Back To Fedora

Last month I finally got round to posting about how I had bought an old Thinkpad last year with the intention of using it to try out different Linux distros. What actually happened was that after a week or two of experimentation I installed Fedora, along with most of the apps from my main laptop, and it entered rotation as a daily driver.

Working from home, I tended to have my main laptop set up on my desk next to my work laptop, used for checking emails and having YouTube play in the background. Then at the end of the day I would wander into my living room, pick up my Thinkpad from the coffee table and tap away on the delightful keyboard whilst watching some telly (as I type this I am aware that keeping two portable devices largely stationary in separate rooms is quite strange).

Then a few weeks ago I purchased my very first Macbook and so now with three very usable laptops I thought it might be time to start distro hopping on the Thinkpad again. So I wiped the device and started with Endeavour OS. It was okay. The installation went smoothly, I was presented with a fresh KDE desktop, I poked around a bit, and then I turned off the laptop and put it on the shelf under my coffee table. And there it stayed. The problem, of course, was that without all my apps installed I didn't really have a reason to use and test the OS. But at the same time, it hardly seemed worth installing a bunch of apps and changing all the settings to my liking, if I knew I was going to wipe it all and try a new OS in a few weeks time.

I had stopped using my Thinkpad, and I found I missed the daily use I got out of it when I had had Fedora installed on it. So after only a couple of weeks away, I decided to return. Upon going to the Fedora project's website I found that the brand new Workstation 42 had just been released only a few days earlier. I downloaded, installed, and set everything up pretty much to how I had things a couple of weeks before. And so here I am, feet up, telly on in the background, typing this post on my Thinkpad.

I've been using Linux at home since around 2005 (although earlier at Uni). I started with the fresh and new Ubuntu back then, and have stuck to Ubuntu or Ubuntu/Debian-based distros pretty much ever since. I think this may have created a little friction regarding moving to a non-Debian based distros such as Fedora. I've been happily using Pop!_OS on my Metabox (think System76) laptop for the last four years, but I'm starting to wonder whether the Fedora/Thinkpad combo might actually be my preferred setup now. I've been really impressed with Fedora so far, it seems to have a good balance between modernity and stability, and maintenance has been a breeze, with the OS even offering Firmware updates for my machine, something that I have never had on my Metabox (although I'm not sure if this is due to Pop or my laptop). My Thinkpad is a bit chunkier than my Metabox, but as I have already established most of the time I am not moving around very much, and a couple of hundred extra grams is not really noticable when it's rested on my lap. And it goes without saying that the Thinkpad keyboard is very comfortable for typing on, and so it more-often-than-not would be my first choice of device if I had to type for any period of time.

So I am back to using three laptops for basically the same tasks again. I thought when I purchased my Macbook Air last month that it might become my main device, but I'm really not sold on MacOS, I haven't seen anything that would make me want to ditch Linux. So surprisingly, for now, it seems like my most used device might actually be the oldest, cheapest one that I have.