My hatred for Microsoft, disdain for Apple, and my generally anger at Google has reached all new heights this year. I decided to look into Linux again.

You can put an entire Linux operating system onto a USB thumb drive and boot from that, which lets you try the OS without installing it. I decided to try Pop!_OS because it’s pretty (lol). While I was trying the Pop!_OS out I was shocked to discover my Kingston SSD was failing! That was the hard drive that had my Windows 10 installation on it!

I immediately got myself a new hard drive (Samsung EVO this time). I could have installed Windows 10 on there but I thought “What the heck, let’s go for it!” and installed Pop!_OS instead. 

It’s been a surprisingly wonderful experience. 

Pop!_OS is somewhere between Windows 10 and ChromeOS in terms of user interface. It hits all the right notes for me, in that sense. I really like how it functions, easy and it’s very pretty! I like it way more than Windows 10 anyway.

Linux has gotten better with gaming. As long as it’s not multiplayer, a lot more games are built to run natively now. Valve’s Steam has a nifty compatibility feature for Windows-only games, which gets better and better every year.  GameHub and Lutris fill the gap lefts by Steam. I’m not going to say Linux is AS GOOD as Windows, but it’s good enough for me.

Some years ago I went from drawing enthusiasts to barely drawing hobbyist. What that meant is that I don’t draw, specifically digitally, much anymore. Some of the best drawing apps are on Windows/Mac. What little drawing I do doesn’t require anything that fancy. And for that, Krita is MORE than enough (almost too much) for my needs.

Speaking of that, I have a Yiynova monitor tablet that had become useless on Windows 10. Every time Windows updated, it broke the drivers. I have no idea why and no amount of searching gave me any answers. And 2020 was the Great Windows Update disaster. It felt like every month was a new update... or two. Making my tablet useless until I got around to reinstalling the drivers (which required 2 reboots). 

But on Pop!_OS the drivers are included AND THEY WORK PROPERLY. Now I don’t have to wonder if my monitor tablet will work after I update something. It just will!

In general, native-Linux apps, open source (FOSS) programs, have come a long way in 5 years time. They all feel a lot more polished and comparable to, if not better than in some cases, their Windows, closed sourced counter parts. You can get just about everything from the Pop Shop (similar to Google Play or Apple Store, only not evil).