I wouldn’t call it a mess. There’s a reason it’s not standard. It’s because Linux is about having choices. Linux users have such a variety of use cases and there are a zillion different kinds of hardware it runs on. There’s no one thing that works for everyone.

I think this flexibility is a big part of what makes Linux special but also what makes it difficult for newcomers. The documentation on all the various software is typically very good to excellent. The harder part is figuring out which choice to make in the first place.

I don’t really have any answers except to take it all in and be more willing to do some research than some other platforms may require.

System-wide DoH is sort of a power user thing to begin with so other platforms will likely be similar. I think you would probably be using some kind of app to do it on Windows or Mac.

By the way, you might want to take a look at stubby for your situation. I did something similar a few weeks back and that’s what I used. It’s runs a little local DNS proxy that forwards requests to your upstream servers. Then you would set your DNS server to 127.0.0.1 in NetworkManager or whatever you’re using. You have to change like 3 lines in the default stubby config a typical distro may provide to make it work.

Umm… you can do that with Windows in a corporate environment.

Well, you could think of Microsoft as your distro. Generally, if they’re telling you to upgrade a driver, you should do it. At a minimum, everyone should be automatically installing security updates. This is one of the most important services an operating system vendor provides.

If you don’t trust them to do that or you don’t like their update frequency, maybe consider a different operating system. In the Linux world, we have some choices as far as release cadence and update policy. You can do rolling, 6 month, 2 year LTS, etc. Some are bleeding edge and others use “proven” software and remain very stable until the next major release.

Why not? We essentially have this in the Linux world and it’s great. You have a package manager that pulls from your distro’s repositories and it’s filled with all kinds of software, although most drivers come packaged with the kernel. Most stuff is completely plug and play. You end up with one click (or command) software installations for just about everything so you’re not hunting around the internet and downloading installers. Everything you need, including dependencies, gets pulled in and it stays up to date without every app bundling it’s own updater. It’s super convenient.

I’ve used Tumbleweed in the past, I use Aeon (OpenSUSE MicroOS) now, and I was a longtime Arch user before this. I will take Arch over Tumbleweed every time. The repositories, AUR and docs are just better. OpenSUSE’s OpenQA and OBS are cool, but, in my opinion, don’t offer enough value over Arch. There’s also YaST, which I don’t care for, but YMMV.

With Aeon, the repositories aren’t really an issue because it’s a different workflow with distrobox. I just pull in Arch packages if I need to. The docs still leave something to be desired, but I’ve been using Linux since the late 90’s so I’m pretty comfortable. I really like transactional updates and immutability on Aeon.

It’s awful and it feels like it has gotten worse. FSD is the second worst purchase I have ever made, a hot tub being the first. We bought our Tesla and my wife loves it so we will have it for a while. The motors and batteries are excellent with Tesla, but everything else is mediocre at best. Without a doubt, it will be the last one we own if I have my way. Elon is a con man.

Linux is Linux. The differences largely come down to packaging and release cadence. You never really have upgrade difficulties with Arch due to the rolling release model as long as you are updating pretty regularly. On other distros, it’s not uncommon to deal with release upgrades that can be a little more involved. The other advantage to Arch is the repository and AUR. You can install just about anything with one command/click.

Personally, I think Arch is the easiest distro to use once it’s installed. I was a Debian user before Arch for mostly the same reason - it’s so easy to install software because the repository is huge. Being on Mint, you have access to a lot. Just imagine having access to even more but needing a little more knowledge to get started and that’s Arch.

I was in the same boat before Framework launched and ended up with a ThinkPad X1 Extreme.

It’s a solid machine - easy to upgrade the SSD and RAM, easy to repair, very good premium support available for an additional fee. I paid for the support and had to replace a touchpad that started acting weird. They were at my house within 24 hours and made the repair at my dining table. So much better than AppleCare.

The Linux support is great. Everything works. The build quality is good as far as pc laptops are concerned. Lots of USB ports, HDMI out, and an SD slot. That’s the next best thing to the customizable ports on the Framework. The battery is a little better than the Framework. Really can’t go wrong with either one.

Which packages do you add to extraLibraries? How do you find the dependencies? I’m struggling with this at the moment.

Spam and bots like other people have said. Then there are the instances that get blocked because of the content and people there. Nazis, racists, trolls, etc. They were coming in from all over during the twitter migration. There was a blocklist on GitHub that was being updated pretty frequently.

I would second this. I’ve used Endeavour and it’s nice, but it doesn’t have much of a purpose. It’s an easy installer with some default packages. Once it’s installed, it’s 100% Arch but with a different name and you don’t know how some things work because they were automatically configured for you. Might as well use the real thing. The archinstall script is easy and you only have to do it once.

You will get the same version of Plasma and probably older versions of some other packages you use. With 5.27 being the last significant update until Plasma 6, you’re good on that for a while. Nothing will be newer than what you already have. None of your packages will get any updates beyond bug fixes and security updates, but it will be rock solid.

Kubuntu is also reliable and has newer packages. Personally, I don’t think there’s much to gain here unless you’re set on something that doesn’t have snap and don’t mind running older versions of most packages.