Way back in the early 90s I needed to use LaTeX for university. The dos version was awful and couldn't handle large documents. So the options were (1) a nextcube for $$$$, (2) Nextstep 3.3 for PCs for $$$ (some faculty had this), or (3) linux. So I downloaded slackware on dozens of disks.
You had to configure the kernel, which wasn't too hard since the autoconfig walked you through it. The hardest part was setting up X11, which required a lot of manual config, and if you screwed up the timings you could destroy a CRT monitor. OpenStep was an option, so there was a moderately friendly windowmanager available.
Learning Emacs was also fairly unpleasant, but that was the best option for editing TeX at the time.
Everything would work, until it suddenly would break. But nonetheless I was somehow able to get that thesis done.
Ugh, modern linux is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better
i use the universal blue silverblue-main image because it's basically silverblue along with some packages included that I otherwise would have to manually layer in anyway (e.g., distrobox, freeworld-amd drivers from rpmfusion) and some quality-of-life improvements (some just recipes, automatic updates enabled)
I tried bluefin, but it was "too opinionated" and I didn't agree with a lot of its opinions. Same for bazzite.
Use the universal blue silverblue-nvidia image to get silverblue with Nvidia built in
Tomb Raider 2013 reboot, although today the windows version under proton actually performs significantly better than the linux version
why not use fedora's built-in openvpn client and just add the pia info? That should likely work. https://helpdesk.privateinternetaccess.com/guides/linux/linux-installing-openvpn-through-the-terminal
or built-in wireguard client? https://helpdesk.privateinternetaccess.com/guides/linux/alternative-setups-4/linux-manual-connection-scripts
DOS -> slack ware Linux -> win 3 -> os/2 warp -> win 98 -> win XP -> osx (several years on Mac) -> win 10 -> Ubuntu 14, 16, 18, 20 -> fedora 34, 35, 36 ,37, 38 -> Debian 12 --> fedora silverblue 40.
Fair, but last time I tried them, the foss apps were awful. But that was several years ago so might be worth looking again
whelp, EPEL package updates are on a slightly different time trajectory for release, so almalinux update goes oopsie fail. gotta wait a little longer for that 9.4 goodness.
Debian: boring installer, bare-metal install completed in about 10 minutes
Almalinux: nice installer, bare-metal install completed in about 10 minutes
Opensuse: nice installer, bare-metal install completed in about an hour. WHYYYYYYYY?
DKMS isn't supported on Silverblue. Only Kmods. So there's your problem.
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-silverblue/troubleshooting/
Even if you can get it to work, running ZFS on fedora generally is an exercise in frustration because the kernels update to newer versions than what ZFS supports anyway.
Ubuntu -> Fedora -> Debian stable (and lots of flatpaks) for my desktop. Ubuntu has only gotten worse with age, and I got tired of being on the leading edge and just want stuff to work (and I use ZFS so I don't want rapidly upgrading kernels). For my home server Ubuntu -> Centos -> Almalinux
I gave up on Ubuntu before the snaps became a thing. Here's what I hated :
- ugly purple and orange theme
- Upgrades between lts never worked right for me: 14->16 fail and broke, 16->18 lots of problems, 18->20 still not great.
Currently running debian with an amd GPU. Using the regular 6.1 kernel
With steam flatpak and bottles (for nonsteam windows games) everything is running just fine.
I needed LaTeX, and in the early 1990s, the Dos version sucked, and Scientific Word on windows 3 was very expensive.
/Oh yeah I'm old
i like using bottles & steam flatpaks on debian because they use newer mesa in their containers. so the best of both worlds with stable debian but more updated gaming drivers
i switched from pihole to adguard because adguard is bsd compatible and runs on my opnsense router. for linux, the main benefit of adguard is that it is a self-contained app-image. pihole is a bit of a mess of packages that it installs (if installing on pc rather than a pi) , rather than being part of a distribution's native ports. upgrading adguard is also trivial.