ProtonBadger

I've used Linux in various ways since the nineties and know it intimately but I don't want to fiddle with an install. When I got my new laptop this year I appreciated being able to plug in an EndavourOS flash drive, click on a couple of things and then let it install a sane default with prop NV driver already setup while I made coffee. I was ready to play games from my old Steam lib SSD in 20 min.

I don't know if the Arch installer is like that but EOS is slick.

In case it helps: At install time I created a swap partition the same size as my RAM and a Btrfs root partition. Then after install I ran
"yay -S snapper-support btrfs-assistant btrfmaintenance"

Then after install I enabled the maintenance scripts with defaults in the btrfs-assistant GUI and that was it. It takes snapshots when installing stuff and I can do a roolback to a snapshot in btrfs-assistant GUI or Cli (requires an immediate reboot).

One snag: If you installed it with Grub instead of systemd-boot it will show booteable snapshots in Grub but I don't know how roll back permanently if I've booted into one as it uses some sort of overlayfs. So I don't use this feature.

I wish EOS did all this as an install option though.

I mean imo everything about the windows is terrible.

Maybe that's very subjective but I find that thought very hyperbolic. Windows generally is pretty good and for example have some nice features like complete system reset while preserving your files. Windows has some issues but so does Linux.

I only use Linux on my gaming+work laptop because I enjoy the freedom and I feel Windows is overly intricate and more and more "commercial" but Linux has its rough edges.

Looked up the brand, they look quite nice. Thank you.

Well, it largely removes an attack surface for memory bugs, which is a huge thing. If we're writing a big driver (see the Rust driver for the Apple GPU) then suddenly waving hands incoherently 90% or more of the driver (depending) is likely to be much more memory safe and stable. As has been demonstrated with that particular driver already.

I was watching the streams and when it compiled Asahi Lina usually only had to deal with logical type errors, not memory issues, it was basically a great showcase for Rust and memory safely. Unsafe is perfectly fine Rust, but it's a contract where the developer says to the compiler: "I know you can't guarantee this block is safe, so I'll keep a special eye on that, peer review more, test, etc. while you keep an eye on all the other code I can't fit in my head". In the case of Linux an Unsafe blocks means "we'll trust the Linux kernel code we connect to, though review it carefully".

So saying all safety goes out the window is wrong, see it as a vastly reduced potential for memory problems, better error handling and more stable drivers, as demonstrated by the Apple GPU driver.

I've been watching Asahi Lina develop a big GPU driver for Apple silicon and development was so much faster because a whole category of bugs were largely absent once the code compiled, and memory issues are notoriously difficult to fix. Also error handling is easier and much cleaner.

She wrote about it here and here.

Yes, it's sad we generalize and vilify so much For those of us who are still enjoying Reddit, or both, there are perfectly valid reasons, good, let's not be tribal, it's all just social media. It would be nice if the fediverse could grow bigger though, we'll see how it goes.

Everyone immediately want you to use their distribution of choice. However no-one can really answer this unless you include more information about yourself and your Linux experience, objectives, what kind of tinkering you're comfortable with, what you expectations are, etc.

Btrfs does get a lot of flak based on hearsay or experiences that are out of date. It works well in a lot of scenarios and is used a lot now, ZFS is also a good fs for many use cases, especially in enterprise situations.

I can't comment on the on-disk formats as I have no experience there but Btrfs works well in a lot of use cases for for a lot of users.

Bcachefs sounds promising but it does have a long way to go and will need a lot of testing. It's getting into the kernel to get more testing mileage on it and encourage more developers, it only have one guy working on it (except for the casefolding submission) which is a big problem for both present and future. Hopefully it'll get more devs interested.

Never trust any filesystem, or the storage media. Consider anything that holds your data to be fallible.

The one on Amazon was quite popular, judging from the reviews. I think there was a few "Verified Purchase" among them.

I use it on my gaming laptop. I've been using Linux in various ways since the nineties and just wanted to install Arch easily while I was brewing coffee, I had it ready to play games from my old Steam SSD within 20min. It installed proprietary NV drivers and keeps them up to date with new versions and kernels without me having to bother with that silliness, likewise for certain multimedia codecs that you have to go look for with other distributions, which is a bother.

However, I had to setup btrfs-assistant+grub-btrfs+btrfsmaintenance scripts myself, I wish it had an install option for that and I'm thinking Garuda might be a better option for this reason as that's configured by default for new users.

It also lacks a GUI app installer, it can be bewildering for newcomers to search for packages with yay and understand pacman/yay stuff. There are ways, like octopi to remedy that but it's not there by default.

TLDR: As an experienced user I enjoy it, I didn't have to waste a lot of time and attn to install and it works well.

And like with dogs different breeds often have particular behavior. For example the Norwegian Forrest Cat tends to bond with one particular human.

In addition, unlike dogs, cats have not evolved their body language to be easily understandable by humans, so we have problems interpreting them. Does my cat turn her back to me because she doesn't care or because she trusts me, etc.

Their independence can also be off-putting to some humans, but like with humans independence doesn't have to mean they're don't care about us. And then there's the lessons in consent they try to teach us, which some of us don't want to understand.