Operating System
At first, I was going to install Windows 11, because that is what I am most comfortable in.
But then I’ve read about better performance in Linux and as a software architect, I thought it would be good to refresh my Linux knowledge and so I decided to make it a dual boot system with Win 11 and Linux.
So, … what Linux to use? First everything pointed to an Ubuntu LTS distribution. I downloaded it, prepared a bootable USB stick and the journey could begin.
Or so I thought…
BIOS where art thou?
When booting the new machine connected to my new LG monitor, I realized that the first thing I saw was the Windows login screen, nothing before that.
I tried different ports, the onboard graphics card vs. the NVidia one. I tried updating the firmware of the NVidia card and connecting it via different cables.
But the BIOS or anything else never showed up on screen. My other gaming PC with an NVidia RTX 4090 had no problems at all.
So… I ended up connecting it to my TV in the kitchen, which made working on it a pain. The misbehaving wireless mouse was also adding to the experience.
Ubuntu
But at least I could start installing the system now. At first, everything looked fine and it installed alright. After doing some stuff in the – in my opinion – not so great Gnome desktop manager, I needed a reboot.
That’s where things went downhill.
The system stopped booting because of trouble with the NVidia drivers.
As Linux was unknown ground for me, I followed lots of tutorials from the internet and killed the old drivers, blacklisted Nouveau drivers and did lots of stoneage stuff (typing in a shell).
After an hour or so, the system started with lots of graphical artifacts and a wrong aspect ratio. But at least I had a desktop again and could try to install a better driver. Unfortunately, I still had to do lots of stuff in the shell.
After a lot of steps (that I would never be able to reproduce), the machine started with a working display again and I was back on the desktop to do stuff. Another small change later, a reboot was necessary and I was back at the broken state.
Goodbye Ubuntu!
Garuda Linux
After a websearch for the best distributions with NVidia support, this one popped up with some others. I chose Garuda in the end and installed it from a fresh USB stick.
I finished the installation and rebootet from SSD. I tried logging in with the password that I had chosen, but… computer said no.
It seemed that I had somehow managed to mistype my passwort two times during setup and so I just restarted from step 1. XD
But after this hiccup, the installation was fine and the desktop experience was so much better. It took some time to get it to look nice (e.g. to get rid of those weird rounded windows), but then I almost felt like home.
Most of the windows key shortcuts work the same, which speeds up my work a lot.
Now, the real fun could begin.