I could make any de do what I want, but gnome is closest to what I’d build out of the box. And that’s a very simple interface. I particularly like the finger gestures on my laptop touchpad. Once you train your brain, you zoom between desktops and programs on a single screen laptop equivalent to multiple monitors.

Additionally, I’ve found a few simple extensions that I’m sure have kde equivalents, but I’m a creature of habit. Grid is awesome, makes window tiling and snapping awesome. Caffeine for keeping things alive. And a few others. Mostly though it’s just speed of use - especially on the laptop.

One thing though I hate about gnome though is its high dpi monitor scaling support with Wayland when gaming. There’s four or five really dumb things it does. Sometimes it’s easiest to just change the resolution to what you want prior to launching the game.

Agreed. Fedora is great. Although I do prefer gnome.

Define cheap? Laser printers are expensive but last forever and toner is way cheaper than ink. Short term expensive, long term cheap?

Anyways I have an HL-L8360CDW color laser and it works perfectly with every distro I’ve ever distro hopped to. I’ve changed the black toner exactly twice and I’ve had the printer for almost 9 years now.

There’s newer models and whatnot, but that one works like a champ, is bulletproof, and costs very little per sheet in ink costs. It’s got the bells and whistles too, WiFi Apple AirPrint and whatnot.

Maybe you can find one of those used? Mine seems to be built like a tank, as good as the day I got it new. I’ll probably have it till the day I die.

Edit: and another point I wanted to make, the black only models are much cheaper as well. Color laser is where the cost is. You might be able to find a black only laser printer similar to that model for practically free…

No secret technique. I go to bed when I’m tired, I’m asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. Literally-sometimes I fall asleep on the way down to the pillow. Just how I’ve always been. /shrug

I think he means if you’ve set up your partitions where only the core OS is on root, it’s easier to distro hop and point your new os to your home folder. There are partition strategies that make distro hopping easy.

I’ve tried most distros over the years. I liked arch with gnome, but maintaining it was a bit of work. And then I realized that when I was done setting it up the way I liked it, I was essentially just building fedora workstation. So I switched a few versions ago and I haven’t looked back.

Fedora is boring, like sometimes too boring. But then I remember that’s what an os is supposed to be. I now run it on all my PCs and it’s what I install on family members PCs. (Yup it’s even done well with windows converts who don’t know anything about linux - their transition has been easy)

Issues I have encountered:

1. Rpmfusion is a must, otherwise the distro doesn’t handle much. It’s also the best way to nvidia.
2. i still run into the odd codec thing even with rpm fusion-I just use VLC and it works fine
3. it took me a while to figure out that the fedora based flatpaks are not always the same as the flathub versions. For example, back to point 2, the fedora flatpak of VLC is missing codecs while the flathub version works with everything.
4. i don’t like how flatpaks update automatically. I’m sure I can stop that behavior but I haven’t bothered to look into it yet. It manifests itself with steam. The flatpak updates but the main system has not. Steam then has driver differences which leads to processing more shaders and sometimes outright conflicts and my games default to the integrated gpu. This is always fixed by simply updating the system, it’s never a real issue. But sometimes I don’t want to update, I just want to game.
5. it’s got some funny ways of doing things. Always worth googling before you do something. For example, the way you update grub, there’s a special fedora way to do that. They push Podman instead of docker and despite what they say, it doesn’t always build cleanly - just use docker. That kind of stuff.

What I like about fedora

1. It’s boring and “just works” not even mint “just worked” as good for me
2. the upgrades between versions are boring and non events. It works if you go into detail cleaning up old things from the command line, it works if you just click the “upgrade” button in the gui.
3. its not bleeding edge but still pretty new. I’ve thrown some brand new hardware at it and it was supported, whereas all other distros failed except arch
4. It’s cake to maintain. Updates don’t require the attention arch does, and honestly I’ve had more issues with Ubuntu updates. It sets up btrfs by default - some may see that as a detriment - but it sets you up nice for snapshots and whatnot right out of the box.

I say give workstation a shot and give it a little time to get used to things. Definitely do rpmfusion. It’s the one time I’d recommend just jamming commands into the terminal exactly like the website says without thinking. (You still have to read the website for the right commands). Good luck!

Full screensaver functionality is tough on Wayland, if not impossible right now. They apparently don’t know how to have fun over there.

That said, it’s worth noting that you can install dosbox, fire up win3.11 on it, and then run your nostalgic screensavers full screen from there. Afterdark and whatnot. Dosbox keeps the computer alive so the screen saver runs forever and the computer doesn’t lock - so it’s not really full functionality. But if you’re just looking for some fun - that works great. (I do love my flying toasters)

I’m not sure all devices are getting a bios update for this. Didn’t Dell confirm this some time ago? If I’m understanding things correctly, Microsoft is forcing you to: 1) get the update by installing win11 legit with no bypasses 2) get the bios update from your hardware manufacturer 3) essentially turn off secure boot.

I think there are plenty of fully functional PCs out there, capable of running win11, but not supported because of something like tpm2.0, whose bios won’t be updated by the manufacturer, and therefore have no path to receive this update. Which means the pc will probably eventually be forced to run without secure boot.

Which I think means if you’re a windows only user - forced obsolescence-buy a new pc. If you’re a linux user - you’re fine.

I think? I could be completely wrong here - but that’s my understanding of it all.

I’m not a nurse, but I’m married to one. She’s been doing it for 30 years, always a floor nurse on a busy floor (trauma, med surg, etc.). She loves the one in a million patients where they need help, appreciate the help, their families are nice and thankful, and she gets to help that person recover and get better. Makes up for the million other shitty things that happen.

She’s often thought about the pa thing, but never did it for a few reasons. 1) she likes being a nurse, and a pa isn’t nursing 2) job opportunity/need as you mentioned 3) she’s watched me climb the corporate ladder and she appreciates the simplicity of being an individual contributor. 4) she thinks pas ultimately lose their nursing skills and she doesn’t want that.

Anyways, the point of this novel is that we’ve moved around a bit and she’s learned that there is always a job available for her as a floor nurse, and that if “the grind” is too much - IT’S USUALLY THE FLOOR. Go somewhere else and it changes drastically. Hospital administration, managers, co workers - they all make or break the experience. Her toughest job was also her favorite because of her boss and co workers, one of her easiest sucked because of her boss and coworkers. So nothing wrong with the pa path (it’s never too late for anything), but don’t forget to look at your other nursing options - maybe there’s another floor or hospital that’s more of a fit for you.

Or just ignore me because I’m not a nurse and don’t really know what I’m talking about. I’m just parroting what I’ve heard my wife say. Good luck!

I meant retiring and not having a retirement job. I worded that badly - sorry. I know lots of people who are “retired” but still work a part time gig because they can’t afford the things they want in retirement. Which to me, isn’t “retired”.

This. 5 million is the new 1 million. That allows you to own a paid off house and retire at a reasonable age without working. 1million doesn’t do any of the bigger picture social change things you mentioned.

Pride and prejudice.

Making a windows11 bootable flash drive is a mega pain in the balls on anything other than windows. The easiest way to do it is to install ventoy. Then make a bootable ventoy flash drive, download the win11 iso, copy that iso onto the ventoy bootable drive. As long as you’re using a newish version of ventoy, you won’t run into secure boot issues.

Way way way easier than trying to make a dedicated windows bootable installer.

Edit: everything applies to win10 as well

So I can actually comment on both the 13 and the 16 as I helped my family member build a 16. The 13 is my preference for a daily driver for school or for what I use it for - at work. The 16 is best “docked as a desktop, but I can take my powerhouse on the go”. The 16 is a bit bulky to carry around or use on a plane imo.

The 13 The chassis is great. Well built, sturdy, super easy to take apart with a single supplied screwdriver, captive bolts, no glue, etc. Really just a dream to work on. Swappable ports are awesome and they work great. Screen and trackpad are nice, not as nice as a MacBook, better than almost all others. Trackpad bracket is a little flimsy, but it’s replaceable. I’ve had zero other issues. As far as getting locked into their ecosystem. I’m not really worried about about that. Yes if they stop making main boards to fit the chassis, then the laptop gets stale, but the it’s a regular laptop…. All the components are standard thingies you can buy anywhere, ram, ssd, WiFi cards, etc. Battery is OK, I wish it lasted a bit longer. Like everything in the laptop, that’s easily replaceable too. I would say it’s about as future proof as you can get in a laptop.

The 16 The chassis is also great except for the little blank plates on the sides of the trackpad. They work fine, but from a fit and finish standpoint they are lacking. The 16 is otherwise a beautiful machine. Now the gpu- that I believe is subject to “being locked into the framework ecosystem”. Nobody will make a gpu in that form factor except framework. They did just release a 2nd card with a newer gpu in it. Hopefully that continues-so far so good. I both want a 16 and don’t. It’s kind of big. Just depends on what your use case is.

Both beautiful machines that are fantastic to use, and both are “laptops that are like desktops”. There’s other options probably, but I can only compare to thinkpads, Macs, hps, dells, surfaces, asus, and other random windows machines. Never seen a system76. Framework is my favorite, thinkpad is second.

I have a framework 13 running fedora and I absolutely love it. Upfront costs are expensive though - long term cost might be more reasonable (or even less) if I upgrade it for years/decades. Bit early to tell. But I do love it. Best laptop I’ve ever had (and I’ve had them all - even a thinkpad)

Fedora is a great distro. IMO it and Mint are the “it just works” distros. Mint just works, unless it doesn’t - usually a result of bleeding edge hardware. That’s where fedora comes in - newer stuff but without the downsides of something like arch.

The thing with fedora is that it’s “pure”. You have to install codecs and whatnot. Once you realize that there’s a team (rpmfusion.org) that is dedicated to making these things easy - fedora becomes much more tolerable for a newcomer. While it’s a bad idea to copy commands and jam them into the terminal - in this one particular case, I tell people to just copy and paste the commands and just do what they say. Boom nvidia and codecs installed and everything just works.

No idea. I didn’t drink for three weeks either but I had an IV feed of saline. I think you die of thirst in a few short days.

I’ve gone three weeks and change without a single calorie of food. Not by choice - medical thing. Lost about 30 lbs give or take. Was hard to start eating again once I did. Lost additional weight beyond the 30. Went from fat to skinny. Took years to eat properly again. Now I’m fat again :)

Was interesting for many reasons.

1. it’s possible if you’re injured to not be hungry and starve to death without feeling any hunger whatsoever
2. while I lost fat, I lost more muscle. Crazy how the body canibalizes itself.
3. still need water, that you can’t go without. But you can go a long time without food. I could have easily gone weeks longer I think without food.
4. Hug your family and always tell them you love them. I lived through my ordeal and gained perspective, but many young people die without saying and doing the things they should.

I’ve honestly been trying to figure out this move for weeks. What was the point of grabbing it ALL when it’s so easy to rip whatever you want with some of the tools? Was it just a big “F you”? And peace - that’s a reason :) In that case they could care less what they get sued for. But to me it seems like unnecessarily whacking at the hornets nest. I hope it doesn’t bite them in the arse someday.

I dunno, smells like teen spirit hit pretty hard. It was a new sound and many people’s first exposure to grunge. I agree, there are better bands (STP was better than Nirvana and I’m dying on that hill). But they were first, and it explains how they blew up overnight.