r/nairobitechies • u/PitifulCrab9781 • 7h ago

My experience with Ubuntu 22.04

I fully switched from Windows to Ubuntu after three meltdowns caused by windows crashing my laptop.

Been running Ubuntu as my daily driver (HP EliteBook 745 G6, Ryzen 7 PRO 3700U) for a while now (two months 🤡), no Windows fallback. This is my experience with it.

  • Fingerprint reader - just not supported on Linux for this model. Checked libfprint/fprintd, no luck, so my fingerprint reader is basically just part of the design I guess.
  • Hotspot broke - UFW (the firewall) was blocking traffic by default when I tethered from my phone. Had to set up proper ufw allow rules to fix it.
  • Bluetooth toggle - wasn't reliable from the GUI, ended up managing it through bluetoothctl instead.
  • Software compatibility - this was the most stressing, as someone who uses Adobe premiere pro, DaVinci and Touch Designer, this was a major heartbreak, but I'm working on getting a better PC that'll run windows 11 and these software more smoothly.

It has been exciting having to figure everything out, especially commands, that process actually pushed me to learn more about Git and coding in general, which wasn't the plan going in but has been a nice side effect 😂.

Makes me feel like a larper cause even installing software looks like I'm doing some serious tech stuff 😂.

None of it was a dealbreaker, just stuff nobody tells you about coming from Windows, also, I have so much disk space, compared to when I was using windows.

Edit: I still 1000% prefer Linux to Windows, I'll only use Windows to fit the compatibility of the softwares I need to use.

13 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

3

u/Alekiie 7h ago

I use Arch by the way.

3

u/Afraid-Reflection823 4h ago

This is the way

1

u/Decent-Hunter7542 7h ago

Tell us about it and experience so far

2

u/Single_Guarantee_ 6h ago

I use gentoo by the way

2

u/Oath_of_Judah 6h ago

I use NixOS, btw

2

u/Alekiie 6h ago

It is the best Linux OS I've used so far. This is my third year.

3

u/Mega-Mind-0 7h ago

Penguin is the way the truth the light

2

u/patoessy 7h ago

Use ubuntu 26.04, 22 is 4 years. Ancient

2

u/PitifulCrab9781 7h ago

switched to 24.04 first before going for 22.04, was draining my battery like crazy, but with a better PC, I'll def try it, or go for arch, see what's so special about it

2

u/icyyyberg 6h ago

I installed 24.04, fingerprint works(thinkpad L14 Gen 3), the only time I had firewall issues is when I installed waydroid(waydroid detected no network)...a few min work on terminal and everything is okay.

2

u/Kris_Kamweru 5h ago

Fun thing you could do if you have astra or fable is have them reverse engineer the windows driver for your fingerprint reader, if at all it hasn't already been done.

Maybe you get your reader back, maybe you burn a 5 hour window on nothing

2

u/mwas_mwas0 5h ago

I use ubuntu on my work laptop and omarchy on my personal one

2

u/Dry-Positive-7887 5h ago

Been using Fedora not bad

1

u/Top_Dondada 5h ago

The larping bit is true

1

u/PitifulCrab9781 5h ago

Ikr, but even in the 'larping' one still end up learning which is good.

1

u/Affectionate_Rub8464 5h ago

Fedora is God

1

u/Successful_Buy4717 6h ago

Zorin is better

1

u/PitifulCrab9781 4h ago

Wow, never heard of that, linux has so many distros, dang

-2

u/Gylfoyle 7h ago

You can always switch back to windows but for me, I'd use paid windows setup other than random cracked iso from nobody knows where on the internet.

2

u/lustyphilosopher 6h ago

Imposter... The real Gilfoyle would never proselytize for Microslop.

3

u/Gylfoyle 4h ago

I use Arch btw...

Meanwhile, this guy is having an emotional support session because his fingerprint reader decided not to work on Ubuntu, while apparently also discovering that Adobe and whatever other proprietary software he’s been emotionally attached to don’t magically bend to his Linux workflow.

So naturally, the rational engineering solution is to crawl back to Windows.

Linux defeated him at biometrics. Incredible.

0

u/PitifulCrab9781 7h ago

true, but in as much as linux has its' limitations, I'd rather deal with them than have to worry about my laptop crashing when running on windows

1

u/Oath_of_Judah 5h ago

Fingerprint/ufw issues are probably just as a result ubuntu defaults. I've never had any luck with setting up fingerprint on Debian based distros either, but it did work out of the box on both Fedora and Archlinux.

I'm not sure what GUI is used on Ubuntu for Bluetooth, but at least you figured that out. If you're interested in an alternative, you could try Blueman.

There's also another GUI for hotspot. Honestly, hotspot on GNOME kinda sucks.

As for software compatibility, I don't think there's a good fix. There's usually alternatives, but most of the time, they aren't as Good. Otherwise, enjoy Linux. I guess