Fedora then? Just choose the default Workstation. Easy to setup. Easy to do stuff too.

everything is a file lol, unlike on Windows where a lot of things are GUI based:

• Want to change your grub font size? Heres a file.
• Your python gives dependencies errors? Well, because the libraries (aka files) are in a different directory.
• want to change your password and username? Heres a file to change …so on and so forth

On Linux you have a lot of power, can use sudo to make changes to a file. If you know what youre doing, great. If you dont, system can break. Even without sudo, a misplace / mistype of files in the /home directory can cause weird stuff.

So TLDR is: be careful when make changes to files on Linux. Dont listen to stranger on forum who gives out command to paste and run. Do your research what the command does.

Keepass. I need to figure out a way to securely sync between Android <-> PC.

GNUpass should be very secure too but I need a way to view it on Android.

arch linux was what forced me to use LUKS on all of my installs regardless of distros, btw.

i used the standard layout:/boot, /, /home, swap. So when the installs break, the best way to fix is to use the archiso and remount and re arch-chroot.

Well… i found out that without LUKS, anybody can use any distros live cd and mount my stuff.

At first, I used LUKs only on the main partitions: so / and /home, or just / if no separate /home. Swap remains unencrypted. Boot is also unencrypted.

You could encrypt those too but need more work and hackery stuff:

• encrypted boot: can be slow if you boot the compututer from cold. There’s also this thing where you need to enter the password twice => think Fedora has an article to get around this. Iirc, it involves storing the boot’s encrypted password as a key deep within the root directory.

• encrypted swap: the tricky thing is to use this with hibernation. I managed to get it to work once but with Zram stuff, I dont use hibernation anymore. It involved writing the correct arguments in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg. Basically tells the bootloader to hibernate and resume from hibernation with the correct UUID.

not sure about price and speed, but their subscription model is designed such that you may not need to give away your info. E.g. pay with crypto and even cash in mail.

could just replace it, no? Unless your keyboard is weird, the size of window key is pretty standard right?

depends what you do, tbh. If you try to get a 3D program (that works well in Windows) to work on Linux, or try to get a game running as smooth as it is on Windows, then you are in for a lot of work.

But if your usage involves: simple web browser / email, codes, file operations. Then Linux is just plug and play, even much simpler than Windows. No ads, no constant updates nagging.

Linux just leaves you alone, if you mess some thing up it is you fault. On my Win 11 laptop, I got logged off by the damn OS just for it to display a popup with something bullshit like “Sign in to OneDrive to protect your PC”

OP, I am in the same boat. The features shown in GrapheneOS are very nice and I want to buy Pixel just to put it on. Is there a reason you go for the 9, beside price? I’m really keen on the 9a due to its flat camera and low price. I dont like phones with bumped camera. However, recent JerryRig video shows that the 9a is very very difficult to replace the battery, so not sure if it is good in the long run lol.

i like that plane analogy lol

Would a pixel phone running GOS be future proofed, or one day Google can just push out some hidden updates that prevent you from running it at all?

i’d recommend trying things out first. You are still in the beginning phrase, so try different distros. When you do, look for stuff like

• forum support. Is it popular ? Ubuntu Studio may not be as popular as vanilla Ubuntu and even when theyre from the same family, you can expect minor differences.

• i know this is not Windows. But say your OS is corrupted, how fast and easy it is for you to reinstall?

Example: Pop OS has a dedicated partition to reinstall the OS right in the grub menu - you dont need a separate USB drive for this. On the other hand, Archlinux requires you to mount the partitions correctly (yout home, root…etc), then you can go and fix your systems.

• do you like how the package manager work? I dont like Ubuntu because it has these different sources that can get convoluted. Arch’s AUR can be very messy. Fedora for me is the way because I like DNF. Plus, its syntax is easy to remember.

If you just want to play the game, then gaming works surprisingly well on Linux. Very well.

I have the same game on Steam running on 2 separate computers, Fedora and Win 11. On the Fedora one, everything is just rock solid. Heck, even when I am rendering some very intensive 3D stuff on another workspace for work and use 50% of the RAM, the game is still running. On the Win 11 laptop, random issues happen where my cursor dissapears and the entire desktop freezes.

OTOH, if you need the gaming accessories to work properly then I’m not sure, could be a 50/50. For eg, if your laptop has some proprietary sound card, then Linux might not be able to take advantage of that. On Windows, these should work OOTB.

Pop OS tiling is awesome. What I always try to do on tiling WM: set workspaces and spawn specific applications on specific workspaces. Not sure if Pop OS can do it, but on i3/dwm/sway…etc. you can freely spawn your applications wherever you like.

Try to play around with those DIY tiling environment. You will have a lot of fun if you like tinkering with stuff. Maybe one day you will run EXWM

Heard OpenSuse has OpenQA - apparently it is like an automatic test tool for packages.

the firefox, zen browser and libre wolf packages are concerning. The ttf ms font too. Those are very normal apps and unless you pay attention to the package name when doing “pacman -Syu”, you would fall for the malware.

If only we can compartmentalize all AUR packages. The download AUR sources iirc are already in something like $HOME/.paru. Installing is a different story, because these packages can put their executable all over the places: /usr/local/bin, $HOME/local/bin.

0. Create X account
1. Follow DJT
2. Retweet/Favorite our lord’s tweet.
3. Write some random shit and praise our lord.
4. Repeat 2 and 3 everyday

First they come for the students, then next they’ll come for the usual business visas.

I guess it’s time to make my porn site bookmarks public for the sake of a visa. Maybe I should join a MAGA group on Facebook and praise our lord and savior, DJT.

On a serious note, does this cover ALL social media, including whatsapp too? So it is literally “you surrender everything just to study”. That’s fucked up.

If you’re a complete newbie, go Ubuntu. Yes, it’s boring but the community is huge. You can find a lot of answers about problems on reddit/ stack over flow…etc. Literally any Linux problem you have, a Google search of that will show many answers from Ubuntu community.

yeh the other day I accidentally swiped down and touched the Media section. It automatically played my music, eventhough the music app was off lol. Luckily it didnt play any “videos”…

I owned 4 Samsungs: S8, S10e, S22 and S24 Ultra. Their products got worse. An example is the recent One Ui 7 update, it is just terrible: My notification area that works perfectly fine before, is now changed; my battery life got worse…etc.

Even if I ignore the update, Samsung products are just not great anymore. Remember when a Galaxy can take really great photos? Those days are gone. My S24 Ultra takes the worst pictures in comparison to a Xiaomi or Huawei. Heck, even the controversial Asus Zenfone 10 takes better picture. Sure the Galaxy has better Megapixels, but the AI bullshit makes it so the colors are all wrong.

With that said, you want to go for Pixel + GrapheneOS. Anything that is close to stock Android should be ok. Oh, and stay away from anything with a lot of AI.