There’s a lot of good thoughts here, but don’t forget the effect that rationalization as a coping mechanism has on behavior.

For example if restaurants were so expensive growing up that they never got to go, they have the choice of feeling like they are missing out or rationalizing that what they have is better to stop wanting the things they can’t have.

Later when there are affordable restaurants, they still carry that rationalization with them and may not even realize it. They may actually believe it at this point.

Not saying this is the case with your parents, but this kind of thing happens all the time in every culture.

Well, whatever you’re doing, it looks like you’re doing it right!

I started on Bazzite when I switched, and it was ok but never felt quite right. After that I switched to Garuda, which is also designed to be a ready right out of the box experience that is gaming and performance focused.

It is based on Arch, so it is currently being kept up to date and has been extremely reliable. Pretty much every issue has been solved with an update and reboot.

As an aside, everyone always pushes KDE, but I personally love xfce, it’s worth a look.

After I left Bazzite as “my first Linux” I landed on Garuda. It is Arch based, is gaming and performance focused, comes with different desktop environment options, has pacman and works well with pamac, and has been noob friendly.

No ragrets.

I recently got a HIFI Walker and I really like it. They also have full android versions if you want more functionality.

Yeah, the NPC chat feature is an obvious miss on their part. It’s all the other ai in there that’s impressive really. The stuff you didn’t notice enough to complain about.

Garuda has been easy and stable for me. It’s gaming and performance focused though, so how well that works for you could depend on your laptop.

Have you not seen Where Winds Meet? It’s exactly this. They clearly used AI pretty heavily in translation and filling in all the corners of the world and NPCs.

I’d hate it if it weren’t so amazing.

On the one hand, I feel your pain, on the other hand… You could have just reinstalled Garuda and chosen a password using characters that exist on a US keyboard to get it all set up before switching your keyboard layout to the one you want and then updating the password.

Sorry the journey has been so rough.

I just got a HIFI Walker G7 and I’m kinda loving it. It runs full android, is made to be an mp3 player, but operates more like a phone without the phone parts. It has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but apparently has no location services, which is inconvenient if you want navigation, but great for privacy. It even has a camera.

They have non android mp3 players too if you want something more simple.

If you want a gaming focused Arch distro, Garuda has been easy and hassle free for me.

Garuda is an Arch based non immutable distro with a similar gaming and performance focus to Bazzite. It’s where I went when Bazzite felt off to me.

For anyone thinking of a switch, it’s worth a look.

Garuda should be up near Bazzite

For me it was that all you did in your email was talk about how you didn’t want to compromise your ideals. All that stuff your told us about how hard you tried, how much you compromised, how many times you were blocked then reset aren’t there. Those are the things that make your experience actually meaningful and relatable.

It would have been a lot better to send your preamble and wrap up with, “if you are able to provide a functional setup with the required environment for me to continue my application, I am happy to continue, otherwise I am afraid I must withdraw.”

I mentioned it because a lot of people already have a card they need to accommodate, not to try and convince you.

I mean … it’s not required. So, good for you, I guess.

After I left Bazzite I switched to Garuda, it is also gaming and performance focused, works with Nvidia, and has been super easy as a beginner.

It may be worth a look.

I keep looking for something better, and yes it has some limitations, but the free online version of SketchUp is the easiest and most intuitive 3d design program I have ever used and I keep coming back to it.

You need to set up a free Trimble account to use it, don’t let that stop you from giving it a try

Keep your eye open for opportunities to advocate for Linux in the workplace, change will come.

Windows said they were going to force AI into the OS, so I left.

I installed Bazzite, it was easy and just worked, but I decided I didn’t like immutability. So I installed Garuda, and it was also easy and just worked, even with an Nvidia card.

So now I’m on Linux and run a bunch of windows games with proton and they also work.