Premise

I use Windows for my day-to-day job, but all servers mostly using Ubuntu, including my self-hosted one.

I have some problems with Windows, the [win] key + [number] shortcut sometimes didn’t work, this problem has been appeared from my first install of Windows 11 and also reported via Window’s feedback hub, it seems like not everyone encountered this bug because of the low report count (or nobody is using this (but how..)). Microsoft already acknowledge this problem by responding to the feedback-hub ticket 9 months ago and they released a patch on Dev Channel, how is that patch never arrived on the beta channel is baffling me  I’m just not brave enough to use that channel because I still want my device reliable.

I also use an old and slow 2015’s MacBook Pro that I often brought outside work because it’s light and actually has “battery”, somehow I can be more productive using this laptop, probably because I can’t do multitask very well so I can’t get distracted for too far, also I can’t install any game here

So, on one bright Saturday, just me procrastinating about what I should do, disgusted by my shortcut that did not work, motivated by trying to check how efficient it would be for me also to use Linux for my daily driver. so I just download the latest POP OS  and boot it up.

Pop!_OS 22.04

Pop!_OS is the latest Linux Distro of my choice before I migrate to Windows 3 years ago, in my opinion, they provide the best UI out of the box and looks clean, the installation is going well, and I can install and boot without much issue, just make sure that secure boot is disabled

and then, the Linux configuration nightmare began

oh you sweety old friend

here is the list of configuration that I made

Scaling issue with Large High Res Monitor

this is what appears on my monitor

okay, easy, let's just scale this up

this may look normal, but believe me when I said this is not the ideal view for a 4k monitor, and also why I can’t pick 150% scale? and why does my secondary laptop screen also bombarded to 200%

yes, Fractional scaling does the job, but now my mouse is blinking all the time and my second screen is cropped.. this is not ideal, Fractional scaling is a deprecated option that's.. better be left alone

so, back to non-fractional scaling, some people on the internet recommend to keep using 100% but also setting the font’s scaling factor to 1.5, this makes the button small but everything is readable, not really an ideal solution but there are no better options.

VPN

shamelessly copied from askubuntu.com, but here’s my exact problem

!https://i.stack.imgur.com/Shy56.gif

how is Add button greyed out? this thread and another thread discussing this

apt-get? apt? snap? … flat?

Just how many application managers do you need? exaggeration with apt-get and apt because they are the same things, flat is a new thing for me and I never use snap before, but I think I like snap, it have a lot of apps registered, have a nice website to showcase the app and also an app for it, snap store

On the topic of "app store", in my opinion pop shop provides better UI than snap store, but I still won’t use both because it’s ordered by alphabet, I may use Snap Store because I can manage my command-lines snap installation

snap windows to left down

Windows also have this problem, but easily solved with powertoy, if there’s apps that I can bring to Linux, that would be powertoy and Microsoft office. Snap windows it’s still achievable with tilling assistant, but it does feels harder to use, some configuration that I want also hidden behind “Advanced / Experimental Settings” that I missed in the first

[Win] key + number shortcut

it’s not enabled by default, but easily achievable by toggling one of the config from command line

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock hot-keys true

no bugs here!

After a week

it’s been a good experience so far, I don’t have issues with peripherals and driver, NVIDIA drivers work flawlessly this time (Pop OS even differentiate installation image with or without NVIDIA drivers). I need to remember the keyboard shortcuts but that muscle memory does get back fast. did configure it a lot in the beginning, but I almost don’t touch the settings after that.

For the performance, its all fast and snappy, I rarely hear my laptop fans running, and the Linux OS uses half of what my Windows use in idle condition with all necessary apps opened (slack, browser, terminal, and vs code)

For fun, I set all the themes to Dracula and this is the best decision I ever made this week. It does feel seamless moving from one application to another, to quote the intention of the maker

I always believed in the cost of context switching. I know how it feels when you're "in the zone", then suddenly, you get distracted and lose focus. It shouldn't be that way, so I decided to create my own color scheme, and my mission was to make it available everywhere.