With the beginning of 2024, I decided to try something different: Distro Hop! Ubuntu has served me well, but I wanted to put the fun back into Linux. It’s all about exploring and finding things new. Originally, I thought there was an issue between my laptop, my Thunderbolt dock, and my mouse. I had hopes that trying something new would fix that. It turns out that just before installing, I would discover that it was the mouse going bad and not the dock or the laptop after all.
So, I’ve installed Garuda Linux, and I’m working toward the “perfect install”. I like the look so far. It’s only going to work if I can get my work and critical applications going. So far, I think I have accomplished that. I can connect to my remote desktops. I can talk to my co-workers through MS Teams. So, I can keep it. Now, I just need to fine tune it to work out all of the kinks.
Here’s what I have so far:
Note that I have one monitor vertical and one horizontal. That took a little to get setup, but I like the option of getting to stack windows on top of each other or having a really tall window for reading.
Picking the Version
Going to the download page brings up a bunch of different options. You can pick whichever front end, look and feel that you want.
- Garuda KDE Dr460nized
- Garuda Linux Gnome
- Garuda Cinnamon
- Garuda Xfce
- Garuda Sway
- Garuda i3-wm
- Garuda Linux KDE lite
- Garuda Linux Hyprland
Which one did I choose? Well, of course, I wanted to dive in and get the full experience. The Dr460nized seemed to be that full experience. I got the impression that was where they put most of their effort. I’d love to try the Hyprland because it sounds exotic and new, but I wasn’t that adventurous yet. Maybe I’ll play with it a bit on a VM first.
What’s Different
First, it’s KDE. That has a big difference in look and feel when coming from Gnome. Much of that is in the Applications menu. I really liked Gnome’s application launcher combined with the window picker. Going to KDE’s menu seemed like stepping back into the Windows’ Start Menu. But, it still had the application search, so I’m okay with it.
Next, I wasn’t paying attention. For some reason, I thought it was Debian/Ubuntu based. No, it is Arch based. That means that you have to use pacman instead of apt. I do love the little Pacmans that crawl across the process bar as it downloads.
Had I been paying attention, I probably wouldn’t have made the jump. My fear is that things wouldn’t be compatible. For example, work software like Teams and VMWare Horizon seems to be only offered in deb or rpm format. I was pleasantly surprised that, so far, I’ve been able to find everything I needed already in the libraries.
Another big difference is that the task bar is on the bottom. Since I’m coming from Ubuntu, I’m used to it on the left side of my main screen.
The Bling
I am enjoying the look of the desktop. One could argue the bling wastes processing power and memory. I don’t think it’s a waste for two reasons. First, I’m a consultant who sometimes shares his desktop screen. People judge a craftsman by his tools, and I want my tools to say that I’m an expert tech who is pushing the limits. Second, the bling makes it feel enjoyable. I feel like I’m using a cool tool, and that makes it fun.
So, what makes it bling? The first thing that stood out to me is the theme. The icons on the taskbar and the background kind of wrap it together into a complete work. The Applications Menu is also themed to match. The black background also adds to the techy feel.
Another bling is the wobbly effect when you drag the windows around. This happens by default on Garuda Linux, but I had to add an extension to get it on Ubuntu. This is a little more subtle but that almost makes it a little more elegant. You can see the Konsole window distorted below as I dragged it across the screen.
The Install
The install process was pretty simple. I think the most unique thing was that at the end, it simply asked you which apps you would use and wanted to install. You can always get back to that by launching the Garuda Welcome app:
The install program that I’m talking about loads when you click Setup Assistant.
Unfortunately, it has to go through this long setup process before you get to that page.
When that’s done, you can get back to the Setup Assistant with the list of apps. Unfortunately, it doesn’t show you what you’ve already installed.
The Actual Install Process
Ok, I got the cart before the horse here. So, I went back and grabbed some screenshots of the install wizard. I don’t know that it makes sense to put all the screens, but I’ll give a little commentary on a few of them. The startup screen starts with a great first impression that pulls in the theme with the rest of the desktop.
The Location and Keyboard screens were straightforward and I just accepted the defaults. The partition screen was pretty simple. I like being able to just erase the disk and let it do it’s thing. The encryption option is great. When it booted, the passphrase screen was not near as nice as Ubuntu’s.
The Users screen was pretty standard. Then, that brought us to the summary for one last review.
Through the install process, we got a nice progress screen.
Finally, when it is done, you get this nice finished screen where it offers to reboot.
As I said, the grub passphrase isn’t as nice. Previously on Ubuntu, I got the nice Dell logo and a stylized prompt. Granted this screenshot is from a VM, but it looks the same on my laptop. It’s only for a few seconds and then forgotten, so I’m not sure how much it’s worth fixing.
Upcoming
Stay tuned. I hope to post more about my progress with getting it setup and fine-tuned.