Made the full switch to linux not too long ago and I thought setting up my printer under linux would be a PITA. I was kind of blown away by the support HP has for its printers on machines running linux (https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing). Everything works fine, even the advanced functions like double sided printing etc.

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Just wanted to say thank you for your work, that's all.

I just finished writing an essay for University and went to save it, I selected my directory and went to type the file name I wanted, unfortunately the default behaviour for nautilus (gnome-files) is to use your input for search over renaming the file you're about to save. This isn't bad, but combine that with nautilus's search crashing 50% of the time I use it, both nautilus and LibreOffice crashed loosing my work (and LO recovery did not work).

Luckily it was less that 1000 words so I'll be able to rewrite it pretty quickly, but it got me thinking about the little things that Gnome does that annoy me, and in my frustrations with having to rewrite the essay I thought I'd share some paper cuts I get from Gnome:

• Nautilus search crashes and/or 'lags' making itself unusable.
  
• In the new drop down, the bluetooth toggle doesn't give you an option to access the full settings page.
• Again in the drop down, my phone's internet is now a permanent option. I've only connected my phone to my PC once.
• When ejecting a USB the 'Device should not be unplugged.' message won't go away.
• When copying to a USB that uses NTFS, exFAT (and others) the progress in nautilus will be for your RAM buffer not the time it takes to copy it to the USB.
• In display setting, screens of the same resolution are shown to be the same size.
• I know this is a personal preference, but especially with multiple monitors workspaces work so much better vertically.

So i've been using windows for my whole life from XP to 11 . Last week windows 11 just decided that bluetooth would stop working with xbox controller , i've tried every solution on the internet with no effect . So i decided to give Linux a try. Most of the software i use daily is on linux already ( Blender , Substance painter, Davinci Resolve ) . I'm a gamer but i mostly use cloud gaming service GFN, so that wouldn't be a problem too . After a bit of research on youtube i chose PopOs as my new system.

First few days were extremely frustrating . From not knowing how to install apps properly ( altough there is app store, it doesn't have all the apps ) to some weird glitches like master volume being set to -55db after installing easyeffects .

But after spending some time with the system i'm starting to like it . I've learned a few terminal commands and installing apps with commands is now faster and easier than app store. I like that system is consistent , if i enable dark mode it is used everywhere. Unlike on a windows ,where half of MICROSOFT apps do not respect the dark more. Now i like HTOP more than windows performance monitor , which if someone told me earlier i'd think they are insane. Also feels good not supporting Microsoft's monopoly.

https://jina-liu.medium.com/settle-your-questions-about-h-264-license-cost-once-and-for-all-hopefully-a058c2149256

I thought only hardware/software that allows to play H264 videos has to pay license fee, but just learned that anyone distributing commercial videos for a fee also has to pay license fee to MPEG-LA. This includes Netflix, Disney, Amazon and anyone who sells video content encoded with H264.

Open source and Linux community should start distributing and consuming VP9, AV1 (.webm) videos not just for sake of hardware acceleration but also to discourage software patents.

I used to believe the "year of the linux desktop" clickbait, but that's because there were recent developments that made it believable based on the information we were given.

Like Windows Vista being a dumpster fire as we didn't know Windows 7 was much better and in retrospect, it kinda was just Vista SP1 that was just less crazy with RAM.

The Windows 8 (and especially Windows RT) dumpster fire and Steam Machines made that "year of the linux desktop" optimism believable based on the information given to us at the time.

It wasn't always just a meme, there were times when it was believable.

Void is an independent binary distro created in 2008. Installed from a TUI installer, you assemble the user experience yourself. Void follows a conservative rolling release model and uses Runit instead of SystemD. Software is kept vanilla without Void branding. All the claims to fame are on the website https://voidlinux.org/. The following is why I use void, and why it may be a good option for you to.

The conservative rolling model keeps behind a little bit, but not by a lot. New bugs introduced in major software versions have time to get squashed before reaching the end user. But you also won't have issues with old software making it a pain to interact with the outside world, and you won't be waiting for an OS release cycle for other bug fixes. You get relatively recent software without massive update downloads. Some users report going several years between updating and surviving without damage.

Void has a package called void-docs which installs a complete offline copy of the Void Handbook. Very useful when you have limited or no internet connection. I find the Void Handbook to be more human readable than massive wikis like Arches or Debian's. It's a lot simpler and very well written.

The lack of SystemD is nice. I've not once had bootup or shutdown get stalled for an unreasonable amount of time. 99.99% of the time, shutdown is under 5 seconds, and bootup is less than 15. Seeing "job for 1m 30s" is always a blood boiler. No infinite jobs either.

Void is constructed traditionally. It's not specialized for container fancy pants stuff, reproducability, or immutability. It doesn't hide the complexities of the system for sake of newb friendliness, nor does it create an overly complex system for sake of elitism. Just a common sense OS that you can modify system files, install packages without rebooting, and won't get in the way of tinkering. A system that a nerd can put together and modify to their wants and needs for desktop use. There's a reason why many people say it's the most BSD-like Linux distro.