My new laptop has arrived

I’m thrilled to say that my new computer has arrived. It took two tries, but I am the proud owner of a System76 Darter Pro laptop.

The computer originally arrived two weeks ago, but as soon as I turned it on, I noticed some glitches. It turns out that there were lines down the screen, which made using it pretty tough on my eyes. But when System76 saw the lines they started the replacement process immediately without any hassles. They even provided a prepaid label for returning the old laptop, which I expected since it was custom-made to my specs. I ended up shipping the laptop back even as they were building the new one, and both laptops arrived at their destinations yesterday. You can get a better look at the issue below on the Firefox Privacy Notice on the Mozilla website.

When I spec’d out the new laptop I had it come with Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS, which is based on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish), but putting my beloved KDE on it was pretty easy as I followed these instructions. I’m not a fan of Gnome, Pop!OS’ default desktop environment (DE), so installing KDE Plasma 5.24.7 was pretty much required for me. KDE Plasma 6 has been released, but it’s not available in my repositories yet.

System76 is working on its own DE, Cosmic, but it’s not ready for distribution yet. I may give it a shot when it drops, but I’ve been a KDE girl for over a decade so it’s what I’m used to using.

I hoped to give AV Linux MX Edition (AVL) a spin on the new laptop, but it turns out there’s a known issue with coreboot, the BIOS system on my laptop, and USB 2.0 devices like my flash drive. I’m in touch with tech support and we’re working on the issue. I may have to get a newer flash drive to use, but that won’t be a problem.

Since the new laptop will become my main computer, I’m transferring all my music, images, and other files to the new laptop. I’m moving a handful of files via a flash drive (not my AVL drive), but transferring over 200 GB of music via a flash drive is a pain in the arse. I found a faster way to transfer the files, but it’s still a long process.

Unfortunately, this means that getting more pictures of Babe’s babies is on hold until I get the new laptop set up. I can do some prep work on my old computer, but I’m holding off so I can do it all on the faster computer.

I’ve already installed several programs I use regularly on the new laptop, but once I finish transferring files over I’ll get back to installing programs, including Second Life and my digital audio workstation (DAW) programs. I’m hopeful that it won’t take until Labor Day to start laying down tracks again, but I’m planning on having preliminary mixes of my song Somewhere Someone Cares shared by All Hallow’s Eve.

I shot an unboxing video for the new laptop, and I’ll get those files on the new laptop and get them edited and posted to my YouTube channel.

Huge thanks to the person who paid for the new laptop. I knew pretty quickly that my old laptop wasn’t capable of doing audio recording, and without their gift, I’d be without a way to get my music to new ears.