Why I Gave Up on Linux… Hello MacBook.

0:00 This This is the story of how my framework laptop 13, the laptop that somehow led me to build all of this, made me acquire a whole new skill. As much as I wanted this to be my daily driver, Linux, kind of ruined it for me. Weird UI bugs, my trackpad barely working, horrible battery life, just little things constantly getting in the way. Like after three different Linux machines and probably four to five different dros, I was just back on a MacBook.

0:34 But you see, the thing I didn't realize was that after spending months installing, breaking, fixing, and reinstalling Linux on basically every laptop I could get my hands on, I acquired a whole set of new skills. In fact, this entire journey sent me down a completely different rabbit hole. One I wasn't expecting because while I was expecting to stick to Linux for a while, it completely replaced my entire computing system. Like always, if you guys enjoy the storytelling in the channel, please consider subscribing. We are here to simply document our journey with tech.

1:12 By the way, the new Mac minis came out today. Oh my lord. very very interesting but also very expensive. Let me tell you where I'm coming from. Chuck, if you are watching this, man, shout out to you. Like you say, Linux is not this big scary thing. Think about Linux as this open door into understanding how computers actually work. Like essentially when you go from Windows to Linux, you're getting more privacy, more customization, less bloat, and complete control over how your computer works. And for months, I wanted that experience so badly that I spent a lot of time trying to make Linux work for me. And this is this is the part I feel like not many talk about. As a techie without being an expert and more of like a a jack of all trades, I learn what I need, make it work, and move on. In that sense, I find Linux to be incredibly inefficient. And what I mean about that is that every time you try to enable a new feature or a cool feature, it kind of sets you three five steps backwards. Like now that I have Gnome installed, it's not as easy as enabling it and that's it. Ooh, it works. Nope. There are things like buttons kind of disappearing. My dog disappeared. Like I literally can't enable it anywhere in the settings. And a lot of this stuff I understand it's done intentionally. Okay, it hides a ton of your desktop controls and a lot more. And so when I say inefficient, that's what I mean. When you enable a new feature, you need to understand that feature. You need to make sure that you know what it's going to do. and you need to make sure that you know how to resolve issues that might arise because of that certain feature. Like it requires a lot more maintenance and tweaking to get things to work to perfection. Like when I was running Pop OS for example on the Pro Art P16 with an AMD chip and a Nvidia DGPU that was the best setup I had on a laptop till this day. But my integrated GPU would randomly cause black screens. sleep would barely work. Hybrid graphics became a troubleshooting nightmare. And even scaling between two displays was a problem. And sure, most of these things probably had a fix, but I was spending more time fixing my laptop than actually using it. It then became this like whole pattern for me where I would switch distros, have issues with my Nvidia drivers, issues with AI. I did three different Linux machines and roughly four or five distros and repeatedly trying to make Linux work as my actual daily computer. It always ended with the same story. Weird UI bugs, hardware that doesn't quite work, terrible battery life. The second you fix one thing, something else breaks.

4:04 And that's exactly where I've been left today with my Framework 13. without discrediting this because it is perfection on paper. It is such an amazing little laptop when Linux decides to behave. Really, I've always found my Linux Android setup to be a complete monster. I love this OS when it just works for me. Like I don't know if you guys can tell, but I have like all the tools I need, right? Like the terminal, Parseek, local send, Google Drive, messages, WhatsApp, Google Photos, Discord. like I'm connected to my phone anytime I want. Whether I want to send messages, when I want to check out my photos that I just took, whether I want to transfer files from here to the computer, it all works seamlessly. And aside from using SSH, I can connect to the Mac Mini to this massive server rig we have here and to other computers using Parseek. Of course, if you don't want any of this, you can always install Windows because that's what Framework deliver. Framework is a company that delivers freedom within your computer.

5:04 You choose the OS, you choose the parts, and if one breaks, you replace that one component. They sell different ports you can swap to, different motherboards, GPUs. It's technically the dream laptop to have. Plus, it's got a really nice haptic trackpad, an aluminum chassis, a great display, and like I said, almost everything inside is repairable or upgradable. However, Linux for me, well, it killed it. And my biggest issue has always been battery efficiency, especially sleep. I close my laptop expecting it to go to sleep, throw it in a bag, and somehow Linux is still chewing through the battery. Sometimes I came back hours later and I've lost a huge chunk of my charge. It's an OS that really it just forces you to go down this rabbit hole of research. When this stuff happens, you start learning about modern standby, S2 Idol, suspend the RAM, all these things that genuinely teach you about computers. But because sometimes all I want to do is get work done, I get to the point where I'm like, I don't I don't really care about what sleep technology I'm using. I just want to close my laptop, put it in that bag, and know I'll still have charge for tomorrow. And although framework battery life on Linux varies a lot depending on generation, distros, and configuration, after power tuning this thing, I was getting about 5 to 6 hours of battery life. But note, some people can achieve getting 10 hours plus. The point I'm trying to make here is that for a laptop, Linux is not worth it unless you're willing to spend lots of time tweaking it. A laptop for me is a device I carry around to get work done where I need maximum efficiency, as much power as possible without sacrificing reliability. And for me, that's exactly what the MacBook delivers. As a result, I gave up on Linux as a laptop operating system. But weirdly enough, I didn't give up on Linux as a desktop solution because all those months of troubleshooting taught me enough about computers that I started wondering what else could I actually build with it. And that's when I discovered an entirely different side of Linux. servers, networking, self-hosting, home labs, and somehow the operating system I couldn't stand on my laptop became the thing that got me more excited about computers than I'd been in years. So, I'm trying to get this server rack. it's not the price is not too bad actually, but I feel like it would fit just perfectly right here. I really, really need a server rack cuz I need to start building the entire thing. This and this was my networking infrastructure a few weeks ago. I'm sure you saw that video where I'm trying to cut my monthly subscriptions. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the result of what Linux does to you. Yeah. I now find myself in this rabbit hole of building tiny little network infrastructures to the point that I pulled the trigger for the studio and I got this giant cabinet rack that would allow me to build something I never thought I could.

8:19 an entire home lab server rack that would power my studio and connect my home directly to it. And right now you are wondering what's the correlation with Linux? Well, you see Linux as a desktop is the OS that currently runs in my server. a server that offers multiple services I installed like CASOS, dual 12 TBTE drives for me to store footage, image which is my Google photos replacement, home assistant which will power all the lighting in this new office. And so Linux is not only the heart of this server because it's also the heart of the unified network that will connect everything together.

9:30 So, I'm going to see if I can get a couple of more shelves. I feel like I need a couple of more instead of stacking all the devices together. Doors I don't need to put for now. This is the back door. Then this is the front door. It's got a really cool hinge mechanism to be able to open it up. It's pretty nice. And then there's these guys, which I have no idea what this is. like no idea. I might just ask Andre.

9:50 He's the rep that was taking care of me while I was buying the server rack. Super nice guy. so I'm going to ask him. Now the rack did come with a power bar. So that's awesome because I'm going to install this probably at the top. Yeah, I think I think that's what makes sense. Now, the mounting point for my Rosewell server case, I believe, are these ones right here. the only question is this will be the only thing supporting it, right? I mean, I'm not quite sure where else I'm supposed to mount it. Things I don't know, but I'm trying to figure them out. Linux is what brought me to this point. I spent so much time watching all sorts of server rack mounting videos because to be honest, I had no idea what I was looking at or how any of this was supposed to go together. I didn't know how to actually mount things into a rack, how you support heavier equipment or even what those little cage nuts or clips were for. So, every step became a question. I used like AI so much for this. You guys have like no idea. Chad GBT for the most part was like my best friend. And the more questions I asked it, the more it piqued my curiosity. Slowly though, this thing that looked completely foreign to me started making sense. I went back to Andre, who was the rep that supplied me the server rack, and I got shelves. I asked him questions. I watched a billion videos and I reconfigured an entire private repo through Chad GPT that rebuilt my entire starting template for my server, which meant I had nuked my server with a fresh start.

11:29 The reason for that, I spent $5,000 worth of equipment on UniFi to build this rack. Turns out that I have a B550 ASUS motherboard like bottom of the barrel for a motherboard. Really? I got it off Facebook Marketplace. If you guys haven't watched that video, well, go check it out. My server is plugged in right now because I store footage right here and I need that footage all the time. Now, I've noticed it's quite slow and that is because I'm not connected to a 10 GB Ethernet port. So, currently the speeds are fairly slow, especially if I'm editing off of it. So, I ordered an ASUS adapter. No, actually it's not from ASUS. It's from Intel. This thing right here, not cheap, eh? $169 Canadian.

12:15 Yeah. But hey, I need it. Especially with all this UniFi equipment we're about to install. This is like almost topofthe- line stuff. At least according I've been doing, but you guys let me know cuz you probably know more than me. And theoretically, I got a bunch of these smart plugs right here that you guys see these ones. Because what I want to do is that I want to install Home Assistant and actually be able to control the lights in here with that.

12:40 For example, my Amron lights which are currently hooked up to the ceiling. I want to be able to control these. You guys see these? Got another one here. And then another one right there. And once we get this whole space set up with the TV, I'm going to install one right there. So really, this not only stores a bunch of video files, but it will store a bunch of photos with image and also control a lot of the automation in this office. Plus, I'm going to be doing some AI stuff with it. I think it's safe to say that we're getting there. Ha. Before I show you what all of this does, you need to understand that my obsession with Linux brought me to UniFi because a few months ago, I had no idea what any of this was. Weirdly enough, this entire side quest started at Apple Park. One of you actually stopped me, told me you love the Linux content, and showed me your freaking iPhone 3G. That was cool. But you then also introduced me to this company called Ubiquiti and their UniFi products. Shout out to you, my man, because you had no idea what you were about to do to my wallet. For you guys that are a bit like me who are lost, UniFi basically lets you build and manage your own network, your router, switches, Wi-Fi access points, cameras, everything can live like under this ecosystem. So naturally with time well guess what I started researching it.

14:02 This is how I ended up buying the dream machine promax. This became like the brain of my network. My Bell internet comes into it. It handles routing security VPNs and basically decides where everything on my network needs to go. But one box wasn't enough because I needed to connect the entire office. So, next came the Promax 24 PoE switch. 24 Ethernet ports with PoE, which means a single Ethernet cable can carry both data and power cuz that's how these U7 Pro Max access points get their internet and electricity. Yeah, I know, mind-blowing. This delivered Wi-Fi. Then I also had Ethernet access because of the Switch.

14:50 And then I discovered 10 GB networking. O with my server now having this new 10 GB network card I bought, I needed the rest of my network to actually keep up with it. The problem was that well I I was missing some equipment to make this happen. So I had to buy another switch called the UniFi aggregation switch which actually supplied all these 10 GB ports. Apparently, I need to get an aggregation panel which literally supplies 10 GB Ethernet, which is exactly what we want because because well, first of all, I'm being bottlenecked because I didn't even realize that all these ports right here run at 1 GB. These are the ones that run at 2.5 GB. But if I want 10, I only have one port available, which means that well, you need to get that switch to have a bunch of other ports available in order to make that happen. And then I need to get an SFP to RJ to be able to connect that panel and then all that to my computers if that makes sense. The only thing though is that not all my devices support 10 GB Ethernet. the Mac Studio does, the Linux server obviously now does. The Mac Mini I believe it does, but but my Windows PC and my Windows server do not. And the NAS as well. But I am going to be ordering this bad boy here and see what happens. Think of this thing as the high-speed highway in the rack. Instead of connecting normal devices like TVs and laptops, its job is to connect my important high bandwidth equipment together over 10 GB SFP plus. So now the dream machine, my main switch and my server infrastructure have this high-speed backbone between them. And then of course I had to get 10 GB working on my Windows editing PC except my PC is a mini ITX and the board only capped at 2.5 GB. I only found out much later after troubleshooting the hell out of it. But I got to learn about NIC drivers, SFP plus DAC cables, Iperf ling negotiation, network paths, things I couldn't have explained to you a few months earlier. But then I set up WireGuard that gave me a secure tunnel back into my office network when I'm away. Meaning I can remotely access parts of my infrastructure almost like I'm sitting inside the office. How cool is that? And as I kept building, guys, I actually started to fully understand how my internet gets into the building, how it's routed, how devices communicate, how my server connects to my editing machines, and where the bottlenecks are. And the funniest part, none of this was the plan. I was just trying to get Linux working on a laptop.

17:42 And somehow that turned into me standing in front of a server rack testing 10 GB connections and arguing with network cards. I even went to the extent of creating an entire chat GPT codeex project just for my server and network, giving it all the context about my hardware, my setup, and everything we had already troubleshooted. So instead of starting from zero every time something broke, it had its own environment with a dedicated Linux user, SSH access, its own folders, read and write permissions, and strict limits on what it could actually touch. This is what led me to use Codeex to build a quick pre-flight tool, something that could actually audit the server, check the network, and help me figure out what was going wrong.

18:34 At this point, I wasn't just learning how to use Linux anymore. I was building tools around it. I kid you not. I literally just got my NZXT MiniITX case. This stuff just never ends, man. Like, literally, my consensus after all this is that Linux is great on machines like these, right? Machines that are plugged in all the time, just not laptops. That's just my experience. I don't know. You guys let me know what you think. What I'm planning on doing is replicating this entire setup at home and maybe a bit more just to connect the office to the house like I explained to you guys. And I'm going to be using a mini ITX powered by some Linux dro for home and see how that goes and document that and make a video. If you guys enjoyed this video, let me know in the comments down below. Don't forget to subscribe and yeah, that that's it.

19:24 Happy Sunday, man.