I decided to switch my desktop to Linux. Here’s where I’m keeping notes. Most sites go over the same details on every distribution, however they leave off things like; can I install the software I use, will it recognize my printer, do I have to fight for control with the operating system, how much time will it take me to set it up after install just to use in a manner similar to what I was doing before I switched. So… here goes.
My plans for testing were Garuda, Catchy OS, Pop OS, and Mint. I still have not gotten around to Catchy as I’m enjoying Mint at the moment.
Short version:
Garuda: fast, stable, and cool looking. However does not support the software or hardwareI need easily and has less options for software overall.
POP OS: Clean, stable, and intuitive. However really wants to grow up to be MAC OS in that it keeps getting in the way of you customizing your system. Curated apps are fewer even though it is a Ubuntu distro,
Mint: Slower boot, had a couple glitches, however makes customizing and software easy and just works. It’s also prone to doing what it’s told without arguing.
In more detail from notes taken while trying to get set up
Garuda:
Fast, stable, loads quickly.
Printer: Three hours of attempting to pull a driver offline and install it.Finally typed the model number into the store and got the driver, just typing the printer manufacturer (brother) didn’t work. still no scanner
Software availability: While it does work beautifully and looks great, it just doesn’t have or support the software I need to install. Arch has a historically toxic user base though (Garuda is fostering a better community) and this makes it less popular of a back end and therefor fewer programmers are building for Arch
You can build software for Arch and that works brilliantly, however I really don’t want to do that for everything.
Uninstalled after three days of frustration
Pop OS:
Not as fast, seems stable, average load speed
Printer: Found and installed my network printer during install
Software base: Built on Ubuntu , the most supported distro available. However it curates a smaller number of programs and resists adding software outside its ecosystem.
Does not have a trash can icon, delete trash in settings/privacy/filehistoryandtrash
Can add trash by right clicking on desktop and selecting settings
Running software as root is complicated, not a right click command, appears to need to be launched from terminal as sudo
Have to create a password for root to use root commands. sudo passwd root
Major issues getting outside packages installed. No real way to add them to the launcher graphically.
After a couple hours trying to get it to install and launch bitfocus companion, and auto mount network drives (fstab would have probably worked but I don’t believe editing a text conf document should be a thing in 2025) I gave uo on Pop OS
Linux Mint
Slow boot speed (about 60 seconds)
Installed printer automatically
Ethernet settings defaulted to 100mb just toggle to 1k in settings
Emby and vivaldi installs were as easy as downloading a .deb file
Proton VPN installed by running scripts on this page: https://protonvpn.com/support/official-linux-vpn-ubuntu/
Proton VPN has issues with wireguard for some reason. Openvpn works, just change it in protonvpn settings.
Audio pop on activation: this is an issue across the distros that use pipewire.
Fix:
sudo sed -i ‘s/–\[“session.suspend-timeout-seconds”\] = 5/\[“session.suspend-timeout-seconds”\] = 0/’ /usr/share/wireplumber/main.lua.d/50-alsa-config.lua
systemctl restart –user pipewire.service
Bitfocus companion has an install script,
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitfocus/companion-pi/main/install.sh | bash
You can start companion with “sudo systemctl start companion” or “sudo companion-update”
After this it starts on boot. I did have to restart the computer to get bitfocus to see my stream deck the first time.
NAPS2, my favorite scanner software as it has features that get left out of other software (crop, rotate, exporting a subset of scanned images as pdf, etc) installs for scanner with a download of the deb file. Works well. https://www.naps2.com