It's been a month!?
So much for being able to post here multiple times a week...
I haven't gone anywhere, and whilst work has been busy, I technically did have a bit of time I could have posted something. Yet, I was either too tired or not in the mindset to write. Annoyingly, when I was in the mindset to write then I was too busy or something came up I had to do instead.
The past month has been a real mix of things. My time at work has increased, which is something I've been fighting for over a long period of time. This has been much more fulfilling as I feel I can more meaningfully contribute. That and the fact I actually have the time at work to support others flexible. Beforehand I had to make it very clear when my working days were. This was not just for my own benefit of not working for free but crucially to provide others with realistic expectations.
Aside from all of this I did manage to do some tinkering with my old laptop. Windows 10 is on life support now for those able to get the extended support. Whilst I was able to get it, I used it long enough to back up everything on that laptop before installing Linux.
Initially I went with Zorin OS because it is quite lightweight for a modern looking and functioning Linux distro. At first I was pretty happy with it. But then I realised that the sound drivers weren't working. Initially I was able to resolve this as it is a known issue with Dell laptops and Ubuntu based systems. Unfortunately though, this kept breaking, and then just stayed broken. Having no sound on a laptop is quite a big deal and not one that I am willing to put up with, even if it is not my main PC.
So instead I thought I'd give Bazzite a go on it, despite having no desire for that laptop to be a gaming one, it's too old for that. After some initial issues with Secure Boot, mostly down to Dell not making it straightforward (Fedora based systems take an extra step with secure boot than Ubuntu), I was up and running. I had used its sister distro Aurora on my old Surface Go. That worked fine, but that PC was far too underpowered. On this laptop though, Bazzite runs great. It's nice and polished, and for a "gaming distro" is actually very functional for daily tasks. I also finally see why there are many who prefer the KDE desktop environment (DE) over Gnome. Zorin heavily skin their Gnome DE to look like Windows by default, but it has almost Apple like quirks to it. Whereas KDE feels like if Windows 7 continued to be supported and updated. What I'm trying to say, it's very Windows like but without any AI bloat but very usable and without the legacy baggage underneath that still affects Windows 11.
I still use Windows 11 daily for work and my Lenovo laptop, but if I do end up dual booting my laptop then it will likely be Bazzite. As an aside, the hardware of my Dell IdeaPad Slim is excellent. I might write a more in depth post about it in the future, but it is exactly what I wanted out of a portable laptop. It's lightweight but powerful enough for normal non-gaming tasks. It looks nice (it has a blue option which I obviously went for) and feels sturdy. Oh and it was actually somehow a reasonable price.
I have other gaming related things I could talk about, but I'll save that for the next post.
Also, it's great that Pagecord now has the option for custom colour schemes. Meaning now my personal website, my research blog, and now here all have the same matching colours!
I haven't gone anywhere, and whilst work has been busy, I technically did have a bit of time I could have posted something. Yet, I was either too tired or not in the mindset to write. Annoyingly, when I was in the mindset to write then I was too busy or something came up I had to do instead.
The past month has been a real mix of things. My time at work has increased, which is something I've been fighting for over a long period of time. This has been much more fulfilling as I feel I can more meaningfully contribute. That and the fact I actually have the time at work to support others flexible. Beforehand I had to make it very clear when my working days were. This was not just for my own benefit of not working for free but crucially to provide others with realistic expectations.
Aside from all of this I did manage to do some tinkering with my old laptop. Windows 10 is on life support now for those able to get the extended support. Whilst I was able to get it, I used it long enough to back up everything on that laptop before installing Linux.
Initially I went with Zorin OS because it is quite lightweight for a modern looking and functioning Linux distro. At first I was pretty happy with it. But then I realised that the sound drivers weren't working. Initially I was able to resolve this as it is a known issue with Dell laptops and Ubuntu based systems. Unfortunately though, this kept breaking, and then just stayed broken. Having no sound on a laptop is quite a big deal and not one that I am willing to put up with, even if it is not my main PC.
So instead I thought I'd give Bazzite a go on it, despite having no desire for that laptop to be a gaming one, it's too old for that. After some initial issues with Secure Boot, mostly down to Dell not making it straightforward (Fedora based systems take an extra step with secure boot than Ubuntu), I was up and running. I had used its sister distro Aurora on my old Surface Go. That worked fine, but that PC was far too underpowered. On this laptop though, Bazzite runs great. It's nice and polished, and for a "gaming distro" is actually very functional for daily tasks. I also finally see why there are many who prefer the KDE desktop environment (DE) over Gnome. Zorin heavily skin their Gnome DE to look like Windows by default, but it has almost Apple like quirks to it. Whereas KDE feels like if Windows 7 continued to be supported and updated. What I'm trying to say, it's very Windows like but without any AI bloat but very usable and without the legacy baggage underneath that still affects Windows 11.
I still use Windows 11 daily for work and my Lenovo laptop, but if I do end up dual booting my laptop then it will likely be Bazzite. As an aside, the hardware of my Dell IdeaPad Slim is excellent. I might write a more in depth post about it in the future, but it is exactly what I wanted out of a portable laptop. It's lightweight but powerful enough for normal non-gaming tasks. It looks nice (it has a blue option which I obviously went for) and feels sturdy. Oh and it was actually somehow a reasonable price.
I have other gaming related things I could talk about, but I'll save that for the next post.
Also, it's great that Pagecord now has the option for custom colour schemes. Meaning now my personal website, my research blog, and now here all have the same matching colours!