Windows users seem to want to just buy, have, and use a computer, whereas Linux users seem to enjoy problem solving and tinkering for fun.

Can people please just stop with these terrible generalizations? Lots of windows users consider themselves “computer people” and tinker with their computer and solve problems. Plenty of Linux users aren’t doing shit but using it as it comes. It feels like a terrible rip off of the old apple ads “I’m a Mac”, “and I’m a PC”. It’s crap.

I liked it briefly, but it fell off for me. I feel like there needs to be an area to go to, or missions to pick up, or something that is a higher difficulty. I feel like a mid-range quality ship and weapon will do everything in the game without issue, and when you continue to get upgrades and suddenly everything the game has to throw at you poses so little of a challenge you could afk while being shot at with little issue… Well, it didn’t hold my attention anymore unfortunately. I really want to like it more than I do.

That’s very good to know… I need to do some cable shopping.

I can’t find TVs with display port, probably because of “big HDMI”. :(

I’m perfectly fine with Mint as a recommendation. It’s not what I would choose, but it does work for a large portion of people without issues.

I am very glad that I hardly ever see Manjaro recommended to new comers anymore though - that’s a curse/trap. There are so much better “Arch but easier” distros now that are rock solid.

Oh cool. Thank you for the info. I hear people talking about RISC-V a lot, but was nearing the parks and rec meme of “I don’t know and am too afraid to ask”, lol.

Are the processors good? Like, does performance compare to the alternatives? (I’m assuming these are alternatives to like an ARM based SOC?)

For the my layperson friend reading over my shoulder… erm, why?

with a pronounced first syllable

They are one syllable words…

That’s the first one… Wait, how do you think Cache is pronounced??

Damn it, it’s been too long and I forgot the name of slow fall… I think that means you won the internet today.

Hope you’re quick on the levitate, cause we are going to summon you off a cliff.

Shit I miss Ventrilo… Setting up custom binds so I could talk shit about the raid leader directly to the other warlock in the group just by pressing a different “talk” button was amazing. And I can still here the push-to-talk notification sounds… When the guild moved to Discord, I died a little inside and didn’t even know it yet. Yea, we have a meme channel now, but at what cost??

Ah, that adds a lot of context. Sorry, the post just sounded like this was a “you” initiative.

Super weird that you upgraded your fiance’s computer to Linux, but not your own? What’s the driving factor here that led to using your partner as a lab rat?

I’ve spent uncomfortably long trying to figure out what “figma balls” means, or what the obvious answer is when I eventually ask “what’s figma”.

In this case they are clarifying that it isn’t just a handheld device OS, it is a full desktop OS.

Garuda is great. I tried Bazzite on my nvidia based laptop and had problems getting it to work well (to be fair to Bazzite, this was well over a year ago when Bazzite was very new on the scene - I have no idea if i’d have the same problems today). Replaced it with Garuda (which I had been running on my desktop) and it literally “just worked”. And, frankly, I’m a linux idiot. I basically just read the messages that pop up occasionally and do my best to do things like they say (for example, I try to remember to run updates before the system has to tell me “hey, it’s been a bit. Would be best if you would update me soon”).

Speaking of being an idiot… I don’t even know if I HAVE to download the “dragonized” version to get all the gaming bells and whistles just as easily, or if I can use their KDE plasma version that doesn’t have all the theming and still get the “gaming” tweaks? Since my system works, I don’t want to install a new version just to find out, but I feel like I could convince other people to try it more if they got the same functional experience without all the purple glowing stuff out of the box.

Best suggestion I have is a bit involved. This is assuming the laptop uses an nvme storage drive, if not, replace “external nvme enclosure” with “external sata enclosure”. Pull the windows drive out entirely, install a new drive. Install linux of choice on the new drive. Flip a coin, have a long conversation about expectations, or otherwise decide which to leave in the laptop before putting it back together. Tell BIOS to boot USB first always, then internal drive. If the external is not plugged in at boot, you boot whatever you left inside (windows or linux). If you plug in the enclosure, you boot the other. I don’t know how windows will react when ran entirely from an external over usb (highly recommend a good enclosure that has good speeds and connects to usb c even better), but linux doesn’t even seem to care.

My preference would be leave linux physically in the laptop, and keep the windows drive in the enclosure somewhere nearby for emergency use only. I’d bet you find that you go a long time without needing the windows drive (if ever), but if it is “too easy” to just boot to windows instead, most people will tend that way.

SSD died that had windows 10 on it. During the re-installation process I got fed up with onedrive and skype popping up every reboot despite being told not to start with windows multiple times. Attempt to disable, the next round of windows update brings them back. I didn’t even have the absolute basics up and running before I lost all patience for it. Downloaded several distros, setup like 10 different USB sticks to boot them all. Cycled through them for a bit poking around and testing out. Landed on Garuda Linux kinda by chance, but it has been great. It was so refreshing to have a computer feel like it’s mine again.