The best one right now is the OnePlus 6/6T, which has a relatively modern SoC.

Installing postmarketOS on it to turn it into a full fledged pocket PC. It now runs all your favorite Linux-compatible desktop applications except for those that don’t have ARM64 versions, and even then emulation layers can fix this. It’s not 100% as I haven’t been able to get Steam working (it starts but errors out before the login screen) though I have seen some people have success on other distros so maybe it’s a pmOS/Alpine/musl specific issue even though I was using distrobox with Debian to actually run it.

I don’t use AliExpress often but for the commodities you want to stock your workshop with, it’s often cheaper per unit with cheap shipping so if you want to order a bunch of something it’s usually the way to go. Pre-COVID, clone Arduino Nanos were like $2 each on eBay but now they’re like $5 at minimum. On AliExpress you can still ocasionally get them cheaper. I needed a bunch of them for a project and had exhausted my pre-COVID stash so I got a bunch on AliExpress and they work fine. For the less common stuff I’d not waste the time and just get it from somewhere with faster shipping. eBay often has free shipping on stuff while Amazon needs a $35 minimum if you don’t have Prime, though I do make use of the free Prime trials and stock up when I get the offer.

Amazon and eBay are my primary places to get electronics/maker parts. I don’t buy them for cosplay, but I expect the things you’re looking for are available from either and likely for a better price than Adafruit. If you can tolerate the wait, AliExpress.

I use Fennec F-Droid on Android and LibreWolf on Linux/Mac/Windows.

The only mistake Billy made is giving anything to AdBlock Plus, the people who have sided WITH the ads, instead of uBlock Origin, the true MVPs of the ad blocking world. I guess uBlock doesn’t accept donations unfortunately, but still, ABP is shady and I would not support them.

I’m not familiar with KDE’s new feature yet, but if it only supports sysfs LEDs then it won’t control 99% of keyboards. Few RGB keyboards have drivers that expose this interface. Most RGB keyboards are controlled from userspace on their official software on Windows, and that’s also what most Linux projects that control RGB devices including my OpenRGB project do. I wonder if it would be possible to write an OpenRGB plugin/script that exposes a virtual /sys/class/leds/openrgb device that KDE could talk to, then translate that into OpenRGB calls to set the color on all available devices. It doesn’t sound too difficult.

Also, explicit confirmation of your customizations and of your order. You can double check yourself to make sure it’s all correct before submitting the order while the distracted and overworked employee at the counter could hit the wrong button or skip a customization and you often wouldn’t know until you receive the wrong item. Then you have to create more work for the workers to get your order remade.

Both. I like the customizability and power of a desktop, but I like the portability of a laptop. If you can afford both, why not have both. I often have my laptop set up next to my desktop for browsing/chatting while gaming and I also often just take my laptop to game when I go to friends’ places. Also, they’re both PCs.

Radxa as well. I have a Rock Pi 4B running as my home server and it has been a great Pi 4 alternative. I also have an Indiedroid Nova with RK3588S which should be better than the Pi 5 bit the GPU drovers aren’t quite there yet. Once GPU drivers are in it should be an incredible board.

I like having a gaming laptop as it’s easier to grab and go to game at friends’ places. Sometimes I do like to bring my desktop and set up for a good old fashioned LAN party, but other times I want something quick. I also like having a laptop for working on projects on the go, connecting to devices for projects without having to relocate my desktop, etc. Traditional smartphones are too limited for most work and are only good for web browsing and communication tasks. Linux phones are too experimental to rely on but are getting better and better. I have done quite a bit of coding on my Linux phones but their use there is still somewhat limited. I also have a Steam Deck and it is better for gaming on the couch, on the go, or in bed, but it’s not really suitable for keyboard and mouse FPS gaming and it’s not convenient to do work (such as programming) on without external peripherals.

I would love to see gas stations putting in EV chargers, especially gas stations known for their food and snacks or travel stops that have restaurants because of the additional time taken to charge an EV vs. fill a gas car. Also it would be nice to see established companies run EV chargers that just let you pay with card at the “pump” like you do for gas rather than this app and account bullshit that all the mainstream networks have.

Hopefully this knocks down Tesla’s dominance in the charger ecosystem honestly, we need competition to take over that aren’t tied to a single vehicle manufacturer. Yes Tesla was going to open their network up to third party cars but they’re taking their sweet time in doing so. I hope competitors were able to swoop in and hire talent and take over broken contracts on abandoned charging station projects.

Mozilla is a for-profit company and is bound to enshittify just like any other for-profit company. Tracking, ads, and a focus on unnecessary bullshit like Pocket and recommendations have long indicated that Mozilla doesn’t give a shit about the user. They want to shove AI in the browser just like all the others. Unfortunately, the best browser is still Firefox, but at least use a privacy focused fork like LibreWolf that also strips Mozilla’s other bullshit away rather than using Firefox straight up.

Dating apps are garbage these days but I am an indoor person. Tinder can be viable for real relationships. I met my girlfriend on there and we’re a perfect match. I had in my profile that I was a gamer and played Overwatch and within 10 minutes of chatting we were playing online and in voice chat. She messaged me first. Now we’re spending most nights and weekends together. Unfortunately what I did was pay the stupid troll toll that Tinder takes to have unlimited swipes and then just swipe right on literally everyone. Women tend to be more choosy on online dating than men, and having both parties have to choose each other is just another layer of shit to get through before having a conversation. It’s shitty but that’s how modern dating apps operate. The apps of 10 years ago were so much better than this shitty instagram picture first RNG powered gacha game bullshit we have today but you can still find truly amazing relationships with them.

Same. I started really using Linux with Ubuntu 6.06 and was drawn in by its “Linux for human beings” goals - the Ubuntu homepage of the era really pushed the ideals of community and openness. Canonical sat in the background paying to send you free CDs in the mail. It was such an idealistic thing back then.

And then it all changed around 2010. The color scheme shifted to a shitty MacOS lookalike, the human elements were dropped, the logo was reworked, it got bundled with a paid music store, then Amazon ads in the search, and it’s been a roller coaster on a downward spiral ever since. I switched to Debian not long after the initial enshittification in the early 2010s and have not looked back, though I moved most of my systems to Arch a few years back because I like life in the fast rolling release lane and Debian wouldn’t support my new GPUs.

CentOS good (after they betrayed open source) but Debian bad (even though they remain one of the more independent from corporate influence distros and also serve as the upstream for over half the list)? What even is this nonsense? I agree Ubuntu and its official derivatives maliciously bad and Manjaro completely pointless but that’s about all I agree with.

I wish this were added to the official web UI too. I know they probably have reasons against it but just let us choose for ourselves. They can leave Hot the default but I do think the votes matter and the highest voted comments are usually worth reading.

I would say we’re beyond the era of PC referencing the classic “x86 IBM Personal Computer compatible” definition. PC could reasonably be considered to include many ARM systems, considering there are now Windows laptops shipping with ARM processors that can run “PC” software. Besides, most new x86 PCs aren’t IBM PC compatible anyways as legacy BIOS support has been dropped by a lot of UEFI implementations. I would consider any device that runs a desktop style OS (be it Windows, Linux, or even MacOS) a PC. The distinction in my mind is specifically mobile vs. desktop. Android and iOS are not PC. They’re primarily touch driven and apps are restricted to a certain format with a centralized app store where you are expected to get all of your apps. Windows/Linux/MacOS are primarily keyboard and mouse driven and you have a lot more flexibility on acquiring new apps, with their forms of “sideloading” and “rooting/jailbreaking” being things that are just normal and accepted rather than workarounds/hacks to break out of the walled garden. I would also go as far as saying a smartphone can be a PC if you have a PC like OS on it, such as mobile Linux OSes that let you run desktop applications.

The domestic social media companies are at the whims of the billionaire class which I would argue is just as bad for voter influence. Neither side wants you to vote in your best interest.