Mullvad’s DNS. It’s available for non-subscribers as well, and their privacy policy explicitly claims they do not log DNS requests in any way. https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/
They support both DoT and DoH, and also have various servers for blocking ads, trackers etc (if you wish to use them): https://github.com/mullvad/dns-blocklists
I that case, check out Fedora CoreOS.
It runs entirely in RAM, administration is super simple, no ssh, easy to update/and upgrade, immutable, minimal distro designed specifically for secure container usage.
How about Gogs? The whole thing is < 30 MB, and is lightweight enough to run on a Raspberry Pi. You can even get a native binary package if you want to run it without the overhead of Docker.
Yes, in theory. In practice, Github has become a hub for such living documents, especially in the Linux/OSS world, so it isn’t strange for people to look there for guides and recommendations.
I’m not opposed to it, but is there demand for it to be on GitHub?
There is! These sort of guides are best suited to be hosted at Github/lab because of their dynamic nature. Any recommendations and “best practice” today might easily become outdated tomorrow in this fast-moving Linux world! Plus you can have contributors too submitting corrections and updates (if you wish to merge 'em), so you’re not left alone doing all the work.
Here’s an example of one such guide I’ve used in the past that’s still being updated:
Mini all-in-one PC are expensive, just buy a used/refurbished regular PC. If you want, you can get them in SFF (Small Form Factor), which are still upgradable and a better option than AIOs. Here are some results on eBay for reference.
I’d recommend getting AMD because of their excellent Linux support and overall better gaming performance. Also, you don’t need a dedicated GPU for playing old games, even more so since AMD’s integrated GPU is a lot better than Intel’s, and works better on Linux too.
But it you want to play current games, you’ll need a dedicated GPU, and that $250 budget isn’t going to cut it unfortunately. However, you always have the option of buying a cheap used GPU later on, when you’ve got some cash to spare. But for now, if you focus on older games then the integrated GPU on an AMD will do fine.
Does it handle application updates as well?
when the ntfs3 driver was released I moved my games to an NTFS partition, i don’t remember precisely but some wouldn’t work, and then unlike my ext4 or btrfs partition which were unbreakable, a lot of things became unreadable and undeletable after a forced shutdown
Did you symlink the compatdata folder?
now I’m planning on making a btrfs partition for my games and using winbtrfs
I heard that with winbtrfs, you run into permission issues where every time you boot back into Linux, you’d need to chown any files you’d created in Windows, which would be a PITA. Also, I heard winbtrfs in Windows isn’t as stable as ntfs3 in Linux. Neither solution is unfortunately perfect so you may need to try and see what works best for you.
In general though, I believe regardless of what filesystem you choose, it’s recommend to NOT share everything and instead maintain a copy of the library native to each OS, and just share the “common” and maybe the “download” folder, and let Steam discover the existing files when you proceed to install the game.
LoL and WoW basically work perfectly on Linux (platinum rated). As for BG3, it works fine for the most part with Proton-GE / Proton Experimental. But since it’s still very new though, expect bugs, but also expect the compatibility to get even better within the next few weeks.
My question then is “Well, do you game?”
Really though, the question shouldn’t be “do you game”, but "do you like tinkering around, fixing things, troubleshooting, and learning new things, in your free time? ", or, “do you like major changes, and having the patience to make a major change in your life work, or would you rather prefer familiarity and stability, a mindset of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’?”
If someone has been running Windows for 35 years and hasn’t checked out Linux already in some capacity, I doubt they’re the kind who likes change, the kind of person who likes to experiment and tinker. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend Linux to them based on that reason, unless they’re also the non-tech-savvy kind who have very simple requirements - like my Mum and Dad, who’ve been running Linux for over a decade now without any issues (because their requirements are very simple, so Linux fits their needs perfectly).
Also, since you’re already on Fedora, you should check out Nobara, which is gaming-optimized Fedora-based distro made by GloriousEggroll, the guy who makes Proton-GE.
They said Proton-GE btw, which is a custom build of Proton by GloriousEggroll, which has a bunch of tweaks to make various games run, or run better.
https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom#overview
Proton-GE (or Lutris with Wine-GE) is what you really should be using, if you intend to game Linux.
Interesting, never heard of ReviOS before. Is there a list of changes they’ve made? I looked thru their site and couldn’t see any such details their docs. I’d like to know what sets it apart from the likes of Tiny11 and Ghost Spectre Superlite etc.
The other comments explained what a launcher is so I won’t go into that.
Instead, I’m here to plug one of my favorite launchers, AIO Launcher, which is a very different kind of launcher compared to the others.
Here’s what it looks like, on my Galaxy Fold 4:
AIO stands for all-in-one, and as you can see from the screenshot above, it has a lot of things, which is handy because I don’t need to open a bunch of different apps to get my news, weather, emails, calendar events, notifications etc - all of it is on my home screen, which makes it very convenient and saves me a lot of time.
Actually, it’s already useful for some folks. Sure, if you’re after a 100% feature parity to say XP, that’s not happening any time soon, but there are already folks using ReactOS in niche cases like embedded systems, especially in old systems like CNC machines, scientific instruments, industrial/factory machines and so on.
The main problem with old machines like that isn’t that they were running Windows NT4 or XP, but the fact that the hardware they’re using is breaking down and it’s getting increasingly difficult to replace it whilst maintaining compatibility. ReactOS is basically the only “supported” OS that still is compatible with those old specialised drivers and apps, while still being compatible with somewhat modern hardware.
AMD for graphics - RX 6600XT. Works flawlessly with the opensource drivers. I don’t use a webcam currently, but in my experience most Logitech webcams work fine these days. Before you buy one, look it up on Amazon and search for “Linux” in the reviews and usually you should find a comment indicating whether or not it works fine.
No Microsoft GamePass. Or none that actually matters, as the only solution is to pay for the higher tier and stream the games - so no game actually runs on the desktop. No, thanks.
Why “no thanks”? I use GamePass with xCloud and it works pretty well on Linux, and it’s a perfectly viable option - unless you’ve got really poor internet, or you’re into competitive FPS games or something that requires ultra-low latency.
NVIDIA support for Linux is far from being on-par with that on Windows, especially the open-source drivers. Is this still true?
Yes. If you’re planning to game on Linux, I’d highly recommend getting an AMD card instead, the AMD open-source drivers are excellent and see frequent improvements - both in terms of features and performance.
Many devices, especially those for gaming, might not have good (or even working) compatibility drivers for Linux. I know my UWQHD monitor works flawlessly on Windows, but requires quite a bit of tinkering on Ubuntu
“Many” -> citation needed. In my experience, depending on the hardware, you may find a better out-of-the-box experience with Linux compared to Windows. For instance, on my ThinkPad Z13, everything worked out-of-the-box on Nobara (Fedora) - including Fn keys, Wi-Fi, accelerated graphics/video drivers… everything. Same with my AMD desktop, didn’t have to install any special drivers or anything. But when I tried to install a fresh copy of Windows on my Z13 (dual-boot), there were almost no drivers - I had to manually install the Wi-Fi drivers first, and then grab the rest of the drivers via Windows Update, which was painful - took like 3 reboots to get everything installed, with long reboot times cause of updates. Painful.
In saying that, I’m surprised that your monitor - of all things - needed tinkering, when they’re usually mostly dumb devices that need no drivers or anything. But then again, it’s Ubuntu so… ¯\(ツ)/¯. FWIW, I have a fairly recent QHD monitor from AOC and it worked just fine on Nobara, no tinkering required.
The advantages: What else am I not thinking about?
5. Performance. Thanks to no bloatware like unnecessary background services/Defender/telemetry/Cortana/Bing etc, Linux in general would perform better, at least in theory. YMMV of course, depending on the game/hardware/distro. The good thing is if you use the right distro, or are willing to go the extra mile with tweaking, you can eke out way more performance, such as by using custom gaming-optimised kernels, fstab mount option tweaks and more. Using a gaming-optimised distro means most of these tweaks are built-in, saving you some time.
6. Arguably, a better gaming-focused experience, when you go for a gaming-focused distro like Nobara, or if you want to go the full mile and make an exclusive gaming box, you could install something like ChimeraOS, which is basically a community Steam OS. Imagine your PC booting straight to Steam, in the fastest possible time, with no distractions like Windows Update, Defender or other nonsense. Basically a console experience, with the power and flexibility of PCs and Linux.
What distro?
Nobara. It’s based on Fedora but optimised for gaming, made by the same guy who makes Proton-GE and Wine-GE (GloriousEggroll), so you know it’s the good stuff. Obviously comes with ProtonGE/Steam/Lutris etc out-of-the-box, custom kernel, patched Discord, codecs, nVidia drivers and more. Definitely give it a go if you’re considering Linux for gaming.
You can create a poll here: https://strawpoll.com/
The Nothing Phone is nice for that, but sadly they decided to NOT use RGB and only stick to white LEDs for some weird reason.
Well, if you’re using Mullvad’s malware/ad filters etc there’s really no need for a PiHole in the first place (unless you’re doing some funky custom filtering).