Part 1: Installation

Like anything you plan on doing that regards wiping hard drives, it all starts with ensuring everything is backed up. I have two NVME SSDs in my main PC, one of which has Windows on it, and the other is my storage drive that's all backed up to my Nextcloud instance. Because I'll want those files on Windows and should I need to revert back to it for any reason, it's worth updating the mount over to my C drive. I also noticed it's where my StreamerBot files lived, so I better move those over too. Everything else left on the drive can be grabbed again, it's mostly just npm packages for local development. Now, it's time to get my OS. For simplicity, I settled on using Fedora. I like Fedora, and I like Gnome. With my 42" 4k HDR monitor, I also think Wayland is my best bet, so Fedora running the latest Gnome desktop environments is likely the best use case for me. I've not researched Linux' HDR support, but I guess I can go in blind and figure things out. It's not a feature I care too much about anyway personally. This is a monitor I use for developing and the odd gaming session, so whatever! From here, I'm safe to head over to the Fedora website, and download the Fedora Media Writer, a handy tool to download and flash the Fedora ISO image and creates the bootable USB for me. After this sentence, things are going to be written from the Fedora side... Wish me luck. We're on Fedora! I've just completed a basic install of Fedora, and got 1Password up and running so I could sign in. What I thought was really cool was that instantly Fedora/Gnome knew my MX Master mouse was dying, and prompted me to plug it in. I've also installed the Zen browser which is my browser of choice. I saw during the download process there was options for "Optimized" and "Generic" installation. I chose Optimized and went to download the Flatpak for it, but I got a popup saying that it'll be the "generic" one instead, so I opted for the AppImage instead. I generally don't use AppImages and use Flatpak, but it was a seamless one line of code to copy/paste and seems to be working well so I'll leave it alone. The only problem is that I can't tell Gnome to make it my default browser, but there is likely another way I can set this outside of Gnomes settings GUI. All in all things are going smooth. It detected all my hardware, prompted me for WiFi passwords, but it's also set up on my wired connection. End of day one Ok, I got a lot done. I've managed to find a to do some basic things, I got my Kitty terminal all set up, all my development tools installed, and have some basic stability and usability. All in all this ended up being a perfect day one. I still have all my audio things to get configured, test out some gaming, and just general real world testing. Regarding the HDR, couldn't see an option but to be honest I really don't care, everything looks beautiful. Going forward future blog posts will likely be task specific rather than daily posts, but I'm looking forward to sharing everything, and letting you know about other cool things I stumble upon! I'll also be posting updates on my Bluesky if you're interested! Read next: OBS on Linux

The Linux Project: Prologue

Over the years, I've been very fond of Linux. I love the aesthetic, the philosophy, and everything in between. While I don't agree that most people should use Linux as their daily machine, this is a forever changing mindset. I used to daily drive Linux between 2014 until 2020 when I got into streaming and a bit more into competitive gaming that did not have Linux support due to kernel level anti cheat software, but times have changed. I spend most of my time playing offline games, and web development (like the site you're reading this blog post on). Why now? I'm fortunate enough to have a few machines in my house. I have my main gaming rig, a Snapdragon X laptop, a Macbook, and a PC that I'm planning on repurposing into a home server for some automation tools & hosting some things around the house. The objective is simple: make my machines act as how I want them to be, and see what I can do. I plan on making everything as open source as possible, and documenting my progress on this. We're also at a time of my life where that by the time you're reading this, me and my partner are moving into our first mortgaged house. I've dreamed of building an impeccable network and software solutions that we'll use on our day to day, and there's no better way to get sucked into the FOSS and Linux systems than literally making my main machines part of that. I'm an automation junkie, and love spending 10 hours to turn a 10 minute task into a 2 minute task. The Objective Join me on this journey and we'll be discussing everything, documenting everything, and maybe even providing some surface level tutorials while on this journey. Part one will be getting my main system set up. I'm planning on using Fedora, and I have some desired outcomes: Let's see what we can do. We don't have a commenting system for blogs yet, but if you've any thoughts, questions or suggestions, you can find me on the Doras Discord. Read next: Part 1, installing Fedora Linux and getting a basic system going

Living with a Snapdragon X Laptop

Disclaimer: As of November (a month after this post is created), I will be a Microsoft Employee. My thoughts in this article are entirely my own, and is something I chose to write, not that anyone told me to. This is my personal experience with using Windows on ARM. The start I'm someone who always wants the bleeding edge, try out all the new things. I install updates while their in beta and alpha channels, I run Arch (btw) sometimes, and I love the idea of testing new hardware. This brings me to the Snapdragon laptops. Now, I love my Macbook. Not because it's Apple (it's literally the only Apple device I have in my house) as I'm not that kinda lad, but it's just how light, powerful, and effecient it is. No matter what without worry you can grab it leaving the house and it can do what I need it to do. So when Snapdragon X chips were being initially rumored and announced, I didn't care what was going down, I wanted in. The problems it's trying so solve So, x86 CPUs (every Intel and AMD CPU basically) are old. Like as potentially old as your dad old. 1978. Over the years it went from 16 bit, 32 bit, and now thanks to AMD in 2003, 64 bit. The problem this causes is called "tech bloat". Imagine everytime you wanted to upgrade something, you have to go back over decades, which increases complexity, although powerful. Their biggest drawback is effeniency, and it's not something a lot of us thought about, or even compared to our phones. Smartphones for the most part have always used ARM chips. We never thought about how our phone could last a day or two on a single charge, but if you look at a laptop funny it'll start to light a fire in your bagpack and die within an hour. Apple Silicon changed this. The world saw what ARM could mean for the computer world, and unless you're a gamer wanting a 4070 in your laptop, we all pretty much wanted it. Now look, I'm a gamer too. But I'm not gaming in Starbucks. I'm writing shit like this or looking at code, or just watching YouTube. I want something that I can throw in my bag and be able to use it for a good amount of time not worrying about battery but not sacrificing performance. Let's do an experiment. Right now at the time of writing this at 12:42 I'm on 50%, let's see how we go. I love this thing A few hours before my trip to Portugal with some friends I thought about and decided against bringing my Macbook. After all, it is a Mac provided by my employer (outside of Doras I work at GitHub) and due to some recent changes I didn't want to bring a non-personal device. So, off to Currys I ran. I initially asked the reps for a Surface book, but the only SKU they had in stock was the 500gb model and I really wanted a 1tb model. So then I laid my eyes on the Asus ProArt. It's a 2 in 1 like a Surface (keyboard comes off, becomes a tablet). It has a beatifully calibrated screen, the trackpad didn't feel like ass, I was happy. My only gripes I guess was the exact chip with it being a Snapdragon X Plus rather than Elite, and a 60hz screen. But I agreed to it, and I do love it. I think over the short period of time I've owned it I haven't got to use it much, but in my defence it's due to some limitations. I suppose it's time to start complaining... Complaining time Here's some bullet points because I can't think of a good way to put it all together: The future I imagine a lot of these problems will get solved as time goes on, more developers get their hands on them, and virtualized for CI builds and testing. I hope Discord updates their shit, that gets Windows on ARM support, that Android Studio gets way to develop on an emulated Android device, that I can figure out a way to develop Doras on my machine without it slowing down. I wanted bleeding edge, and I got it. BTW, it's now 1:15, and I'm on 47%. Bear in mind I've about 8 tabs open on Firefox including a YouTube video, and I also have Discord, Paint and Copilot open.