Okay I think for first attempt getting Linux running I'm just going to sigh and install Ubuntu 23.04. If it works ok and I establish a /home on the other drive I'll consider pop!_os later as an experiment in learning (or living without) kernel signing.

My goals:

- Fit on 37 GB spare partition
- Get Vulkan running and execute one webgpu program in Rust
- (win condition) Successfully support a sound card with 16 channels of IO
- (stretch goal) Get Wayland running

I guess I'm going with GNOME rather than KDE based on looking at the current state of both on Google Image Search (possibly not an accurate source) and feeling less repulsion when I look at GNOME. I don't understand why the titlebar and the "dock" with the launcher icons are 2 different things in GNOME now. Couldnt u just put the launcher icons in the titlebar I only ever run 3 apps anyway

Last time I ran desktop linux was 2016, I tried to use a late beta of KDE Plasma and it never worked right

Current status: Lobster

Ok so installation of Ubuntu was smooth and it seems fine now I'm inside. I'm experiencing one problem, and it is totally baffling: Both in the installer and in the OS itself, a giant banner pops up about once every three minutes saying there is no Internet. This despite the installer downloading from the Internet fine, me running Firefox without problems, etc.

The fonts do look kinda... well, okay, really bad, especially in Firefox. The lowercase "i" looks strangely like an uppercase "I" much of the time. "Private WIndows".

Within half an hour of installing Linux the lack of visual differentiation between tabs in firefox is already annoying me and I'm already trying to figure out how to install Chrome

UPDATE: I seem to have solved two problems at once as the fonts look a lot nicer in Chrome than in Firefox. Somewhere, RMS just felt a deep pain in his heart and does not know why.

This said, the Chrome fonts also have a problem with i looking like I. lIsten.tIdal.com

Big thank you to everyone who recommended I install Gnome "dash-to-panel" my screen now looks extremely Normal. This looks like a computer screen to me

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/

Now if I can just I'll be good to go*

* Ready to start the horrible misery of figuring out if nvidia/wayland are working and if not why not

Do not break X Windows. Gnome-tweaks is on, she has water and she is listening to her favorite music

Minor complaints: I want to use the Compose key. In GNOME, if you go to the settings and look up the compose key, you will find a pane helpfully explaining that the compose key is set to the "layout default".

Thanks??! GNOME could you?! Could you possibly tell me what the default *is*!?

Anyway uhhh y'all have been very helpful so: Does anyone know, until I explicitly mapped the Compose key to the Left Super key, GNOME was doing a thing where tapping the Windows key would bring up a kind of Mac OS X Expose screen showing all the Windows. Now Compose is using that key. Anybody know what that shortcut is named. I bet I could map it to something else if I knew what it was named

ALTERNATELY can I just map left super to right alt entire, or something