You might be able to find a super lightweight desktop distro out there (I think Damn Small Linux can run on those specs?) or you could repurpose it as a basic server of some sort like you mentioned. Unless you wanted to invest in some cheap old ram to throw in there and maybe make it a bit faster, then I think those would be your best options.

I’ve been using it on my Fedora laptop for the past week or so and it’s really nice, even in alpha 1! Can’t wait to see how it turns out fully finished!

I was so happy about this! Been using it on my work MacBook and have been excited to use it on my main laptop!

Windows 10 before I used Linux full-time, though I did try out Windows 11.

Imagine being so against people using certain programs on their computer that you straight up deny them software updates.

My only major complaint is their free-tier is a bit lacking compared to what Skiff had (or I guess has, but not for much longer.) I think their platform is great, and definitely worth paying for, but given I’m a broke college student that’s not much of an option. Also their support for third party clients (or lack thereof) isn’t great, though I don’t use those as much. Otherwise I like it quite a bit!

Generally I have when I use Gnome or KDE on Linux, though I have started to prefer MATE, which doesn’t have Wayland support yet afaik. I also started using FreeBSD on one of my computers a bit more, and I believe Wayland support is still a bit wonky on that right now. But as soon as Wayland support is there I’m definitely switching to that on the daily.

Yeah, I’ve had issues with it too! I installed the latest Windows 10 on my mom’s laptop after replacing the hard drive with an ssd, and it took me way longer than it should have to do something as simple as move files from the old hard drive to the new one! And a week later, she calls me with issues related to the auto backup OneDrive thing, and I had to troubleshoot that from 2.5 hours away. If she didn’t need Photoshop and Lightroom, I would have installed some sort of Windows-similar Linux distro for her. I also have had so many issues with Windows 11 for school that I just stopped using it on bare metal and just have a VM for the one program I need for my CS classes.

For something with fitness tracking, I’ve been using the Garmin Forerunner series for years. Recently though, I’ve been using the Pine64 PineTime as my main smartwatch. It doesn’t have much for fitness tracking, but if you’re looking for a basic smartwatch it’s pretty nice!

While I get your point about not expecting all software to have the same workflow, keep in mind that learning a new one isn’t always in the cards. The reason people don’t complain when learning Adobe is because they are probably starting with it. But if they complain when switching to GIMP it’s because they have to spend the time to learn a new system instead of getting their work done. And especially in a professional environment, that just ends up causing problems.

While I get your point about not expecting all software to have the same workflow, keep in mind that learning a new one isn’t always in the cards. The reason people don’t complain when learning Adobe is because they are probably starting with it. But if they complain when switching to GIMP it’s because they have to spend the time to learn a new system instead of getting their work done. And especially in a professional environment, that just ends up causing problems.

As someone who has been plagued by broken, hard to repair laptops before, I went for the Framework Laptop. Of course, your needs and wants might be different.

System 76 laptops are probably a bit better for Linux considering they were built specifically for it. They also have more variety in what kind of laptop you can get, whereas the Framework only comes in a 13 inch “ultrabook” form factor and a future 16 inch gaming laptop. And battery life I believe is a bit better than the Framework.

However, Framework still works really well with Linux (I use Linux Mint on mine, and it works great.) And the flexibility in being able to repair, upgrade and customize your laptop is really nice. Plus, the battery thing is slowly but surely getting fixed, and while it’s still not entirely great, it has gotten me through the day as a computer science student.

I feel like it has gotten better for sure. I use Linux Mint on mine, and while I don’t think it’s quite been “fixed” yet, it’s improved enough to be noticeable.

I would love it if there was a smaller company like Framework or System76 that made printers that weren’t enshittified. Something with open firmware and hardware that also could be easily repaired. Or at the very least an open standard that existed for printers to use. I know companies like HP or Epson wouldn’t buy in, but maybe some smaller players could join in with that if there was.

I haven’t, but I’ve seen it in my Spotify recommendations. I also subscribed to the newsletter, though I haven’t had much time to read it much.

Some favorites of mine are The WAN Show, Command Line Heroes, Darknet Diaries, Linux Unplugged, Destination Linux and Surveillance Report All of these cover a lot of cool areas in tech, and I have never heard any right-wing views (or really any political views) voiced in any of these.

So I still technically use Windows, but only because I need it because of some software for school, but I still use Linux most of the time. It’s mainly the small yet super annoying things in Windows that caused me to switch. Like how everything has to automatically try and back up to OneDrive until you dig into the settings and disable it, or how it constantly badgers you to use insert Microsoft product here instead of what you want to use. Plus as a computer science student, and someone who spends a lot of time in the terminal, Powershell and the Windows command line feel so old and incapable compared to the Linux terminal (WSL has helped with some of that, but not all of it.) It’s just small issues that cause big issues when you run into them, because it just makes simple things harder to do than they need to be, usually for the sake of pushing their products.

I’m not entirely a fan the idea of having my OS run somewhere other than my own computer, unless it’s like a remote lab I use for specific tasks. Like if I could use Linux, and just use this for my classes that run Windows exclusive software, then I’d maybe use it. Otherwise I think it’s a bit weird to have your whole computer basically be in the cloud.

Totally get it! Windows 7 looked/looks amazing! Personally I have an XP themed setup on my Ubuntu install. There’s just something great about old UI design.

I personally like Mate, especially with i3 as the window manager.