I also made a very similar comment, but with uBlue (Bazzite, Aurora, Bluefin) instead.
They are still pretty vanilla, but include a big list of QoL stuff added in, like staged updates, Distrobox, a huge list gaming tweaks in Bazzite, and much more.
It's basically stock Atomic made right!
I've used them for a year now, and they're fantastic!
Just a small heads up for OP: You have to do quite a lot of (advanced) things differently from now on if you choose Atomic. Use containers (Distrobox, etc.) for everything you can, avoid installing stuff on the host if possible, etc.
Because others already suggested Arch/ EndeavourOS, I'll be suggesting something else: Bazzite.
It's part of the image based ("immutable") Fedora series and is basically Fedora Kinoite, with all drivers and codecs already set up for you, self managing, with many gaming tweaks included.
It's rock solid and basically unbreakable, while also being extremely modern and updated. On Arch, even if it doesn't break, you always get the newest stuff, which might not be as polished. On Fedora, it matures a few months, while still being very modern.
The main target group is "For Linux users who don't want to use Linux", meaning, it runs all your favourite stuff (KDE, etc.) without having to care for anything. It even updates itself automatically in the background without any interference.
If you prefer something with less "bloat" (a lot of optional tools and software to choose from, but nothing mandatory), then check out Aurora, which is basically the same, but without gaming stuff.
For more information, check out universal-blue.org
Just a small heads up for OP: You have to do quite a lot of (advanced) things differently from now on if you choose Atomic.
Use containers (Distrobox, etc.) for everything you can, avoid installing stuff on the host if possible, etc.
Just use Flatpaks for 95% you do graphically, and for CLI stuff or software that isn't available as Flatpak, I would recommend you to create an Arch Distrobox container (already set up IIRC) and use that. You can even install stuff from the AUR and export it, so it works just like it is supposed to.
Maybe, another consideration might be to not run Linux on Windows in some way, but the other way around.
Linux offers great virtualization, maybe you can use QEMU with KVM and GPU passthrough, and then run Windows inside this box.
I find Linux more powerful and less annoying to use day to day, and having those annoyances inside a small virtualized container I can just shut down is more peaceful.
WSL can be restricting, since Linux can't access anything, and I think getting "the real and proper thing" might be better.
And dual booting, by having both Windows and Linux on the same drive, is something I would advise against. Windows doesn't play nice with others and often "accidentally" breaks the bootloader and hard drive permissions, leading only to trouble. If you dual boot, install them on a separate drive and select the booting drive manually in the BIOS.
Also, why do you want to run Ubuntu specifically? Did you also look up for alternatives, like Fedora or Debian?
Dual booting Pros: a full-fledged Linux OS Cons: Harder to install and to mantain.
Also, sometimes Windows being an ass and "accidentally" breaking the bootloader.
I advice anyone to have just one OS per drive installed. Keep Windows and Linux separate if possible, or some Windows update may break GRUB.
I use Casa"OS". It's fine, but nothing groundbreaking. Cockpit for example can do pretty much the same, and for Docker containers, I nowadays mostly use docker compose.
But hey, it helped me a quite a bit in the beginning, and it's cool. Pretty basic, but enough for most people, mainly beginners.
Then how do you explain the continued success of Mint?
Because Mint's philosophy is to make a friendly, simple and usable system for everyone.
That may be for people who came from Windows before, or those who like their OS to be a bit more conservative, meaning no flashy stuff, boring, and just working. Just like Windows was "in the good ol' days".
This makes it accessible and usable by everyone, including Linux sysadmins who come home after work and don't want to deal with annoying computers and fixing things.
Everything on Mint feels high quality, functional and cohesive.
ElementaryOS on the other hand feels like a cheap MacOS clone, but nothing works. Those who want Mac, buy a Mac.
Mint/ Cinnamon on the other hand is similar to Windows (XP, 7, etc.), but not a copycat. It's familiar enough to be intuitive for Windows users, but much enough it's own thing.
Mint's main focus is to get a uncomplicated, and usable system, while Elementary's focus is to just do what Apple does. ... Well, did. 15 years ago. They totally forgot how much work maintaining a distro and a desktop with a whole app suite is, and just stopped working on it.
While Gnome and KDE (and other WMs/ DEs) got magnitudes better in just one year (e.g. Plasma 6), Pantheon (and Elementary) just stagnated the last 5 years or so.
They don't even offer/ work on Wayland yet, or other new things.
Either they'll stop working on Elementary, and focus only on Pantheon, so it can live on on other distros, or it will just continue dying like it does currently.
Logseq and Obsidian are only similar on the first look, but very different usage wise. Both are very open with a plugin system, and you can modify them to turn them into one eachother.
So, if you want only FOSS, then Logseq is the only choices you have.
But Obsidian is, even though it's proprietary, very sane. Open plug-in system, active community, great devs who don't have much against FOSS, and more.
I don't see any problems with that. Even I (and probably most others here), who are FOSS advocates, think Obsidian's model is fine.
The devs surely get why FOSS is important, and try their best to match the pros of open source. They even stated that if the company goes bankrupt or they stop developing the app, they'll open source it.
One major thing they do absolutely right is how the notes get stored. On other note taking apps, it's a proprietary database, often "in the cloud", where your notes get hold hostage. Here, they're just Markdown files, and the whole thing is pretty open, encouraging a strong community.
It's similar to Valve/ Steam. Proprietary, but liked by most Linux people.
That's not what OP was asking for though.
Why not? In my comment I explained exactly what benefits it would have in this case with a Nvidia GPU. I think it makes sense to at least mention the option.
OP tried Bazzite and wasn't the biggest fan of it, but not because it's image based, no, just because it uses the same Nvidia driver as upstream Fedora.
They could also have said that they really liked it, who knows?
And I don't understand why the Linux user community on Lemmy pushes immutable distros so hard.
Because they're awesome? They're extremely low maintenance, just work (for me), are very robust, offer a lot of choice, and much much more.
I think they're very underrated and should be used much more. Sure, some people just don't like them, but some people would, and those should know this option exists.
I personally think X11 shouldn't be used anymore. Fedora dropped official support for it recently iirc and it will soon be deprecated, so it might be even worse in the future.
Wayland works perfectly fine under Gnome from what I've heard, and with Plasma, it should be working great too.
You could maybe try Bazzite or Aurora/Bluefin.
They are all Fedora Atomic, the "immutable" Fedora variant, and offer baked in Nvidia support.
The cool thing is:
GTS (or whatever it's called) variant around, which is the last major version of Fedora. You won't get the newest stuff and will be half a year behind in terms of features, but then there won't be any surprises.
I believe the bluefin:gts isn't around yet, but will come with the next major release.You can maybe post something on local marketplaces. Something like Kleinanzeigen (Germany), Facebook Marketplace (US I think) or something similar. Or local groups.
There are a lot of hobbyists who have a printer that stands still for 99% of the time, who can print it for cheap.
Or, as someone else already has suggested, your local library.
I don't print any abrasive materials at all. Pretty much only normal PLA and PETG.
I noticed, that my print quality gradually went down quite a bit, especially in the last few prints. I had a lot of stringing, weird blobs, and scarred surfaces.
Now, the print quality is as good as it should be!
They are dirt cheap. You can get a set of 10-15 generic ones, in different sizes, for only a few bucks. Don't forget that they are consumables.
First of all, thank you so much for your great answers under my post from yesterday! They were really really helpful!
I've now decided that I will not use something with USB. It really doesn't seem to be reliable enough for constant read-write-tasks, and I don't wanna risk any avoidable data loss and headache.
Also, it just doesn't seem to be very future proof. It would be pretty expensive, only for it to get replaced soon, and then getting obsolete. It just seemed like a band-aid solution tbh. So, no USB hard drive bay, no huge external hard drive, and no NAS just for that purpose.
A few people asked me about the hardware.
My server is a mini-PC/ thin client I bought used for 50 bucks. I've used it for about two years now, and it had even more years of usage under the belt with its' former owner. Imo, that's a very sustainable solution, that worked pretty well until now.
I used it almost exclusively for Nextcloud (AIO), with all the data being stored in the internal 1 TB SSD.
For those who are interested, here are all the hardware details:
<hwinfo -short>
Thing is, I want to get more into selfhosting. For that, my main goal is to
a) Replace Nextcloud with individual (better) services, like Immich and Paperless-ngx.
NC-AIO was extremely simple to set up and worked pretty fine, but I always found it to be bloated and a bit wonky, and, mainly, the AIO takes up all my network and resources. I just want something better, you understand that for sure :)
b) Get more storage. I'm into photography, and all those RAW photos take up SO MUCH SPACE! The internal 1 TB is just not future proof for me.
c) Maybe rework my setup, both in software, and maybe in hardware. Originally, I didn't plan to screw everything, but I think it might be better that way. The setup isn't bad at all, but now, as I got more experience, I just want it to be more solid. But I'm not sure about doing that tbh, since it really isn't a lost case.
As someone already mentioned in the last post, I really don't have a million bucks to create my own data center. I'm not completely broke, but almost :D
Therefore, I just want to make the best out of my already existing hardware if possible.
Because I decided against USB, and because I don't know if there are any slots on the mainboard that can be repurposed for additonal storage, I need your advice if there are any options to achieve that, e.g. via a PCIe slot + adapter, if I had any.
I saw one SATA III port, but that one really isn't enough, especially for extendability.
Here are the photos from both the front and back side:
My thought was, instead of buying one hella expensive 3+TB SSD drive, just screw it and make something better from scratch.
So, if you guys don't give me a silver bullet solution, aka. "you can use this slot and plug in 4 more drives", I will probably have to build my own "perfect" device, with a great case, silent fans, many storage slots, and more.
Btw, do you have any recommendations for that? (What mainboard, which case, etc.) Preferably stuff that I can buy already used.
Thank you so much!