Help me w/ my Pinebook Pro setup

[Lyrixcaz]

Hello folks, in hopes to improve my workflow ill post some scenarios and questions so that i can see weather these things to me are feasible or not, so here goes;

Disclaimer; i know that this device is meant for low powered computing and or tinkering but, at the end of the day is another singleboard computer adapted to a laptop form factor and as such i did expect some basic usage out of it, which it lives to the expectations but it also leaves me with some questions on how to maximize the usage i give to this.

I have been taking the pbp to work so that i can do some light tasks like arranging ideas for music, type up some lyrics, do a bit of Internet marketting and even the occacional youtube watching despite the WiFi being quite slow.. Now the video watching has gotten better when it comes to watching videos online, and i can definetly type things and even do some light tracking and creating to organize my beats and structures. After i went through the setup process with jack+pulseaudio its definetly doable and im happy it most certainly is.

But, ive come across various issues, those being software wise, the main distro im rocking is manjaro because of how much good work has been put in it but a few months ago ive been experiencing constant kwin crashes, ive started asking myself if there is a DE that would be better suited for responsiveness and whatnot since at that point is was tired of the many interruptions and time spent tinkering for better performance and less bugs.

I know the device is not comparable to say, an x86 laptop in speed or maybe even stability but i know there are better ways to work with this pbp. I was going to try out debian but all i get are 'scrambled' looking images as if someone threw the monitor in a blender idk why..

Can someone help me or rather suggest DEs or w.e. ? At this moment im not having a very pleasant experience and i know it can be better.

[shjim]

that the beauty of PBP  it easy to try all ..  take your pick and flash onto  SD card ( leave eMMc  alone )    find one  you like  install on eMMc.  


lot here   "  https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinebook_Pr...Pro_images  "    Try Sway on EndeavourOS ( Arch based ) it run smooth on Pinebook Pro

[tophneal]

later this month gnome 40 should be available. i'm using it on a fedora install, and it's buttery smooth. only issues i've seen are pretty superficial: ii'm used to gestures on a mac, so i have to be slower, and more deliberate with gnome 40 gestures, and theming can be a bit weird. in some themes, the window title bar can appear transparent while the rest of the theme applies correctly.

[wpeckham]

I would recommend go light.  I3 or XFWM might do better than Gnome, but it is easy to try a couple and decide for yourself. 

Between the display limitation and the (somewhat restricted) cpu power anything heavy is more likely to run into a wall. 

I have made it my main driver for a while now, but all of my heavy lifting is on remote servers.  everything I do no the PBP itself is pretty light.

[moonwalkers]

Dunno about GNOME, but KDE Plasma here seems to be quite snappy (Debian Sid), and I didn't exactly tune down all the eye-candy. If you do any web browsing on it - I think whatever browser you're using is going to outweigh any DE you use, unless you browse only with the likes of w3m/links/lynx.