The solution I’ve sort-of found is to go to communities of Arch-based systems instead of Arch itself. The same solution should work in most cases*, and the communities are more newbie-friendly.
*Depends on how close to Arch the distro is in this aspect/subsystem. The Manjaro community is probably less likely to offer AUR based solutions, since the AUR can be unreliable/unsafe on Manjaro.
It did. I must have mixed them up. Not sure about the desktop/gaming divide, I mostly get my info from random articles.
Based on a brief search, you may be correct on both counts. I’ll fix my post. Thanks for pointing it out.
If Windows works fine for you and does not annoy you, there is no need to migrate.
Personally, I’ve been mostly happy using Linux as my sole desktop OS for ~15 years. However, I only switched because Windows kept breaking and reinstalling no longer fixed it. I couldn’t imagine going back now, but a big part is probably being used to it.
These days most major Linux distributions should be fine for desktop use.
Linux Mint Cinnamon use to be the go-to beginner distribution. Its design is apparently somewhat similar to Windows, giving you some initial familiarity. Linux Mint is also based on Ubuntu, which used to be so widespread that many support pages and simple how-to instruction still default to explaining it for Ubuntu.
(This can still lead to confusion if you search for “install [Windows program] Linux” and the instructions work for Ubuntu based distribution only, not for any other distros.)
The last few years, I’ve seen a switch to Arch-based distributions around. Valve itself switched away from Ubuntu to Arch in some ways. (On Steam, the system requirements still use Ubuntu as default.) SteamOS used to be based on Debian, which Ubuntu is related to, until the Steam Deck. Now it is based on Arch. More specifically, Valve seems to default to:
Base: Arch
Desktop environment: KDE Plasma (more powerful/options than Cinnamon)
Compositor base: Wayland for gaming, old X11 for Steam Deck’s desktop. (Apparently Wayland isn’t quite ready yet for that in their opinion.)
EDIT: Fixed thanks to feedback.
Arch itself is seen as a more technical distribution. There are extremely many support pages for every issue or question you may have, similar to Ubuntu, but some may be more difficult to understand. Still, support systems improve as the user base grows and Arch is growing.
For specific distributions, EndeavourOS is the one I’ve heard about being the most friendly. Manjaro is also beginner-friendly, but the folks who maintain it have some serious issues with seriously fucking things up sometimes.
https://itsfoss.com/arch-based-linux-distros/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVlD17OjFAc (Video compiling Manjaro fuckups.)
It failed to boot for me, too. Only worked when I stopped asking it to encrypt the hard drive.
To be honest, only laziness is stopping me from switching to another OS, though. Very poor experience so far.
OsmAnd is my family’s go-to app for navigation. I didn’t notice it missing information compared to Google Maps. The opposite really, with several hiking trails or small side-roads not being on Google some years ago. The only issue it has is navigation for more than ~200km at a time. Often, it just times out if you try that. That’s why Google Maps is still installed on some devices.
I haven’t added anything actively. I think I might have enabled an option to send location data to improve the accuracy of the streets or something at some point, but I’m very unsure about that one.
Doesn’t even have to be a “class of idiots”. It would be enough if stuff didn’t just sometimes break, seemingly randomly. (It’s not quite random, obviously.)
Recent example: I had OpenSuse TW recommended because of its reliability. First tip: install codecs, which requires adding the Packman repository. Now, simply updating threw up errors several times because Packman and the other repositories are apparently not in sync, and some dependencies would break if I updated. (Waiting a few days “fixed” it, but still shouldn’t happen.)
Depending on which update method you use (Yast/Discovery/zypper/update widget) you get different error messages, most of which are not informative. This is for an established distribution known for its reliability, and this alone would keep me from ever recommending it to normal users, even moderately tech-savvy ones.
Things are getting better, but I’m still shopping around for a distro that just works. Perhaps that new Fedora version, or one of the immutable ones, now that they are getting popular.
Yes. Various, with various limitations.
The simplest is Stable Horde/AI horde. Volunteers donate GPU time to the public. Please do not abuse this trust by overusing it without giving back! Great for quick experiments, though, since it requires no sign-up. Also includes a “get probable description from uploaded image” function, I’ve just noticed:
https://aqualxx.github.io/stable-ui/about
Personally, I’ve been playing around with leonardo.ai. It has a payment structure, but the free tier is very generous, in my opinion. You get 150 free daily token. Images cost between 1-4 token. It has a prompt generator, and you can even train your own model for free. There are also a lot of community models, since every model is set to public by default. You can even browse public images and directly copy all settings/prompts into the generator or use them for image-to-image stuff.
The company is very much focussing on building an active community, which can be both good and bad. You are first put on a waiting list, but your account is automatically activated if you join the discord and write some comments. There are also constant community contests/challenges to earn more token.
Edit: leonardo.ai techncally allows nsfw generations, but heavily discourages them. It has an automatic filter for any terms deemed nsfw. You may also not discuss how to circumvent that filter in the discord. (You may discuss how to bypass the filter to prompt safe for work images. E.g. you may discuss how to create Charles Dickens characters despite Dickens being filtered out.)
Here are few more, but I haven’t tried any of them:
https://stable-diffusion-art.com/free-ai-image-generator-sites/
Not to dunk on you too hard, but this question is on the same level as “Do people actually use OnlyFans” and “Do people actually pay money on scummy gambling sites?”
Of course they do. The reasons vary from charity towards poor creatives to paying for access to exclusive content to simping for your favourite thirst trap to simply wanting to support a creator you like for a month or two.
I don’t fully understand what people get out of it in many cases like supporters of creators who get 50k+ every month but only release a bit of content once per year, but in general it makes a ton of sense.
I’ve had issues since kernel 6.4. Since early December, one pair of Bluetooth headphones works again (mostly, with occasional connection issues), but the AirPods still fail to pair at all.