I set up a bazzite HTPC specifically because of its immutability and smoother user experience. The steam deck also locks down the package manager because this yields a more predictable environment.

Ahh, that might be it. I run TrueNAS too. IMO that should be the default behavior, and you should have to explicitly pass a flag if you want mount to silently mask off part of your filesystem. That seems like almost entirely a tool to shoot yourself in the foot.

I think I would have expected/preferred mount to complain that you’re trying to mount to a directory that’s not empty. I feel like I’ve run into that error before, is that not a thing?

It has a File Browser tab on the left that lets you view thumbnails of all the images in a folder. From there you can select multiple images to do batch operations on, or pick a single image to open in the editor. Not sure if that’s what you mean.

Simplex is the first platform I’ve heard of that doesn’t use IDs (which doesn’t make much sense to me, practically, but sure). So would you say everything is less secure than simplex?

What makes session less secure? This is the first I’ve heard of it.

4. Linux phone. Only a goof option for a tinkering device right now imo.

Honestly not sure if you mean “good” or actually meant “goof” there lol

I would just tell them, “look, Microsoft, the people who made this software, are telling us to never connect it to the internet again because it’s insecure and will get viruses. Our only options are to either pay for new licenses for their latest OS for each machine (which probably isn’t even compatible with the old hardware) or install a completely free OS that is open source and will promote tech literacy with our students.”

I mean, any modern Linux distro will be more secure out of the box than win 7/8 which are several years past their end of life.

Ah, I haven’t seen this as an option in any installer I’ve used. I guess Debian has it?

The only way I know of to fix the bios time issue when dual booting with windows is using the cmdline on Linux, or regedit on windows.

It’s normal for it to heat up under load, but it’s not normal for it to be under load 24/7 indefinitely.

It’s just good to know what pieces need to be in place for your system to work in case any of those pieces ever break. Normal OS installers obfuscate those pieces, so if they break you’re left in the dark. Arch makes you place them yourself, so if they break, you know how to put them back.

I have seen a lot of people say they moved from Manjaro to Endeavour (including myself), but I don’t think the two are trying to solve the same thing. Manjaro wanted to create a more stable version of arch (and had some shortcomings that ended up being deal breakers for many people), but endeavour just wants to be a more convenient way to install arch.

I would recommend Fedora, Debian, or Mint. I’ve also heard good things about OpenSUSE.

Also, alternative to running in a VM, put ventoy on a USB drive, then drop isos for all distros on it, and live boot them one after the other to see how you like them.

Nice, indeed it looks like it does! Wonder if that installer could be packaged and licensed in a way that more distros could use it.

Something I’ve never checked for but…are there any linux installers that run from within windows? Shrink the windows partition, create a linux partition, populate it, install grub, and tell the user to reboot and choose linux? I think general lack of good ext4 fs support in windows might make things difficult, but you don’t actually need to do that part from within windows. There could be a second installer that’s triggered the first time they boot from grub.

I feel like a well supported installer like that would dramatically lower the barrier to entry. It could make dual booting windows a breeze for anyone who knows how to run an installer and reboot, which is what people actually want.

arch for real

First lesson, you’re supposed to say “arch btw”

You have better things to do, why are you asking me that?

I admit, everything I know about Ubuntu is heresay as I don’t use it myself. But I was under the impression that there was a lot of telemetry that they send back, and ads/bloatware they ship with to subsidize their development.

If someone is leaving windows for privacy reasons, it doesn’t make sense to go to Ubuntu.