Switching Back From PopOS To Windows


Image is from PopOS wikipedia page


I have been using Linux distro for three and half year as primary operating system. I still use Windows tho', but only for gaming and light office work (heavy office works that related to my job is done by LibreOffice/AnyOffice  on my linux partition).


It is a though journey for me because the stability linux desktop that i used is very poor. I will create a list of a point of it. In short, there are multiple issues (some are not fixed until now) that really bother me. For a context, I dual booted my PC with Windows 11 + PopOS 22.04, and also have laptop with single boot PopOS 22.04. Here is my hardware: PC (i3 12100f, 32GB RAM, GTX 1650 D6 4GB) and HP Laptop with Ryzen 5 4500u.


1. Randomly Won't Boot on Laptop
Yes. The laptop won't boot randomly after sometimes. So it started when i press the power button, it won't boot, then i tried everything, still no result. But when plug-in the adaptor, it boots! with 87% of battery remaining. It happens around 2-3 times a month, and i dont really see that as problem since i worked from home (always ready electricity). The problem feels to get real when i was in a taxi and i want to continue my work after a flight. IT WONT BOOT. It happens many times since it very random. Already create an issue on github, still no solution.


2. Cannot use dual audio jack at the same time (PC)

Usually, a PC have two audio jack, one on the back (mic+audio out) and one come from the pc case (front panel port, which is a audio combo jack). So, when i plug my external speaker on the back and a headphone at the front, my OS wont send any audio to the external speaker at the back port. I need to plug-out the headphone jack from front panel then it works. This is not practical because switching audio out is a very basic thing that OS needs to do. So, for the entire time, I plug my external speaker to the monitor and my headphone on the front panel. This have cons: the external speaker will stop when your monitor screen turned off. Ya, so i set it up to 30 minutes screen off. Already create an github issue, still no fixes until today.


3. Random freeze (both PC and Laptop)

I don't know why but sometimes it just freeze and hang forever. All the input like mouse and keyboard also didnt work. I need to force shut-down to fix that. This happens very oftern 3-4 times per month


4. Random grub error that caused pc wont boot (PC)

PopOS using systemd, so  i need to setup my dualboot with os prober etc. PC randomly 'lost' my configuration and just showing command line at boot time. It does have different error thou, sometimes I need to googled it to find a new solution. This happens very often when I started a work at the morning and i spent 20-30 mins (depends on the error) to fix that. I did this shit for 2-4 times per month.



5. On old kernel, laptop cannot sleep (Fixed on Kernel 5.16)

This happens on early 2021 when I use PopOS 20.04, it just won't sleep, or it won't wake up from sleep. This happens because on newly hardware at that time, and fixed by updating the kernel with included code from AMD.


6. Worst battery life on laptop.

Comparing to Windows with same usage, Windows 10 give me ~1hour more of battery life. Updating the kernel until 6.2.2 since not giving me any improvement on battery life. This is a minor issue btw, but still noticable.


7. Very long boot time after power outage (PC).

In my country, there are season when PLN always have power outage. PC needs constant electricity, when power is lost, it's a standard method for an OS to check the disk for corruption. Windows did this on my nvme drive for 10 seconds, while PopOS give me blank screen at boot for 20 FUCKING MINUTES! Already create a github issue, still no fix until today.


8. Cracking sound when boots up an android emulator (PC and Laptop).

It happens on PopOS 20.04 and there is a fix for that, but after PopOS move to PipeWire as their main audio manager, the fix no longer works but issue still persists. No solution until now.


9. Sometimes (not often), dual monitor give me wrong setup (PC)
Sometimes it's wrongly setted up for the monitors such as what monitor that should be a primary monitor, what monitor that should be on the left or right, refresh rate is also wrong.


10. nVidia driver still garbage (PC)

Until now, nvidia driver v525 gives very poor fps to my machine when dragging the window program (~it lags with around 10-15fps). It is unusable to me. I know, this is not PopOS fault but this experience just make it worst.


11. System won't shut down (Both PC and Laptop)

It's funny when sometimes PopOS won't let me to enter desktop, but at the same time, it also won't me to shutting down the pc. It happens very often when I click on power off, it just hang there with log "Waiting for process pid XXXX to be stopp" or something like that, in the real world, that will waits forever and I need to (again) force shut down my pc.

12. Sometimes, my operating system cannot write into my SSD (PC only)

This happens might be 3 times per year. I know it's very rare but I don't know when it happens. It's weird. 




Why don't you try another distro? I tried Ubuntu and it just slow, also I tried Zorin (that comes with 5.15 kernel contains not booting issue). I want to try another non-debian based distros but I don't have enough time to search and try it one by one because sometimes, this kind of problem show up after a month usage. Re-installing my dev environment is also pain in the ass.

Don't get me wrong, I also didn't really like Windows excepts for its gaming and office capability. But man, at least Windows don't have problem as much as experienced in PopOS. I write this when i still using Windows as main OS for 1.5 month long, and i got BSOD 1 time wkwk. Windows terminal is not that good comparing to PopOS but i will give it a chance.

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