markstos

There is a newish “placeholder text” option. It could be displayed there and disappear when typing starts.

Yes. The message could be added to the prompt but it wouldn’t look the best.

I tried a USB KVM switcher. I only recall there were serious issues and it didn’t last long.

Now I use a high quality USB dock and physically unplug/re-replug a work and personal laptop. That’s been a simple and reliable solution.

For my home server, I ssh into it.

I remember that this existed, but I don’t remember why.

Corel was known for a drawing program and later for WordPerfect. They were never well known for their involvement with Linux.

Correct. Not just hype but to make it “Like Windows, but free”.

Even then it could be themed to a degree and some distros tried to look more like Windows than others.

I discovered this more than a year ago, but Fuzzel.

I just wrote about the new release here:

https://mark.stosberg.com/feature-packed-app-launcher-and-fuzzer/

That’s right! We are just waiting for someone to focus a pinentry/fuzzel script now. All the necessary features are there it seems.

I’ve tested them all and they all launch fairly immediately.

I discuss some of the other feature differences here:

https://mark.stosberg.com/rofi-alternatives-for-wayland/

I think for most people, Fuzzel will be the best choice, but compeitors offer unique features like Rofi-compatibility, HTML formatting support or the most important one: being written in Rust.

The support for running apps in the Linux container feels fairly normal. I had a family member using LibreOffice and other apps that way for years and it worked fine. We bought a more powerful Chromebook and performance was fine. One family member is using ChromeOS on the Framework laptop. Performance there is great.

FydeOS is a de-Googled ChromeOS based in China.

https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/news/fydeos-vs-chromeos-flex-which-is-right-for-you/

Unattended upgrades is for updates in the Linux container. Sometimes it’s used primarily for security updates. The whole thing is so locked down and containerized, I don’t think security updates in the container are as important.

It’s true that Chrome always installed, but you can put whatever icons in your launcher.

I’m not sure about changing the default browser.

Regarding ChromeOS being corporate, it is nearly all open source. You have to login with a Google Account, but once in, you don’t have to use any Google products.

You can use Firefox, Fastmail, whatever you like.

I tried older relatives on Ubuntu and ChomeOS and for the less technical ones, ChromeOS was best.

For ones with confidence and a growth mindset to learn new things, Ubuntu was fine.

If in doubt, I would recommend ChromeOS.

ChromeOS Flex

https://chromeos.google/products/chromeos-flex/