PopOS! A different Linux

[Joelist]

I think another reason PopOS! works so well is the installer:

They managed to write an installer that is clean, easy and even full featured. System76 worked with the team behind Elemental OS to build this. It even has a full featured version of Parted built into it so you can set up all your partitions right in setup. Add in its automatic updating and using the latest kernel and this is a plus.

 

[Shadow Mann]

Everything about PopOS! has won me over. It's my daily driver now, and I have lost only VR with it. I still have Windows 10 for that. There are some games I need to get working in it, but more than 70% of them run in Linux using Proton, and they run better in Linux than they do in Windows! The complaint about gaming being so bad in Linux no longer applies really. Same with Wine which has become a polished, mature system layer which runs most applications and also allows them access to the hardware. Most of all, it's so much FASTER. Linux does not degrade in performance over time like Windows does.

 

[Shadow Mann]

My experience with this OS has convinced me that the proprietary OS platforms are a grift beyond the imagination. Everything proprietary about them appears to be designed to either collect information, control operation, or to arbitrarily be incompatible with anything outside of their sphere of influence (to make more money). Linux had suffered for decades because arrangements with software companies shut them out. Not because the Linux kernels could not handle them, but because the intentional proprietary nature of the software. This is no longer the case!

 

[Joelist]

@Shadow Mann How are things going for you on PopOS! ?

 

[Shadow Mann]

@Shadow Mann How are things going for you on PopOS! ?

Funny you should ask! Sorry I haven't been around here much.

About PopOS, it's absolutely fantastic! I am gaming on it, using it for my daily driver and have found replacements for every paid program I used on Windows. Along with that, I found that programs like DaVinci Resolve, Unreal Engine and many other programs for Windows run without degradation in wine+Proton. I am still holding on to my Windows 10 install because I need it for my VR headset, but I have uninstalled everything on there, moved all my personal filed from it and it's basically stripped. I will admit, all Linux distros require a bit of fiddling and tweaking that might annoy people who need a "it just works" OS, but if you like doing it, then Linux is a forever OS in my opinion. On a bad note, installing Windows in VirtualBox results in a badly performing guest, even when given 4 CPUs and 8gb of RAM. There is no GPU passthrough, so I can't leverage my Nvidia card. It's still 5 stars!

Right now, trying to get my OBS plugins to work like they do in Windows...going rough!

 

[Joelist]

Hmmmm.

On the laptop I pushed it onto so far PopOS! has been a "just works" OS. I probably am not using a lot of outlier scenarios though.

 

[Shadow Mann]

Hmmmm.

On the laptop I pushed it onto so far PopOS! has been a "just works" OS. I probably am not using a lot of outlier scenarios though.

All the basics out of the box are "it just works", but I need my machine to play more than 200 different games, console emulators to play console games (ReDream, PCSX2), plus my Steam games which means installing Lutris, Protontricks, Winetricks and several libraries. There was needing Unreal Engine, Blender and OBS and DaVinci Resolve, the ability to record webcam video at 60FPS, handle 3 separate monitors....definitely not a basic setup! But so far, it's about 80% where I need it.

EDIT. This is all on my desktop machine. My laptop install of PopOS is fine and everything worked out of the box, including a few games. But, that's not my primary computer.

 

[Joelist]

I was just thinking about the irony that it took a hardware OEM to write a Linux distro that really works.

 

[Shadow Mann]

Okay, so I was really getting frustrated with VirtualBox because it's more basic function were not going to work the way I needed it to in order to do some video work in Linux under actual Windows in a VM. So, I have dumped it in favor of Qemu/KVM which is way more robust, and gives me an experience like a fully native Windows install in the virtual machine, in 1920x1080. I can even attach my GPU to it. I am still trying to create a future-proof Windows install that will allow me to continue using my HP virtual reality headset after 2026, plus I have discovered that OBS uses proprietary elements which have some stuff that only works in Windows. Gaming has been solved for Linux for most of my Steam and non-steam games.

 

[Shadow Mann]

It takes weeks to get the "perfect" install of PopOS to the point where it completely replaces Windows! There are things you just can't do in PopOS without major tweaking. I am currently trying to upgrade my OpenGL and use Visual Studio, and those are major projects for PopOS! It's one of the reasons I am not on here much. I absolutely need these tools to work in Linux to do certain things.

 

[Joelist]

So where are you with PopOS?

 

[Shadow Mann]

Well, I basically live daily in Pop_OS now. I have set up LibreOffice for MS Office compatibility (very easy to do), and I have discovered LibreOffice Draw is an EXCELLENT and surprisingly robust PDF editor! I have racked up hours and hours on my Steam games while playing them in Linux (especially Fallout 4!).

Bringing this back to the initial topic of Pop_OS, I have found that it's a unique and refreshing Debian distro that bests Ubuntu in important ways (Nvidia support). The switch back to Linux as my primary OS wasn't driven by a need to be as much like Windows as possible like it was years ago when I was working in the Microsoft infrastructure for work. I did need to set up Thunderbird email and LibreWriter to be fully compatible with Office 365 for communications purposes, but that's it. I use Workspaces a lot. I give this distro five stars!

 

[Shadow Mann]

My first disaster/recovery! So, last night I left my computer on (just turned off the monitors), and I woke up this morning to find my girl cat Amber sleeping on the keyboard. When I turned on the monitors, there were at least 60 programs open and just about every button had been clicked. Maybe she was shifting in her sleep? Needless to say, the computer got completely futzed. I hard rebooted it, and it would not load the desktop after decrypting in cryptsetup. I tried at least 10 times, going into recovery mode, different earlier kernels, nothing worked. But then I remembered I had installed Timeshift! This is like Time Machine in Mac and System Restore in Windows.

This program can be run from a live session, which is what I did. I have the Timeshift images on a separate drive, so it was simple to open Timeshift from the live session, enter my encryption password to mount my main drive, and point Timeshift to the image I wanted to restore:

The restore took less than 10 minutes, and after rebooting to my hard drive, it booted like nothing ever happened and everything is exactly as before. I love Linux!

 

[Joelist]

So your cat crashed your system?

 

[Shadow Mann]

So your cat crashed your system?

Yep! She sure did. Timeshift is an excellent DR program. I have an entire partition dedicated to it. It does the typical grandfathering and full and partial backup methods.