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i think flatpak has done a lot to make this easier, but at the same time... i'll admit i'm not a fan of it (mostly due to random issues).

the way i see it, more distros need something like arch linux' AUR. if an application is reasonably easy to build, it really does not take much to get it into the AUR, from where there's also a path towards inclusion in the official repos.

i don't know too much about other distros, but arch really makes it amazingly easy to package software and publish everything needed for others to use it. i feel like linux needs more of this, not less - there's a great writeup that puts why linux maintainers are important way better than i ever could:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230525163337/https://kmkeen.com/maintainers-matter/

i'd suggest starting by finding out what package in your distro actually decides where audio goes - mostly it is pulseaudio (older) or pipewire (newer).

depending on the details of how your distro and the dongle work, it could either be a simple "pactl set-default-sink ", or a more complicated set of udev rules or pipewire/wireplumber scripts.

note that distros using pipewire still often support a lot of pactl commands, so it may be worth looking at the simple option even when not using pulseaudio.

my phone won't even do "force stop" anymore... fairphone 5 running whatever os fairphone ships, and all force stop does is put the app in the background or whatever, if it has an issue the issue will still be there when opening it again.

just another reason to use tiling window managers ;) at least mine opens my windows in the same workspace on the same output every time, if i configure it to

personally, i'd have pretty big benefits for my homelab if i could use my own ipv6 range for everything. having only a singe public IP is just very limiting.

sadly, my ISP does give out ipv6 for home networks, but i cannot connect to any of them from my mobile phone with the same carrier. so that's fun. they talked about rolling out ipv6 on mobile networks years ago, but i guess it'll take a few more....

i'm thinking long term - sure, right now google knowing everything about me isn't dangerous. but if a massive political slide to the right happens in countries that host services, suddenly all the saved data from many years ago can be used against me. and don't fall for the "end to end encrypted" bullshit either - all these services can flip a switch and have your encryption keys instantly. (or, if its an open source app that ACTUALLY keeps keys on the device only, which is extremely rare, it's one update away from happening, and you better read the whole diff every update and compile the app yourself.)

that's why i choose to self host everything. yes there's a risk of being hacked, or installing something malicious because i don't read every diff on every update. but i feel more confortable with it being my own responsibility, and my services are also all on seperate virtual machines to hopefully isolate any breaches.

I'm using Trilium notes. it's simple enough and does what i need. Used to use Obsidian but wanted something open source, and with Trilium you can self-host the sync server for free (even comes with a handy web-ui).

Note that it is much simpler than obsidian, but for me it's plenty. It was easy to import my obsidian vault into it, and it allows exporting as .md files which work fine back in obsidian too.

Recently the dev said he's putting it into maintenance mode, so no new features will come to Trilium. There's a community around Trilium Next that wants to keep expanding it, but personally i hope Trilium stays as it is and is maintained for a long time.

i bought the tuxedo nano (a mini pc but decently powerful), and its not 100% linux compatible. i imagine its better if you install their own distro (maybe) but running arch linux with the standard kernel on it, i've had issues with HPET/TSC (some cpu timekeeping stuff, ruined performance when it happened), the wifi card it came with is known to have issues and i've had plenty (usable, but super slow bandwidth depending on what AP i connect to, and no its not the AP all other devices work fine on it), and some lockups when my usb microphone is connected (sometimes it only crashed the usb hub which i could reset).

NONE of these issues are present running arch linux on my old desktop and 2 work laptops. Support wasnt helpful either.

However, its still my main device, i just had to work around these issues.

edit oh, and the fan is not controllable from linux at all, i've spent hours trying to find a way. i do not know if it's controllable from windows either, maybe it's just the mainboard that doesn't allow fan control at all outside of the UEFI settings.

using dd for that is outdated info that everyone keeps blindly parroting with zero understanding why. cat is simpler and works fine.

note: both cat and dd only work for this when the image is made in a compatible way, my linux isos always work fine but a windows iso didnt and needs a more specific tool.

The updating issue is something i have to deal with too, its just that the good mirrors constantly change. there's several tools to automatically update pacman's mirrorlist, but for some reason i don't really like any of them ( reflector, rankmirrors/ratemirrors idk, others....)

but with an updated mirrorlist and a pacman config that allows like 5+ parallel downloads (dont ask me why thats not the default, or at least wasnt when i installed) updating is decently fast. until you start using certain packages from the AUR.

i loved mine but 2 years from launch they stopped all updates. can't recommend asus at all just for that reason. i havent tried custom roms because a couple years ago when i tried they all had weird issues