I have switched to Pop!OS version 20.10

Even though Pop!_OS version 20.10 will only have support for about 9 months, there was just too much that I wanted to try to pass it up.

I wanted to try Gnome version 3.38

Even while I was a Windows user, I loved the idea of Gnome. When I started developing GUI based software, I didn’t want to make it locked to Windows. Even way back in the days of Windows 3.1, I liked the idea of open source. To me, Gnome seemed to be the pinnacle of open source, cross platform GUI components for languages such as C and C++.

Another thing that made me really want to try Gnome was Derek Taylor (DT) over at Distro Tube. While he isn’t a big fan of Gnome (to put it mildly) he has created a lot of videos talking about the advantages of tiling window managers. I have watched enough of his videos that I began to want to try them out as well.

The Gnome version in Pop!_OS not only has a tiling window manager built in, it also has the ability to stack those tiles together so that they will fit even better on my smaller screen and be more easily viewable by my aging eyes.

Finally, what sealed the deal for installing the Gnome desktop was the GNOME Code of Conduct. With a code of conduct like this in place, I feel like I can actually participate in the community without having to hide a major part of myself from others out of fear of being harassed. And truth be told, I can’t really hide myself from others. Anyone that knows me knows that I tend to stand out in a crowd.

Pop OS doesn’t install easily in a dual boot configuration

Once I downloaded Pop!_OS, I set aside some time on the weekend to install it on my system. While I really wanted to switch to a Gnome desktop, I didn’t want to give up Linux Mint, nor did I want to completely remove the copy of Windows 10 I had on my computer. After all, I had been using Windows on this computer since Windows 8.1 and there was a lot of stuff that I had accumulated on it. Not only that, but Linux Mint was a dream operating system. As far as I’m concerned, it is a drop-in replacement for Windows. It is so easy to use and has the feel that every Windows user has come to expect from a computer that I wanted to keep it as well.

Finally, since Linux Mint was relatively new on my system and my Windows install was full of data, I decided to overwrite the Linux Mint install with Pop!_OS. That’s when the problems started.

The Pop!_OS installer doesn’t have an easy way to install it on a dual boot system. It expects to be the main, and only, operating system on the machine. While it can be configured manually to install in a dual boot system, it takes some knowledge of disk partitioning, formatting, and telling the Pop!_OS installer where to put things.

That’s when I realized just what a mess my hard disk was in after so many operating system upgrades. There were Windows 10 partitions, Windows reinstall partitions, boot partitions, Linux Mint partitions, and a few others that I didn’t bother to pay any attention to. Many of those partitions were fragmented, and the thought of trying to find a descent place for Pop!_OS in the middle of that mess just seemed like a bad idea.

Looking at that mess, I decided that it was time for Windows to go.

I threw caution to the wind and threw Windows away

I knew that I needed to erase my hard disk and start over. I didn’t think about it for long because I knew that if I thought about it, I wouldn’t do it. There was just no other choice. I needed a fresh start.

I rebooted my system with the USB key containing a copy of the Pop!_OS 20.10 iso and told it to just use the entire hard disk. The installer was more than happy to clear everything and put a fresh copy of Pop!_OS in place of all the convoluted partitions.

It wasn’t until after my hard disk was cleared that it occurred to me that there might have been pictures, documents, tax returns, old code, and other important things on the hard disk that weren’t stored anywhere else. It left me with a sinking feeling in my stomach and an uneasy feeling in my mind.

Initial problems with Pop!_OS

It was in the overly tired, messed up, scared frame of mind about possibly destroying needed information on my Windows partitions that I tried to get some things working on Pop!_OS. There wasn’t anything in Pop!_OS itself that wasn’t working, but since I work on a laptop, on the go, with a metered connection, it was important that I have something to see at a glance telling me how much data I have used. That necessitated that I learn how to install extensions.

Extensions weren’t anything new to me. In fact, most desktops use extensions of one kind or the other. Having never used Gnome before, I had to learn how to install them on the Gnome desktop. Then, in the process of finding the extensions that I needed, I discovered that they weren’t updated for the latest version of the Gnome desktop since it had just been released.

There was another problem that I had when I installed Pop!_OS. I had changed some of the configurations in my bios, and I had messed up. It wasn’t that the computer didn’t boot, but it was having a tremendously difficult time and took forever.

In my sleep and fear addled mind, that was a bridge too far. I reached for my USB key with my copy of the Linux Mint 20 iso on it.

I reinstalled Linux Mint 20

It was in the process of reinstalling Linux Mint 20 that I discovered that I had inadvertently changed the wrong setting in my computer’s bios. It was also too late to save the installation of Pop!_OS, but it did give me a fresh install of Linux Mint 20.

With all the cruft of Windows 10 and its predecessors removed, Linux Mint booted faster, cleaner, and better than ever before. It was like getting an upgrade just by wiping the hard disk and starting over. Granted, since this is an old computer to begin with, it isn’t nearly like getting a new machine, but I don’t think that I have ever seen better performance on this machine than I have after cleaning the hard disk.

The only thing left was to reinstall all the packages that I had installed on Linux Mint previously.

It was actually easier than I thought it would be. I already knew what I wanted. Going straight to the command line, I quickly added back all my favorites. But that still left me wanting to use the Gnome desktop.

Installing the Gnome desktop on Linux Mint 20

I had read an article about how to install the Gnome desktop on Linux Mint 20. It is actually pretty easy. Since I still really wanted to switch to the Gnome desktop, or at least give it a proper try, I decided to install it on Linux Mint 20 even though there are plenty of people that recommend against it.

I followed the directions of the article, but I didn’t install the Gnome desktop manager (GDM3) in place of the desktop manager that came with Linux Mint 20 (LightDM). I also didn’t remove the Cinnamon desktop from Linux Mint 20. I kept them both installed even though it is discouraged by many people.

Using Linux Mint with the Gnome desktop, I learned how to install extensions. After a little reading, I discovered that the easiest way is to install them is through your browser. With a few plugins and the directions provided by ‘It’s FOSS’ – the second method in particular – I had everything up and running on Linux Mint to give Gnome a better try.

Gnome on Linux Mint 20 is fast, sleek, and uses less memory than the Cinnamon desktop. It was a wonderful experience. I have noticed that it doesn’t work perfectly. There are a few things that Gnome says it will do that just don’t work. Perhaps this is because I didn’t change the underlying desktop manager from LightDM to GDM3, or perhaps it is something else. I also can’t help but wonder whether the combination of Gnome and Linux Mint is a bad idea. Perhaps the reason that the Gnome desktop is so light on resources is that the Gnome desktop on Linux Mint just isn’t running all the software that it should – like the system update utility. I will have to look into these possibilities later if I decide to keep the Gnome desktop on Linux Mint.

Honestly, other playing with it for a few hours, I don’t have much experience with the Gnome desktop on Linux Mint. But there is a reason for that.

Since the version of Gnome available from the Ubuntu repositories (which Linux Mint taps into) is an older version as well as not having the built-in tiling window manager available through Pop!_OS, I was still left with a desire to try Pop!_OS again.

I finally installed Pop OS 20.10 manually as a second system using dual boot

Pop!_OS can be installed in a dual boot system, but you have to do the partitioning manually. Still having a desire to use the latest Gnome desktop in addition to the enhancements made to it by Pop!_OS, I decided to install it the next day.

I booted with a USB drive containing the Pop!_OS iso of 20.10. When it reached the part asking to use the entire drive, I selected advanced and looked at the new layout of my hard disk. My hard disk was so much cleaner and better prepared than it had been just one day before. Now, instead of partitions strewn in a seaming random fashion across the hard disk, there was just two partitions: a small boot partition at the start of the drive, and a massive partition containing Linux Mint 20.

I resized the Linux Mint 20 partition down to about half the drive so that I could use the other half for Pop!_OS. While I was at it, I created a swap partition for Pop!_OS as well.

Linux Mint 20 uses a swap file instead of a partition. But I noticed that when I installed Pop!_OS previously on my system that it used a swap partition instead. Since there was so much room, and since the drive was so organized, I didn’t mind creating a swap partition for Pop!_OS. Keeping in mind that this is an older system, I even thought it might make it perform faster than it would with a swap file. I even went as far as to make the swap partition twice the size of the one that Pop!_OS originally created in the first install.

Pop!_OS had warned me that it needed at least two partitions: one for its EFI, and one for the operating system itself. Since Linux Mint had already created an EFI partition, I skipped that one.

Once the partitions were created, I had to tell the Pop!_OS installer which ones to use for what. I told it to use the big one for the operating system, the small one for a swap partition, and the boot partition Linux Mint created for its EFI partition.

Pop!_OS accepted these instructions and happily installed.

When the Pop!_OS installer was done, I rebooted my system. My system ignored the GRUB bootloader installed by Linux Mint 20 and booted directly into Pop!_OS. As far as it was concerned, it was the only operating system on the computer.

I rebooted the system again, this time pressing the F12 key and entering the EFI boot options supported by the bios. There was the main entry for booting Pop!_OS in the first position. I moved “Ubuntu” (which the Linux Mint 20 boot loader calls itself) to the first position and booted into Linux Mint 20.

Once Linux Mint 20 was running, I changed the font setting as well as the login wait time in the GRUB configuration file and told GRUB to update itself. GRUB found the EFI data for Pop!_OS and added the settings for booting it to the menu as well. Now when I boot my system I have a choice whether to boot into Linux Mint 20 or Pop!_OS 20.10.

The result

I have installed all the software that I use on Pop!_OS and can now boot into either system at will. I absolutely adore what I have seen of each system so far. And as for the Gnome desktop, it was well worth all the hassle to clean up my computer to use it.

I even found better extensions to add to the Gnome desktop to keep track of how much data I use. While it was a long and circuitous road to get everything up and running, everything now works better than I had ever dreamed.

If I were going to change anything, I would have taken the time to boot into Windows and make sure that I had backed up all the information that I had accumulated over the years. Then I would have wiped the drive and installed Pop!_OS and Linux Mint correctly from the start.