The year of Linux on my Laptop: Part 1
My Old Laptop
My primary laptop for the last few years has been a 6 years old Dell. It was getting a little long in the tooth and running slow on Windows 11, so a year back I decided to give Linux a try. And it was great! I've been using it as a development system and Linux Mint gave this dusty laptop a second life. There were a few downsides though.
- Closing the lid didn't suspend the laptop. Many times I would come back to a steaming hot laptop with no battery life left. This may be a configuration issue, but I haven't researched it.
- The system doesn't suspend on its own. I need to manually suspend the computer. Again, this may be a fix, but I haven't looked.
- Battery life isn't great. I'll probably get 3.5 hours on my normal workflow.
- Not a gaming laptop. I primarily use the laptop for development work, so this wasn't a major issue...till now.
A New Laptop Appears
I'm planning a trip to India in a few months and wanted to bring a laptop to develop, play games, and watch movies without having to always scramble for power. After a few weeks, I decided on the ASUS ROG Zephyrus GA402RJ.
- It had some great reviews from Ultrabook Review and The Verge
- It was on sale at Best Buy
- It's Linux-friendly (maybe). Some content on the web says that ASUS Zephyrus systems are Linux-friendly, though maybe not this GA402RJ system.
More detailed specs are in the reviews but here are some important hardware specs.
| Type | Spec | Info | URL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screen Size | 14 inches at 2560x1600 | ||
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 6900 HS | High-end. 8 cores and 16 threads. See more in detail discussion. | AMD |
| GPU | AMD Radeon RX 6700S | High-end. 8 GB GDDR6. See more in detail discussion | AMD |
| System Memory | 16 GB DDR5-4800 | 8 GB onboard, 1x DIMM, up to 40 GB | |
| Storage | 1 TB SSD | Seems on the slower side. |
Objective
This series of blogs discuss the process of getting the laptop to be usable as a Linux development and gaming system. This is primarily for me to understand why I did something unexpected and a checklist for when I inevitably reformat my laptop. But for anyone stumbling onto this, I also hope It helps set up your system.
I've broken the collection of blogs into the following pages.
- Intro (you are here)
- Install a Linux Distro, configure drivers, and get the laptop hardware set up
- Install and configure general applications, programming apps, and gaming apps
- Final Thoughts
Sweet! The next step is installing a Linux Distro and getting the hardware set up. See you soon.