Spiracle

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.

Perhaps this ASRM-ish reading of java class exceptions might calm you down? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCCTCVBFt6E

Copied from miku-chan03?

Here’s a dramatic reading of some of miku’s posts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDqik-Y27Uc
The same text as from the OP is the first one in the video.

Yes and no. I’d prefer user choice/curating your own list of instance you interact with.

However, each community also adds further burden on moderation. The communities you allow affect the culture, and some are very clearly more trouble than others.

My current solution would be to have multiple accounts for different sections of the fediverse. Currently I only have a generic Kbin and a Lemmy account, but if you find a Lemmy instance that’s federated with the broader free-speech spectrum without just veering into insane territory itself, I’d be interested.

Kbin user here. It does not federate downvotes from lemmy. So far, I have a total of two (2) downvotes and every single interaction, including the one I got downvoted for, was quite positive.

No toxicity in normal interactions so far. The only (slightly) toxic comment sections were regarding meta topics of users complaining about toxicity elsewhere and/or wanting to defederate more communities. Even those discussions were nearly entirely polite and productive.

The only somwhat toxic topic I participated in was when one car-enthusiast complained about the fuckcars community and got called out throughout the comment section. Piling on like that was probably not the best way and they deleted their post some time after.

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.

I remember having to figure out why audio was not working on a new installation. That was once, probably ~5 years ago and was fixed quickly once I found a solution online.

I’d vastly prefer my ears to stop working intermittently due to a FOSS driver issue over a corporate overlord installing bloat, spyware, demanding regular payment for the privilege of them not deleting my driver, just to drop support for them some years later anyway.