I daily drive Debian now, but several years ago when a couple of my computers were still very new, I used Arch since it has bleeding-edge support for new hardware while being still thoroughly documented in the Arch Wiki.
The sheer volume of packages on the official repo and the AUR made it great for discovering which desktop environment I wanted to use and for software-hopping in general too. You can have as much or as little on your system as you want and nothing is forced on you.
I think ROCm is fine with more recent cards, but getting it to work on my RX 480, for which ROCm dropped official support a while ago, was a real pain.
As yet another modifier key. I use XFCE, so if I bind it to the applications menu, the applications menu will also pop up every time I use any other keybinding involving the Super key, which is less than ideal.
I don’t know how controversial this would be, I wouldn’t mind making it like the command key in MacOS either.
If you can get your hands on the LTSC edition, that should have you covered until 2032
Mint is a very good option for this purpose. In my case, it’s Debian, but with a much more involved process.
The only ones who ask me to help with installing Linux are either very close friends or people in my family with whom I spend more time, and they tend to be curious about the exact setup that I’m using. I just so happen to have a fully-configured system image in a VM that I duplicate onto my machines, so I work with my friend or family to figure out what they need and how they want it to look, then I clone that VM, customize it to taste, and let them try it out. If they like it, I image it to their machine, make sure it’s bootable, work out any machine-specific issues, set a new password and encryption key, and make sure that unattended-upgrades is working.
Everyone else just asks me to help install Windows. I have a penchant for LTSC, with an obligatory trick up my sleeve.
I daily drive Debian and have a few loose .deb packages and tarballs installed. Also enabled the Librewolf repo. It mostly comes down to an issue of manageability and possible conflicting dependencies. The ones I have installed don’t introduce any dependencies, so they’ve been trouble-free and have survived the Bookworm to Trixie upgrade. They are installed as a last resort option in the absence of a satisfactory equivalent via the official repo, Flatpak, or AppImage.
Loose .deb packages can be installed and uninstalled like any other normal Debian package, but won’t be automatically updated and don’t have any compatibility guarantee. Tarballs are nothing more than a collection of files, which may need to be placed in system directories. You’re on your own for those since there’s no standard and automated way to manage them and it’s possible to overwrite important system files if unpacked and copied in blindly. It’s a good idea to keep a manual record of what was put where in case any issues with them pop up down the road.
My personal ranking:
Official Debian repo > Flatpak > AppImage > Docker/Podman > Snap >> Reputable and known compatible third-party repo > Loose Debian .deb > tarball > Loose Ubuntu .deb >> Unfamiliar third-party repos and PPAs
There are certain occasions where a loose .deb or tarball won’t hurt, but sticking to options further up the list closes off the biggest routes of breaking Debian.
an antivirus program has to be installed on the PC used for online banking
How would they know?
I’m more concerned about rogue browser extensions that may be innocent when you install them, but then change owners, and after an update that you don’t even notice are going to do bad things.
Exactly why the only extensions on my browser are uBlock Origin and LibRedirect. Was a victim of one user agent switcher extension that went rogue back in the day.
5" would be a breath of fresh air in today’s market of monster phones
Seems reasonable to me, although I might be lacking perspective since my latest hardware is already 6 years old.
In previous years, my criteria was to upgrade once the hardware was holding back my workflow and productivity. But with Moore’s Law coming to a plateau, I’ve upgraded my RAM, GPU, and SSD not because I have to, but just because I got an very good deal on them.
Package managers:
File system:
Bash shell:
cmd or Powershell so intimidatingOnly downside to this is that if your house burns down you’ll lose everything - but a friend suggested me to have important files on an encrypted tarball stored in the cloud.
For those with lots of files and poor upload speeds but blessed with a desk at work, also consider stashing an encrypted disk in a drawer / fake plant / etc.
I’m not against the use of LLMs in principle, but their responses are for you only. As soon as it rolls out the door onto the open internet, it oxidizes to become slop. Prompt us with an original question, not stuff fresh out the back end of a LLM.
It’s a once-off operation if you’re willing to go the LTSC route. Microsoft likes to undo all your hard work debloating Windows with the semi-annual major updates on non-LTSC editions.
Linux on all of my main machines, so I’m grabbing the popcorn. Got LTSC for all the remaining Windows use cases: VMs, beater laptop for Windows-only stuff, and a couple of computers from family.
Most of my friends replace their computers quite frequently, so they’re living blissfully unaware on Windows 11 or MacOS. The ones who do have older laptops tend to be tech-savvy enough to have figured out LTSC or Linux themselves. On one occasion, a good friend of mine had an old iMac that wasn’t getting updates anymore, so I installed Debian and themed XFCE to look like MacOS, taught them the basics, and they were impressed with the result.
As for family, they’re usually very happy with the Linux Mint Debian Edition that I install for them, but some I know just won’t use the computer if it doesn’t have their familiar Windows-specific software, so I get them started with LTSC.
I frankly have an excess of unused hardware that’s piling up, which won’t be helped by my access to a good source of e-waste. Old computers have already been trickling in, but I’m excited to see what’s next now that the Oct 14 date has come.
I have something like that set up as a discrete print server. Also one as the mini file share for the guest/untrusted devices network.
I have pihole lumped in with a more substantial machine, but these little guys are always nice for retro gaming up to the N64/PS1 era.
Maybe the firmware file supplied by the Pop OS repo is broken? Download the firmware updater directly from Dell’s website and put it on a FAT32 USB drive. Nice thing about Dell BIOS is that you can use the .exe update without Windows - there should be an option in your BIOS to browse for the update file and apply it. Then install a fresh copy of Pop OS and don’t let it update firmware for now.
Interesting. I thought that all but the disk and CMOS were stateless once powered down for hibernation, but I’d love to hear from someone with expertise on how other components know that they were hibernated under Windows.
Pot, meet kettle
As a perfectionist myself, perfect is the enemy of the good. It’s good that you’re still learning and finding possible improvements. If you haven’t already, may I suggest organizing a copy of your customizations and dotfiles in one neat location? Saves a lot of mental anguish when you need to track down that edit to a config file you made some months ago.