desktop refresh

Long story short, Microsoft shoved a number of AI features into Windows 11 that I didn’t ask for and can’t turn off. In addition to being horribly intrusive, it was making my desktop with fairly new hardware unreasonably slow. So I decided to fix it by opting out of Windows entirely. I landed on Pop!_OS, a friendly-looking linux distro.

I bought a new USB drive to flash the OS image to and perform the initial installation. It has 64GB for $8 from my local Fred Meyer… remember when these things were measured in KB for quadruple the price? One weird trick to feel old fast.

The first time I booted from the USB drive, the screen froze on a scary looking error about 30 seconds in and I flashed a brief panic that I bricked my box. Crossing my fingers, I turned the power off and tried booting from the USB again, no issues this time.

After installing the OS, it was time to get things set up how I like them. I haven’t actually used linux at home before, so this will be a fun experiment.

rough order of operations:

• generate new ssh key & add to github
• install zsh and make default shell
• add my dotfiles for zsh settings and aliases
• set up Firefox extensions (uBlock origin, Privacy Badger, React devtools, WAVE a11y checker)
• install homebrew, mainly to install nvm + node
• from the Pop!_store, install Steam, Spotify, Discord, VLC, Clementine
• install Sublime Text (I like using this as my scratchpad)
• install VS Code []
• in Steam settings, enable compatibility layer

The only real stumbling blocks were initially installing node directly via apt (ended up with node 12) and installing VS Code via the Pop!_Store. When I started VS Code there was warning that I’d have to do a bunch of tinkering for any (most?) plugins I installed, as the version it gave me was some random flatpak fork.

So I installed homebrew to install nvm, because using nvm to manage node versions instead makes me happy. And following these directions instead of the version available in the Pop!_store for VS Code to have proper plugin support is a small price to pay for less friction down the road.

Overall, it has been a relatively painless switch, with 2 or 3 hours total configuration between all the things listed above. Pop!_OS is very reminiscent of OSX, has nice customization options and hasn’t once shown me an ad or suggested I use AI to find files I saved on my own computer. My environment feels snappier as well. Huge improvement to my overall computer experience, would recommend. Kind of kicking myself I didn’t do this months earlier, but here we are now. Pop!