They are a relatively established game storefront, and have been at it for over a decade. Same Corp that’s also behind CD Projekt Red.

In the end, any storefront that distributes executables could in theory distribute malware, but I’d honestly be more worried about steam, since their publishing process seems a lot more automated, with less oversight.

I don’t think it’s necessarily worth it for anyone currently on Linux, but if they provide support and a warranty, it might be helpful for some folks who aren’t that computer savvy, but still sick of Windows.

I’d argue that gog might be a bit better, since you can download executables from their website, and then use them offline, without telemetry. But still, I think neither are necessarily all that relevant here.

I guess you could install cockpit (via Terminal, sorry, but it’s pretty straightforward and there are good guides). After that, you could use the cockpit web interface to deploy docker/podman containers. It’s a bit clunky sometimes, but it does the job purely in UI.

You can also manage updates, backups, etc via cockpit if you install the required modules.

As base, I’d use any stable Linux distro that’s reccomended for server use.

Edit: Comment was in wrong place, refiled as op level comment.

I use atomic distros on my server and a media centre, but don’t see any reason to do it on my main systems. Stability is fine, and atomic distros make said tinkering more difficult.

In my experience in Germany it’s just available. Only for the business focused models, but still.

I’m pretty sure they’ve been doing that for a long time. The other more business focused OEMs too.

Graphene doesn’t. The way I see it is like buying a laptop with pre-installed Windows, and replacing the OS.

I’m sure it’s a common enough occurrence in a community with lots of computer nerds.

I do recognise that there are a lot of usecases in which Linux isn’t currently the sensible choice for most users, but I also feel the ready/not ready thing is quite as clear cut. While I’m obviously rather biased, I do genuinely think that there is a subset of casual users that would do better with Linux than with Windows.

I could talk about how Windows has been a lot more problematic for me than Linux, but that has been mainly down to driver issues with a specific network adapter, and we both know that isn’t the reason I prefer Linux anyway.

I’ve put Fedora on my mum’s pc after it became clear that Win10 will EoL soon, and that Win11 would refuse to run on it. Have had significantly fewer support requests since then.

Her work is mostly done via Citrix, which has an official Fedora Client. Everything else happens in the Browser, or sometimes in OnlyOffice, which so far has worked as a drop-in replacement for MS Office.

As always, it really depends on the use case.

Finally someone who actually uses a Vostro. Always found that name unreasonably funny.

I set up my current desktop while reading Gaiman’s The Sandman, so it’s called Morpheus. Because I felt I needed to keep with the theme, my laptop is hades, my phone persephone, my server apollo, my router helios, the media centre PC is orpheus, the pi that boots and updates it outside of usage hours is eurydice, and the pi that runs home assistant is zeus (because it’s responsible for light(n)ing.

Oh, and the work profile on my phone is sisyphos.

I much prefer Multi-Monitor on vesa arms. Works better with the way I work, less hassle in games that don’t like unusual aspect ratios.

There’s also qobuz. They have a streaming service, but you can also straight up buy a lot of albums and download them drm free.

https://www.qobuz.com/shop

I don’t think anyone who can install a Rom, or is willing to read a bit of documentation, should buy this.

If your choice is this, or buying some stock Android Phone and using it as is, this might be OK, but you’re not getting anything special.

My last phone had 12, my current one has 8. Fine for multitasking. I really dunno what I’d want an LLM on my phone for.

My last phone lasted 5 years till the display broke. Had to switch the battery once, but nothing else gave out. My current one gets 8 years of updates, and I plan on using it till then, as long as nothing unexpected happens.

No? Kinda? I’d say a Pixel (so Google hardware, yeah) with Graphene, and either self-hosted, or independent end-to-end encrypted cloud storage.

There are alternatives to the tech conglomerates.

There’s quite a few TP-Link Models that can be flashed with open source firmware. The ones I helped friends and family with seemed to get software updates consistently after being discontinued.

This isn’t an all out endorsement, but I’ve certainly seen worse.