Introduction
I recently bought a new laptop, for those you haven’t been following along for the better part of this year I have used nothing but an IPad. which while I still carry my IPad with my everyday there are some limitations of IPad OS that became very apparent over time. The two main ones are the lack of external monitor support and the lack of decent multitasking. This post will be going over what I choose to not replace but go with my IPad for when I just need to get work done.
Hardware
I purchased a used Dell XPS 13 9365 2 in one. I had a couple of Key requirements when looking for a laptop:
- Type C Charging
- Lightweight
- Decent Battery life
- Enough RAM that if i wanted to run a VM on it i could
- all Solid State Storage
The Dell XPS 9365 meets all these requirements and a few more. It also has thunderbolt, Windows Hallo, a fingerprint scanner, and a touch screen. The only major downside I have found so far with the laptop is that the webcam is under the screen instead of above which if i used it would cause the person on the other side of the call to see right up my noise.
Software
OS
I choose to run PopOS 21.04 which of course is Linux, after troubleshooting windows 10 all day at work one of the last things I want to do is have to deal with it when I am not work. Also I have found myself missing certain pieces of software that I used to use when I ran Linux
Must have software I missed
Remmina
Remmina is a remote desktop software that allows you to connect to devices via RDP, VNC, SPICE, SSH, etc. I have written a full post on it I would recommend going and giving it a read.
/etc/hosts
Yes this is technically a file not a program but until you have realized how useful being able to map hostnames to IPs on a host by host bases you will not understand how useful it is.
NetworkManager
The customization and versatility of NetworkManger is unmatched in Windows and MacOS alike. If you ever want to learn what a truly versatile networking subsystem is I would recommend giving NetworkManager a look.
Seamless integration with self hosted services
While Windows almost seamlessly integrates with most self hosted services it will never have the level of integration a open source operating system, this is due to the closed source nature of Windows the integration is never quite perfect and never will be as long as Windows is closed source.
Closing thoughts
I have only had my new laptop for just over 24 hours so it is still very much so early days but so far I am loving it. I may do a follow up to this in some time with some of my thoughts over time