It is quite easy to go slackware -> gentoo from what I remember but minimalist distros might be cheating

I use i2p for torrents exclusively. It’s slow but totally private so I can seed without needing to mess about with a VPN.

There is a slightly smaller community but the people on there have similar tastes to me: linux textbooks, GOG games, jazz albums, etc.

I had an ok experience with Arch and a 2012 macbook pro back in the day. Wifi and suspend all worked without any tweaking. Moved on to using a ThinkPad after that though.

They were just trying to prevent people from being tricked into installing Manjaro

Is “ricing” not originally related to customised cars from street racing or something? I personally don’t see an issue with it.

The activity itself is quite good for making people aware of how a desktop linux OS is working but doing it excessively is a bit silly so makes sense for jt to have a silly name.

Gentoo also cured me of distro-hopping

Whatever the UI in Jurassic Park is was a genuine linux interface at some point so maybe that

First thing I install is git, followed by emacs.

Then I download my init.el and my PC setup is complete.

I think new projects in Rust make sense but my - uninformed - opinion is that we should be wary about porting old C/C++ software due to those other classes of bugs you mentioned. The logical type errors I see at work and in open source projects using memory safe languages can be fiendish in their own way.

I know “fun” is subjective but I’ve heard mixed reviews from devs who have tried rust programming. The compiler is very strict for example.

Uh I guess we’d need to extend it to Linux + FOSS in general.

Power users: I think we should steal whatever the latest IKEA marketing team have come up with because the appeal is kinda the same as IKEA furniture where you feel more ownership over something having built it from the flat packed box your self.

Average users: does a degoogled chromeOS exist? You just need a video of someone playing with a tablet like interface, then choosing to postpone an update with no dark pattern om the textbox prompt.

One line slogan: Did you ever wish the people who made your software were more passionate about the product than their next promotion?

gnome is broken but there are better DEs imo

I find the authors concerns about security to be at odds with their enthusiasm for flatpak and systemd. Personally I don’t think containerised applications get as much attention from package maintainers or security audits. Systemd is also expanding into every area of the OS including recently offering a sudo alternative which is basically creating one massive attack surface.

They get all the patches and minor upgrades in a timely fashion, similar to other distros. The major version updates do not come as readily though.

Have got Debian on an old thinkpad too because it is too under resourced to compile everything. I think Debian is amazing for a solid, reliable distro if you have weak hardware.

I use Gentoo and I love it. The installation process is a bit more complex than Arch but it doesn’t have to be if you choose the precompiled kernel.

The package management is extremely flexible and the community are great. I have a morning routine where I log onto my gentoo desktop before work and update everything; would compare it to raking one of those miniature buddhist sand gardens. Very theraputic!

Yeah the Manjaro devs have a long history of gaffes not to mention the infamous one with PGP keys requiring users to reset their system clock

Typically I don’t use a DE. I’ll go for dmenu + dwm usually if I only want a WM. I find the default bindings and behaviour for the tiling is the most ergonomic when comparing it to other WMs like i3.

When I do have to get a DE setup then I’ll use XFCE because I like how it stays out of the way and I find it easy to customise.

I remember being stubborn and trying to setup eduroam at my uni library using only wpa_supplicant for a whole day. Hugely frustrating. Gave up and installed NetworkManager and it just fucking worked… my tech minimalism phase was extremely counterproductive lol

I have a gentoo desktop but for a convenient middle ground just put Debian on my laptop. It’s stable, things just work out of the box, maintainers/devs are competent, they haven’t drunk the snap/flatpack kool-aid…

Switching to Testing is always an option but I’ve not found the need to do that yet when I can install programs from a deb package or just compile from source and install it in ~/.bin in my home directory.