A couple of weeks ago I installed Pop OS 20.04 on my System 76 Gazelle laptop. I had seen a fair amount of hype about it, and decided to give it a go. I ran Pop OS for some months a year ago, and liked it, but it became a big sluggish over time for me, so I went back to Ubuntu Mate. But I like the cute looks and polish of Pop OS, and I like System 76 as a company. They seem to be doing a good job. (Tangent: I hope they make a phone some day!)

I’ve never been much of a Gnome fan. It hasn’t been lightweight enough to suit me and I don’t like hamburger menus. But this OS is quite snappy, after I turned off the animations using Gnome Tweaks.

And it turns out, I really like Pop OS. I mean, I really like it! Who knew? It is quick, and smooth and runs great, and I haven’t had any weird glitches. I will wait and see whether it slows down over time, but so far I’m quite pleased.

There isn’t one specific feature that’s blowing my mind, but it’s generally smooth and does a good job. Which is what I want. At this point in my Linux evolution, I don’t want to try the most exotic distro, I want a low-maintenance machine.

I find myself strangely content with my technology situation. The phone is working well, computer is nice and smooth. I’m even happy with Jekyll for my web sites. That is good for my productivity in the rest of my life. In the ‘Planner community’ they call it ‘Planner Peace,’ where you quit fiddling with your planner and just use it to help you get on with your life.

Modern life is so complicated that we need all these fancy systems just to keep the basics together. Sometimes I just want to run off and live in the country and grow my own food instead. But in the meanwhile…

In order to make things more organized, efficient, and not so irritating, I am working on systems. When I feel disorganized and inefficient, instead of assuming I’m deficient or just bad, I am looking at where things don’t flow and where there is a question about how to handle something. Those decision making points are a problem. I need to have a smooth, well organized system to handle the thing, so I don’t have to think about it. Life has enough decisions to make without having to relitigate each individual piece of paper. That applies to real life and computer life. When I don’t have a good system, I keep fiddling with it endlessly and it’s annoying. But once I get a good one in place, it tends to keep working. That gives me hope!

There are still pieces which need a better system - syncing favorite photos with my phone, a more reliable local sync, and other details. And that isn’t looking at my house or my art studio. But most computer things are working pretty well. If I can find a better bookcase there’s even hope for an organized desk! I know, whoa.