Mission : Upgrade macOS

The machine I got has macOS Sonoma. This is from 2023 - almost 2 years old. There was Sequoia - in 2024 and now there is Tahoe - in 2025 I wanted to upgrade to the latest. But quick check on the internet suggested that I may be better off staying on Sequoia. Tahoe seems unstable ¯_(ツ)_/¯ So I decided to make USB bootable for Sequoia. When installing via the app store, it directly starts the install (I think) So I decided to stick to the terminal (a good thing too IMO)

Purchased Macbook Pro 16" 2019 🎉

I had been meaning to upgrade my early-2015 MBP for quite some time. Then I got one from office, so did not need to upgrade. then something or the other kept coming up. Few months ago, I visited a shop to get battery replaced for my MBP The service was good. The shopkeeper also told me that he has some used MBP for sale. Usually these come from corporate customers (I think) and are in good condition.

Flutter Development on Windows

As I wrote earlier I’m doing Flutter Development on a Windows 10 machine. The configuration of this machine is as follows : Intel i7-6600U @ 2.60GHz 16GB RAM 224 GB SSD AMD Radeon R7 M360 (2GB) So on paper this looks impressive. But it feels so sluggish. But “feels” is very subjective. (My other machine is 10-year-old-MBP) So I decided to gather actual timing. Starting Visual Studio Code took > 1 minutes 51 seconds (After which I gave up) Gemini Assist was still not done loading.

Windows for Development

Recently, I started working on a flutter project. I started on my own 10-year old MBP. (running Linux mint 22.1 BTW) It has “just” 8GB RAM. Flutter development is (near) impossible on this machine. As per the documentation Android Studio requires 8GB and with Emulator 16GB, while 32GB is the “recommended” configuration. But it is not just the documentation. I tried to push through. Decided to use Physical device rather than Emulator.

Appimage

I have been almost exclusively using Ubuntu and its derivatives as long as I remember 1 Benefit of using such mainstream distro was that for the most part, all the software was available in deb format. But recently things are changing. More and more software is being made available via snaps, flatpak or appimages Much can be said about pros and cons of each of these. But that is not the point of this post.

Experience of Conducting Mass Media Workshop to Young Students

During Ganeshotsav, Jnana Prabodhini Prashala organizes a variety of workshops for students. For these 10 days, there are no regular classes — instead, students immerse themselves in learning new skills. This year, I had the privilege of conducting a Mass Media workshop for 20 boys from 5th to 7th standard (a mixed group). I don’t need to emphasize how bright these children are — after all, they are among the 80 selected out of 1200+ who appear for the entrance exam.

Pikaos : Hyprland

Yesterday, before I installed Hyprland on Mint I was researching Hyprland, and someone/somewhere mentioned pikaOS PikaOS is a gaming/optimization-focused Linux distribution that emphasizes ease of use and high compatibility. Built on a Debian base but with cherry picked and custom compiled packages ensures that Pika is stable whilst being bang up to date! I had mentioned in my post about Omarchy that I would have liked if it had Live ISO

Hyprland on Mint

Ever since I read (and watched videos) about Omarchy I so wanted to try it. As I mentioned, the ISO directly wants to install it on the machine. There is no live - try before you install - option. So I didn’t. I wanted the next best thing. Try Hyprland with disturbing the cart too much. Why not try setting it with Linux Mint that I’m already using ? Reddit forums were discouraging.

→ Omarchy ∞

I had tried Omakub a while ago. While it is nice, it is Ubuntu under the hood, and Gnome and I did not like the aesthetics of it.

I then used KDE for long time via Tuxedo OS, and then settled on Linux Mint Cinnamon flavour.

Recently I came across Omarchy via the Reowrk podcast

It is next incarnation of DHH’s (dare I say infactuation?) move to linux.

As is the natural progression, one enters Linux world via safe Ubuntu (or derivatives) before venturing into distros like Arch Linux, Gentoo (or NixOS)

So DHH moved from Ubuntu to ArchLinux, and the result is Omarchy.

Main selling point (per the podcast) is Hyprland tiling window manager.

Like DHH, I too had tried tiling window managers in past (i3) but I couldn’t really get it.

I liked the idea, but probably make it stick.

So I wanted to give Omarchy a try.

Luckily the ISO booted fine (unlike AnduinOS) but there is no Live mode to try it out.

It asked me few questions. But when it reached “where to install”, I had to bail out.

In past, my attempts to install Arch derivates like Manjaro, CachyOS and EndevoursOS had failed because WiFi did not work. I so wanted to use Arch/Derivatative, but this was a blocker.

Here it recognized and connected to my Home Wifi (via Terminal - no less) during the initial setup.

Other thing that does not work is Camera.

I tried lsusb and looks like camera amy still not work.

So far so good.

But I’m in the middle of development project, and can not afford downtime.

So I’m very likely to try Omarchy once I have some downtime.

→ AnduinOS ∞

I was told by AnduinOS by one of my friend. I was told that it looks like Windows 11

I was intrigued.

Spoiler Alert : It does not 😄

All it really has is the centered menu button - which was to the left bottom for the longest time. Everywhere. Gnome, KDE and other DE (even until Win10) ¹

It is based on Ubuntu and uses (skinned) Gnome.

It did not boot on my MBP (Currently running Linux Mint)

I just got the grub prompt. The USB was not recognized as EFI boot. 😢

I have tried too many live ISO on this machine, so I *know machine is not a problem. Maybe AnduinOS write the disk (a bit?) differently ? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I did try it on a windows PC (Dell) - and it booted fine.

The website does say it supports only x86_64 architecture - which my machine is.

A little bit searching revealed that my old Apple machine may not be fully ACPI compliant.

Overall, I am not impressed.

It may be very good Gnome based distro.

But it is not for me.

I’m happy with Linux Mint. Thank you.