Opening
A month ago, a friend of mine told me he was building his own Linux distro with Arch as the base. He went deep into details — manually setting DNS, assigning IP addresses, and warning me not to install Linux on Lenovo Yogas. I laughed and told him, “I can’t. My laptop is for work, and I use way too many Windows programs.”
Fast forward a few weeks, and here I am, typing this on Pop!_OS.
The Story
My Lenovo Legion has two SSDs, and I realized I could dedicate one to Windows 11 and the other to Linux. That way, I wouldn’t risk my work setup but could still experiment.
I debated between Linux Mint and Pop!_OS. Mint has a reputation for being beginner-friendly and familiar, especially for people coming from Windows. But my laptop has an NVIDIA 3050 Ti, and Pop!_OS offered something Mint didn’t: baked-in NVIDIA drivers. That tipped the scales.
The install process was smooth. Pop!_OS detected everything right away, and within an hour I was booted into a clean desktop that felt surprisingly at home.
Lessons / Challenges
Choosing between Mint and Pop!_OS came down to priorities. Mint is lighter, closer to Windows in look and feel, and a great way to ease into Linux. Pop!_OS, on the other hand, has features I didn’t know I’d love until I tried them. The built-in tiling window manager makes multitasking effortless — open a browser, then a terminal, then another app, and the screen auto-organizes itself like magic.
The biggest challenge was just overcoming hesitation. Once I realized I could dual-boot, the risk disappeared. If I need Windows for work, it’s right there on the other SSD. If I want to explore or tinker, I boot into Pop!_OS.
Takeaways
Dual-booting is the best of both worlds: work in Windows, play in Linux.
Linux Mint = familiar, beginner-friendly, very Windows-like.
Pop!_OS = NVIDIA drivers included + advanced features like tiling windows.
The install was smooth, with no hardware issues on the Legion.
Trying Linux isn’t as intimidating once you dive in.
Wrap-Up
Pop!_OS feels like home. It’s fast, clean, and flexible, and it hasn’t gotten in the way of my work. I’m glad I gave it a shot instead of overthinking it — now I’ve got Windows when I need it, and Linux when I want to explore. It’s the best of both worlds.