Things Matt Wrote

Linux

~ 90 days ago my Windows computer system crashed and burned. Microsoft pushed an update that corrupted the system and rendered it unrecoverable. I had back-ups so reinstalling the operating system and restoring the files would have been an adequate solution, albeit a pain-in-the-ass. I didn't go that route though. I was irate and didn't want to be a Microsoft Windows user anymore.

I have always been a Linux “tinkerer” and keep an extra Thinkpad with one distribution of Linux or another installed. The most recent was Pop!_OS from System76. I was so impressed by the system that I often thought, could this be a daily driver OS? I decided to answer that question when my Windows 10 system crashed and burned. Not just on a spare computer, or in a virtual machine, but on my main computer, as my everyday operating system. Will Linux work as my main computer operating system? Is 2021, finally the “Year of the Linux Desktop”?

Pop!_OS is a fantastic operating system that lives up to the hype-slogan “it just works”. Pop!_OS is sleek, polished, and aesthetically pleasing. It functions flawlessly on my Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon (5th gen) and displays accurately on an external monitor. System76 actively develops the distribution and provides fantastic support to users and the community. The few problems I've had with configurations or installations have been easily solved by System76 support or documentation published by the community. Most importantly it has been stable. I have not had a single crash or unexpected system shut down and System76 has never forced the system to auto-install updates. The Pop!_OS user experience is good.

But, I must return to Windows.

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A week ago, Microsoft pushed an update to my Windows machine rendering it unusable. Absolutely corrupted! Look down to the previous post or click HERE to read a bit more about that.

I had been playing around with the Pop!_OS Linux distribution for a while and deciding to make it my my main operating system (or die trying). Here are some thoughts and observations after being 'All in on Pop' for the past week.

Pop!_OS (20.10) as run on a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon (5th generation).

I once heard someone explain the reason Microsoft does not make the Office suite for Linux is because there would be no reason to use Windows. This is probably more true than Microsoft would like to admit. The most challenging part of switching from Windows to Linux is the translation of office documents, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint slide shows to a format compatible with an available Linux application. This is especially daunting for those of us who live in the world of government where Word docs and Powerpoint are the common languages. Tell someone at a police department you are sending them a file in Open Document Format and they’ll be lost for three days.

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