In July, I decided to explore what Linux could offer me as a developer. At first, I had no clue what to expect, but after diving into countless YouTube videos, I started to see its appeal. Interestingly, some of my favorite streamers—who happen to be CS majors—also use Linux for gaming and coding.

The Rabbit Hole of Linux Distros 🐇

I fell down the rabbit hole of all the diffrent distros, I was immeditaly attracted to arch and kali. From what I gathered though is that it seems to be the sort of “elitest” distros. Arch appeared too complex for me to just try right out of the gate, and I wanted something more beginner friendly. I then stumbled upon Pop! OS, which kind of holds your hand when it comes to using linux like the Pop Shop for easy app managment.

Visual Appeal 🎨

A big deal to me initally before I even got familair was the ui and how customziable I had seen people making their desktop on reddit, but unforutanly that celing when it comes to visuals is not something that is super great and my creativity is definlty dimished in that sense but as I get more comfortable with using linux overall, I’ll be able to switch to Arch and do all that fun stuff.

Usability: The Good and the Bad 🖥️

Glaze Worthy

I didn’t realize at first how truly helpful the command line was while using windows

• Fully customize my terminal
• Efficiently navigate my files and code
• Streamline my workflow

The result? Productivity 📈

Negatives

Pop!_OS feels a bit sluggish at times. My ThinkPad T540p isn’t exactly a powerhouse, and I suspect all the extra features that make Pop!_OS user-friendly are taking a toll on performance. Which can get pretty irriating from time to time. Especially, when all I have open is VS Code, and like 3 tabs on brave. T-T

Final Verdict

”Overall, I’d give Pop!_OS a 7/10.”

While I enjoy uisng Pop! I think some of my positive experience are just because it’s my first time using any Linux distro. Once I get more fluent, I’m eager to make the jump to Arch Linux and boss up.

---