So Purism is a company I have been following since their inception. To address why I think they are the most important hardware company around I will write another blog post, but for most people I think they understand why. So if we take it from the point that this is a really exciting day for me then the right context is set.
Opening the box was cool, black box, and black laptop, nothing too fancy just sleek and black which added to the mystery feeling. I charged the laptop for a few hours and upon boot it was lighting fast.
First screen was a scan for operating systems, and next I get a screen asking me to “Select a Language”
It is important to note here that I can not use the mouse to move around the screen even though you can see a pointer, I will check back later in the forum to see if this is a known problem or not. At the point I expect it to go away once the OS installs etc.
Side Note Australia was an option for Country 😀
Ok faster then I typed the above sentence it asked me to configure the network, right now this is feeling suspiciously like debian so I am going to suspect PureOS is a Debian base and check back on that point but go with my gut feeling for now.
Asked me for:
HostName
SetUp Users and Region info etc
Once again lighting fast next steps, and we are into the partitioning. First step is to choose your passphrase for encryption.
Ok it did not ask me how I wanted to partition my setup? Which is a bit of a hmmm because I actually like breaking down my system and also tend to move certain partitions to removal disks for ease of use of moving between systems. Anyways we will see how PureOS decides to partition my drive.
Speed of partioning as nice and quick, installing OS went quite quick aswell overall so far the harddrive is behaving like a dream, which is normal for new harddrives so ill update over the coming year 😉
Ok Installing GRUB, asked me no options, I tend to mod my config after initial install so all good there. Finishing system now, and eagerly awaiting my first PureOS boot.
Booted nicely, entered my passphrase and then I was presented with my Gnome login screen where I was pleasantly surprised with the resolution, oh and yes Mouse drivers are working now so I do not have to debug config files (just yet)
Upon first boot all hardware was running smoothly, added the laptop to my wifi network was simple enough and once it had established a connection it picked up my networked printer and installed it.
Software pre installed with the distro was your usual to be expected list. One app to note was the “Pure Browser”
The real telling use will be when I start setting up my development environment and start trying to get all my Gnome tools set-up. For the moment I will run with PureOS for abit before giving Fedora and Debian nightly a test.
** funny note the first thing I did was get my preferences into Tilix so I can start using my terminal 😉 I have never used Tilix until now but was simple enough to get my funny and odd preferences in we will see if I stick with it. It kind of feels alittle bit like PureOS app choice is more based on what someone prefers then what might be the best or standard choice in other distros.
*** and yes I was right PureOS is based on Debian, and my apt-get is running nicely thank you for asking.