Flaky

I think the only thing holding me back from going for immutable Linux is desktop virtualisation. VirtualBox and VMware can't be installed on an immutable distro AFAIK, and libvirt isn't all there for Windows guests.

Yeah I'm looking at that as well. Friend of mine does say if you want to do full-body tracking the Quest is a pain to do it with, but I'm not deep in PCVR right now haha.

I'm thinking on buying a Quest to dip into PCVR. I've heard horror stories about the Index's poor QC (which is weird given the Steam Deck's done me well so far) and PSVR2 isn't compatible with PC. Yes, iVRy exists but that driver is in development and the developer basically said "just buy a Quest if you want a cheap PC VR headset".

I was more talking about Vivaldi feature-wise, FWIW. There's features I'd like from Vivaldi that don't have a close equivalent to Firefox, not even from its forks (tab tiling's my go-to example), and maybe in the distant future, there'd be a browser like it running on Servo.

While it's not an alternative right now, I think Servo's focus on being embeddable might help it in the long run. A big issue with Gecko is that it was difficult, if not impossible to embed. It'd be nice to see something like Vivaldi that runs on Servo.

I think the fediverse, and that includes Lemmy, have this warped idea of what Bluesky is and what ActivityPub/the fediverse actually is. They think ActivityPub is the de-facto protocol for microblogging, when it has glaring issues that Bluesky wanted to solve with Atproto (the queer.af debacle is a great example of this, imagine if you've got an account on queer.af and you want to move your data to a new instance). If you're a Linux guy, you might have seen parallels between ActivityPub/Mastodon vs. Atproto/Bluesky and X11 vs. Wayland.

It's exactly this. Bluesky has its problems but there is a massive overreaction from the fediverse crowd that it makes it hard for me to sympathise with them even if I agree on the principle.

EDIT: JSYK, the Bridgy Fed developer is working towards making the bridge opt-in! https://tech.lgbt/@ShadowJonathan/111925391727699558

What about Pop!_OS? It fits all the criteria. It's an Ubuntu distro by System76 (known for their computers that run Linux) that foregoes Snaps for Flatpaks, so you get Ubuntu's reliability/stability without the Snaps. It does default to its own spin on GNOME, however you can install an alternative desktop environment just fine.

EndeavourOS might help with all of this but even then I wouldn't put a newbie who just wants to try Linux on it. Arch doesn't even have a proper GUI-based way of installing packages and there's not really an incentive to (Arch users say it's because PackageKit is shit, Arch developers say it's because PackageKit doesn't work with Arch's rolling package releases). PackageKit isn't actually supported on Arch and KDE Discover will go out of its way to tell people that it's not supported on Arch. Maybe someone who has experience with the command line I'd recommend Arch/Endeavour for, since you WILL be using it on Arch, no way around it.

Yeah, in Windows. Windows and Arch are two completely different beasts.

I get the sentiment (Arch has provided the least friction for me when I needed something niche/specific) but putting OP on Arch is still pushing them into the deep end IMO. If OP is open to trying Arch however, I'd throw out a recommendation for EndeavourOS which is just a pre-made Arch setup.

For me, it was when Windows 11 didn't even give me the luxury of moving my taskbar to the top of the screen and I had to use a third-party application to do so, which was janky as hell. It sounds very small, petty and superficial, but small things like that can immensely affect one's experience and workflow. "You don't know what you've got until it's gone" is an applicable phrase to that.

Sure, I can just use Windows 10, and I do in fact have a Windows 10 VM in VMware (since WINE has issues with MusicBee and WACUP, and I'm trialing the Apple Music app for Windows as well), but Windows 10 will no longer be supported next year.

I've always had American friends surprised that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is on Netflix here (UK). Netflix also owned some of the Adult Swim licenses before Channel 4 got the catch-up rights to it.