Notamoosen

A pi can definitely be used, but you may get much better performance for a similar price getting a refurbished pc, adding a second nic, and installing something like opnsense.

I’m going to be testing XigmaNAS. If I’m not crazy about it I’ll likely just run a pure install of FreeBSD

I’d love to know who deemed adding more clicks to get to features an improvement.

I’m a fan. It took me a few weeks of properly rating (raising, lowering, and blocking) to get truly customized results. Once I did though, I found I’m able to research far faster than before. I’ve also become a fan of their AI assistant. It has multiple llm’s to choose from and is more private than using them directly.

That’s a shame on both counts. I’ll have to follow more closely for a Plan C.

I’m likely going to use ladb to sideload “directly” on the device. I’m really hoping there are some legal challenges and/or bad pr to make them back down. I’m also considering picking up a Fairphone 4 or 5 and running CalyxOS as a plan B.

I don’t have a specific model, but in general I’ve had success with Epson Tank printers and Linux. It opens up the ability to use third party ink easily. I’ll use the Epson Connect feature for scanning (to email in my instance, but there’s other options) without needing to input a server address or install anything on the OS. The main caveat, like most ink printers, they work best if you print often. This is to cut down on dry out and manual print head cleaning. In my experience using them weekly is enough.

This has become my go to OS for less technical users. I’ve even had a couple go for the Pro version so they could get the pre configured macOS like desktop.

Not sure if it’s available where you’re located, but did find this listing. https://a.co/d/bztqux3

NextDNS has been excellent for me. Only “issue” I have had is that it doesn’t always play nice with wifi captive portals. I typically have to disable nextdns on my device, join, then re-enable.

If you’re looking for a challenge you could try FreeBSD. While not Linux it’s still unix like and can provide a great learning experience. I believe they have retroarch in their packages, and I’ve seen videos of people getting Steam working. They provide excellent documentation on their OS as a whole.

Do movies getting the Rifftrax treatment count? If so, then Birdemic.

Lots of great options here. Just wanted to add it may be worth using KDE if they’re transitioning from Windows. I try and get the look visually close to what they previously had so they’re not fighting against muscle memory.

Proton has a free package with unlimited bandwidth. It doesn’t offer as many countries or advanced features but it works just fine.

I’m fortunate to live in an area with two wired broadband providers. And wouldn’t you know it, they don’t have to enforce data caps here for some reason. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that a customer can leave whenever they want.

I think it depends on your use case. For my gaming desktop I use Fedora to get the latest packages. For professional scenarios I’ve been using Almalinux the past couple of years. It started life as a RHEL clone, but since RHEL changed their code distribution rules I see them more parallel in the stream rather than down. It’s completely free, but there are options to purchase support and live kernel patching if required.

If you want to go the Suse route, Opensuse Leap will give you the closest experience to Suse enterprise. I believe Suse actually offers conversion tools to convert Leap to the full enterprise OS. I don’t have personal experience with it, but have considered it in the past and this is the information I recall.