So KDE Plasma is just a graphical environment that you can use on any distro. It’s my preferred desktop environment, but Gnome and XFCE are famous ones, and lots of nerds/programmers love i3 (a tiling graphical environment which encourages you to use keyboard only).

So when choosing a distro, we’re looking at other qualities.

A Linux distro is basically a collection of tools that constitute your OS. The most notable difference between distros is package managrment – how do you install new packages?

This might sound weird but the reason is that open source software comes with tons of different options that can be toggled before compiling to binaries, and at the same time we need our ecosystem of software to play nice accross different packages. They often depend on each other! So that’s why different philosophies split the community into so many different distros.

When installing new software, you essentially run a specific command from the terminal. Your package manager (which is a core part of your distro) then downloads and installs all dependencies. There are graphical tools to help beginners with this, but in fairness I think you should be prepared to learn to use the command line to search for applications and install them. You won’t avoid the terminal as a Linux user.

A really common distro is Debian. It’s the basis for tons of other popular distros, including Ubuntu. My problem with Debian is that they are a bit conservative, which means that they’re often slow with rolling out updates for KDE.

Since I’m also a KDE Plasma person, I run Neon https://neon.kde.org/ which is based on Debian but focuses on rolling out stable updates for KDE packages.

I do not recommend starting with a hobbyist distro like Gentoo, Nix or even Arch if your focus is productivity or gaming. If you want to learn about computers, then those distros can be incredibly rewarding, but they are time-consuming. Go with something Debian-based, or alternatively OpenSUSE or Fedora.

Regarding your other questions, you likely do not need to swap out hardware. But some graphics cards have poor support for Linux, so research your model in advance. You can also try running a distro of your choice live from a USB stick (most distros support this). It’s slower than running from hard drive, but you can get a feeling for what works out of the box and what may need further configuration.

Many games will not work properly on Linux, at least not without extensive tinkering. If you’re serious about certain games, I’d say Windows is unavoidable. I detest dual-booting but if you only have one computer then it may be your only option. However games that work on Deck should work fine on any Linux machine.

Hope this helps.

This is not true. I’ve helped lots of people install Linux on their old laptops, they used them until the hardware stopped working and I rarely if ever got any questions or requests for help.

Because it just worked.

The Sands of Time series and Beyond Good and Evil are incredible, and they’re on gog. I’m thinking of getting them, but I have no desire whatsoever for anything that Ubisoft, EA or Activision makes.

I don’t think socialists like Joseph Stalin. I’m saying that it’s a really unhinged thing to say.

Doesn’t really matter, at least not morally and probably not legally.

If you pay for sex you’re a sleazeball. If you pay someone who says they just turned 18 you’re a moron. In addition to being a pedophile.

Please no I’m trying to live a normal, happy life.

I haven’t exactly followed him closely but I don’t think he’s mild at all. He has some really extreme views on citizenship, ethnicity, religion, abortion, gender and so on. He’s got a lot of weird clips talking about occultism and demons.

He does however talk a lot about regretting being a shill for the Iraq war back in the day, and that he doesn’t want to repeat that mistake with Venezuela and Iran. I think that carries a lot of weight for lots of people.

My point is not to try to whitewash Tucker Carlson, I’m just saying there’s a substantial difference between him and someone like Ben Shapiro.

As I said, this dude said he admires Joseph Stalin. I don’t think it’s wise to to absorb or internalize what he says. But there’s a split in MAGA and I think it’s easy to see why Tucker’s faction is going to command the grassroots.

I’m not implying that he is. However I think he is genuine in his criticism of war, and by extension Israel. And I think that this point of view having a platform in the US right is going to have a profound impact on the MAGA movement.

This is pretty much always the case when you start a new job. It takes time adjusting to the environment, the people and everything else. It’s going to get better, it always does.

However, skipping proper food and exercise is counter-productive, so do make an effort to cover those needs.

I actually found that interview really interesting, or at the very least entertaining.

First of all, Tucker Carlson pretty much forced Nick Fuentes to agree that racism is not compatible with Christianity. They also talked a lot about Gaza, with Nick Fuentes mentioning that he thought it was hilarious that the neo-conservative right doesn’t realize that he opposes Israel for the exact same reason that the left does, i.e. not because of anti-Semitism but because he genuinely thinks that genocide is abhorrent. He then shifted gear and said he was a huge fan of Joseph Stalin.

I really don’t think that Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens care at all about sponsorships or donor money at this point. They’re doubling down on criticizing military action on Venezuela and Iran, they’re insinuating that Charlie Kirk was murdered by Zionists for his views on Israel and demand that funding for Israel is withdrawn, and they are openly criticizing Trump. They’re probably going to win this civil war for the mantle of MAGA and will likely be vindicated in the end.

It’s great that smart people are working on this, but I don’t think we can expect hobbyists to make a useful OSS implementation of smartphones. Especially since there is so much dependence on the hardware. We either need a company that can throw some weight behind it, or just straight up governments that value it (e.g. from a sovereignty point of view).