At the risk of jinxing myself I just wanted to share how happy I am with my latest installation.

For over a year my Dell XPS has run Ubuntu. It’s been, by far, the worst experience I’ve ever had with any computer and my very first computer had only 256 MB of RAM! Among the long list of issues I’ve had we’re freezing, unresponsive keyboard and touchpad, glitchy video, multicolor flashing screens, piss poor battery life, piss poor Wi-Fi stability, failure to properly suspend or hibernate, and battery levels suddenly going from 40% to 5%. I figured either Dell put some kind of poison pill into there laptop so you’d spring for one of their Linux preinstalled laptops or I just got a lemon (I did have to get the mobo replaced within a month of buying it).

I’ve been in the process of getting all of my personal files off of it and getting ready to reinstall Windows and sell it, but I figured it was worth one last shot with a new installation. My desktop has been running Bazzite and I’ve been really happy with it so I thought I’d try another spin-off (Bluefin, because my laptop isn’t well suited for gaming). Installation took a few tries but it’s been about 72 hours and I haven’t noticed any major issues! Battery life and Wi-Fi still seem a bit sad but I suppose that’s the hardware.

So anyway, I just wanted to say that one Linux OS can be wildly different from another in user experience. If you have the patience, go ahead and try out something new if you’re just not feeling the OS that you’re on. It could make a world of difference!

  • Hadek@lemmings.world
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    2 days ago

    On my xps 13 9370 I run endeavourOS without a hitch.

    I don’t wanna be an ubuntu hater, but apart from lubuntu for quick recoveries. I never had good luck making hardware work right with ubuntu.

    Debian, arch and fedora always worked way better out of the box on bare metal.

    • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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      2 days ago

      I never had good luck making hardware work right with ubuntu Debian, […] always worked way better out of the box on bare metal

      Oh the irony!

      I’ve been running Mint on my Dell XPS 9370 (methinks) for years and it’s always worked just fine. Only the fingerprint scanner just won’t work, not even with fprintd; it can set up a finger but never to use that same finger afterwards.

      • Hadek@lemmings.world
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        2 days ago

        Haha, Indeed.

        I do realize I only used debian for server type stuff where I didnt need a GUI so the stakes where a lot lower than for the others.

        • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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          2 days ago

          Ah I guess that makes more sense!

          Now if it was Debian with the Gnome DE vs Ubuntu, that would’ve been ironic!

  • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Despite my issues with Music production, I’m still glad I switched to Linux. I don’t have to worry about my PC shutting off randomly to do updates, I can install whatever software I want, no one spies on me, I’m loving it for all those reasons.

    I am giving up on making music in Linux, but aside from that, everything else will be done on my main machine. I’m making an offline only Windows box specifically for music production and nothing else. No internet access. It will only access my local network for file transfer.

    In short, totally agree, but I paid money for Windows only VSTs years ago before i switched and they sound too good man. Also Reaper keeps crashing with native linux VSTs so really not here for that.

    If you can do everything on Linux, that’s great. Its just less stable and polished for creative work IMO.

    • Teppichbrand@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      Let’s talk about that!
      I was running Mint 21.3 using THIS script (tutorial) and it was incredible! It one-stop turned my (rather powerful) computer into an audio workstation. I just installed Bitwig and couldn’t have been happier. All my VSTs worked with Yabridge, which came with the script. It was super snappy and my projects where huge! I edited big projects in Davinci as well.
      Then I switched to Mint 22, looking forward to using PipeWire and … it’s not great. I have latency and my old projects stutter. I feel like in missing something but I don’t know what it could be. Davinci is giving me errors as well, so can not use it right now. Need to look into it, don’t want to. It’s frustrating, but I don’t want to downgrade!

      • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Preach man, Fedora worked great for everything except the COPR for yabridge was no up to date and you had to go through command line hell to get it to work. I switched a while after that to PopOS which I use now.

        I’m a fairly capable tech guy, but I’m an artist. I wanna make music at 3 am when I have a song stuck in my head, not troubleshoot.

        Yabridge works on my install of PopOS, but the VSTs that I use just don’t work except for one. And I spent around $300 on them collectively over the last 9 years or however long its been.

        Also annoying that I can’t look at YouTube at all while Reaper is open. Straight up won’t play the video. Not great when I’m trying to troubleshoot why a VST isn’t working and I have to close the program I’m trying to troubleshoot.

  • data1701d (He/Him)@startrek.website
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    2 days ago

    For battery life, I’d recommend you install CoreCtrl so you can adjust your power settings. That, combined with a few other things (I think the Arch Wiki covers most of them) allows me to get quite a lot out of my Thinkpad in Debian.

  • Broadfern@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    So awesome to read a happy story!

    The biggest thing about Linux, and the main hurdle for most users, is trial and error with different OSes.

    It’s as personal as clothing taste; from size to material and color. What will fit on your body, what materials you can tolerate and what you like style wise are akin to what kernel you pick, your drivers and your desktop environment.

    For some, a classic T-shirt and jeans work great out-of-box and some may need hypoallergenic materials and a different cut. And that’s all okay! It’s also the beauty of Unix/FOSS.

  • sturlabragason@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I ran Ubuntu 2204 on my thinkpad t14 for around 4 years, and it was just perfect. Everything worked perfectly the whole time.

    Ive just switched to Fedora Silverblue and so far a similar experience.

    However ive also run a hp cheap laptop with ubuntu server 2204 and it kept causing all sorts of weird problems, mostly poor performance because of shit cpu i guess. Moved that setup over to a thinkpad and just smooth sailing.

    Forgot my point, guess its “i like thinkpads”?

    But I agree, there can be all sorts of cryptic shit. This also applies to windows and i guess any os that supports such an INSANE RANGE of hardware…

  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    If it’s any consolation, my Dell XPS 13 with Windows 11 and a healthy battery gets about 40 minutes’ battery life and throttles due to heat when plugged in. It’s quite useless. Dell cares more about them looking slick than being actually useful. I also have an older XPS 13 with Tumbleweed and it runs cooler and lasts a bit longer, though battery life is still nothing special.

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 days ago

      Mine (XPS 15) might surpass an hour but I rarely work on it constantly while unplugged. I mostly say the battery is piss poor because even suspended the battery will die in a few hours. It probably didn’t suspend to RAM so it was effectively running with a blank screen. Hibernate also resulted in a hard reset half the time.