Same can be achieved with Proton, which accept Bitcoin. Bitcoin is pseudonymous, so just buy on a DEX/P2P, and transact, there will be no link to your PII. Buying on a CEX links to PII.

Skill issue. Fix it.

Go Fedora for Gaming with new hardware. If you’re a couple generations behind in hardware, Mint will do just fine.

Fedora gets new hardware support faster along with newer drivers, same with Arch and Arch-based distros (like EndeavourOS, BazziteOS)

What is it with these people that when thinking of Linux base their decisions on decade-old knowledge and go straight for Ubuntu. Ubuntu isn’t what it used to be, competition actually happened and we’re all the better for it. In the meantime, Canonical F’d up, and Ubuntu should not be anywhere near the top of the recommended distros list.

Want something that actually works, go Linux Mint. Have much newer hardware and want to game, go with Fedora or an arch-based distro like EndeavourOS.

Don’t go Ubuntu. You never go Ubuntu.

Edit: Pycharm works well too.

Py-Charm isn’t a Python interpreter, it’s an IDE. It has a purpose.

over to Linux full-time back in ~3.15. I recommend you join the LUG Org (Linux User Group), as they have a load of resources in case you get stuck and have some people working on specialised Wine runners. They also run a Matrix Space that’s worth joining.

For email and VPN, I recommend Proton. Even their free tier works well.

Just to make it clear to any other people reading this, Jellyfin has Group Sync where you can create groups with participants and syncplay media.

Jellyfin + Arr* Suite == chillin’ and singing shanties in the high seas.

Nice to see Matrix’s Element client on there. Has definitely become my go-to and even managed to get friends, family, and my gaming community on there, replacing Discord entirely

Don’t get the EU flag though, we should be pushing for global sovereign alternatives. Thos could indicate the inverse in that these applications/platforms are not useable outside EU which is incorrect, and unfortunate.

Odysee did/does something interesting where if one uses the desktop client, the video gets streamed and cached, and then seeded back over a configurable amount of time. I could see creator’s communities being self-sustainable this way.

I also have a Surface GO 2 and been running Linux for the past 2 years. In the beginning the only “trouble” was that you you needed the surface-linux kernel for drivers, but that’s no longer the case as all drivers have been upstreamed to the mainline kernel.

For distros, anything goes as long as it has a recent kernel. I just go full Arch (EndeavourOS is also a good choice).

What you probably want to pay attention to is the desktop environment - i’ve found Gnome works best for touch and tablet devices KDE requires some tweaking.

For 2, check the flathub store, you might be impressed with what you find for note-taking and PDF editing. Definitely some good options out there for Linux.

3 is a preference. Generally use internal storage for OS and external for data. Linux doesn’t take that much space, so if with 120GB you’re having storage issues, just ditch windows, problem solved, lighter system.

4 Yes it works.

Thanks for the response, this makes sense I suppose. I personally like being explicit and knowing-at-a-glance what is currently configured, but I can see some defaults being useful for many beginners for instance, and keeping config cleaner.

This sounds interesting. But in that case, how are headers set? From a security and even privacy standpoint the correct headers can be quite important. How do you enable/disable http2 and http3?

Lightning is indeed NOT a fork of a Bitcoin, it’s essentially a Layer 2 for Bitcoin (if you think in terms of the Internet’s TCP/IP model). It solves pretty much every use case created by any Altcoin when competing with Bitcoin, as Bitcoin chose security and decentralization over scalibility in its base layer (on-chain).

As for buying Monero, I only deal with Bitcoin, but I’m pretty sure you can easily buy Monero still as long as you don’t use centralised exchanges (permissioned), and instead use Decentralised ones (permissionless). That’ll be the case for any altcoin that still has decent popularity for the foreseeable.

Not exactly. Lightning makes it super cheap and instant.

Bitcoin is pseudonymous - Transactions are transparent, yes, but the addresses are not linked to any PII - The exception comes in when the user uses a Centralised Exchange that does exactly this, it bridges anonymous addresses with PII via KYC.

Bitcoin can be sold anonymously using P2P DEXs (decentralised exchanges), where the fiat transaction has no link to Bitcoin.

That’s assuming they even would want to sell.

All in all, it comes down to how the user uses the tool. Bitcoin can be as privacy preserving as anyone wants. But if they KYC, they can kiss any privacy goodbye, and really, that’s the misunderstanding that has reached most non-Bitcoin users these days. Experiences based on a lack of understanding.

Arch was the distro that got me to stop distro-hopping. It’s stable, it has a rolling release, and it’s mine (as in, customizable, manageable).

I guess, if there’s anything I wish I’d known off the bat is that the Arch documentation is probably the best available. So much so, a LOT of it applies to Linux in general and not strictly to Arch.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Main_page

If something breaks, READ the error messages, understand each component, and check the wiki, there’s a very high chance the troubleshooting section has the exact issue laid out.