I just recently switched to Linux on my main computer a couple of weeks ago, I've used Linux on my laptop (research and Youtube machine) years ago, but have never really done anything with it, essentially my laptop tasks could be performed by a Chromebook, I only use Firefox on it for research for videos or watching Youtube videos, making the occasional post on forums, etc, essentially 100% browser based.
However, this did give me a platform for testing, since there is never anything on this, I can test things, figure stuff out, break the OS, do clean installs to start over, it was a safe testing platform for trial and error. So my suggestion here is if you have mission critical data, or actual work you need to get done on your main computer, try finding a cheap option first to play with, an old laptop, an old desktop, maybe find something at goodwill or online classifieds, install the distro you're looking into, and play with it from there, start learning terminal, you're new best friend.
Once you're ready to dive deeper down this rabbit hole like I was, I made a HUGE list over the next week, every time I used my desktop, I made a list of every program I used, and everything I did with it. A good starting point is go to control panel and open remove programs, go through that list and just look at everything you have installed, and write down everything you installed that you use.
Next comes the research, start looking for alternatives or workaround for everything there. So for me, it's all gaming and content creation, so the main games I play are Forza Horizon 4, and Halo, both are Microsoft only, so I had to find alternatives, turns out, if you buy a game on the Microsoft Store, it's cross play, you can just download it on an Xbox One, it's not 60fps because it's an original Xbox One, but sure, works for me. I'll just wait for the new Xbox to comes out and that solves my 60fps issue, I was going to buy one anyway so problem solved. - So with this example here, not all alternatives are on your computer, you may be able to find other alternatives on other devices.
Next is testing my hardware, I have some DJ equipment, MIDI devices, an external DAC for my mic, it uses proprietary software from the company that glitches out on install if you don't install it correctly on Windows, so using this on Linux was a scary thing for me, if it was that hard to getting everything working on Windows, I was expecting a nightmare to try and figure it out on Linux, turns out, no driver needed, it works straight out of the box, better on Linux than it does on Windows, as for the DAW, I use FL Studio, and with some research, I found out it works flawlessly with wine, a little bit of start up work getting it working, but there are lots of helpful guides out there, and it works just as it did in Windows, but I actually noticed that even though this is a Windows/macOS program, and I'm using the Windows version of it with wine, it's actually using less system resources when making really complicated projects, so even though it's not designed for it, using an alternative workaround for install, it works better than it did on Windows. - So with this example, you can see that it's not just switching to Linux, it's also switching to a better environment in some cases as some stuff just works better on Linux, even if the hardware and software was designed for Windows/macOS only.
Now finally we have the two programs I use that do not work on Linux, The first one being Adobe Photoshop. I need an alternative, everyone knows, GIMP, it's the go to standard, works great, always works, it's super solid and just ready to go out of the box, if you feel it looks a little dated which I did, well, it's theme-able too, so you can just download themes to give it the look you want, and if I had known about GIMP before learning Photoshop, I never would have used Photoshop. - So what we get from this is the free open-source alternative is actually as good as the professional paid alternative, so not only was the paid version holding me back, but I ended up picking up the free alternative straight away, and I really have no reason to go back to Photoshop, even if I did return to Windows.
Next would be Adobe Premiere Pro, I've wanted to switch to something else for a LONG time with all of the random crashes, even using the latest versions, latest Nvidia driver, DDU installs to make sure everything is as stable as possible, didn't matter, it always just randomly crashes, it drove me insane knowing that I was paying $50 a month for Creative Cloud for a program that seems like it was made by a crack team in one night with basically no support that actually helps (they literally asked me if I tried restarting my computer, as if that wasn't my first step into trying to resolve Premiere issues), the worst part was if I used the auto-save function, if it crashed while making an auto-save, it would corrupt the entire project file and I wouldn't be able to reopen it causing me to start all over from the beginning WAY TOO MANY TIMES.. Which is where I did RESOLVE (pun intended) my issues. DaVinci Resolve. I am so mad I spent so many years learning Premiere Pro only to find out that not only is DaVinci Resolve free, they have a Linux version (it's designed for CentOS, so a small fix to get it working), but I decided to try it on Windows since it's cross platform, free, I really had nothing to lose, loaded up a test project in Premiere Pro, 10 minute video, 1080p, default .mp4 h.264 encoding settings, it took 12-14 minutes each test using an i9-9900k with 32GB of RAM and a 1080ti, It was using 20-22GB of RAM, it was steady at 20GB but peaked at times to 22GB of RAM usage. This is where it gets interesting, on Windows with DaVinci Resolve, same 10 minute test project recreated, same default .mp4 h.264 render, 8-10 minutes every render, but wait.. there's more.. 8-10GB RAM usage... Faster render times, and LESS than HALF of my system resources being used. (I was only concerned with needing more RAM, I don't have numbers for CPU/GPU usage as they have never been an issue). So now I was sold, I just accidentally made a huge improvement in my workflow by looking for Linux alternatives that still work on Windows, so now I have alternatives, and I can learn how to use them on Windows while I'm comfortable knowing what to do. Once I felt comfortable with DaVinci Resolve (which I picked up faster than Premiere Pro because of how easy it is to use), I was ready for the switch. - So this here just goes to show that looking for alternatives might be the thing you needed all along, because I made a huge discovery that not only helps my computer not break a sweat, but also saved me money because I canceled my Creative Cloud subscription, so I'm now saving $50 a month, and I was worried that if I switch my workflow over to 4/6/8K I'm going to need a 64/128GB RAM kit, turns out, I don't need to buy anything and saved myself from unnecessary hardware upgrades due to a poorly optimized program haha.
Last thing to learn here is that there are workarounds, just because my success was found on Windows, it was not on Linux, for instance my motherboard, it's a Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Z390, which means it has an ESS Sabre DAC built in, and out of the box, Linux tries to use the Intel audio drivers which don't work with ESS Sabre, so this means every audio port on the back of my computer doesn't work. I did find out that you can use the front Headphone jack as that's not controlled by the DAC so the Intel drivers work for that, but I did have to do a lot of research to figuring out my sound issue, and so far I have still not figured out the rear ports, my work around was I bought a 3.5mm to 1/4" cable to go from the 1/4" headphone jack on my external DAC, and I routed the cable down to the 3.5mm port on the Logitech stereo, and then I use a different pair of USB headphones. So now all Audio is externally controlled, and USB output, not ideal, but it works and hasn't stopped working or had any issues. So I have a method that works, and keeps me up and running until I can resolve the ESS Sabre issue. - So from this you should see that even though there was an issue stopping productivity, there are workarounds to get you up and running while you figure out a better fix, just because you got it working doesn't mean it's done, you can always improve as perfection is impossible
The first impression issues didn't stop there, I got into a huge issue with NTFS drives not working out of the box (this was a Pop_OS! 20.04 thing) but I fixed it by backing up all of my drives and formatting them all to EXT4 (which ended up showing huge performance improvements, basically got faster drives for free just by using EXT4 instead of NTFS so I'm kind of glad I ran into that issue as I would have left them NTFS for ever and never known about the vast improvements of EXT4 over NTFS.
You thought we were done with start up impressions? Not just yet, next was DaVinci Resolve, like I mentioned earlier, it's designed for CentOS, so there's some workarounds you need to do to convert the .run into a .deb, so it wasn't as straight forward as I was expecting, which took quite awhile for me to figure out how to get everything working perfectly, but once it's working, I found out it didn't stop there, for whatever reason, DaVinci Resolve, or Blackmagic rather, doesn't support h.26x formats in Linux, this means .mp4 h.264, basically my entire workflow, but, there's options, convert and change the cameras to .mov, well no, I changed my camera over to .mov, turns out the camera shoots .mov h26x formats lol, It uses the older codec of .mov, so, converting was my option, which is where I learned all about a wonderful little program called FFmpeg, and I absolutely love this. You just tell it the directory in terminal, have all your settings figured out, bingo bango, it's off to the races, and it will convert every file in a directory from one format to another, places them in a folder and everything. Now, you might be thinking, well, this is a whole extra step over Windows, why is this good? Well, it's because of how UNBELIEVABLY FAST DaVinci Resolve is on Linux, I had to make a video so I wasn't able to use a test project, but the final video I made was around 14 minutes, set to default .mov settings, and rendered.. ready for this.. 2 minutes.. and 42 seconds.. LESS than 3 minutes for a LONGER video than my test projects on Windows. - So this is the last thing to make sure you remember when swtiching to linux, is that even though there is an alternative program, it was more work to install it, there's extra steps now to use it, there are hidden gems in there, because even though I have to take some time to run a quick code in terminal to convert all of my video files after shooting a video, I just type that in, walk away, make a coffee, it's done when I get back, no big deal, but for how much time I save rendering videos. I can never go back to Windows again.
So some closing marks here to remember, make a list, find alternatives, find workarounds, pros and cons of each, if something is more work, it's not always bad, make sure you like what you're doing, because at the end of the day, if switching is stressing you right out and you're pulling your hair out trying to get it all working, than is it worth it? Just remember why you're leaving Windows for open-source, why you want the ability to do anything you want on your computer, and how not only it's free, but like me, you saved tons of money by switching (because I saved $50 a month on my Adobe Creative Cloud Subscription and didn't have to buy more RAM because of DaVinci Resolve).
So go out and try it, start with an old computer you can break, screw the OS right up, do some system updates and just shut it off half way, boot it back up and try to figure out how to fix it, give yourself problems to overcome, because the better you are at solving them, the less they become "problems" rather than challenges to be conquered .

What follows is my review after 8 months of owning the device.
So I want to preface post by saying this:

1. If you have a Pixel Slate, and love it, I am not here to make you change your mind about the device. Honestly, nothing makes me happier than seeing people happy with the things they own. Even though I love Toyota, if you love your Fiat I am so happy for you! If you have an iPhone and love it, I am so happy for you! If you have a Pixel Slate and love it, sincerely, I am overjoyed you are having that experience. (As long as you don’t laude your Fiat, iPhone, or Slate as somehow fundamentally better than everything else at everything and can’t admit any fault with it.)
2. I am writing and sharing my experiences here because I believe nuanced discussion and fair critique's on individuals experiences with a device is beneficial to everyone. No one benefits from unadulterated praise of a device. No one benefits from dismissing or covering up the claims of problems with a device.
3. This isn’t a passion-write. I have contemplated my feelings and experiences with the Pixel Slate over the course of months. I tried to be insightful without sounding silly. This may end up with me sounding, silly. At least I tried. I even used spell-check!

With that being said, here is my review of the Pixel Slate, I'm ready to be downvoted into oblivion.

My use case:

I am a math professor and grad student and this was my only laptop/tablet. So my usage is heaviest in Squid either writing notes with no wireless projection, projecting myself writing notes via my chromecast, projecting myself writing notes via HDMI, doing screen recordings of myself writing notes with no projection, and Chrome with many tabs (8-10 usually?), faculty email, student email, personal email, online portal for homework, online portal for textbook, an article a colleague sent me, an article on some area of mathematics I'm researching.... Reddit. So much reddit.
I had some light video 'editing' to regularly do because of Chrome OS' screen recording limitations. This was primarily simply converting a video from.webm to .mp4 which was outrageously slow. No good offline, fast video converters seem to exist for Android or as an extension.
I had a few calculator apps I used like WabbitEmu (free ti-84 emulator! Check it out), natural scientific Calculator, the offline Geogebra android application (an AMAZING graphing calculator. DEFINITELY should check it out), and Calc Business (a sort of Casio FX-115/991 emulator). I didn't do much gaming, but for a time I played A LOT of Old School Runescape on the tablet (3-6 hours a day) and Drastic (Nintendo DS emulator).

Expectations:

Purchasing the device, I expected to have something I could reliably teach, take notes, do light gaming for mobile applications, and tend to my personal things (paying bills online, emails, Netflix etc). Make no mistake, I had no expectations of going crazy hard on this thing. I understood it only had 8GB of RAM and a 7.5W "core i5" 2 core processor. At any time, I did not have all my above usage scenarios going. I might have a half of my Chrome use case going (4-6 tabs) and squid going at the same time. Exclusively a game and a guide in chrome for said game.
I understand there are limitations of the hardware I choose to purchase (primarily i5/8GB/128) and did not ever seek to push the device beyond what the hardware should handle in order to show fault (i.e. opening 40 tabs, 8 games, 12 other android applications, connecting to an external monitor and then planting my flag of victory in the ground when it finally crashed.) That's nonsense and would be unfair.
I do not expect any operating system to be bug-free. There will be launch day bugs. Google developers are rushing to meet the deadline of the Google Hardware event. (even though it was released more than a full month after it’s announcement and had extra time to iron things out).
Things happen, oversights happen, mistakes happen, these platforms are developed by human beings and I do not expect these human beings to be perfect, as no human is :). But I was expecting a software experience similar to my Pixel phones and other flagship Android devices I’ve had in recent years. Where 99% of the time I can expect the device to power on and work. Maybe I need to force close an app once because of a bug, and then not have it again ever or have it, or having to reboot *because* of a bug once and then not have that bug again, or even just have to reboot outside my normal rebooting schedule once or twice a month because of a bug.

Hardware: Mostly Unadulterated Praise

I really do feel the Pixel Slate shines so brightly with its hardware. The screen to body ratio, make it perfect for handling. It offers iterative improvement upon the Pixelbook's controversial bezels and I think that's a fantastic thing. While I am walking around classrooms lecturing, it’s nice to have large enough bezels to comfortably hold the tablet with one hand.
The bezels on a 6 inch phone should not be the same as the bezels on a 10 inch tablet. The bezels on a 10 inch tablet should not be the same as a 12 inch tablet. I say this because I have personally used a 10 inch tablet and a 12 inch tablet. I need more "grip room with the Pixel Slate due to the increase in size and 'awkwardness' while holding it.
Sitting at a conference table with colleagues with Macbooks and iPads felt so deliciously sweet. Watching them have to bring two devices to the meeting, two cords and power bricks, have to airdrop things from one device to another in order to make edits and then airdrop back… Oh my goodness, being able to bring one device to the meeting, one cord, and never even have to take my file off-device in order to make trackpad level accuracy adjustments and keyboard additions, then flip it back over for pen edits felt like God-mode. This flexibility felt so convenient, I do really believe the 2in1/detachable to be the peak form factor for laptops/tablets.
The speakers were fantastic! When they worked. For the first 6 months of owning my slate, the left speaker would die after a few seconds of video. Just about any video, be it in the netflix app, netflix in the browser browser, offline video, browser youtube, android youtube, etc.. One of the major version updates fixed it (after 6 months of suffering with the bug) and I didn’t have any issues with it since then.
Compared to the Pixelbook, I can really feel the improvement 8th gen chips brought. On my pixelbook playing Runescape for an hour would make the center of the top part of the keyboard fire hot. Others have reported the same experience. On my Pixel Slate, it gets warm, but never unbearably warm like the Pixelbook did.
I now have a Lenovo C740, and I am hugely missing having USB-C ports on both sides of my Pixel Slate. It’s quite annoying to have to snake around a USB cord to the opposite side, then provide extra slack so I am not putting unnecessary strain on the port and cord. I also have a Tab S6 and only having one USB-C port has become annoying on more than one occasion.
The weight of this device was great. Being able to only have the tablet in hand while teaching was crucial. I’m 193cm tall (around 6 foot 4 inches) and I exercise regularly. But holding my previous Chromebook, the Pixelbook for a 3 hour lecture (even for a one hour lecture) one handed, while trying to write on it left my wrist so incredibly sore! And this is with the pixelbook being an incredibly light device!
But with the Slate, It seems as though I could detach it from it’s keyboard and hold just the tablet and write indefinitely without causing any discomfort for myself, the slate |1|. (an absolute unit, absolutely #1, math humor, sorry not sorry.)

Software: Bugs! Bugs as far as the eye can see!

Let’s talk about the pros:
Throughout my ownership, I never really experienced slow-downs. It stayed fast exactly as Google advertised. As a matter of fact, I do believe some version updates to Chrome OS made it measurably faster at different places in the OS and I love that about Chromebooks.
I loved being able to have adb/fastboot on something so incredibly lightweight.
Seamless updates and the trackpad gestures for Chrome OS are just fantastic. They are something I miss to this day now that I am on Windows. There’s quite a few pros I see mentioned in every chromebook review, so I will do you the mercy of skipping those as I am sure you’ve already heard them a few dozen times.
There were days, weeks even where everything is running beautifully smooth, the whole OS top to bottom is responsive and quick, the birds are singing, the sun is shining, I’m switching in and out of tablet mode writing with the pen and then typing something, people are offering comments like:
“Wow, that is so cool.”
“Wow, I wish my Macbook/laptop/tablet could do that.”
“Wow, what is that device? It’s so cool.”
“That’s a chromebook!?!? And you’re doing all of that!?!? That’s amazing!”
“Wow, you’re so cool for using that, here’s a ring, will you marry me”
Legit, while in one of my classes for my degree, I had a professor stop his lecture in front of 150 students ask what the hell I was using and was amazed by it. He asked if he could hold it up in front of the class to show off what it was and what it could do. He offered public praise for it over an iPad. (I wonder if he was a chromebook user himself... But I kind of doubt it, he was a bit not so technologically incluine)
There were times using the Pixel Slate where everything felt sublime, I truly felt like this should be the future of operating systems.
But experiences like this were prefixed and suffixed by much longer intervals of painful, experience crippling bugs. My God, I suffered through so many instability bugs. The rampant bugs even caused the woman who just proposed to me because of the chromebook to leave me!
Now…. All these cons.
The total killjoy of the Pixel Slate is the software. I can not reliably trust it to work and not crash several times in my daily workflow.
Honestly, I have never owned any device on any stock OS that was buggier than my Pixel Slate. I was primarily on the Stable Channel for maximum….. Stability. I tried the Beta Channe, and no, it was not more stable than the SC for me. I tried the Dev Channel on my Pixelbook when I had that, and just- No. No no no no.
This felt worse than an Alpha. I’ve used more stable custom roms for android phones than this. Comparing Chrome OS to a custom rom for android seems like an insult to Custom ROM devs. Custom ROMs are the result of a handful of ordinary folks coming together to produce a fork of android for free in their spare time. Google has full time employees working on Chrome OS and can’t put out something anywhere close to as stable as some custom ROMs I have used for longer than I have owned my Pixel Slate.
Here is a list of bugs I personally experienced over **multiple Chrome OS versions.**1 and 2 have videos accompanying them I
I’m not counting bugs I experienced say exclusively in Chrome version ‘x’ but were not present in Chrome version ‘x-1’ or ‘x+1’.

1. A combo bug and design oversight with not being able to use the fingerprint sensor after not using the device for sometimes less than an hour. Then when I try to put in my pin, a stupid persistent help message covers up the 1,2, and 3 button.
2. While in tablet mode, the bottom half becoming unusable in overview mode and Chrome. The top half works perfectly fine, but the bottom half does not. The shelf disappears and becomes useless as well.
3. Android Notifications being broken for over a full YEAR. Many android applications no longer opened their app when I pressed on their notification. Pressing the notification yielded….. No response. Mark as read did nothing, reply did nothing, archive did nothing. Be it notification from Boost (a really great reddit client! Check it out!) , gmail, google photos, telegram, telegram x… They all resulted in no response when pressing on the notification.
4. The pen’s palm rejection. I don’t even have the stupid MKBHD gripe of “ThErE’S nOwHeRe tO PuT iT” it’s a stylus, put it in your pocket, your laptop bag, or use a pen loop dingus.

The palm rejection area being hilariously low. Causing all sorts of random touches to occur while using the advertised Pixelbook Pen. (which in itself is an incredibly fragile, lame, and poorly thought out stylus. Especially given Samsung’s excellent, nearly decade old template of the s pen. Along with Microsoft’s Surface Pen, the Apple Pencil, Wacom Bamboo Ink, Lenovo Active Pens, the list goes on and on...)
This has since been ‘fixed’ with the introduction of the heuristics flag. Seriously, if you have a slate and use the pen and are getting frustrated by the touches, go to chrome://flags in the omnibar, use ctrl+f to find the palm rejection flag and turn it on.

1. General random crashes when switching between having two apps open like Squid and a Calculator or squid and Google Home, when putting two apps into split-screen, connecting to an external monitor, crashing when waking up from sleep, wifi randomly not working and needing a reboot… These did not happen consistently with every release, there were times I could do the action that triggers the bug for days, but have no crash associated with said action. However, they consistently happened in multiple chrome versions.

What irritates me about bugs 1, 2, and 3 is what they represent. These were not difficult to trigger bugs. These were bugs with ordinary, simple, basic usage someone who is actually using the device as advertised, (A tablet you can write on with a real keyboard that has android apps you can use alongside the full desktop chrome browser)
I remember getting off an airplane to head to a conference. For whatever chrome version it was (I believe 75) it had been rolled out, and then the rollout had been paused due to bugs. The rollout resumed once Google said they fixed them, and this was the update I received within the airport. Within 5 minutes of me rebooting, while only having Squid, Boost, Xodo, and 2 chrome tabs open, I encountered bug 2 from above.
It is experiences like this that convince me of a few things. I believe the reality to be a bit more nuanced and complex, but here is a simplified version of my beliefs caused primarily by bugs like those mentioned above.

1. Nobody in leadership at Google is actually using or even testing the device in the advertised use cases.
2. Despite nobody using the device, they’re so apathetic to not even consult users and professionals who are actually using the device in order to get feedback and ACT in measurable ways on what they should improve from that feedback in an appropriate time. I can not quantify what exactly the length of a process like this is, but I do know it does not take over a year like some of the major bugs I experienced.
3. Management/Project Leads do not care at all.
4. Many ‘worker-bees’ are not working to fix these bugs or at all.
5. There is no Quality Control on releases. Before say a stable release gets sent out, it’s not internally tested to guarantee it’s not a shitshow.

Obviously, there are people at Google that are passionate about what they do for the Pixel Slate, and honestly if I ever met them I would hug them and buy them dinner. But to me, it seems clear these beautiful specimens of humanity are not in charge of making major decisions for releases for the Pixel Slate, or doing the right thing would come at the risk of losing their job/getting in serious trouble.

Summary: The Legacy of the Pixel Slate is it is emblematic of Google’s strategy with Chrome OS (and perhaps it’s entire product line-up).

If Google invested real time in developing quality software, the Pixel Slate could have been a halo device not only for chromebooks, but for all 2 in 1 devices on all operating systems. Instead, I feel “All talk, no walk” summarizes Google, the Pixel Slate, and Chrome OS. Google gave a half-assed attempt at a tablet chromebook. When their half-assery was openly put on display and criticized by the tech media/blogs (even if MKBHD’s review of the celeron slate was not representative of a half-informed buying choice), they got pissed and decided to take their toys home and close up shop. Simply put, it’s pathetic.
Google with tablets is the kid who constantly pushed you and bullied you in elementary school, in return you kindly socked him in the nose, he started crying and ran to the teacher and told on you.
This is not to say Google is a bully, but that Google thinks nobody is interested in chrome os tablets from them because they’re not interested in chrome os tablets. That’s not the case, people are not interested in devices Google does not care about itself.
Look at Apple, when the original iPad came out, it was blasted by the media. But Apple stuck to it’s guns and iteratively improved the iPad for over eight years with more than 14 different models of ipad, ipad pro, ipad mini, ipad air. Now they’re some of the best tablets on the market. They are more than that, they are halo devices for the tablet space.
Again, look at the example of Samsung. While I have owned the note 9, 5,4,3, and 2 I don’t think Samsung phones are for me, the OS is too obtrusive. I like my phone to be simple and clean like Pixels. But touchwiz for tablets? It feels like a love story. It’s clear that Samsung is intentionally developing more software and hardware features to cater to the demographic of people who use tablets. There are so many software features Samsung has added that make the experience of using a tablet more natural. I have the highest praise for Samsung’s tablets. (Currently own a Tab S6, sold the Slate and bought a Tab S4)Similarly with Microsoft. When the first few Surfaces launched, they met their fair share of criticism, and yet Microsoft, just like Apple and Samsung, Microsoft stuck to their guns and continued to iteratively improve upon the surface for years and years.
Google made one chromebook tablet with fantastic hardware and crap software, pouted nobody bought it, then gave up.

In Closing,

Again, I would like to reiterate, if you love your Slate I am so happy you do. If yours has been stable for you, excellent! I’m happy for you. But I wanted to share my experience of owning it for 8 months.
I really do not believe the problems were hardware related as some of the bugs were confirmed on other chromebooks of completely different makes. Yes, I powerwashed multiple times throughout owning it, and bugs persisted. I enabled stability improving flags, the same bugs persisted. I disabled all flags, the same bugs persisted.
Anyways, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
TLDR: It's a buggy shitshow.
KTLDR: It's kinda a buggy shitshow that has moments where it really shines and moments where it is so buggy it pains my soul to even look at it.
​
Edit 1: Some clarity, forgotten thoughts added.
Edit 2: Here's an audio recording of myself I made if you would prefer to listen to this.https://soundcloud.com/bugdroid-635990840/pixel-slate-audio-review
​
Edit 3: Cleaned up and clarified some more things.

How to Get Started Doing NFL Breakdowns
The NFL Season is almost upon us and as a PSA, here's an updated repost of my approach to doing play break downs.
Here is my original post from earlier this year.
To preface all this, I'd like to say that I highly recommend anyone who is really interested in learning more about the details of football to take a step into breaking down video. While you can certainly get a great knowledge base by reading the breakdowns by others, the act of studying, questioning, and looking at details is a far different experience. Doing a writeup adds even more to the process.
Most of us feel like we don't know very much or that we lack enough specific knowledge to be able to break down film. And it's probably true! But the best way to get that knowledge is to do a writeup. Seriously. Do a writeup as best as you can and there are many knowledgeable people that will give you corrections or who will give you additional insight into the plays. And you may be surprised at how quickly you will start to pick up on things just because you are paying attention.
Step 0 : Decide on Source
The first step is to decide how you are going to source the breakdowns. There are two basic choices at this point :
TV Copy or Coach's Tape
TV Copy is the broadcast version of the game, ie., the version that we all watch on Fox/CBS/NBC. The advantages are that it is free, the quality and clarity of the video is generally very good, and that it is timely. But the disadvantages are that you are restricted in the views you get (though the replays can be fantastic), particularly of the defensive backfield, but also quite often the offensive/defensive line engagements. With prime time games, you have as many as 6 games to choose from on a given week (perhaps more if you include the Rewind games on the NFL Network that are broadcast the following week). For the more involved/desperate fans, DirecTV's Sunday Ticket offers access to all the broadcast games.
Coach's Tape (sometimes generically referred to as "All 22" tape) is composed of two views : the All-22 Overhead View that is critical for analyzing routes v coverages and the Endzone View that is very valuable for understanding line play. Advantages of the Coach's Tape is that it shows a more sophisticated level of detail for assessing play. The disadvantages are that the video quality is relatively poor, the distance of the shots means that some detail is lost. On some stadiums, these coaching camera placements are annoyingly poor.
There's only one place to get the Coach's Tape. The NFL offers the NFL GameRewindGamePass online package to stream the games after they have aired. Previously, the NFL offered Season, Season Plus, or Follow-Your-Team packages at various price points. It appears that from 2015 onwards, there is only a single package and it is priced at $99.99 (or $69.99 for previous subscribers).
NFL GamePass.
NFL GamePass gives you access to (most) NFL Games back to 2009; note that a few games here and there (mostly from 2009) are not on the system for whatever reason. Coach's tape is not available for all those games, but it is available for the past couple of years. This could be very useful if you are interested in comparing a player across multiple years.
For most that want to take up the effort of breaking down plays, the Coach's tape is the most natural and desirable option. Ideally, you would use both since sometimes the broadcast has an excellent Isolation replay that reveals more than the Coach's Tape does.
As of 2015, GamePass now includes the Preseason games (previously these were purchased separately).
NFL also offers live and archived access to the radio broadcasts of each of the NFL games. And also new for 2015, the "AudioPass" is included as part of the GamePass package. While the NFL will not stream the video of the games LIVE, they do stream the Radio broadcasts lives. For some (like myself), you can listen to the radio live and then capture the video later that night. TV Copy becomes available as soon as Sunday Night Football ends.
If you are so motivated, taking the TV Copy and swapping in the Home Team radio broadcast instead of the network announcers can be so very rewarding. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms or Bob Papa, Tom Flores, and Lincoln Kennedy? There's no question there as far as Raiders games go.
Step 1 : Capture Video
Once you've decided if you are going to go with just the TV Copy or with the Coach's Tape, you have another decision to make. Do you want to capture from the TV in realtime or do you want capture from the GameRewind?
Capture devices
If you want to capture video from the TV into your computer, you need a capturing device of some sort. These devices have been gaining popularity as more and more people are grabbing Xbox/Playstation gameplay vid. The three devices that I've heard of are the Black Magic, the Elgato, and the Hauppauge. These are all in the ~$140+ range with the Black Magic having models in the $200+ range as well.
My friend uses the Elgato for XBox vids and likes it very much. I use the Hauppauage and have been thinking of trying out the Elgato or Black Magic, but have never quite bothered.
To use this in conjunction with GameRewind, you would have to connect a computer's HDMI out to the device and then capture on a 2nd computer. This may not be feasible for many.
What is nice about a capture device is that it is useful for archiving anything broadcast on the TV.
The Pros of TV Capture : immediacy. good quality. can be used for non-NFL game content like College Games, Combine, Hard Knocks, etc.
Cons : pricey. If using in conjunction with broadcast games, must edit out commercials. To use with Game Rewind, must have 2 computers available. Requires TV subscription, so not useful for Cord-Cutters.

• Black Magic : Black Magic
• Elgato : Amazon.com
• Hauppauge : Hauppauge.com

Screen Casting/Capture
Alternately, you can choose to capture the streamed video on the computer itself. This cuts out the needs for a capture device and instead the computer will capture the desktop and save it as a video file. This has typically been used for demoing applications on the desktop, but is also nicely suited for "web-ripping" videos.
Here are some popular screencasting/capture utilities :

• CamStudio free
• VLC - free
• Fraps - $37
• Snagit $50
• Jing - Free
• Camtasia - $299!! (FWIW, I'm told that it's excellent)

Some Reviews
Step 2 : Edit
Depending on how much effort you want to put in, you may need/want to edit your footage.
If your goal is just to capture a play or a handful of plays and then use them to do a writeup, you may not need to go thru the effort involved in this step.
However, if you are interested in capturing and archiving an entire game (eg., you are following your team and want to track a player over the course of the season) or games, this is invaluable. Or you may be interested in prepping some "cutups" or "highlight reels" to put on youtube. For that you will need to do some editing.
Also, I will say that studying a play while editing the video is a very different experience from just watching the video as it plays. Breaking down a play by using editing software is far more revealing than by watching a play in real time.
After a Raiders' game, I prefer to capture the entire game (for archival purposes) and then cut up the footage to find and study plays of interest. I cut up each play and then break them up into separate timelines for (a) OFFENSE/DEFENSE and then (b) RUN PLAYS/PASS PLAYS. So i have 4 total timelines to look at. I then cut the video into just the plays so that each timeline consists only of the play (and replay). I've basically indexed each play for the game.
While it's a bit of upfront work, it makes it easier for me to look for or study particular things. For instance, if I'm going to study Khalil Mack's run defense, it's easy for me to go thru each run play and find Mack. Or if I'm looking for how the Raiders' defend the WR screen, i can search for those rather quickly. It also helps me significantly in the offseason when I'm going back over the entire season and looking for particular items.
This may be overkill if you are doing one-shots and then moving on. For instance, if I'm looking at (say) Mike Evans, I may capture only those plays where he's being targeted rather than grab (and archive) the entire game.
Editing also allows me to do a number of things that are rather cool, like zooming in, panning during a play, change speed, adjust the framing, adding the running timecode on a passrush, spot-shadowing a player, swapping or disabling audio, etc..
One thing that I really like and highly recommend is to clip off the bottom line "Ticker" on a video. We've all gotten used to see those scores running across the bottom of the screen, but when you watch a clip and it is NOT there, it's quite nice to be relieved from that distraction.
On a 720p BROADCAST video (note: the Coach's tape doesn't contain the ticker and so you can use full frame of 1280x720 for that) , a frame size of 1280 x 640 is just about perfect; it cuts out the bottom 80 pixels which just about takes care of the ticker without losing much actual game footage (obv for Coach's tape, i can use full-frame). It's also a convenient frame size b/c the aspect ratio is 2:1 so resizing computations are rather easy. I generally resize to 960x480, which is big enough to see everything but small enough to make file uploads quick.
Of course, there's an upfront cost in acquiring an editor and there's also a learning curve in using it. The more powerful the editing program, the more effort it takes to do even the basics. And the more things you want to do (change speeds, add freeze frames, highlight a player, zoom in/out, etc.) the longer it will take.
For instance, for some of my Pass Rush clips, I wanted to put a timer on the screen to show how long it took the pass rusher to sack the QB. Using Adobe's Premiere, it was fairly straightforward but took some effort to ramp up on it.
Non Linear Editor
I'm just listing the official prices here. If you are interested in purchasing any of these, you may be able to find it cheaper on amazon (for instance, Sony Vegas is $349 on amazon v $599 on Sony's official site) or you may be able to get an older version for less; in the case of Adobe products, this may be preferable since older versions are perpetual licenses and not the current (obnoxious) subscription model. Many also have trial periods, which may be useful depending on how much editing you intend to do.
Here's an example : Justin Houston Sack
Here are a few popular editors :
note : Adobe has a Student Plan that charges $199 for the complete Adobe Suite (I'm not quite sure how it works or what the eligibility requirements are but it may be worth the inquiry if you are interested). Adobe.com

• Adobe Premiere Pro CC : Adobe. 30 Day Free Trial. $240/yr subscription plan.
• Adobe Premiere Elements : Adobe - $99
• Sony Vegas : Sony - $599
• Final Cut Pro X (Mac Only) : Apple - $299
• iMovie (Mac Only) : Apple - Free
• Windows Movie Maker (Windows Only) : Windows - Free.
• Lightworks Free (or Pro) : lwks - Free (or $438)
  • Lightworks Comparison : Lightworks

Step 3 : Markup
In addition to the video, I often like to breakdown the play by marking up still images. Things I may choose to do is indicate the blocking assignments on a run play or show the pass-rush lanes on a stunt; on a passing play, it's extremely helpful to draw up the routes and the coverages. For instance, here's a breakdown gallery from my post on Sammy Watkins Week 7 breakdown; so, on this play, when you draw it up like this, it's easy to see that there's "Mirror Concept" at play. On others the Double Slant or the Smash might jump out at you.
When you are step-by-step-ing thru a play, it's amazing the subtleties that you can pick up. For instance, Here is an image from Latavius Murray's first TD v KC last thursday. What I didn't notice in full speed was that the pulling RG Austin Howard ran into the LT Donald Penn to help free up the Chiefs' DT Jaye Howard.
My personal opinion is that doing the Markups is a huge benefit to doing breakdowns, both for informing the readers (it's much easier following along with images) as well as for studying and observing and learning for yourself.
Premiere has an easy frame export feature so that I can get as many images as I need/want but if I want to draw ONTO the image, I need a program for that.
While rastebitmap Paint programs or Photo manipulation utilities can work fine, my preference is to use a vector drawing program. Since most of what I am overlaying onto the image are vector items (lines, arcs, polygons) and since I'm often re-using and modifying elements, I prefer to use Illustrator, though some may be fine with using a raster-based program like Gimp.
Drawing Programs

• Inkscape : inkscape - Free
• Corel Draw Home : Corel - Free Trial, $129
• Adobe Illustrator : Adobe - Free Trial, $240/yr subscription
• SnagIt Editor : Techsmith - Free Trial, $49
• Gimp (raster) : Gimp - Free

Step 4 : Write up
I do a lot to manage my writeups. If/when I'm doing a writeup that contains several plays, I need to manage them. I can have possibly 5 or 6 GFYs, a couple of galleries, the play description, and miscellaneous stats associated with it.
I may want to have the same data/information in a couple of places, like in the play details itself and then later in a formatted table.
If I just write it up in a .txt file, there's a lot of markup to do by hand. If I change an item in one place, i have to remember to change it anywhere else that I reference it. And if i want to look at just the data and perhaps "run some numbers" (like mean or median, etc) then it's rather difficult or at the very least it's an additional step.
For that reason I build spreadsheets to hold my data and then have separate tabs that organize them in particular ways and to mark them up as I need. Then I cut the markups and paste them into a .txt file when I'm ready. And then I do my actual full writeups within the .txt file with my text editor.
In essence, I'm using Excel as a half-step between relational database and text editor.
That was extremely useful in my Pass Rush posts but is also very helpful when I am doing bulk captures.
If I am compiling several images or vid clips, I may have quite a few urls to handle and i may want to use keep/manage the urls seprately from the reddit-style marked up text. For that, I also use Excel to help me. I have a section for the urls and then a separate section where the Excel sheet is styled for a table and then I use formulae to mark up the urls.
eg.,
Sheet 1 may have descriptions and urls like :

• Cool First Play, http://www.gfycat.com/foo1
• Nice Second Play, http://www.gfycat.com/foo2
• Bad 3rd, http://www.gfycat.com/foo3

While Sheet 2 may have

• | =Sheet1!A1 | ="[link](" & Sheet1!A2 &")" |
• | =Sheet1!B1 | ="[link](" & Sheet1!B2 &")" |
• | =Sheet1!C1 | ="[link](" & Sheet1!C2 &")" |

So now I can change the values on Sheet 1 and have the marked up text automatically fixed as I need. Useful if you are like me and have to go back to correct mistakes or rework/enhance bits.
I always do all my writeups externally and then just cut/paste into the browser when posting. It allows me to archive them and potentially re-use them.
MISC
GFYCat
GFYCat is such a blessing. Typically, you would have to convert a video to a .gif. NLEs (Non Linear Editors like Premiere) handle that easily, but it can be time consuming to determine what exact settings you want. This matters since imgur etc may have size limits on gifs and big gifs can pose loading lag issues. But then if you get a nice small gif, the quality is poor.
GFYCat is basically html5 video limited to 15sec so the file size is no longer an issue except for how long it takes to upload the file.
So I export my vids to a .mp4 with no audio at 960x480. Then upload to GFYCat.
One recommendation when uploading to GFYCat : Sometimes GFYCat will shrink the video frame size down. To avoid that, click on "Do not resize" and the uploaded vid/gif will have the same frame size as the original.
Gamebooks
I'm not sure if everyone knows about the NFL gamebooks, so I'll mention it. on nfl.com, you can go to the GameCenter for each game. On that page is a link to get the Gamebook for that particular game, image. Click on it and get the .pdf that has each play on it as well as game stats, scoring plays, etc.
It's a great resource, especially if you are looking back on a game and wanting to find a particular play or plays. For instance, if you are looking for all of JJ Watt's sacks, you can get the Houston gamebooks and then search for "sack" and then log the quarter and time for each of JJ Watt's sacks. Or if you want to capture each of Amari Cooper's targeted plays, you can open a Raiders' gamebook and CTRL-F for "A.Cooper"
When I do my writeups, I copy the play description from the gamebook directly. It saves me the effort of titling the play and it makes it easier to reference it. For people that read the gamebooks, the format becomes very familiar very quickly.
note : Looking on NFL.com prior to the 2015 season starting, it appears that the GameCenter pages are missing the gamebook links. Even the HOF game that was recently played is missing the Gamebook. Hopefully this is a temporary glitch.
NFL Rulebook
If you are interested in the official NFL rulebook, it's hosted on nfl.com link in both an online version and a .pdf. You can download the .pdf and reference it as needed.
Version Control
Most people probably already know about version control, but I think I'll mention it anyway.
Anyone that is creating any content on their computers or managing/handling any data that changes--whether it's data in excel, stored stats in a database, writeups in .txt files, etc.--should be using some kind of Version Control.
Version control is also called Revision Control and sometimes called just "RCS". It is a repository of your file and all the (committed) versions of that file.
example, you are working on a long term paper like a thesis. You create the file and enter the title and 2-3 pages of text. Commit. The file is now in the repository.
You then write 10 more pages of text. Commit.
You then modify the text substantially. Commit.
Whoops! Some of what you removed when you modified the text are items you want back, but you can't remember everything.
So now, you look back at the revision history and you can restore the version that has all the text you want, copy and paste that into the current version and then commit.
Version Control systems also allows for more complicated tasks--like tagging, branching, collapsing--which can be extremely useful (especially in collborative situations) or perhaps totally unnecessary.
Version control comparisons
Many Cloud storage solutions offer an elementary version control.
note: version control is a completely separate concept from Backups. You should always do backups as well and if you have version control, you definitely need backups of the version control repository.
I personally use Subversion (Apache.org. Another nice aspect of SVN is that it can be installed on a QNAP NAS (If I ever get a NAS, I may try this out).
My friend recommends Git (Git-scm.com), which I may try out at some point.
Finale
Hopefully this gives an idea of how to go about doing an NFL breakdown post.
Again, I'd like to encourage people to try their hand at doing breakdowns even if you feel like you don't yet know enough to do a "great" one. If you can create a post around some interesting or important plays and then give your insights into it, you may generate some nice discussions that may answer many of your questions and enlighten the rest of us.
This is all from a selfish point of view, because I love to read those breakdowns when they are posted. And I have Gold to give so if you do decide to post a breakdown, you may find yourself gilded.

Period: 363.81 days

	Submissions	Comments
Total	1000	13381
Rate (per day)	2.75	36.66
Unique Redditors	594	2754
Combined Score	34214	35206

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    4. Create an HTML report of Active Directory Forest Information with PowerShell (42 points, 4 comments)
    5. PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) How-To for Beginners (Push Model) (39 points, 3 comments)
    6. Automate Creating Lab Virtual Machines in Azure with PowerShell (26 points, 3 comments)
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17. 324 points, 6 submissions: ColeMcDonald
    
    1. Learn Powershell in 5 Painless Steps: 4 - Loops (87 points, 11 comments)
    2. Learn Powershell in 5 Painless Steps - Part 3: Input (63 points, 2 comments)
    3. Learn Powershell in 5 Painless Steps: Data - Classes and Storage (63 points, 4 comments)
    4. Here's the second step on our journey to world domination through scripting. (40 points, 12 comments)
    5. Learn Powershell in 5 Painless Steps - 5 - Decisions (40 points, 6 comments)
    6. Learn Powershell in 5 Painless Steps: Data - 3.Movement... This week, classes and methods move around in another dimension... or something like that. (31 points, 0 comments)
18. 265 points, 6 submissions: jerdub1993
    
    1. PowerShell for beginners video training course as taught by its inventor, Jeffery Snover. (145 points, 8 comments)
    2. Change all AD usernames to firstname.lastname and rename home directory. (34 points, 13 comments)
    3. Query IMDB for movies and information. (32 points, 10 comments)
    4. Is it possible to use PowerShell to get information from an online account if you provide the credentials? (ie: Facebook, email, Reddit inbox?) (24 points, 12 comments)
    5. Help piping multiple values by property name? (15 points, 14 comments)
    6. Is it possible to test a command without running it? (15 points, 11 comments)
19. 259 points, 3 submissions: nickrod518
    
    1. Never too busy to have fun... send cat facts to coworker's PC's using PowerShell (183 points, 20 comments)
    2. Migrate Windows user profile(s) from one computer to another or to an archive (57 points, 20 comments)
    3. Create a price chart of Bitcoin from the last 30 days (19 points, 7 comments)
20. 242 points, 2 submissions: blownart
    
    1. 10 Free PowerShell e-books (187 points, 16 comments)
    2. PowerShell 10 Year Anniversary (55 points, 9 comments)
21. 230 points, 1 submission: bigbirdtoejam
    
    1. Using powershell for office pranks (230 points, 86 comments)
22. 215 points, 5 submissions: kabanossi
    
    1. Learn basics of PowerShell & PowerCLI under 1.5 hours (76 points, 2 comments)
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    3. Powershell Script to Get ESXi Datastore Path Information (27 points, 4 comments)
    4. vCenter Cluster Performance Tool (21 points, 0 comments)
    5. Making sure your Citrix Desktops are utilized in 35 lines of PoSH (17 points, 0 comments)
23. 214 points, 1 submission: pmd006
    
    1. Not what I expected (214 points, 33 comments)
24. 213 points, 6 submissions: 1RedOne
    
    1. Extracting and monitoring web content with PowerShell (45 points, 19 comments)
    2. POWERSHELL DECONSTRUCTED - A deep dive into how binary modules work (44 points, 20 comments)
    3. SOLVED: What happens to WINRM when certs die (37 points, 19 comments)
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    5. Advanced Autocompletion - Part II (30 points, 16 comments)
    6. Building a DSC Design application with PowerShell (21 points, 8 comments)
25. 183 points, 4 submissions: AdminArsenal
    
    1. Happy Star Wars Day, /PowerShell (77 points, 2 comments)
    2. Creating a Hipster Playlist Using PowerShell (42 points, 4 comments)
    3. Anyone looking for a full-time PowerShell position? (39 points, 55 comments)
    4. Determining Disk Type with Get-PhysicalDisk (25 points, 3 comments)

Top Commenters

1. markekraus (1517 points, 465 comments)
2. Lee_Dailey (1044 points, 590 comments)
3. KevMar (899 points, 297 comments)
4. ihaxr (404 points, 84 comments)
5. daviwil (287 points, 75 comments)
6. spyingwind (285 points, 94 comments)
7. Sheppard_Ra (277 points, 103 comments)
8. ka-splam (265 points, 85 comments)
9. JBear_Alpha (255 points, 102 comments)
10. jheinikel (254 points, 62 comments)
11. SeeminglyScience (230 points, 74 comments)
12. SaladProblems (222 points, 92 comments)
13. Swarfega (207 points, 64 comments)
14. OathOfFeanor (198 points, 71 comments)
15. Snak3d0c (191 points, 110 comments)
16. root-node (188 points, 66 comments)
17. evetsleep (188 points, 59 comments)
18. gangstanthony (188 points, 55 comments)
19. ramblingcookiemonste (165 points, 29 comments)
20. fourierswager (161 points, 75 comments)
21. creamersrealm (158 points, 70 comments)
22. itmonkey78 (154 points, 38 comments)
23. artvandelay440 (151 points, 62 comments)
24. 1RedOne (150 points, 60 comments)
25. nepronen (148 points, 39 comments)
26. the_spad (148 points, 33 comments)
27. Ominusx (139 points, 38 comments)
28. omers (139 points, 38 comments)
29. oze4 (135 points, 74 comments)
30. Old-Lost (132 points, 41 comments)
31. halbaradkenafin (127 points, 38 comments)
32. alinroc (127 points, 19 comments)
33. cml0401 (126 points, 41 comments)
34. icklicksick (125 points, 45 comments)
35. KnifeyGavin (124 points, 42 comments)
36. michaeltlombardi (120 points, 63 comments)
37. aXenoWhat (119 points, 48 comments)
38. toregroneng (117 points, 36 comments)
39. pertymoose (112 points, 35 comments)
40. _Unas_ (109 points, 39 comments)
41. suddenarborealstop (107 points, 40 comments)
42. allywilson (103 points, 41 comments)
43. Flyboy (98 points, 13 comments)
44. cofonseca (97 points, 39 comments)
45. lordv0ldemort (94 points, 35 comments)
46. NathanielArnoldR2 (87 points, 31 comments)
47. chreestopher2 (85 points, 38 comments)
48. steviecoaster (85 points, 34 comments)
49. yeah_i_got_skills (85 points, 19 comments)
50. Emiroda (84 points, 30 comments)

Top Submissions

1. Free Online PowerShell GUI Designer by nepronen (503 points, 121 comments)
2. Using powershell for office pranks by bigbirdtoejam (230 points, 86 comments)
3. Not what I expected by pmd006 (214 points, 33 comments)
4. 10 Free PowerShell e-books by blownart (187 points, 16 comments)
5. Announcing the PowerShell Module Browser by tr4p (183 points, 30 comments)
6. Never too busy to have fun... send cat facts to coworker's PC's using PowerShell by nickrod518 (183 points, 20 comments)
7. Powershell Cheat Sheet Compilation by Prateeksingh1590 (177 points, 15 comments)
8. Just released v0.10.0 of the PowerShell extension for Visual Studio Code with an integrated console experience like the ISE! by daviwil (166 points, 47 comments)
9. Learn Powershell in 5 Painless Steps - Storage by rschiefer (152 points, 13 comments)
10. Would anyone here like to see content related to Active Directory? by deleted (150 points, 28 comments)

Top Comments

1. 78 points: screamingpackets's comment in Are there any free alternatives to using Powershell ISE?
2. 53 points: GenghisChaim's comment in Windows 10 Hardening Via Powershell
3. 49 points: Alliwantispcb's comment in Using powershell for office pranks
4. 47 points: scabby_al's comment in Vote to petition native PowerShell support in Microsoft Excel - PowerShell Macros!
5. 46 points: dbussanich's comment in Does anyone have a job where they only write powershell scripts?
6. 42 points: nepronen's comment in Free Online PowerShell GUI Designer
7. 40 points: deleted's comment in PowerShell for private purposes?
8. 38 points: bukem's comment in $MyInvocation annoys me. What is a foolproof, reliable way to get path of currently run script?
9. 36 points: Quicknoob's comment in Top 10 powershell scripts you use
10. 36 points: gdhhorn's comment in Is it possible to test a command without running it?

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