This thing is so recent it could play MP3s... The first Discman was released in 1984. I'm actually really confused why they picked such a recent version, the technology was almost phased out when this thing was released. FFS the original iPod came out a year before this thing...

My biggest hurdle is honestly that GrapheneOS only supports Pixel phones... I had one once and hated it and honestly don't know how much of that was because of google's android or the phone itself and am reluctant to buy a new pixel phone to try GrapheneOS and find out I still hate the hardware. I've had a much better "out of the box" experience with Samsung phones (and love that my current one has an sd card slot and headphone jack - but I know that's pretty much non-existent on new phones) but am finding they are so locked down and closed off by Samsung you can't really put anything else on it and have it work properly as far as I can tell.

It's time for a new phone, and I'm honestly not sure what to do... The easy route seems like getting a pixel and putting GrapheneOS on it before doing anything else, but I just don't super trust that the hardware isn't going to drive me nuts...

In my experience with them, MSI laptops tend to run quite hot in general, your OS probably isn't going to fix it. You can try one of those laptop cooling plates, basically a mesh platform with fans, ensuring cool air is always available to the laptop intakes, but it isn't exactly a perfect solution.

Really it just needs more cooling capacity - they seem to cut razor close to the amount needed in their designs so when eventually cooling becomes less efficient either through fans getting tired/clogged or thermal paste/pads breaking down, it will not keep up.

2 pikachus climbing a house cat.

2 things: First, Windows 12 being subscription only has been "debunked" multiple times, as the source for the article that shouted that from the rooftops was code for Windows 11 - which MS is currently working to have a subscription cloud-based version of for enterprise customers. Second, MS is 100% working on and going to launch cloud based Windows for enterprise customers "soon". It can be largely cloud based, and all that has to be installed local is instructions for how to log in and access the cloud during boot, and likely won't be able to do anything itself if the internet is disconnected.

I think the biggest problem with Linux is that a lot of self-proclaimed "savvy" computer users need to check their ego... It's either people that have used Linux since 2008 and want to gate-keep the community because their superiority complex is a poorly built house of cards; or it's people that have only ever used modern windows and think they are good with a computer that went and tried to install Linux and screwed it up because it didn't work exactly like windows.

Average computer users aren't comfortable installing windows and do not feel like they can fix it if something goes wrong...

This is really and truly terrible all around. Firstly, its a link to a website talking about a post on Lemmy... Why the hell is this just not a post? Why do we need an external website for this terrible excuse for "an article"? Secondly, the writing is terribly done with poorly reasoned arguments and a lot of just plain wrong information. It is yet another example of someone that tried switching to Linux once, sucked at it, and decided that everyone here in the Linux communities must just be lying about having no issues using linux and they should come here to the Linux communites to tell us to stop and we can't do what we already do every damn day. Jesus, it seems like half of the posts in any Linux community on Lemmy is people that don't use Linux telling everyone how bad Linux is and how great windows is... wtf guys.

Looks like a taxidermy duck.

KDE Plasma is the best desktop (or you can choose to be wrong)

and then...

if someone is STRONGLY pushing a specific distro/package manager/whatever? Ignore them.

lol. I love it. :P

To OP though, if you really don't want to "distro-hop", you definitely should test drive several. Look into Ventoy, it basically makes a bootable flash drive that has a separate folder/partition you can just drop bootable .iso files into, and then on boot Ventoy shows you basically a boot menu that lets you pick any one of the images to boot. If you get a nice and big usb flash drive, you can get basically ALL of the distros you want to try on one bootable usb stick so test driving them requires a lot less time and effort. You won't get a good idea of performance typically from a live environment, but you get a very good idea for the "look and feel" which will likely help you narrow it down a lot.

This feels out-of-touch itself, like you haven't actually tried in years. Yes, to rebind your mouse buttons, you will have to install a piece of software, and tell it what you want each button to do... Exactly like you have to do in Windows. I haven't seen any janky work-arounds needed, and the software is a lot more responsive than I was used to in windows with the official logitech software. You don't need command line in linux any more often than you need to edit the registry in windows - your typical PC user can get by without it just fine and probably should stay away from it. As for game performance, there will always be variability here, but there is no hard and fast rule like "you will lose 20% performance in linux vs windows". Some stuff may not get along with proton or linux (big one is some of the "bad actor" anti-cheat stuff, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread that just won't work at all), but the vast majority is running great under linux - imperceptibly different, if it is even different at all. Finally, there are plenty of distros that will handle all the drivers you need with little to no input from the user. One of the primary selling points of PopOS is fantastic graphics driver support "out of the box", but they aren't alone - many make the process invisible or butter smooth.

I always love how many people that don't use linux to do 'X' thing, feel the need to tell people that do use linux every day for 'X' how bad linux is at doing 'X'... People going into windows specific communities and shouting about how bad windows is for 'X' or 'Y' task would be shunned to oblivion if not outright banned, but they come into the linux communities every day to tell us how bad linux is??

Earthbound is fantastic. Also, Chrono Trigger has several different endings and secret things to accomplish along the way, so it is good for more than one play-through. Finally, I remember stumbling into a game decades ago around the same time I first discovered Chrono Trigger called Seiken Densetsu. I remember having a copy in English and really liking it.

Wild, you are like from the alternate universe where Linux is dominant and nerds play around in windows. Are things better where you are from? :P