Day 1 - High hopes #LinuxChallenge

Tuesday 7 Jan 2025

I was always a Windows user, I know the system and what to expect from it and to be honest I really like it. However since the widespread of the large language models or "AI" as it's called now in every medium I don't feel like I want my data to be used in it's training. I already changed services I am using from Google's to Proton's, Kagi for search and now I feel like it's a good time to try Linux for an extended period of time. I choosed one month as a good enough time.

I already have some experience with it thanks to Steam Deck or just using it to fix issues with disks but I never actually daily driven it. I am not giving up Windows completely since there are still some apps and games that as far as I know are not possible to run on Linux such as League of Legends or Affinity Photo but I will stay on Linux as much as possible.

My distro of choice has become Pop! OS as it looks very modern, should have awesome support from sides of community and developers and based on what I read, it should be easy to setup and get going.

Setting up

I downloaded the 22.04 LTS version and get to installing it. The whole process was surprisingly easy, and I was surprised by the really easy build-in guide on installing the Pop! OS alongside Windows. During the process of creating the 3 needed partitions on disk I experienced my first hard crush. This was something I was expecting sooner or later, since I have kind of Linux aura around me. When I got my Steam Deck, I managed to brick it by inserting an SD card. Anyway after one quick reboot I managed to finish the installation and got into the OS itself.

I must say that the OS feels really snappy and quick to use. After quick setting of position of monitors and all of these fine things you will do once and never again I opened the software manager and start loading apps.

First time use

I had only limited time left today so I loaded up only, for me essential apps like Discord, Steam, password manager and VPN. I was pleasantly surprised by having Firefox and some Office pack preinstalled. I booted up Steam and tried to quickly launch Final Fantasy XVI that I already have installed thanks to playing it through Windows. I had pretty high expectations by the flawless experience that Steam Deck presents and I was disappointed. The game failed to launch, I tried others like Ghostrunner 2 or Nine sols that I knew is working on Linux thanks to Deck and everything failed to launch.

I guess I will be trying to troubleshoot GPU drivers or diving into the collective wisdom of Linux gamers also called ProtonDB tomorrow.