Pop!_OS - The first week!

Hey everyone.

So, I'm an avid Apple Mac user, and I've used macOS as my primary dev environment for over 10 years.

This has been mostly down to that my employer provided me with a top end Macbook Pro, so I have done everything within the apple ecosystem.

My current employer, the boss was pretty cool, I could set my mac's up how I wanted, have personal emails/icloud on it, use it for personal stuff and side-work (out of work hours ofcourse), So I've had no real reason to switch.

I have just taken a new job, and decided that I want my own machine, keep work and personal stuff separated.

Dell were doing an amazing deal on their outlet website for the XPS range of laptops, and I managed to pickup a brand-new XPS 13 9305 with 16GB Ram, and i7 Quad Core, with 512GB M2 SSD, for £800.

The only problem is that it came with Windows 10 Home edition. I tried to use Windows with WSL2, but felt like it was a fight to get even the basics to work. Windows lasted less than a day on the laptop before I decided to install Linux.

I've used Mint/Ubuntu before, and I know of System76 (who make awesome Linux machines by the way!) System76 also have developed Pop!_OS, a Ubuntu/Debian based OS that is, well, fucking amazing!

It's aimed at developers and is built from the ground up with that in mind. The keyboard shortcuts for multi-tasking is outstanding. I love the tile-view that comes and the global launcher/search makes me feel right at home, just like macOS and its Spotlight.

Now, for installing it on the XPS, it was a simple case of heading over to the Pop!_OS website and grabbing the correct ISO that you need.

I grabbed the 21.04 Non Nvidia version (as my laptop just has the Intel Iris XE graphics). Create a bootable USB and installed it on the XPS.

Aside from turning safe-boot off in the BIOS of the XPS, I did nothing else. Followed the on-screen instructions when installing the OS, I wiped my SSD and only have PopOS! as my main operating system.

Once it was installed, I opened the Pop!_Shop to let it check for updates and install them.

So far, I've been running PopOS! for over a week, and haven't had a single issue.

I have the XPS plugged via USB-C to DisplayPort for a Iiyama 34" Ultrawide running at 144hz, and a Seagate Barracuda Gaming Dock via Thunderbolt (Which has a 4TB Spinning drive and a 512GB M2-SSD inside it) and everything is working perfectly.

I have things like Docker, PHP, Node, Jetbrains (WebStorm, PhpStorm and DataGrip), Visual Studio Code, Mailspring (For emails) and it even plays nicely with my Corsair Virtuso Headset.

I could seriously see Pop!_OS replacing my Mac as a daily driver.

I've never had such a great experience with a Linux distro before.

You can checkout Pop!_OS here.
https://pop.system76.com