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.

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.

I always thought those were really cool! I used to have the launcher they made for Android on my old Droid Turbo, and it was pretty cool! Then it stopped working when I got a new phone with a newer version of Android.

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.

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.

I name mine after different places or ships from anime shows I watch. My laptop is Bebop from Cowboy Bebop, my desktop is goingmerry from One Piece, my Kali VM is senku1 from Dr. Stone, and my NAS server is amaterasu from Fire Force.

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.

My understanding is that it’s just not as secure. Any open port can be considered a potential way for a hacker to get in. Of course, that doesn’t mean it will 100% happen and you will get hacked, but at least in the case of Tailscale, it does it in a secure way that makes it so you don’t have those open ports. Basically, it’s not bad to just expose them to the internet, it’s just not as secure as using tools like Tailscale.

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.

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.