This is why being a wizard is illegal in Dragon Age.

My vote is universal Blue and its spins like Bluefin or Bazzite

My favorite trick to reviving old computers is trying to find ways to get them to run off of solid state storage. It really makes a huge difference. You will be surprised by how much more tolerable classic computers are when you no longer have to deal with slow storage mediums.

Mind you this doesn’t make them modern levels of fast and you no longer get the satisfaction of hearing the hard drive grinding away when you open a window but thems the tradeoffs…sigh…

I think immutability is the point of this particular distribution. There are definitely some kinks but conceptually I really like what they’ve done.

I’m curious, what apps are you having issues with specifically?

I just want to drop this here

https://projectbluefin.io/

Jorge Castro has been the head of this project and I am excited by his vision. Bluefin aims to be the immutable desktop distro with the most sane defaults that also supports Nvidia.

Give it a whirl!

You know back in the day they used to sell Linux distributions on the shelf at software stores. I remember seeing a boxed copy of mandriva next to windows. Home computing used to be a hobby for some but that means there was commercial support at some point.

I do think that home users of “Linux” will need a commercial alternative that supports all their apps. ChromeOS looks like the current best alternative. If you can get people into chrome books, you’re one step closer to getting them onto Linux.

I agree with a lot of your points but I do think containers a great solution.

I’ve been a really big fan of Universal Blue lately. It presents a strong argument for containerizing everything. Your core is immutable and atomic which makes upgrades seamless. User land lives in a container and just gets layered back on top afterwards.

Yeah, I think as the replacement for x before Wayland?

I think they are! I’m still trying to do more with ZFS everyday.

Ubuntu used to get a lot of undeserved hate but lately the hate feels deserved. Ubuntu has been the face of the usable desktop Linux for a long time and they just keep tripping over themselves every time they try to move forward.

Their intentions are usually good. A lot of things they propose usually end up being adopted by the community at large (just not their implementation). They seem to just yank everyone’s chain a little too hard in the direction we’re eventually going to go and we all resent them for that.

Off the top of my head, there was Upstart (init system), there was unity (desktop), and now snaps (containerized packaging). All of these were good ideas but implemented poorly and with a general lack of support from the community. In almost each case in the past what’s happened is that once they run out of developers who champion the tech, they eventually get onboard with whatever Debian and Rhel are doing once they were caught up and settled.

Valve’s lack of interest in maintaining the snap makes sense. The development on the Ubuntu platform is very opinionated in a way where the developers of the software (valve) really want nothing to do with Canonicals snaps.

On another note: my favorite thing about the Ubuntu server was LXD + ZFS integration. Both have been snapified. It was incredibly useful and stable. Stephane Graber has forked the project now into INCUS. It looks very promising.

How do we as the community turn hope into help? Is there a way to contribute directly to the NVK developers?

I just think it’s neat!

This platform is the best thing to happen in the computing landscape in a very very long time. If the Deck can become the target platform for developers due to the install base, we’re going to see more legitimate gaming hardware and software come out alongside it.

There are a glut of gaming handhelds out there running android or windows but there are a few that rise to the top as the pinnacle of the platform. When a clear winner emerges, everyone else tries to be like it enough while having something new to offer.

This problem with windows (one of the many) is almost all the value ads like game hubs (i.e. ROG Armoy Crate) detract from the experience and almost provide a superficial “ooh she diff’rent” appeal.

With the contribution of their work back to the Linux community, imagine Asus deploying their own Linux OS that ran steam. They too would be inclined to contribute back to the larger ecosystem while providing actual added value of substance!

I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here but I’m just so happy about the success of the steam deck that it makes me want to evangelize it in my spare time!

If you do already have an Nvidia GPU, may I suggest trying Bazzite? They have an Nvidia spin that solves a lot of those problems.

https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/