I think I’m gonna grab an old external USB drive and live boot from there and test things out

Just keep in mind, in such a case, that your performance will be quite reduced due to limits on I/O. When you have Linux on a real drive - especially a striped RAID, the system is blazing fast. It’s a substantial difference you should keep in mind when evaluating.

The “fun” aspect was what drew me to BeOS when it was near its heyday. What that thing would do in comparison to Winbloze at the time and the user experience in general was astonishingly more pleasant.

I remember their simple web server called Diner I had a website hosted on an older machine running Diner in my lab and it was just always on and when my office got DSL I felt like a king having that site up and accessible from anywhere, knowing it was on a box in my office and running Diner on BeOS.

I’m not Linux-savvy enough to understand everything you said lol. But I’m glad at least that I don’t have to rely on CUPS I just have two printers with static IPs so it’s easy-breezy George and 'Weezy.

I have been fine with both Canon and Lexmark and also a Brother unit that someone in my family owns that their new Win11 machine refused to talk to; I opened up my ASUS t-pad with Ubuntu and printed in five seconds.

But yeah CUPS has actually caused many a headache to the point that I’ve disabled it on some units.

This has been a real issue yeah.

More like being molested.

Well I was not really addressing the specific item that spawned this discussion thread, only the notion that was stated that one should only ever use the official stores.

Well I know there’s this app called Plexus or Plexor something and that supposedly helps you get an app past that requirement. I used it once to success long time ago by choosing a setting for the app and then it suddenly did not demand to get from the Play Store, so I know it works - in theory. But since that one success a few months ago, I haven’t gotten it to work again. I suspect maybe that phone at the time was completely de-googled or was a ROM such as CyanogenMod, and maybe the app can bypass if it doesn’t see the Google services at all.

Anyway, I will further investigate. I have some ROMed phones I can try on. If you want, I’ll post update in case you’re interested.

Thanks again for reply. Even if you didn’t have info for it I appreciate the courtesy.

Yes because it’s that simple. Every file online that’s not from some huge corporation is spyware. /s

Some people are strange - we know what we’re doing, we know a site and whether they have a solid reputation, we have experience and can determine when we’re getting a safe file. Oh, and do you truly believe that the “official” sources don’t dole out spyware left & right? Don’t be this naive; It’s not as simple as you stated. That’s just the general carte blanche rule that experts tell ordinary users because if we didn’t, they would download crap from everywhere under the sun and load up on malware every day.

Ok so I have a question: I have a few apps that I have the apk but when I run them, or even if I install from Aurora Shop, when I run them they say I need to install it from Play. Then they exit.

How do I work around this? I have been told it can be circumvented but I haven’t got a handle on how.

Thanks if you can advise.

Is the coming of age ceremony when he loads Doom?

Isn’t that the employee who was found dead like a week later? You know, the one Boeing killed?

And make sure you know where your towel is.

As someone who started with nothing but command line - Timex Sinclair, Apple IIe, DOS, I can’t even relate to the concept of being scared of command line.

I don’t think I’d want something larger than like 9" at most for something like that. Unless maybe you have it most of the time in screensaver with a photo slideshow. Then it would be pretty cool. Like a photo frame but when you tap it becomes an interface for smart home controls.

I also have a single Windows machine remaining but it’s specifically because I have tons of services and stuff on there and it’s fine. It’s Windows 7 Pro and does its job. No need to fix what ain’t broke. All my other systems I changed over to Linux many years ago.

Nowadays when I see someone have trouble in Windows I just shake my head and express sadness. What a shame you gotta be using that sewage.

Elementary OS is beautiful, polished and easy. Maybe also check out Ubuntu Studio Edition since you do a good deal of editing? I like Pop! as well and have it on a couple of systems, but it’s nothing extremely special over others, it’s just very well-curated with regard to features and updates. They’ve tweaked a bit of stuff that’s sloppy in the main Ubuntu.

The best thing to do really is learn as you go, but definitely put some real effort into reading about the basics. The file system and the settings are both to look at first.

For good customization of your desktop if you enjoy that, go with KDE/Plasma.

You can also change later if you learn enough that you’d like to go to a more bare base system. Personally I’m on Kubuntu on my main machine but that’s only because it’s a pretty new laptop - or was when I got it - and raw Debian didn’t have the drivers yet for some of it. I’m sure by now it’s all supported and I eventually want to set aside a day to reformat and go to raw Debian. It’s my favorite distro and in the most recent version they did away with their draconic restrictions of drivers so it’s quite more accessible now.

But for a very easy and comfortable, eye-pleasing start, I’d really suggest something like ElementaryOS. It’s possibly the most beautiful looking one I’ve seen, and just jump right in and start kind of setup.

That’s my contribution to suggestions for you. Hope you make the journey easily. Linux really is phenomenal and a massive change from the disease-infested world of Windows.

Different strokes for different folks. I replied to the guy who replied to you and raised a couple of ideas that I think may distinguish the options to answer your question.

He’s just asking as in, maybe someone can share their perspective on why there may be an advantage to tab groups over windows. And to that end… isn’t there a certain amount of system resources that are increased more with a whole new window as opposed to just more tabs in groups? I would think it would consume more resources, albeit perhaps not to any severe degree. —?

And to the actual question I think visually tab groups are easier to navigate than swapping back through windows. Task managers don’t really tend to present windows in a fashion where you could refer to them in context of one-another. Maybe some custom views that you can install in Linux but even then, ones I’ve tried still don’t quite give you a quick easy overview that shows enough detail. You pretty much see what program you’re swapping to, but not laid out in ways you can compare and choose on the fly the way you want when it’s the same application but different content. That’s my experience, anyhow.

Right??! So instead of clutter of tabs it will be clutter of tab groups… of tabs, lol.