It has replaced idly making selection squares on the desktop.

I started with Slackware in the late nineties. Have been through Redhat, Suse, Ubuntu, Arch, Tumbleweed. These days I just can’t be bothered, I just want to game and code and I prefer an out of the box well configured Ubuntu derivative, they also upgrade easily and have lots of application compatibility - mostly everyone provides .deb packages. I could also choose Fedora for these reasons.

So now on Pop!_OS 24.04. Pop is has a stable/lts base but still gets Mesa/Nvidia/Kernel updates on a regular basis. I use it mainly for gaming and Rust dev, writing some COSMIC applets as well.

COSMIC Alpha does still have problems with some games but not the games I play.

Yeah, GuildWars2, Valheim, Pathfinder WotR, etc. those sort of games… So I’m a bit niche, some gamers have more issues than I.

I got a gnome-session installed for games that have problems with COSMIC but fortunately haven’t needed it for a while now.

I started with Slackware in the nineties, have been through Redhat, Suse, Ubuntu, Arch, Tumbleweed.

I could use anything really but these days my focus have moved; I kinda just want functional and well configured up front. Using Pop!_OS 24 alpha on my gaming/dev laptop, it works well/is well put together and I’m having fun writing COSMIC apps. I’m using Ubuntu on a few servers, I picked it many years ago and they’ve been through a number of painless upgrades.

GIMP 3.0 makes it a lot easier for devs to add functionality and they’re starting a UX working group.

But I find it usable, I’ve been using it weekly for a very long time. I’m happy to see development picking up though with more people joining.

It’s certainly safer though one can probably still do some damage in /etc, if determined.

There are some other differences, for example Pop!_OS while on a LTS base still gets regular updates of kernel, Mesa and Nvidia drivers which is nice.

I believe the EU redirected open source funding to LLM/“AI”. Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund on the other hand had its budget increased.

You always have to consider the sources of such whispers, otherwise it means very little. The devs, who are few and works on evenings because they have day jobs, a well-know open source issue for many projects, were clear about when they started in earnest on getting 3.0 done, less than 3 years ago. Until then they’ve spent most of their time adding features to 2.10 and the 2.9 branch was more of a long lived testing ground with occational test releases that cause talk sometimes. The aim was RC primo or medio this year, they’re only slightly late.

But I get the feeling more devs are starting to contribute now it’s near 3.0, maybe because the new architecture actually makes it easier. So there’s hope a lot will start to happen. There’s even a UI working group.

I’m running the 2.9 nightly, it’s better in a multitude of little ways as well as having a number of new features.

And one less thing to waste time on for experienced users.

This is a good thing, it is much needed for Snap and Flatpak and will make sandboxed applications less confusing for those who don’t grog flatseal/kde-settings/etc. and adds convenience for everyone.

Greybeard here. I can use vi, emacs, nano, etc. and use whatever is available if it suits the job. For many years I did dev in emacs on my computers and on other systems used vi for quick edits. Currently on my own laptop I have micro as default term editor now. For Rust development - code, though I have hopes for Lapce.

They’re all just tools and so are people who get tribal about things.

Well, yes use-case is key. But interestingly ext4 will never detect bitrot/errors/corruption. BTRFS will detect corrupted files because its targeted users wants to know. It makes it difficult to say what’s the more reliable FS because first we’d have to define “reliable” and the perception of it and who/what do we blame when the FS tells us there’s a corrupted file detected?. Do we shoot the messenger?

For a few years I used a distro that had btrfs as default, including scheduled automatic maintenance. Never had to bother about manual balancing or fiddeling with the FS.

Yeah I gave up and installed Windows in a VM, I use it for those annoying forms and some old tax software… My kid also wants to use powerpoint occationally. It’s quick and easy to install in a VM though and doesn’t take up much space but I got a lot of room on my SSD so everything is relative.

I’d like a Linux solution for the forms but it’s still convenient to have a Windows VM once in a blue moon.

…and new font handling, several layer features - including tools working on multiple layers, new and improved tools, wayland support, widows Ink support, new plugin architecture, dynamic guides, improved file handling (formats, bigger files, etc), I think some gesture stuff as well? The non destructive editing is implemented for some things, not others (e.g. if adding a shadow to text and changing the text, the shadow will change too). I probably forgot some stuff…

Wifi workaround here.

Ah, I see thank you for the reply. I was under the impression the Mint team favored Flatpak over Snap.

I haven’t used either, just curious; what kind of difference is there between regular Ubuntu based Mint and LMDE? I thought it was mostly just more recent packages with the Ubuntu base?

Well, when it comes to laptops these days lots of brands can practically only be serviced/repaired by bringing them back to the Apple Store/manufacturer’s repair shop. Especially when it comes to lightweight models.

I miss my old Sager/Clevo gaming laptop where I could replace practically everything, I even upgraded the gfx card.