Installing linux on an old work laptop my wife graciously donated for testing. It’s a thinkpad x1 carbon 4k uhd model. I was curious how KDE and Gnome were looking, how easy it is to install, how painful it is to use things I’ve been used to in Windows and what problems I encounter. This is a Saturday ‘for fun’ kind of thing.
Installation Process
- Fedora KDE Plasma 6.5
- Very quick (~10 minutes) – no issues, but did have 2 rounds of reboots after updates post OS installation
- Ubuntu 25.10 Gnome
- Installation was quick, but took about double what Fedora took, I used the same installation media and the same laptop. Not sure why the difference in speed. After initial load, also had the requisite patching session with 2 reboots.
Functionality Tests (which take 10 min or less in windows)
- Login with camera setup (i.e. Windows Hello equivalent)
- On Fedora KDE: I didn’t see an option and didn’t dive deep into this
- On Ubuntu Gnome: Have to install an additional application (Howdy) and configure. Wasn’t working so had to download a linux ir-emitter program so the IR camera could ‘see’. Package maintainer didn’t include 25.10 in release (assuming lts only, but honestly I don’t care enough to bother). Too painful to mess with, should be simple but isn’t.
- Login with fingerprint setup
- On Fedora KDE: It allowed me to register my fingerprints, but not login, I could however do sudo approval with it
- On Ubuntu Gnome: The screen would hang when clicking ‘fingerprint authentication’, though using the command line utility to register (bypassing the GUI) I was able to successfully register the fingerprint, then the GUI started working and I registered another. After successfully registering, I attempted to login with the fingerprint, which it then prompted me twice upon successful fingerprint authentication, which I call functionally broken. This can be bypassed by logging in manually with the password initially, then using fingerprint for sudo authentication. Which is probably why KDE is designed the way it is.
- Link google drive to OS
- On Fedora KDE: I setup the link via system settings online accounts, but when attempting to access google drive, it said access denied
- On Ubuntu Gnome: Worked perfectly
- Install visual studio code
- On Fedora KDE: Installed via the inherent app store, when launching, because it’s a flatpak it shows on the taskbar as a W within a yellow circle, making it difficult to identify.
- On Ubuntu Gnome: I installed via the inherent app store, works perfectly.
- install google chrome
- On Fedora KDE: Installed via app store, no issues
- On Ubuntu Gnome: Installed via https://www.google.com/chrome/, no issues
- configure laser printer
- On Fedora KDE: Selectable to install in printer app
- On Ubuntu Gnome: Auto setup and auto configured, completed test print and worked perfectly
Ending Thoughts
I was most impressed with the printer setup. On Ubuntu, it detected the printer and autoconfigured, something windows does not do. The OS install is pretty much what I recall from doing it in years past. The window and desktop animations are nice, I like the layout of the system settings, they remind me a bit of android settings. The settings make things easy on Linux in a way that it is not in windows that I absolutely appreciate. On the negative side, doing what feels like should be simple things are way too challenging. I could get everything setup if I wanted to get serious about it and devote the time… but going through this experience today reminds me why I reinstalled Windows in the past. Simple things in Windows are difficult in Linux distros. Being unable to simply setup facial scanning or fingerprint scanning for login without having to type in your password multiple times? This is basic stuff in 2020, much less 2026. I remember getting a Microsoft fingerprint reader about 20 years ago and playing with software for login. Why is this so challenging?
While I’m disappointed that things I consider simple are still challenging on linux in 2026, I do love seeing the progress. Moving away from x11 to wayland, the inclusion of nvidia graphics drivers and integration to be more usable on linux, decently performant window animations and KDE being fairly user-friendly is pretty great. I look forward to checking back in moving forward, but for now I got answered what I was curious about.
