Aw, Mandrake! I didn’t know what I was doing back then and chose it because of the root. Stuck with it until Ubuntu came out a bit later.

While I would be open to a trade, I’d be more looking for something like the Synology that I already have, just not so walled garden. I currently have a number of 2.5 and 3.5 inch disks that I’d like to keep using, and I think the Optiplex is more of just a regular desktop than a server?

Huh, I’m also in the PNW. This could work out. I think it’s a bit too much for my needs, and I really don’t have the space for it. That said, I do want to learn how to use it, and get it up and running, etc. But after that I would definitely be looking to get something more practical. And quiet if it’s as loud as people are saying.

I have Bazzite on my steam deck and Bluefin on my laptop and have been very happy with them. The atomic part is great for not messing things up as a noob, but if OP does decide to dual boot then these distros won’t be the best choice as they don’t play well with other distros.

Uff, I wouldn’t even know how to ship that without it costing an arm and a leg

Ugh that’s unfortunate, because I do not have an out of the way place to put it. It didn’t make any noise when I plugged it in, but I imagine that comes from the drives when I insert them

Hey, thanks for your advice, and honestly the permission to be okay with not using it. I lost sight of that and it’s a good reminder. I am a little concerned for the noise and power consumption that everyone is talking about, especially since I don’t have an out of the way place to stick it.

That said, while I might ultimately not use it, I will at least learn enough to get it running. And like you said, fail a lot. But if I don’t have anything on it, failure won’t be so painful when I inevitability have to start over.

I’ll have to get some sort of adapter for VGA, and thanks for the talking about idrac. I had seen that mentioned on the server and had no idea what it was. So is the idrac website I’m connecting to like the website on routers used for configuration?

Hey thanks for the advice! Proxmox and TrueNAS seem to be what I should be looking into. Flashing with Rufus I’m familiar enough with, so that I can do. The one thing I don’t have is an out of the way place to put it 🫤 without any drives it didn’t make any noise, but I imagine that all comes from the drives doing their thing.

Thanks for the encouragement! To be honest, while it was a good place to start from its hand holding, I don’t love synology for how walled garden it is. I’ll definitely take a look at TrueNAS and see what that’s like.

Yup, that’s exactly it. Booting to a USB drive doesn’t change anything on your laptop until you tell it to, like by telling it to install. So there’s no harm in doing a dry run nowish. If you’re successful, it’ll boot into the USB drive, you’ll know you can do it, and then just reboot without the USB drive and everything is back to normal. If you do it incorrectly, same thing: just reboot without the USB drive and everything is back to how you left it.

Once you get it, you’ll be ready to go when you get your new laptop. But you can ask questions along the way and the real deal will be less stressful. Up to you though!

Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with default SteamOS. It doesn’t have updates as often as Bazzite, but if you’re happy with it, it’s fine to leave it. I had some trouble getting it to work with my dock when I wanted to use a monitor and keyboard, and since I was already using Bazzite’s cousin on my laptop I switched over and it everything just worked. I’m a fan of the work they’re doing.

Starting with a brand new computer is a good way to go because nothing to lose, and if you have trouble on install, nothing lost starting over.

One thing you can start figuring out now is how to boot from a USB drive in windows. This was just a quick google search, but getting the computer to boot from the USB drive and not where it normally boots will probably be the hardest part. After you boot into the USB drive, the rest is fairly straightforward. So maybe start looking into that while you wait 🤷🏼‍♂️

I guess in case no one else mentioned anywhere, when you install Bazzite (or any distro) it will wipe everything and you will start from scratch, so make sure your important stuff is saved elsewhere before you begin. Same with steamdeck. But one nice thing about Bazzite is that since it’s made by gamers for gamers, it has a lot of the things you’ll need preinstalled, or like emudeck you can just click to install it through their portal, so it should be minimal hassle.

You can do it right now and see what happens. Go to Bazzite.gg and go to the download section. It just wants to know where you’re installing it so it knows what version to give you to download. Installing to a laptop will be a different file than installing to your steamdeck.

And since you shut down nightly you’d always have the most current version when you boot up the next day. But that only applies to atomic (formerly called immutable) distros like Bazzite. If you go Mint, which isn’t atomic/immutable, that won’t be the case and you’ll have to stay on top of updating.

It’s early still, so you have plenty of time to do some research and when you’re ready ask the questions you still don’t understand and generally we’re pretty helpful around here. 😁

I touched on this elsewhere, but seeing your comment here… sort of.

iso image is like a .zip it’s a specific type of file… one that opens into a larger image, namely your entire distro. So you could install windows with an iso file. In order to be useful though, you need to get it onto a flash drive, but not just dragging and dropping. Programs like Rufus, mentioned elsewhere, will take that iso of Bazzite and open it onto the flash drive in a way that the computer will be able to read it later and do something with it.

After you have a working flash drive, you do not boot windows like normal and run the installer from a USB. You’ll have to figure out how to tell your laptop (different but similar for each brand of laptop) to boot from the USB. This usually involves having the USB in the drive, restarting your computer and hitting a specific key to tell it not to boot normally to windows, but instead boot from the flash drive.

I haven’t used Windows in a while and I think there’s also a way to restart windows and tell it to boot from USB as you’re exiting. But that’s what you’ll have to figure out for your specific device. That’ll be true no matter what you end up installing.

Go with Bazzite (if you end up liking it, you can install it on your steam deck, which will be the same process you use to install it in your laptop… but that’s for the future.)

Mint is okay, but it’s a bit behind and you have a greater chance of something going wrong than with one of the atomic distros (Bazzite). With atomic distros all the important stuff you can’t really touch and the only things you can change are your personal files that are important to you but don’t affect the system at all.

As long as you reboot your computer from time to time, it’ll always be the latest everything. And if something goes wrong with an update, you just choose to boot into the previous version you were just using and everything is back to how it was. Non-atomics you can affect files that are important and you have to stay on top of updating.

Between that and being built for gamers it’ll have everything already installed for you, though if something is missing, just click to install from the “app store”.

When you go to bazzite.gg to download it, you answer a few questions about your hardware, and pick a desktop environment. Some others have touched on Gnome and KDE for desktop environments, the choice is yours. Do you want a desktop that looks more like windows (or desktop mode on your steamdeck) or do you want it to look more like a Mac? Windows and highly customizable is KDE, Mac and just use it as is but still able to customize through extensions, is Gnome.

Really the hardest part is going to be installing it, but it’s really not too bad. There are plenty of guides, but it’s use a software to get the downloaded Bazzite file onto a flash drive, boot your laptop from that flash drive, follow the prompts and wait. Don’t try to dual boot (keep part for windows part for Linux). It’s possible, but from how you described yourself, not worth the headache.

I’m currently using NPM and don’t have any problems with it for at least my use case. Is there something I’m missing out on never having tried Caddy, or is it one of those no need to switch if there’s Nothing bugging you situations? That last bit is how I feel about Bazzite on the Steam Deck when people ask of they should switch.

What’s the benefit if using silver bullet over Obsidian or logseq?

That’s me and Bluefin now.

I’m also on Bluefin for my daily driver and Bazzite for my Steam Deck. I love it because the important part is set and forget it, and the part I tinker with is separate from the part that keeps things running. And if an update borks something, you can just revert to the image you came from.

I used to be in the “I prefer Linux but don’t have the time and energy to fight it when it doesn’t work” camp and would distro hop and occasionally go back to windows since the early aughts. I’ve been with Bluefin for a while now and it just works and I love the set it and forget it aspect. Also installed Bazzite on my Steam Deck.