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.

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.

Linux Mint may be it

I’ve been using Linux Mint for a while now.

I started using linux because my machine stopped getting macOS updates.

But I always wanted something as stable as macOS

Initially I tried Tuxedo OS.

While it looked nice, there were tiny issues that I couldn’t ignore.

Linux Mint

I’ve been using Linux on my old MBP since November of last year. I started with OpenSUSE After using it for a month or so, I switched to Tuxedo OS 4 It is based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS but ships with latest KDE Plasma 6. I meant to write about it, but didn’t ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I used it for 3+ months. It was more mainstream than OpenSUSE (because of its Ubuntu base)

Kinto : Mac Keyboard layout on Linux

After using Apple laptop for nearly 10 years, I have gotten used to Apple’s shortcuts where most places use Cmd instead of Ctrl After switching to Linux, initially I fumbled. Then I had to be alert, which I did most of the times, but when in the zone, I would still do Cmd+c to copy, and when pasted would be disappaointed that it did not work 😄 Then I came across kinto

Installing Espanso on openSUSE

After the basic setup was done (I made a list of tools to be installed on line before I installed Linux itself), I wanted Espanso While Espanso is well supported on X11, for wayland, it needs to be compiled from the source I ran into this issue but solution was found in the same issue. While install went through, I ran into issues related to capability grant. Following worked: sudo zypper install libcap-progs sudo setcap "cap_dac_override+p" $(which espanso) espanso start --unmanaged I also needed to add the following to config/default.

Installed openSUSE on Macbook Pro (Intel)

My Macbook Pro (early 2015) isn’t getting any OS updates for some time. Only version it supports is Monterey (which is already couple major versions behind the latest) brew has also started complaining as This version is not supported So I’ve been considering installing linux on it for some time anyway. I finally pulled the trigger and installed openSUSE Tumbleweed I had tried the live version, and knew and it generally works.