Replying after your two edits. A couple of things

• Assuming you just want a working PC on hardware you are not sure works with Linux, I would try Ubuntu as a first step. The latest 26.04 LTS is up to date at the moment, and Ubuntu includes a bunch of proprietary drivers that should help not faffing around with that the first thing you do on a new install. Use the Live boot to try things out - things like network drivers should work in that environment before you install.
• Suggestions here suggest Mint or Fedora. Try the Live boot on those as well. Mint is based on a two year old Ubuntu release (24.04) and Fedora does not include non-open source drivers that might be the solution to an issue you may have.
• Zorin is also based on Ubuntu 24.04. Any driver issues you might have there has a high probability of being the same on Mint.
• You might also like to dip your toes into Bazzite. It is based on Fedora, but also includes a bunch of proprietary drivers ready to go.

Installation of apps works differently on Windows. Generally on Linux you install via the software tool that is included with your distro. Check out which one is used on the distro you choose. Sort of like the app stores on Windows or Mac but first-class citizens and without the bloat. There are exceptions to this rule (AppImages or packages not included in any distro’s repositories), but just in general use the default as far as you can. Your apps will automatically be kept up to date by the OS so there are tangible benefits.

End of the day - Linux is neither Windows or Mac. There is a learning curve, but it’s more of one getting to understand the workflows than anything being intrinsically more difficult nowadays.

+1 for GaN adapters - they pack a punch in a small package. I’ve replaced my original adapter for my Thinkpad as well as for my cell phone with a Belkin unit a while back. It takes much less space in my backpack.

Tenders. As in 2024, no development tenders were funded in 2025. Tenders related to LibreOffice development remain on hold, and will be resumed based on the development strategy currently under discussion according to the new Procurement Policy.

I’m curious what this means? Has there been no development other than maintenance taken place the last two or so years?

Unless you have something completely esoteric, a power adapter you connect to your mains only provides a specific voltage and max amperage to your laptop. Assuming your connection to the laptop is appropriate you should be good. The charge controller is located in your laptop, not the adapter.

If you happen to have a relatively recent laptop with USB-C charging the key decision is already made - just get an adapter with a wattage that meets or exceeds what your laptop specifies and a decent USB cable.

It happens. But when I boot into Windows those disappointments ease up.

That’s assuming an attacker will play nice with URL forming and discovering edge cases in POSTing shaped data to the service. Just encrypting is still weak security if the whole front-end web and API surface isn’t hardened.

After starting my move away from Windows to Linux in earnest 5-6 years ago I share that enthusiasm I got back for homelabs and self hosting. And yeah - I passed 50 during the journey as well.

How about hosting an ADS-B receiver, tracking nearby air traffic. It doesn’t serve any practical purpose other than participating in the crowd sourced network that feeds sites like FlightAware and FlightRadar24 (and you get a free subscription by participating)

We all go our own ways. Over the later years I’ve added features and with it the inevitable complexity. Self-hosting my own data has made my care more about what goes on in my network. I am not quite at the stage of adding VLAN’s but it will probably come.

A router provided by an ISP is not your hardware, thus any network behind it is by definition not controlled by you. There have been numerous cases where they have backdoors or known admin passwords. In cases where there is a wire type transition (for example incoming over coax or fiber) it might be necessary to use it though. Same if it is necessary due to your contract.

In my cases I always turn off the wireless antennas and switch it to bridge mode, then place my own router/firewall device behind it.

Edit: still learning to spell.

Azure and Cloud Services is over 30% of their revenue and a growing percentage of the total revenue, while their Office products and services are closer to 20% and a shrinking portion. I’d claim Azure is their largest business by a good margin.

Yeah, I agree even though for all intents and purposes Cosmic v1 is still a beta in the same way any AAA game is still a ”beta” with day 1 patches on release. It should have been an ”early adopter” release at least until the transition to the next underlying Ubuntu LTS.

It took a lot longer than planned to get it into an available beta and I guess too long for comfort to 1.0. They should have released in an ”early adopter” release and kept the older Gnome base as an LTS at least until the shift to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS as a base.

Yeah, there’s no winning for them. They obviously underestimated the time needed to write a general purpose DE from scratch and felt they needed to release something.

If we are thinking in terms of roles in a production of a sketch, Linus is the one that accepts the role to emphasize and emote about the problems. Picking a distro with known quirks (being a beta in this case) is a signature setup for that role. Without the drama, it would be a pretty boring episode for the LTT demographic.

That being said, anyone who is ingrained into how Windows operates and has quirks in their workflows (as in - tuned their workflow to work relying on some edge cases), a month is too short a time to transition and embrace that necessary change.

It used to be, and is still based on Ubuntu the same way as Mint is. Their Cosmic DE used to be a tweaked Gnome, but the current Cosmic iteration is a ground up developed DE done in Rust. It has a lot of promise, but their v1 is basically still beta quality with lots of bugs.

Cosmic is basically a beta DE right now. Most of Linus’ bad experiences seem to be because of that. It looks promising and I can definitely see it as my daily driver, but in a year or so.

ChimeraOS predates the current Arch based iteration of SteamOS by several years. The first release on GitHub is dated 2019 (then called GamerOS).

No problem and no need to explain. LibreOffice is commonplace at my place of work.

Well, they aren’t AUR, but vetted packages. The only difference I see from what Fedora or Ubuntu does is not do any marketing. All of them have AI tooling opt-in so far.

Running Arch without any packages in the standard repo would be a pretty special experience.