Started learning Linux with Manjaro a few years ago, but there were always stability issues pushing me away from daily driving. I found when I did have time to use my PC, it was largely for gaming, and when any issue presented and needed to be fixed it was a bit of a barrier to entry.
Because of biases I always leaned to Arch for that ‘bleeding edge’ and rolling updates, so when I gave Linux another shot long term a few months ago I went with EndeavourOS. Everything was rock solid but I found a lot of nitpicks and after a week or so my monitors wouldn’t wake from sleep… I of course don’t blame the OS as more than likely there was a log somewhere explaining my issue, but I really just want to enjoy playing games after a long day.
So I gave up on my faux dream of living on the edge and instead installed Pop_OS!, and to my pleasant surprise it has been rock solid and performant to boot! My preconceived biases against Debian and it’s derivatives drove me to borderline tribalism. Flatpak has remedied worries of outdated packages, and even if I did have an issue (bluetooth headphones defaulting to HSP not AD2P) I found the solution on the archwiki!
The beauty of this ecosystem is that Linux is Linux, we all benefit from improvements so long as they are made open and free, and no matter what flavor you choose, you’ll always be part of the family.
Thanks for reading, and thank you to the contributors who work tirelessly to make an open and free desktop a reality :)
In my own use of Manjaro, I’ve found timeshift to be invaluable. If something breaks at a time when I can’t deal with fixing it, I timeshift to a known good install, and get back to fixing whatever broke in the up-to-date snapshot later.
Sorry for the bad experience Manjaro gave you with rolling release, and Flatpak sucks.
Good work picking PopOS, it’s the one I recommend to everyone too.
Swallowing your pride…
And giving up driver compatibility. And giving up Office. And giving up any kind of compatibility actually. And giving up Steam and Steam games.
Office - browser extensions when you have to use them, libreoffice when it’s for personal use
Compatibility - almost all hardware has Linux drivers, or at a minimum Linux has drivers that will be drop in replacements. My 3080 ti just required me getting the appropriate Nvidia package (which mt distro took care of), and nothing else has needed any configuration at all. My case and motherboard rgb lights are all controlled by openrgb (to turn them off, I don’t like rgb) and it worked out of the box.
Steam and steam games - not even close? Steam has official packages on most (or all) package managers so it works natively, and 90% or more games work seamlessly with proton on Linux even if they aren’t verified for it. Basically the only games proton can’t run are games with kernal level monitoring for anti-cheat, but even those are migrating to support Linux slowly. The steam deck even runs arch Linux lol, they wouldn’t sell $400-$650 gaming systems that couldn’t run most games that they themselves sell
Your rationale for going Pop was my exact one. I knew I wanted the bleeding edge, but this was a device I was going to (mostly) daily drive. I wanted it to be reliable. And Pop fixed that for me and didn’t force my hand with shoving Snaps down my throat.
Glad to have another join the ranks!
