Linux Mint is the common suggestion and a solid option.

I tried a lot of distros myself and I’m 10 months into switching to Linux. My personal suggestion would be OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

You can also have a look at suggestions here: https://distrochooser.de/

Thanks. I’ll check it out. The downloaded files were 35GB for 1080p resolution. Don’t know what the hell it was doing.

Synology NAS. I think it is a DS220+ or something like that.

You can make a DIY NAS with an old cheap PC. Or pay a premium for Synology and they make things a bit easier (although setup can still take quite a learning curve if you don’t know about this stuff).

I’ve used Mailbox.org for years as a service that replaces most of my Google services at once. I know you just asked for email and Mailbox is worth checking out.

For keyboards, 60% layouts can be bought prebuilt. If you want something smaller than that then you’re likely looking at DIY build territory or maybe a one handed gaming keyboard.

For a mouse, you can get really tiny portable mice that are low weight. If you want something that doesn’t tie you down to finding desk space, then you can look at trackball mice (fine for strategy games, not great for FPS).

1. Mostly Lemmy/Reddit/social circle recommendations

2. Download

3. I used to download directly to my phone and watch there. Then I got a NAS and started copying from my phone to the NAS. Then I set up download software on the NAS to have it always on. Then got Plex set up. Then the Arr’s (although these are janky and I end up doing a lot of manual additions).

4. Plex

I would highly suggest getting a NAS and playing around with it. Self hosting is complicated, but I got it as a “dumb” network drive on my LAN. Then slowly I started adding on different Docker containers and added to it. Each setup was a painful learning process of errors and troubleshooting, so don’t try to do everything in one go.

You don’t even need to be a pirate for self hosting. You can buy dirt cheap physical media on eBay and rip it to make a pretty huge personal library on the cheap.

That’s a fantasy we all hold here because we don’t like Reddit. Reddit doesn’t care that nerds have gone and normies are left behind. People keep using the site and throwing money at “super upvotes”. They’ve floated on the stock market and are doing well. The site is nowhere near dying like Digg. Deep, cerebral, meaningful content might have suffered; but hardly anyone cares as long as they get to see recycled memes, making judgemental comments on other people’s relationships, porn and politics. Their main content is lowest common denominator shit, and it always has been. Facebook is far more shitty and is still going strong. I’m sure Reddit will be fine without us and with their ongoing enshitification, no matter how much we fantasise about their demise.

https://imgur.com/a/aLhmJSE.jpg

I have successfully almost completely cut Amazon shopping out. We would spend hundred of £s every month and would buy everything off Amazon. But the company is terrible (mistreating workers, avoiding tax, etc etc). They’ve allowed their site to get flooded with (low quality) trash. Reviews are unreliable. Prices are comparable or more expensive to elsewhere. I do still buy from there once in a while for quick delivery and easy returns.

Alternatives:

eBay - sucks for product reviews, but is good if you know what you’re getting (e.g. something branded). Delivery is through the post rather than mistreated delivery drivers needing to piss in bottles. I managed to help a hospice by buying excess stock it had via eBay. Also I’m starting to get everything I can secondhand. Makes shopping cheaper and it’s better for the environment.

HotUKDeals - a sales sharing website that links through to other small retailers with good bargains. I find stuff here frequently and always search this site first when I want something.

Overall I’m buying a lot less stuff and I’m really happy with that.

Removed by mod

I’ve got a pre-paid, burner sim card for bullshit like this so I don’t have to use my real number for anything.

Keep a bullshit number, bullshit email address and keep bullshit name/DoB. The pro-tip there is to start valuing your privacy and stop giving companies your data.

I got banned back in the day as well. They said I was cheating. Lost everything I had unlocked. Ditched the game right there.

1. Safety razors - I’ve got thick growth and I was spending more and more on expensive multi-blade razors trying to find a decent shave without the blade going dull after 3 uses. The answer was to have less, better quality blades rather than the expensive trash in the market. A safety razor multipack costs a pittance and has lasted me over a year. Each blade is 2 sided and can be flipped. And when you’re done with it, it can be recycled with no plastic waste. There’s literally no down side if you wet shave.

2. Electric screwdriver - it doesn’t matter how much DIY you do or how rarely you make IKEA furniture, you still need an electric screwdriver.

3. Brain hacks - your brain and body are predictable physical objects that are programmed a certain way. If you take the time to learn how they work, you can use that to your advantage. e.g. If you know that procrastination isn’t a time management problem, but rather an emotional regulation problem about the task that’s due; then you can start addressing the cause. Or if you want to build a new habit, you can combine it with something you like, to make you look forward to it (e.g. pick a TV show you really want to watch and only allow yourself to watch it while you’re on the treadmill). Or realise that discipline and motivation are finite resources in the day. There’s too much info to cover here, but I learn about these things from podacsts mostly:

https://www.drlauriesantos.com/happiness-lab-podcast

https://www.schwab.com/learn/choiceology

https://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/

https://hiddenbrain.org/

4. “Good enough” tech - You will save a lot of money if you define your use case for tech and then buy a product that is good enough to do the job (and preferably secondhand). I’m currently writing this out on a laptop I bought last week for £150 from eBay, brand new condition Dell, Intel 8th gen i7, 16GB RAM and half TB NVME drive. My gym TV is a £30 IPS Dell monitor with a Fire TV stick.

5. Facebook Marketplace - make a dummy account for a facebook marketplace. I have bought tons of “like new” things in brand new condition (e.g. a whole home weights gym setup) for a fraction of brand new price. Also if there’s anything I want to get rid of, then I just post it for sale. I have had a completely worn out, cosmetically destroyed desk that I posted online for £1. Someone came and collected it the same day. It saved me a trip to the junkyard by having someone come collect it and saved the waste by going to someone who will use it. 2nd pro tip: never post anything for free. Scumbag entitled people monitor facebook for free deals and you will have a bad time. Post things for £1 and you’ll get serious people who will be grateful.

6. Accept what you can’t change - your life will be much better if you stop spending energy pushing against things you can’t influence. Traffic cop walking away after giving you a ticket? Accept the hit and walk away. You took a risk not paying for parking, it didn’t work out. Go home and tell your spouse about it; then move on with your life.

Everything seems critical when you haven’t tried living without. Meat eaters can’t comprehend living without meat. Car drivers can’t imagine living without cars.

I wondered how people pass their time without phones. Then my autistic son started demanding holding onto my phone for every waking minute he is not at school. Now I spend my day without the phone.

Now that YouTube has stopped working on NewPipe, I’ve stopped watching it…and it felt a bit uncomfortable to miss my videos before bed, but now it’s not a big deal. None of these things are critical. There’s a near infinite world of choices available to us now. We just need to pick something else.

Windows 10. Last time I used Windows at home was in January. I’ve completely de-googled and was looking to get rid of as much privacy invasion as I could.

So what’s your reasoning for the change to the reliable and funni penguin OS?

I sold my laptop and was waiting for a good deal on PC parts. I was using my Steam Deck as my full time PC and had a really good experience. Decided to try Linux full time on the new PC.

Honestly, I’ve tried Linux many times previously (last was a year prior) and could never get over troubleshooting problems. The online community helped sometimes. Other times they told me go look up how to compile my own drivers and I got stuck. I would say the whole reason I’ve been able to change permanently has been down to AI. Now when I get stuck, ChatGPT just tells me how to fix a problem in 2 or 3 commands. Once the initial setup was done and I solved the setup problems, I don’t have to go back to AI at all anymore.

This is true for a lot of hero villain combos. Batman and Joker come to mind immediately.

Awesome. Have fun.

Don’t sleep on FFXII. That’s on the Steam store as well after you’re done with this.

That costs $100? Where do you live? Used original chargers sell pretty cheap on eBay.

I’ve got an 8th gen Intel laptop in my eBay shopping basket for close to £100 and that has charger included.

They have infinite resources. They’re making gestures to dissuade normies. I suspect this will get them most of the result they want. They’re also wasting time, effort and resources of adblock programmers (and that is a far more limited resource).

It might be an interesting project to hardware mod it to gut it and replace internally with an R.Pi.

Anyone able to give an ELI5 to a linux noob? I’m struggling to find what the benefit is of Fedora’s atomic builds (is it just containerised apps? Is this an immutable distro?)…and then also what the benefit of Bazzite is on top of Fedora’s atomic spins?

Are immutable distros good for daily driving?