deleted the VM.
suddenly, 21 gigs of storage was free! wtf????
now we get to the storage part! the most obvious way of freeing up storage which is removing unused apps is almost impossible on Linux. why? dependencies! let's take Inkscape for example. it's a drawing program. i don't use it. i wanna remove it. but linux says wait! inkscape is also a dependency of Numix Icons, which is a dependency of Oomox, which has a ton of other dependencies too. i dont use Numix Icons either, but i do use Oomox. so i wanted to remove a single program but i had to remove 3 programs instead. operating systems like Windows don't have this issue because they distribute dependencies as DLLs instead of just standalone programs. i mean theyre called libraries but the operating system still treats them like programs.
i COULD just put the VM in my 64gb emmc card but i fear that would face the same permission issues that i faced in virt manager. theyre different programs so i may not but still. even if i tried it i still would have to re-install Vista and the million other programs that i installed in the VM. i would waste 5 to 6 hours of my life doing that.
also, in Linux, when your storage runs out, you pretty much cant do anything other than free up space. on Windows the OS pretends like nothing happened.
but /and i feel like richard stallman saying this/ linux isn't an operating system. the distros are. so maybe if i just install linux mint or fedora all of my problems would be magically fixed.
or i could go back to Windows 11 like a bitch.