Linux

I’ve installed Pop!_OS on many machines over the years, and my standard process is:

• Install PopOS
  • rare for PopOS, but, depending on specialized hardware (some legacy Nvidia cards), a little driver rejiggering might be called for. Or a weird network printer setup that CUPS doesn’t like.
• sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y apt-fast && sudo apt -y upgrade
  • pee, smoke weed, feed kitty…
• set up my custom zsh/bash profile for the terminal
• enable firewall
• configure SSH and whichever remote management tools I need (I happen to deploy remote machines frequently)
• sudo apt install gnome-tweaks & a few other UI tweaking tools (obviously, this step will no longer exist soon)
• tweak UI/UX
• search through gnome extensions website for extension I want to install. There’s usually a Top 10 or Top 20 gnome extensions list you can google (eg: “best gnome extensions 2024”)
• make sure I have all appropriate media codecs installed and updated.
• set up pip-/pip3-installer.

After that, it’s setting up/configuring whatever software that particular machine needs.

Edit: there’s probably a lot that I’ve skipped/missed, and a lot that others will do along their way through these steps. This is just a basic outline of some of my post-install processes (developed over time), and I hope this answers your question.

Also, you can google for post-install guides for Ubuntu and they’ll largely be applicable to PopOS since it’s based on Ubuntu.

Install gentoo /s

That's really cool! I put my wife on Pop_OS recently and it's been a little bumpy, but she's also got a bit of a specialty laptop. Glad it's been smooth for you :).

I really like your aesthetic, btw, how the wallpaper fits with your launch bar. Really pleasant!

Wish I had some advice for you, but heck, thanks for starting the thread because (after sifting highly opinionated goofposts) I'm learning a lot too. :)

Next, Install Debian.

That wallpaper looks really cool! Can you upload it here?

There's a song by Gucci Mane called Pop Music

I would play that really loudly using Pop! OS, like noise violation loud, and then just spin in a chair until dizzy while listening

(also enable TimeShift)

I really don't get some of these comments. I've been using popos on and off since it came out. I would check out gnome extensions to see if anything sticks out to you as being useful for your use case. I would also go into your settings and update your recovery partition. This is also the place to refresh your PC if you need in the future which has been a must-have for me.

Replace the Pop! Shop with the COSMIC Store.

sudo apt install cosmic-store cosmic-icons
sudo apt remove pop-shop

Pop Shop is kinda slow. COSMIC Store is part of Pop OS's new COSMIC Desktop Environment (DE). Everything is just a lot faster. It's an alpha so there are a couple of rough edges, but it's great overall.

Speaking of, get hyped for COSMIC. It's a DE written in Rust. It's not quite as complete as GNOME, but hopefully it will have better performance than the current GNOME mod that forms Pop's UI.

Buy Helldivers 2

Add extensions and customize gnome

Install KDE.