I was just looking at mine today. Systematically?

In my experience there is a pretty noticeable difference, but it probably has more to do with my specific setup. I was running Debian 13 with Gnome previously, and kept noticing weird performance hiccups in Final Fantasy 16. So I gave Cachy a try with Plasma, and the performance was a night and day difference.

I probably could have tinkered with things and gotten the same results in Debian, but the point is that I didn’t have to.

Huh, Nura? I like the name PostmarketOS better, but that’s just me.

Cool that you got it working with ai, but I hope that doesn’t become a standard in device porting. Sure with proper vetting the code can be ensured to be maintainable, but that code had to come from somewhere. These systems don’t just magically know how to make software work, so it sounds like they’re probably just referencing code somewhere else that could be under any kind of copyright. Sounds like a legal nightmare waiting to happen.

The thing I’m really hoping for is these general purpose mobile Linux systems being ported to the plethora of bootleg retro handhelds out there. The majority of these devices already have unlocked bootloaders and are super friendly to third party firmware. The problem is people are only porting these hyper minimalist emulation-focused Linux builds when there’s so much untapped potential.

True, but Mint is close enough to Ubuntu that what solutions work for Ubuntu will likely work for Mint as well with little or no modifications.

I’ve been meaning to give PikaOS a try cause I’m generally a Debian preferrer, but one thing we really need is a Mint that’s been given the Cachy-style treatment. Most new users right now are doing it for the games, so combining the most user-friendly distro with gaming optimizations would be pretty much ideal.

It’s too bad Ubuntu went to shit, because there is one thing that’s nice about choosing it as your first distro: their version numbers are the date, which makes it really easy to remember exactly when you first started using Linux distros. April 2010 in my case.

But no, just go with Mint these days. Everything good about Ubuntu, none of the bad.

To be honest I’ve never found the mechanics in Counter-Strike games enjoyable. Not trying to hate, I’m sure it’s great for those who like it, I just don’t think it’s for me.

I think the two pvp fps games I’ve found to have the closest to ideal mechanics is Doom 2016, and Red Eclipse 2. In Doom I liked that it had some of the more Call of Duty-esque features like loadouts, and a multiplayer progression system. And I especially liked how the actual combat preserved that classic arena shooter feel in kind of an brilliant way. They made it so right click had that iron sights feature, but which also applied a secondary fire ability - but crucially it was entirely optional for basically every weapon. Like in classic arena shooters you could be in constant motion and shoot from the hip without any penalties to your aiming.

Red Eclipse does this too (plus has crazy parkour features), but last I checked lacks any kind of progression system for better and worse.

Titanfall 2 is pretty fun as well, but I am really bad at that game in multiplayer.

Literally just defaults. The average person does not care what their operating system is, and will just run whatever is already on their computer.

Kind of a dubious claim, in the context of Windows not having nearly as much market dominance as they used to, and Linux adoption being far higher than it used to. Linux as a platform now has enough of a userbase that even companies like Epic are beginning to take it seriously.

Meanwhile reviews of Windows these days are so nearly universally poor, they are basically coasting on nothing but the inertia of their own previous success - which is eroding.

Oh, something about a game that doesn’t work on Linux. What are the most direct competitors to Valorant that work on Linux? I’m gonna go play those out of spite.

Personally I care less about effects. I just wish we had more skeuomorphic themes to choose from. Like why can’t I make my whole desktop look like a crazy Winamp theme?

I’m having my own issues with an old laptop with an nvidia card, but on Fedora. Upgraded from 43 to 44 recently. I love how relatively pain-free Fedora updates and upgrades are, especially for being a somewhat bleeding edge distro.

But after the last upgrade I’m having an issue now where closing the lid to put it into sleep mode causes it to wake to a black screen. I’ve just been having to shut down every time I step away.

Never getting Nvidia again.

If it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you. Plenty of other distros are fine too, and some more appropriate for certain use cases than others.

So are you immediately trying to pull the conversation away from ethics, because you know Microsoft has no leg to stand on in this regard? Who cares that the founder of MS is heavily implicated in the Epstein files if you (supposedly) save a little time, right? Or I guess it doesn’t matter that that same company is actively providing surveillance tech support to Israel in their genocide of Palestine? That they censor their employees emails from speaking about the very atrocity they’re complicit in? Or that the same surveillance infrastructure is being used at home in service of an authoritarian regime?

That’s not even getting into all the gritty details of all the little annoyances and rights abuses - which have been accurately predicted by free software advocates for decades now - that inevitably stem from proprietary tech companies like Microslop, which collectively we are now calling enshittification.

But even ignoring the massive pile of shits about Microsoft and Windows to address your argument in a vacuum, does Windows respect your time? Really? Does Windows respect your time when it forces you to go online and sign up for an online account, and login to that account to enable their at-home spyware, just to install their operating system? Does it respect your time when you have to go through a potentially hours-long painful update procedure on a fresh install? How about when the OS runs awfully sluggish even on great hardware? Does MS respect your time when you have to go out of your way to research and install multiple tools and scripts to try in vain to gut all the spyware, AI garbage, adware, and bloat, and run 3rd party system tools to suppress other elements of the OS just to make the damn thing halfway usable and have the illusion of being something that can be trusted?

Even on your own little point, where is this superior documentation you speak of? Because every time I’ve run into a problem on Windows, their support pages have only ever given me the most generic troubleshooting answers that have been completely unhelpful. Please show me documentation that comes even close to the thoroughness and quality of the Arch Wiki.

Assuming any of what you said is even in good faith, and that you’re not just a shill or simp, here’s what you need to consider: Windows is something that most people have been using all their lives. When you’ve been operating something that long, it feels easier. You’re more able to ignore the pain points because habits are already deeply settled, and you know your way around. That’s the biggest reason Linux feels like such a hassle at first - learning new things takes time, and is always frustrating. I know this experientially because at one time I struggled to use Linux systems too, but now I have the reverse problem. I’ve been using Linux long enough, and Windows has devolved and changed enough, that on the rare occasion I try to use that piece of shitware, it is the most frustrating thing in the world. Windows 7 was something I was used to. But Windows 10 and 11 are new and unfamiliar to me, and consequently feel damn near unusably bad.

Does Linux have things it needs to improve? Of course, but at least it’s something worth improving. You’re trying to compare imperfect, yet a remarkable collection of software, to something that is literally just malware at this point. If anything, virus scanners should be adding Windows to their definitions lists.

Has it been a while since you used it? I know the nonfree firmware thing used to trip people up if they weren’t already aware of it, but that’s a nonissue now. Debian isn’t any harder to install than any other graphical distro.

What I tell people: “When you get used to using an operating system that respects your rights, you don’t wanna go back.”

Ban the RIAA and MPAA.

Having grown up with a Mac before OS X came out, I liked that I could make XFCE look a bit more like OS 9, but I haven’t been able to find a suitable equivalent for kde yet.

I might give a Windows 7 theme a try. As much as I hate Microsoft, I’ve been feeling unusually nostalgic for 7. That one was kind of peak for gaming.

The restrictions on commercial use are what make it unqualified as an open-source license.