I re-enabled my old trusty 2013-manufactured Lenovo ThinkPad S1 Yoga which I used during my studies. I had Ubuntu 24.04 installed on it for some time but never really used it. But now, I upgraded it to the latest development build of Ubuntu 26.04 to check the current state of Ubuntu and Linux on the desktop. And to check if I really switch to it as my main operating system.

And what should I say? It works great! Even on this ancient hardware, it runs absolutely smoothly. Sure, a compilation of GoBlog took a bit more time than on my much newer laptop with much better specs. But it works. And I can use it without compromises.

It seems like some issues I had with Ubuntu before switching to Windows are finally solved. Like high Bluetooth audio quality with a microphone. In the settings I can freely switch between the supported audio codecs. Is it due to the switch to PipeWire?

Also, Snaps work great, and Flatpak works great as well. Both are better than I remember from before. I imagine a setup with most things running in one of these formats. For example, I can install Firefox, Visual Studio Code and Go as a snap, and updating all snaps is just a matter of running sudo snap refresh. A lot of Gnome apps work well as Flatpaks.

What I also miss a bit with Windows is the customizability. For example, there’s this fancy tool that brings a Windows-11-like clipboard history and emoji search to Linux. Or the settings of the Terminal allow simple remapping of the key shortcuts. So instead of Ctrl + Shift + V I can configure it to paste just with Ctrl + V like on Windows.

What I haven’t tested yet, but also can’t on this device, is full-disk encryption with automatic unlocking using TPM, but I will definitely use that when I use it as my main laptop.

The only thing so far that is really better on Windows is the virtual files support of the Nextcloud desktop client. With Ubuntu, I have to choose the files that I want to always have on my device and handle the rest through rclone or a WebDAV mount.

In the end I think I’ll really switch back to Linux in the near future. I’m more grown up now five years later and won’t waste my time misconfiguring my laptop anymore. Even a system without immutability and declarative configuration should be fine. I will just use it to get shit work done.