Multiple Desktops Feature on Windows and a Failed Attempt at Dual-driving Linux
Last weekend, I had a bout of procrastination when I was supposed to research my thesis topic. I have since somewhat narrowed it down, but that's beside the point of this post. This post is about how I spent a couple of hours down the rabbit hole of dual-driving OSs on my laptop.
I had the experience of using a Raspberry Pi when I was younger, and my uncle had one lying around. I used it as a desktop, albeit it was pretty low-powered, and I struggled to keep up with more than a few tabs. However, that experience did help me get used to something that wasn't Windows. Learning how to use the terminal, even if it was to only unpackage and install random games I downloaded online, was pretty useful and opened my eyes that Windows isn't the only thing that can be used.
Later on, my sister's laptop had some issues with its hard drive, and my uncle helped switch that out and installed Ubuntu on it. It worked great! Much better than it did when it had Windows 10 installed. Looking back at it, I'm not sure if it was the issue with the hard drive itself or Windows just being Windows and slowing her computer down.
But I've always had the idea that Linux and its flavours are fun and lightweight (at least compared to Windows 11, I know they vary in how light they are depending on the distro). At one point, I took out the 10-year-old Dell laptop we had at home and slapped Puppy Linux on it. It worked great! It was kind of not aesthetically pleasing, but it worked. It always impressed me to read how these Distros have helped people revive their old devices.
So last weekend, I decided to try dual-driving Windows + Linux Mint XFCE on the laptop I use. It was a hasty decision - and I didn't back up my Windows drive, which is not advised. I spent half the day transferring files from my second drive to a USB Pen Drive so I could free up space there, and use that second SSD to install Mint on. I had quite a bit of movies and TV series files there, so that took a long time.
When I finally got to the point where I could boot the OS from the drive (after switching up the boot sequence from the BIOS), I got excited! But also started getting anxious. I tested the browser, looked around the UI, and liked what I saw. Now, the main reason I wanted to have Mint in the first place is so I could segregate my personal stuff from my work-related things. The only reason I'm using Windows still is that I have applications that I need Windows for. The pirated statistics software for university (I can't believe they couldn't give us a student copy) that is a requirement for my research classes, work-related software, and the whole Office suite works best with Windows.
However, I encountered the issue where it kept getting stuck at one of the install screens (even after leaving it for a few hours and trying it out with another bootable USB). The USBs I used were those free ones that my mom kept from years ago, so that may be why it was taking forever to install. Not 100% sure but if I could blame it on something, perhaps that could be it. I ended up taking a step back and really thinking if I needed the Mint distro that much to accomplish what I wanted. I just wanted to have two different spaces for the things I wanted to do.
And so I searched the internet, and wha-la! I learnt that Windows has its Multiple Desktops feature built into it already. I felt stupid for not processing that from the times I mistakenly activated it. I foregoed the plans to dual drive Mint (though I think I will revisit that after I graduate, just in case I mess things up too much) and decided that that feature meets my current needs well enough.
This feature is, of course, not perfect, and you're not able to show different applications on the taskbar, but you're able to set different desktop backgrounds and have a different set of applications open on each desktop. So there's a fair amount of segregation you can do there.
Now, I'm able to do my work on one desktop - and during breaks, I can switch over to my personal desktop to do whatever I want there, without having my work notes or email client pressure me into opening them up and seeing if there's anything new I have to attend to.
Thank you for reading this. If you would like to share any thoughts or if you have any questions at all, feel free to leave a comment :)
Also, quick note that it seems that the usual BlueSky comments script I used is unfortunately not working as of now due to some API changes. I'm still thinking of possible solutions or alternatives to this, or perhaps even removing the idea of comments entirely.
Feel free to reach out to me via the guestbook in the meantime (I love chatting on email too!) if you have anything at all you would like to share!
[15/100] for #100DaysToOffload