I’m not the biggest distrohopper but I have tried a few, both on my laptop and desktop. I still keep windows around on a dual-boot but I’m basically only using it for the odd game or two and also onenote (obsidian + excalidraw comes close but nothing really has a seamless transition between pen and typing text like OneNote)

Early 2018 and before:

Windows only

2018-19:

• Ubuntu 18.04 (desktop),
• Ubuntu 18.04/18.10/19.04 (laptop)

2019-2022:

• Manjaro w/ KDE (desktop),
• Arch Linux w/ GNOME (laptop)

2022-2023:

• NixOS (laptop, for literally a day because it didn’t have a package I needed to make my laptop work correctly)
• EndeavourOS (kde on laptop, qtile on desktop)

2024:

• No changes to the desktop setup,
• NixOS w/ KDE and also a half-functioning hyprland setup on the laptop now that the package got added.

Future?

Maybe if I can get my NixOS config to a point where I’m happy with it I’ll switch my desktop setup to that as well, in theory it should be pretty painless since i’m already using a flake setup split across multiple modules. I do really like that I can experiment with my setup without the risk of actually breaking anything since NixOS is semi-immutable.

If I don’t stick with NixOS I’ve also been thinking about trying fedora, opensuse, or an immutable distro, or otherwise just moving my laptop back to either Arch or EndeavourOS since that’s what I’m familiar with.

It’s also worth noting I’ve recently been seeing a lot of Linux posts from people who just switched, this was somewhat of a trend on Reddit as well but imo the Linux posting has gotten noticeably less toxic toward newer users and a lot more understanding of the “using Linux without wanting to spend hours configuring everything” perspective.

Side point that’s somewhat related to that: I wonder how the growth of other platforms FOSS platforms like Lemmy, Mastodon, Matrix, etc. has impacted Linux project development. Not sure if it’s just me but it seems like it’s helped a lot with making Linux communities more accessible.

If the fediverse is so cool how come there’s no fediverse 2 huh???

If you’re worried about using the terminal you could always install one of the frontends for pacman like the one Manjaro uses. Manjaro might be a pain if you’re using AUR packages (really depends on what packages you use, some niche ones like specific game modloaders or the professional JetBrains IDEs are only on the AUR) because Manjaro’s repos are delayed by around 2 weeks, but the AUR isn’t delayed at all. Depending on the packages you’re using that could break updates sometimes.

Depending on how familiar with programming you are you could also try NixOS which has an absurd number of packages in their official repo but NixOS’s config files can be kind of a pain sometimes.

Edit:

It’s also worth noting that you could start off with Manjaro and then jump over to something like EndeavourOS/Arch once you get more familiarized with using the terminal down the line. That way you wouldn’t have to relearn commands/setups when you switch, since they’re ultimately all arch-based and have the same underlying structure.

Pretty sure that’s a joke, Mali’s TLD is .ml

This has to be bait

That’s fair but you’re also phrasing it like the Zelda games are objectively worse than God of War or Horizon Zero Dawn. I played and enjoyed HZD (hoping to pick up forbidden west soon as well) but imo I had a much better time with tears of the kingdom and breath of the wild.

(and people in this comments don’t seem to accept that someone actually hates a game they like lmao). If you compare God of war and horizon zero dawn to Zelda and all Nintendos games, there is just no comparison at all. Sorry, but they suck.

You are criticizing people for not accepting differences in opinion, and then immediately after you claim those opinions are objectively wrong (“just no comparison”).

Just leaving a comment with “they suck” with no extra detail doesn’t really add anything to a discussion, especially when it isn’t exactly as one-sided as you claimed. After playing HZD, I can definitely say Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom’s environment felt better (to me) even if the story was half-baked in some aspects and the graphics were worse. The physics and world engine in BotW (and even moreso in ToTK) felt way more freeing because it is way more flexible. The building system in ToTK and the way the same rules applied any elemental effect (weapons, arrows, physical items in the map, etc.) made doing literally anything feel more fun because there is almost never just one solution to a problem. It really leans into the open-world aspect in ways that HZD never did. There’s something to be said about the way I could launch BotW/TotK, raid an enemy camp, do a shrine, and blowing either link or the enemies up spectacularly with a poorly-made contraption in the span of 15 minutes, while I would always feel like I got nothing done if I spent less than an hour in HZD.

Spoken like someone who’s never played a Zelda game. That being said, probably just play it on an emulator unless you like the portability aspect

Edit: But seriously, Nintendo is one of the only publishers that hasn’t ruined their games with live service micro transactions and battle passes, and one of the only publishers that hasn’t ruined their long standing IPs yet (Pokémon excluded, but that technically isn’t owned completely by Nintendo). I don’t exactly like Nintendo as a company but I have to respect that they haven’t been cash grabbing in the same way other publishers have.

A lot of android apps are built using Java/Kotlin, so you don’t actually need to care about architecture since the JVM supports both x86_64 and arm64.

There are exceptions to this though, since some apps need to run native code. Those apps would need some sort of emulation/translation layer for the arm instructions.

If anything to me gnome always seemed like some weird mix between macos, android, and chrome OS. That might be the material style theming though.

Not really sure how archinstall factors in since it wasn’t around yet when I first installed, but I love EndeavourOS. I’ve installed arch before, but I really can’t be bothered if I’m just going to end up installing all of the same packages the GUI could give me in less time anyway. Yeah, EndeavourOS is just arch with some small extra packages and a GUI installer, but that’s exactly why I like it.

I’m fine with a menu being there, just give me the option to make it go away by selecting a default or something.

That single problem makes dolphin unusable for me because there isn’t a basic setting to make it behave like basically every other graphical file manager on any operating system.

(Edited grammar for clarity)

Ok but when do we get to change the drag and drop behavior so it just moves the folder instead of opening a menu

I think we’re on the same page? If an attacker wanted a keylogger they wouldn’t even need to go as far as a screen, there are plenty of other ways (like a 3rd party keyboard app) that would work just as well, if not better, on an iPhone.

Hell, while we’re at it, using a phishing email to get you to enter a password in a fake site or using social engineering to reset your passwords is way more effective than reverse engineering and modding a camera/screen.

There’s no reason why Apple should get to keep exclusive rights on repairs just to profit more on parts. 3rd party screens, cameras, face id modules, etc. aren’t going to suddenly make your phone less secure.

TS and JS are completely single threaded unless you have multiple instances of node running at the same time.

You can have both though. Just add some random menu in the settings that turns bright red when using a non-certified component so security can be easily verified, but don’t needlessly lock people out and charge $500 to fix a $10-50 module on a $1000 phone

Edit: Adding on to this, Ifixit isn’t outlawing verification, the above example of whatever red warning is a clear way they could keep it.

If you think keyloggers require software running on your physical keyboards you’re in for a rude awakening.

Keyloggers are almost always at a pure software level and are conceptually simple to make. So simple that in fact, it’s the same thing as running a regular application with background shortcuts. The only thing that is different is that regular apps aren’t saving/recording anything, they’re just listening for you to press cmd+whatever.

It takes maybe ~10-15 minutes to make a keylogger in Python that could run on any computer, mac, windows, or Linux. Maybe a little longer if you wanted to use a compiled language and properly hide it.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

• A software developer

No, you can’t, because that isn’t a good analogy. Those two situations are not at all the same, but I’ll humor you.

The analogy you’re making is like saying only the company who makes doors is allowed to change the lock on your door, and they’re allowed to just stop offering the lock-changing service whenever they want. They also conveniently put a mechanism in so that whenever a third-party locksmith comes, your door falls apart. Your only option is to buy a new door, doorknob, frame, and hinge because your lock is worn out.

Most commands will have expanded arguments started with 2 dashes that usually look like ‘–verbose-name-of-option’, they’re usually listed in the man page/documentation along with the abbreviated letter version

Depending on something isn’t necessarily tied to how many alternatives there are.

For example: I use a heavily configured qtile setup on my desktop. I’m depending on that setup working every time I turn my computer on. Sure, I could switch to i3 or sway or Hyprland, but that would take a considerable amount of time and effort. In this case, I’m depending on qtile working for me, so I can get work done instead of messing with a bunch of config files. The only time this wouldn’t happen is when one solution can be a completely (or almost completely) drop-in replacement for the other, e.g. how sway claims to be with i3.

This is especially true with tiling window managers, where people spend many hours configuring setups to behave how they want. Moving to a different alternative isn’t exactly simple.

To your point about FOSS: chrome and android may not be FOSS, but as much as I dislike it AOSP and Chromium definitely are, even if Google controls the repos for both. Your definition is a slippery slope because by that definition software like Ubuntu, Manjaro, etc. also aren’t FOSS because the repos are controlled by a single company.

To your last point: telling someone else they shouldn’t use a piece of code for the same reason you don’t is also perfectly valid. It’s not like it’s an order, they don’t have to follow it. People can choose to agree or disagree with you if they want. Ultimately, the decision to install software in Linux lies with the user, and the most any online opinion can do is give a persuading or dissuading argument. Just like I could say, “don’t use this software, it’s built on some old deprecated library that will probably break in a month”, I could also say “don’t use this software, the main dev is a bad person because xyz…” and it would still be up to the user to make a decision. If you don’t mind disagreeing with the author of software you use, that’s fine, but not everyone is like that, and that’s also fine.