Saying you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you don’t have anything to say.

I actually suggest getting Ventoy which is a fantastic utility that allows you to copy bootable images to a folder, and when you boot the drive you can select from the ISO/Images available on the drive. Super handy!

The Live USB may not solve all HW issues, but it’s a good jumping off point.

I can’t blame anyone not going the pure arch route, and choosing an Arch based distro. Besides getting my GPU working as I wanted it, running and maintaining my Arch install is no work at all at this point. With Timeshift installed, as well as the grub hook, and pacman hook, it makes it a cake to revert if something breaks.

The other advice I have for Linux is an often overlooked. When switching to Linux you can’t always approach fixing a problem or operating the machine the exact same ways one would on Windows. So being flexible, and learning to change habits helps.

Besides the usual back up your files advice, I have a few recommendations.

These recommendations are not in any particular order but:

• Consider all of the applications you use on Windows, and research alternatives for those applications. Or if there isn’t a replacement for it, investigate how to get the application you need working in Linux. For instance, I use a lot of audio production software and learned that there are a few that just do not work reliably or at all within Linux.

• Depending on your needs be sure to research (or better yet, try) different Desktop Environments. (Note: for trying different environments I would recommend finding a distro that has a Live USB option and run those live to test them out)

• As I mentioned in the above suggestion, try different distros you are considering using with a Live USB. This can help snuff out different hardware that you have that may or may not work on your system before committing.

• Before choosing which OS you want to go with, consider the key beliefs of how to maintain an OS. For instance, there are many people that will blindly recommend a distro without knowing why one would use it. There are bleeding edge rolling release type distros such as Arch. I use Arch BTW, but I would not blindly tell someone who just wants a stable experience with little to no tinkering needed.

Most of my suggestions come down to please do your research, and make an educated decision on what you want to jump into. And I like to think that there are plenty of communities that can be friendly and welcoming that would help!

even after renaming MangoHud.conf to MangoHud.conf.old in ~/.config/MangoHud/ And launch a game with MangoHud, it does work. However, where would the config be if it doesn’t show up in ~/.config/MangoHud/

That’s what I am trying to figure out, the Readme and Archwiki don’t have the paths I am looking for.

I love buying music of artists I find on Bandcamp. I get lossless quality audio, and I get to support the artist. Granted, it is best to do the bandcamp fridays because more money goes to the artist.

However I hate that Epic now owns Bandcamp, and has for a while.

AI isn’t a magic bullet. Sure it has it’s uses, but you have to weigh it’s usefulness to the ideology behind a project and it’s creators. Just because a software developer or community doesn’t embrace AI doesn’t mean they will be “obsolete.”

AI is the current trend that is being shoehorned into everything. I mean literally everything. I don’t think we need AI touching everything.

I don’t want or need AI crammed into my desktop environment. And I surely don’t want it interjecting into my filesystem with my data. It is a privacy concern. And many of other people will feel the same or similarly as I do.

AI is a tool, and with all tools: use the appropriate tool for the job.

While I can see the merit of your sentiment here, and would generally agree the world exists on a spectrum and not some binary scale of yes or no, black or white. Like others have said, with mottos like “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” how can one ignore the bad that Microsoft brings to the table.

Microsoft just like many other big tech companies are shoehorning AI into everything. It’s a new fad, and if it isn’t a fad, this is how idiocracy starts IRL.

I still use Nova, however, I use AFWall+ to deny internet access to it. As well, as give it as little permissions as necessary.

Oh no judgment, purely curiosity here.

I have tried many of launchers over the years, and I can only find myself using one: Nova.

However, I don’t exactly love that Nova was bought out by Branch, an analytics company. So I still use Nova, but when using LineageOS or stock Android I use AFWall+ to block internet access to Nova.

If privacy isn’t a concern of yours, then Nova without a way to deny internet connection to it would do.

Nova has the google feed feature you are looking for. It works quite well.

Nova has 1 feature that I cannot find in another launcher (at least not an open source one…) that for me is the ability to swipe up and down on an app icon and have it launch another app or shortcut. It’s powerful and allows me to keep my homescreen empty, and I have 12 app icons on my taskbar. That being said with swiping, I can launch 36 apps from my taskbar alone. Allows me to keep it clean. And that mixed with separate tabs for app categories created by me.

The closest to Nova I have found, and is an excellent launcher is NeoLauncher

This launcher has quite the selection of features and I do implore you to check this launcher out.

I have used both, but have stuck with nano. Why do you personally choose micro over nano?

The fact that you keep the spirit of linux here by making it available to all is beautiful. I will definitely take a look!

I did end up getting Android Auto to work luckily. However, other things just went sort of south from there. My use case for GrapheneOS wasn’t quite fit.

The built in firewall did work well enough for my usecase. However, I didn’t want a DNS based adblocking solution as that took away from my ability to connect to my home VPN. I should reach out to see if they can help. However, I did end up switching back to LineageOS since I could use a custom kernel which significantly lowered the running temps of my phone.

I wanted to try DivestOS, but there isn’t a Pixel 8 Pro build yet.

Huge fan of what GrapheneOS and the team/community have done to make it better. I am sure going to keep my eye on it going forward.

There didn’t appear to be a DivestOS image for my Pixel 8 Pro, so I went back to LineageOS since I couldnt have AdAway and AfWall+ among other things on GrapheneOS.

I ended up trying out LSPosed mod and Pixel Expert and Iconify, and decided not to use it. This k you for taking the time to respond and share!

That sounds quite frustrating, wish I had any advice to help but sadly I don’t.

I ended up trying GrapheneOS on my P8P, but it didn’t quite fit my use case.

I ended up back on LineageOS again, so I could have AdAway, AFWall+, and as of today I installed a custom kernel (Sultan Kernel) and I am pretty happy with the outcome.

I still love GrapheneOS but I was having issues with notifications among other things.

Never been an iOS user outside the days of the iPod touch, specifically gen 2 and 4. Though, I jailbroke them as soon as it was possible. Are you playing local music? I may have some suggestions for it.

Graphene is a nice degoogled option, when there aren’t issues. Unfortunately with my Pixel 8 Pro, I have had a lot of issues that just don’t seem solvable without dev changes.

Can’t say I have ever gone down the rabbit hole of using /e/OS Though I have heard of it. What bugs are you experiencing?