Making the Move to Linux

My main computer is now a Linux desktop.

Why, though?

I have messed around with different Linux distributions before but never run Linux as a daily driver machine until now. Here are the what, how, and (of course) the why…

The obvious questions:

1. What do I need this machine for?
2. Why can’t the Macbook M1 I have do those jobs?
3. How is this not just a waste of money?

The Machine

The machine I’m writing this on is a custom-built pc that was going to be a mid-range gaming pc. I intended it specifically for playing Microsoft Flight Simulator, Kerbal Space Program, and Formula One.

I bought the Corsair 4000D case, the motherboard, the cpu and an 80 Plus Gold 1000 watt power supply. Then I ran out of money for the planned memory, storage, and video card because going to Los Angeles is not cheap.

So the project was put on hold. I had half of a pc sitting in my office waiting to either be finished or sold. Then a couple of things happened.

First, I modified my backup system. Instead of an old, rack-mount pc in my office rack running 24 hours a day pulling data off of my network drive just to sync with Backblaze, I discovered I could switch to Backblaze’s B2 service and sync my data directly to backblaze from my Synology NAS¹. This simplified the whole workflow of backups immensely and saved the electricity and complexity of running a Windows machine constantly just for backups.

Then the upcoming Kerbal Space Program 2 was killed, and I realized I didn’t really want to spend the time or money for a good Flight Simulator setup.

The obvious question, then, is why not just use the now un-needed backup pc for my Linux machine? I could have. And in an earlier incarnation that machine actually did run Linux for a while before I needed it for backups. The main two reasons are: I had already purchased about 90% of what I would need to make the unfinished gaming pc into a desktop Linux pc and I had decided that I wanted to have the Linux pc in my bedroom at a small writing desk I had in there: the rack-mount case wouldn’t work for that. So I repurposed the gaming pc into an overkill Linux desktop for writing.

But why not just use the Macbook? First, that has become a sort of household computer. If my wife or kid need more than their Chromebooks to do something they use the Macbook. So it needs to be out and accessible to them and I like to do my writing in the bedroom at my writing desk.

Plus there is the fact that I just enjoy tinkering and messing with my pc. It’s more fun to run Linux and be able to mess around with stuff. And to not have to run Windows is just a blessing. Honestly, a modern Linux machine feels much more like the 386/486 MS-DOS machines that I grew up learning on but with a really nice desktop environment, too.

Here is what I’m running now:

## Hardware Information:
- **Hardware Model:**                              ASRock Z790 Taichi Lite
- **Memory:**                                      32.0 GiB
- **Processor:**                                   12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-12700K × 20
- **Graphics:**                                    Intel® UHD Graphics 770 (ADL-S GT1)
- **Disk Capacity:**                               1.5 TB

I don’t have a video card in the machine right now. Everything I run (including the few games) run absolutely fine on the built-in video from the i7 cpu. I have a card I could put in that I got a few years ago to run in a previous incarnation of what was the backup pc, but I don’t think I need it for what I do and the pc as it is runs almost completely silent, so why add power consumption and extra fans? The 32 GB of ram is probably twice what I’d ever actually need but Newegg had a set of two 16 GB sticks for a really good price, so I got them. Finally, the 1.5 TB disk space is split between a 500 GB M.2 drive with the system and (currently) everything else on it, and a 1 TB SSD that’s in there just in case. I think I’ll backup the entire M.2 to the SSD with automatic backups but I haven’t set that up yet. The M.2 is also backed up to the NAS, and hence to Backblaze B2.

The Distro

My previous Linux experience was with Ubuntu and LinuxMint. They’re totally fine but didn’t work for me in this instance. First, the Ubuntu desktop environment is just too limiting for me. I mean no disrespect but it feels like baby Linux sometimes. I needed something more sophisticated. I initially installed LinuxMint Cinnamon and immediately ran into problems. The display drivers wouldn’t load on boot. The system wouldn’t recognize the motherboard’s built-in wifi. It really felt like the system just couldn’t recognize the relatively new hardware I was running. I briefly considered installing Arch Linux but was quickly dissuaded.

I settled on Fedora 40 Workstation. Initially I installed Fedora Silverblue and found it so frustrating to change things I changed to F40 Workstation almost immediately. And I’m pretty happy with it. There are some UI things that are… different, but I can customize the system to a certain extent. The main thing is that it also worked perfectly with my hardware right out of the box.

So Fedora 40 it is:

Using the PC

This is my desktop. I try to keep Workspace 1 relatively clean, with just a Firefox window if I’m actively using it, or Steam if I’m playing a game.

Workspace 2 is for work. I have Sublime Text or LibreOffice Write up full screen to get writing done with less distraction.

Workspace 3 is for system monitoring. It’s totally unnecessary but I like to be able to see how everything is running at a glance. It’s split between the System Monitor and a terminal window running btop.

You can see the system isn’t exactly being stressed…

One thing you might notice is the top bar has some extensions working to give quick access to my Apps, Places (Fedora for Folders), and more importantly for me quick launch my favorite apps: Firefox, Sublime Text, LibreOffice Write, Text Editor, Mahjongg, Steam, the Terminal.

Firefox is obvious. As is Sublime Text - where I do 99% of my writing for this site. I will be using LibreOffice for other, non-internet writing. And the Text Editor is just handy for making quick notes or quick edits to files. Mahjongg and Steam are for when I need a break. And Terminal is for system tasks, or for using SSH to access and update my VPN/Ad Blocker². I can also write/edit files in the Terminal via nano or vim if I’m feeling particularly masochistic.

Finally

What I’ve got here is a virtually silent desktop pc running a modern, stable os that doesn’t track anything I do. It doesn’t serve me ads or try to do anything user hostile. It just lets me work the way I want to work and gets out of the way. It’s just about as perfect as I can make it.