moving to linux
I decided to wipe my laptop’s hard drive the other day and install Linux.
previously I was dual booting Windows 11 (pre-installed) and Manjaro Linux, where Windows took around 180GB and Linux took 60GB, but I completely ran out of space in both, and it became clear to me that this just wasn’t cutting it anymore. I also was getting incredibly frusterated by Windows and how much development on it felt like such a compromise, as well as the random bullshit Microsoft had been pushing onto it. starting over felt like the right choice.
go go go
I decided to go with EndeavorOS as my distro. I wanted an Arch-based system, but Manjaro was just too heavy for my taste. Endeavor is signifigantly more lightweight, only really coming with stuff I was going to install anyways, and a correctly configured KDE desktop. of course, I could have also had just installed Arch lol, but I decided I just didn’t want to deal with so much up front learning right now, while I’m working on a game and everything. I’d rather run into issues as they come and learn about how to fix them then, at least right now.
I downloaded the iso from their website and loaded it onto my Ventoy formated usb. after backing up my important files, I boot into Endeavor and clicked buttons and wiped.
first thing I did was a full system update, then I configured some basic settings for sanity: touchpad speed, keyboard repeat, colors, etc. I decided to install the better-firefox script, and I went extra spicy and moved the taskbar and firefox tab orientation to the left side of the screen, very fancy. I also set my background to furry porn to complete the aesthetic.
but I have actual important stuff to do. I installed Wine, but I hate using Wine, so I also installed Bottles, then installed the latest GameMaker monthly release for Windows. GameMaker has an Ubuntu port, and the AUR conviniently has a package for it, though it’s in beta, and it’s shit. the Windows version is more stable with Bottles in my testing. I didn’t have to configure much at all for it to work. within minutes, nullstars was running fine.
out of curiousity, since I was on Linux, I wanted to see if the Ubuntu export would work. after installing the GameMaker AUR package’s dependencies, and adding localhost as a device in GMS, it somehow worked.
next, I installed Krita. worked perfectly as usual, better than Windows.
then came FLStudio… I first tried installing it with Bottles. it technically worked, but dblue’s Glitch plugin caused the program to hang, which was unacceptable. this is likely because the plugin is dogshit 32bit, and was causing some issues with the FLStudio wrapper thing vs Wine.
a reddit comment pointed me to WinApps, a framework around a Windows VM that makes it look like the windows are native. I gave this a try as well, however even though it worked, my laptop can only do so much. it suffered from serious performance issues.
I decided to boot my laptop to Endeavor in live boot so I could repartition the drive just a little bit smaller to include an NTFS partition, just a 40GB one. I found a Windows 10 LTSC iso, which I loaded with an answer file to delete unneeded garbage, threw both into Ventoy, and then I installed it onto the correct partition. my laptop uses UEFI, so I didn’t have to do much afterwards - just go change the boot order to the Linux one. Endeavor’s boot manager correctly detects Windows 10 and offers it as an option on start up. I then installed FLStudio onto the Windows install, and all was fine in the world. now I can go back to overloading my cpu with fucking 2 dblue Glitch instances
at this point I realized that Git wasn’t working because of all the few things I forgot to backup, I also forgot to save my ssh keys. so I temporarily lost access to my server. oops. not a big issue, but it was kinda annoying.
so that’s where I’m at.
other stuff
while I’m here overhauling my workflow, I figured I might as well go all out and seek out other tools. for example, I’ve been using VSCode for all my TypeScript and Rust programming. I’m currently typing this page in NeoVim. I can’t figure out how to set up the LSP. I also just don’t know how to use Vim. it’s pretty cool.
trump just fucking bombed iran