This is what I got blindsided by when I tried out Mint a decade ago. OS is up to date and pretty, but kernel/drivers? Old, or “stable”.

And it’s weird seeing all of these recommendations for Mint on YouTube/social media this past year. And then watching the videos everyone is just gawking about Cinnamon…which you can install on any other distro too.

Lots of normies hopping on the Linux train and have no idea what they’re getting into lol

Ah, you’re right. I’m going to go sell everything I have then go to Mexico and buy as much hookers and blow that I can and then commit suicide because everything is going to shit and nothing even matters anymore! There is no future! REEEEEEEEE!

/s

You can’t, as far as I know. I’ve switched to just using my web browser and I bookmark the channels I watch(specifically their “videos” tab). I open up 3-4 channels at a time and see if they have anything new and go from there. Been doing this for 10 years now because the YouTube algorithm is balls.

Why wouldn’t someone save in the US?

The country is burning down? Sure. We don’t know what things will look like in a year? Me neither!

But I’d rather save and invest because in 40 years things may or may not have turned out fine. And I’d have a couple million and you will have zero because “why would you save!?!?” mentality.

If you get started early enough, you don’t even have to save a lot over time or even month to month. But if you wait until the last second(40s, 50s?) you’ll need to be dumping thousands per month just to catch up.

This is a math problem, not an emotional one.

So use a VPN, buy a 3d printer in another state, send it to a mail forwarding service?

Or buy a printer and install different firmware on it?

And maybe my understand of 3d printers is wrong, but a 3d printer itself doesn’t know what it is printing, it only gets the gcode from the slicer. So if the slicer is what is being modified, then use an open slicer like OrcaSlicer?

So a nothing burger of massive proportion this looks like. Which will soon spread to California. Great…

You can check out MediaStack: https://github.com/geekau/mediastack

Here is their “full vpn” compose file here(all of *arr goes through vpn): https://github.com/geekau/mediastack/blob/master/full-download-vpn/docker-compose.yaml

And their “mini vpn” compose(only torrenting goes through vpn): https://github.com/geekau/mediastack/blob/master/mini-download-vpn/docker-compose.yaml

Probably something there will give you the right push towards fixing your setup? Best of luck! I am actually going to be attempting this soon(gluetun+qbit), but with ProtonVPN.

For reference, the current estimated amount of desktop Linux users globally is somewhere between 60-80 million. In English-speaking countries, the total is around 19-20 million.

That sounds about right when comparing Microsoft’s claim of “1 billion” Windows devices. 5% of a billion is 50 million(not a perfect comparison as 5% Linux is total including MacOS/others from statcounter but you get the idea). So 50 million to 100 million Linux users globally sounds about right.

Some OEMs with some models here in the USA also offer it. HP and Dell offer it. I think Dell gives Fedora and Ubuntu? And it takes off ~$130 USD or so from the price, so it’s the full Windows license cost.

Personally if I have that option I’m taking it and just reinstalling whatever I want anyway, but it’s nice having that option.

Also if I’m going to spend $2k+ on a new laptop and they don’t give me a non-Windows/blank OS option then I’d go to support and request a special product link. Otherwise I’ll find another brand or buy used.

but we’re all running essentially the same Linux Kernel

Uh, yes and no. If you’re on Linux Mint 22.2+ you’re on 6.14. If you’re on Linux Mint 22.1 you’re on 6.8.

If you’re running Arch or equivalent, you’re either on 6.17 or 6.18 at the moment.

Now that doesn’t seem like a huge gap, but 6.8 came out March 2024. 6.14 is from March 2025. Debian 13.3 I think is on 6.12 which is November 2024.

These all seem recent, but Linux moves at such a fast pace that if you’re gaming you really should be on the latest kernel for the best possible performance for gaming, especially if you have newer hardware.

Of course use whatever you like, but I would tell people to evaluate what would be the best option for their environment. For me I run my own websites and game servers. They’re all on Debian containers.

If my mom came up to me and said she wanted to try “Linux” on her laptop, I’d just throw Ubuntu 24.04(or 26.04 for the next LTS) on it because I know she just needs something to surf the web.

And for me I recently went all in on CachyOS for my laptop and gaming desktop. I’m not running the latest and greatest hardware(Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series, Nvidia 3000 series), but this is my first attempt at a Arch based distro(well except my Steam Deck) and it’s been pretty rock solid.

Pretty much how AMP by CubeCoders works. It’s all docker containers

Yes this is a more apt description, sorry, this whole thing has been stupid tbh.

They are being accused of price fixing with the whole “can’t sell games for cheaper on other store fronts compared to the steam listing” thing

warm@kbin.earth explains it better below:

It only applies to Steam product keys though, so developers cannot sell cheap Steam keys on other platforms while still taking advantage of Steam’s services.

Install Tailscale on all devices.

Then ssh into whatever you need.

If you need desktop remote access the Windows RDP should work for Windows to Windows machines.

For Linux host to Windows client I’ve had good experiences with Remmina Desktop.

It’s all perspective. Our “far left” is probably your center.

If you lived in North Korea all your life you’d probably think Kim Jong Un was center aligned.

GW2 gamer here too, I’ve been switching over to Linux over the past few months and this is on one of my to-do lists(figure out HUD/overlay software for GW2).

Another hurdle I’ve had is getting mod support. For example, Tale of Two Wastelands. The standard installer is exe only and it runs via proton but it doesn’t use all CPU threads to decompile the game assets. Takes over a hour to do. Luckily someone was able to build something that fixes this for Linux, takes 10 minutes or so depending on your CPU: https://github.com/SulfurNitride/TTW_Linux_Installer

So I’m sure something is also available for GW2

Absolutely the biggest scam ever.

My parents bought their house for $159,000 in the late 90s.

They are still in that house. Guess how much is left on their mortgage balance? $350,000.

Why? Because of cash out refinances and HELOCs.

They should be retiring soon but they’re not, because people like you said these equity loans are good.

They’re not. These are terrible ideas. Do not EVER take out the equity of your home.

Same, my wife quickly figured out that my Old Spice lasted longer than anything she’s ever bought before.

She’d have to apply her old deodorant 2-3 times throughout the day(working an office job). But the old spice? Once in the morning and she didn’t have to worry about it again unless she worked out after work.

Now her sister and her mom use old spice for the same reasons.

Going back through my github issues/comments, it was around May 2024 with the v1.105.0 release was my last attempt.

I’m happy to hear it is stable now, I’ll probably give it a shot again here soon. Again, I loved the app and I was hosting it for friends/family to share photos of my kids, so it helped immensely with everyone collaborating with uploads(though mobile uploads for individual photos wasn’t available at that time, had to direct people to use the website…).

To be fair I don’t think I used the docker installation back then, so I’ll probably make a stack for it this time around.

Way too late, at least for me.

I’ve switched over to CachyOS on three devices. My main laptop, a spare laptop(for the wife to try), and a gaming PC. All three are great and easy to use. No stupid pop ups, no AI, and I don’t have to worry about it not booting up compared to Windows(which this was the opposite 10 years ago!).

At this point even if they make a great OS and call it Windows 12 I have zero faith that they won’t reverse and make Windows 13 terrible.

At least with Linux I have a dozen or so options to choose from and they all work just fine. So if CachyOS becomes terrible(doubt) then I’ll switch to something else.

At this point Windows needs to go above and beyond and be stable for YEARS and multiple versions before I switch back, which big doubt.