Put grub on both disks. It is good insurance.
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The existing one is Pop!_OS 22.04 - Pop!_OS doesn’t use grub…
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What it defaults to uefi boot? Sounds like another one of those distros that want to be the sole install.
I bet grub can detect it and boot it.
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That’s all I want - I don’t want dual boot… as a systemd phobic - you’ll cringe - Pop!_OS uses systemd-boot 
- doesn’t bother me… I learned to stop worrying about the bomb a long time ago (to paraphrase the classic Kubrick movie “Dr Strangelove”).
But - Ubuntu 24.04 does use GRUB…
So - I’ll setup my BIOS/UEFI to default to the Ubuntu (or let Ubuntu do all that) install on the 2 TB SSD… I suspect GRUB will maybe find the Pop!_OS on the other SSD and create an extra UEFI and GRUB entry… I don’t really care…
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Yep.
I also cringe at multi-boot-non-friendly distros.
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I’ve used KDE Neon, an Ubuntu derivative, so I think it’s close enough for some healthy criticism.
It took forever to update. When you said you wanted online updates, a warning screen would pop up saying it was not advised and could cause instability. Is this a knee-jerk reaction of the distribution, or is this something to take serious?
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I haven’t used the KDE Neon edition. Kubuntu is an officially supported “spin” using KDE. You may have better luck with that one, but it may not be the same version of KDE you’re looking for. Maybe KDE Neon is supported by a third party rather than Canonical.
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There is some variation in the capacity of distros to support update and package downloads. I guess some have better servers and more mirrors.
I dont think that is a problem with plain Ubuntu, but your KDE Neon variant may be poorly supported. Solus used to have those sort of issues. Plain Debian used to be so difficilt to download that people resorted to Jigdo or Torrent.
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It was not the downloading which was the problem, it was applying the updates which took forever (up to five minutes, and that’s on a SSD).
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I think I know.
If it is a kernel update, that means an entire set of new modules.
Modules, for some reason that I do not understand, have to be compiled to be updated.
I think it is the compiling of modules that is taking the time. Compiling is CPU limited, so an SSD would not help much.
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OK - 3-4 hours in - and I’m nearly there with Ubuntu 24.04…
I sorta / kinda got Synergy working on Wayland - but - will be reverting back to xorg because clipboard sharing doesn’t work in Synergy on Wayland… that’s a showstopper…
And my shitty BIOS obscured the new UEFI entry - and was enforcing the old one… I couldn’t figure it out - so removed the old SSD and it booted straight (after LKS password unlock on my encrypted “/”) into Ubuntu…
Did some research - so much for this piece crap motherboard called “Pro” - the BIOS looks like a fricking child’s toy - and you need a mouse - what was wrong with old text based BIOS ? FFS! The upshot being - that you have dig into the BIOS under “Windows settings” to change the f–king UEFI order - WTF? Or point UEFI to another device than the default…
At least ubuntu is more consistent whether you’re in xorg, or Wayland - when I tried to run Wayland on Pop!_OS - it had some other “profile” and wouldn’t unlock my gnome keyring…
So - I’m nearly a happy campber with Noble Numbat on xorg…
OK - got both SSDs in now - had to remove the old one completely to make UEFI update itself… Probably not going to boot into Pop!_OS again -but I managed to mount it (the new “/” is LUKS, and so was the Pop!_OS one) :
This did the trick (the first line will prompt for the unlock passphrase) :
(only redacted ‘cause I used a 4 letter expletive in that name - interestingly “root” can be a 4 letter expletive in Australia - e.g. your engine blows up in the middle of b_mf_ck and you exclaim “IT’S ROOTED!” Or at a bachelor and spinster ball - you ask a rather inebriated spinster “Hey, wanna root?” when you’re hidden behind the hay bales)…
Had a few issues with Sayonara player… The one that ships with Ubu 24.04 doesn’t respect my global gnome settings - (white titlebar when everything else is in dark mode)… So it had to go… Tried installing 1.11 via SNAP… Yeah - Nah!
Found a “cached” deb file for 1.7 (on my old SSD) and that works just fine and dandy… had some missing dependancies - which were resolved by “sudo apt install -f”… Just one issue - it won’t let me pin it to the dock / dash…
I’m nearly just about cooking with gas… few issues with Citrix ICA (I need it for work) - but I should be sorted mostly…
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I have observed on my machine (AMI bios), that if I disconnect a SATA disc cable for any reason, the BIOS loses track of its boot order list.
I once swapped the controllers on 2 discs. It made an absolute mess on both the uefi entries and the grub entries in the bios . The grub entries could only be fixed by reinstalling grub.
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That’s an odd one. I haven’t seen that yet. Is there no desktop file for it maybe? It normally wouldn’t show up in the application list if it didn’t. At least I think that’s what I’ve seen.
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There was an application menu item for it - but I couldn’t find the *.desktop file - here’s what I hate about these things - there’s like a gazillion places where they can go!
Anyway - I found the *.desktop file for Sayonara on my old SSD and copied it to ~/.local/share/applications/ - but still didn’t work.
Was having issues with Citrix late yesterday - tried 4 different downloaded version - i.e. I was incrementally going backwards… Tried it this morning - ICA Receiver circa late 2024… Nope… Nada!
So - what the hey - rebooted - and lo and behold - Citrix ICA goes straight through now - and - I can pin the Sayonara Player icon to the dash / dock - this is Ubuntu - so it’s what they call the “Dash” but I’ve moved it to the bottom of the screen in the middle - so it looks lke the MacOS dock…
It’s a shame I have to run such and old version of Sayonara - i.e. the main one in the Ubuntu 24.04 repos is 1.11 - I found it didn’t follow my gnome theme correctly - and - 1.10 and 1.9 were problematic as snaps (I hate the way snaps try to “abstract” or sandbox access to your storage). But happy now I’ve got 1.7 installed (as a DEB file via dpkg) and indexed my music collection. The author (of Sayonara : Michael Lugmair) comes on here from time to time… It’s the best damn music player I’ve ever used anywhere on any platform… Been a few years now - I guess I should chuck some more money into his patreon
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OK - after 3 days of using my fresh install of Ubuntu 24.04 (latest ISO for 24.04.2 for amd64) with Gnome 46…
Few hiccups here and there…
But overall as a desktop - it’s pretty solid… sure I had to do some tweaking here and there…
Feels more polished than Pop!_OS 22.04 - and dare I say it - MacOS 15.5… and more complete…
Annoys the crap out of me that I have to install “gnome-tweaks” for a few simple features… How hard would it be to integrate those features / configurable items into gnome-settings - pretty sure Fedora is the same - so it’s not Ubuntu - its “The Gnome Foundation” holding humanity back… I guess same as The Linux Foundation (who’s executive wing have been busted multiple times using MacOS - who even pays these schmucks?).
Overall - IMHO Ubuntu 24.04 with Gnome 46 seems more polished than MacOS 15.5 (but there’s an update to MacOS 25.x imminent - yes they’re jumping a decade - MacOs, iPadOs and iOS will be all the same versions soon).
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I spent years with Gnome in Debian, just because it was the default, but I never thought of it as ‘polished‘. There seemed to be some half baked apps, lots of useless games, and I dont like sceens full of icons. I turned that off and used the dropdown menus.
Has it improved since about 2020.?
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I think there have been some incremental improvements. The interface is still the same. I used KDE decades ago and missed the big transition fight from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 that resulted in Mate. I’ve used KDE, Cinnamon, Unity, Pantheon, and Gnome. I don’t think I’ve ever used XFCE for any amount of time. Of those I think I prefer Gnome. There are some things I change with Gnome Tweaks, but I try to keep it pretty vanilla. I think Gnome kind of stays out of the way and just works. Some folks have other preferences and that’s fine too. Variety is the spice of life.
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The DE does not matter much to me. I have standardised on Xfce , but I can get by with any DE or a WM . IceWM is about my minimum…. menu and some workspaces. I have just discovered CTWM and I can function in that with a couple of tweaks.
I experienced that. I stayed on Gnome 3…… until I went to Xfce.
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Same here - I disable ALL desktop icons…
I only use the dash / dock … that’s the only place I have icons (same similar to XFCE’s bottom “panel” - but more dynamic).
It feels as polished - or even more polished - than my current MacOS (15.5) on 2 x MacBook Pro M1… I’m yet to upgrade to MacOS 26 - so I don’t know if I’ll be comparing apples (sic) with oranges or even grapefruit.
There are a few inconsistencies here and there with Gnome 46… But mostly it suits me fine… e.g. it’s way better than Gnome 42 was on Pop!_OS…
Inconsisencies :
some apps don’t respect global dark mode
have to constantly remember if a setting I want to adjust is in Gnome Settings, or Gnome-Tweaks (or even Gnome Extension Manager [of which there’s TWO! - how confusing!])
in Gnome Terminal - there’s no contrast between active and non active tabs - the active tab is shown by an orange (I think) bar :
I’d rather have that blue or purple or something - but there’s no where to change that - I think…
Hang on - it can be changed - but - it’s not obvious… I set “Theme variant” to “Follow system style” - but I have to completely exit terminal - now it respects the highlight colour I choose…
I just with there was some contrast between active and inactive - or a vertical line / separator…
Highlight colour selection (in Gnome Settings) :
The other thing that makes Linux nearly always better than MacOs is Nautilus - MacOS finder is horrible - e.g. there’s nearly always file icons hidden to the right of the Finder window - and NO HORIZONTAL SCROLL BAR! How is that in the least bit intuitive? It’s not obvious, but, you have to re-sort the sorting in Finder to have ALL file icons visible, or scrollable (down) to - but you can never scroll horizonally. Nautilus NEVER plonks / hides icons to the side…
The only thing Finder (and for that matter Windows Explorer.exe) has over Nautilus is slow-double-click to rename - and I’m not interested in trying any other file managers that might allow this - I’ll stick with Gnome’s native “Nautilus”… Some 10+ years ago - “Files” (i.e. Nautilus) in Ubuntu Unity had this feature - but the Gnome devs decided to disable it (i.e. not even make it possible to enable) - WHY?
Some people seem to think slow double click rename is a Windows feature. Windows didn’t get this till Windows 95 - it was a MacOs feature - e.g. from at least System 6…
And maybe 25 years ago - it was also the “default” in X Windows system - e.g. on Motif on Solaris or Digital UNIX in CDE…
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Xfce is not perfect at that either.
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