AMD GPU + KDE Plasma with Wayland finally gets me close enough to the smoothness of Windows, especially the per-display settings for fractional scaling and high refresh rate were sorely lacking on Linux. It’s not perfect yet (and neither is Windows’ implementation) but it improved the Linux desktop experience a ton!

Seriously. I used Manjaro for a short period about 5 or 6 years ago but ran into so many issues with it. Vanilla Arch on the other hand is very forgiving in my experience. I have a second desktop PC with Arch installed and I only update that machine once every couple of months when I actually need to use it. In my four years of doing that I never had an update break my system.

YouTube Shorts doesn’t even work properly for me. At least half the videos, that are suggested to me, I’ve already seen multiple times before. Boring, as you said. I’ve found myself staying off of social media or news sites more in the last couple of weeks. News’ll make me depressive, social media bores me. Then again, more time for hobbies!

I just went the ol’ VPN route and got a YouTube Premium family subscription in Turkey. It’s about 2€/month for 5 people; peanuts essentially. I wish I could avoid giving money to Google entirely but I’m mostly using Apple devices to consume YouTube content and my four friends who share the subscription with me do as well. So yeah, that’s the trade-off I can live with.

The KDE desktop environment definitely plays a sound when you change the volume. I use my Logitech G Pro X wireless headset on Linux and Windows and just change the volume using the dial on the unit and it behaves the same way in both OS.

Though, to be fair, I do share some of the frustrations you mention. I’m mostly on Apple products apart from my two desktop PCs (one is Linux/Windows dual-boot, one is Linux only) which I own solely for gaming purposes and some hobbyist programming. I usually try to get non-Linux native applications running but if it proves to be too much of a hassle I simply boot into Windows or use my MacBook. I like to treat Linux as somewhat of a hobby and I totally understand that most people would rather have something that “just works”, especially when it comes to proprietary creative applications like the Adobe suite or DAWs. That being said, it’s extremely exciting to see the massive strides Linux on the desktop has made in the last couple of years. It has come a looooong way, honestly; especially for gaming. And I always support open-source projects/foundations - I’m donating to KDE/Arch/Wikipedia on a monthly basis - because I believe in the core values and advantages of FOSS and other community-driven foundations even though I’m far from a Richard Stallman.

My solution was to migrate to Windows 10/11 Enterprise. No ads, no nothing. The LTSC versions are even better but they’re a little too barebones for my use case. Keep in mind that those SKUs cannot be activated legally but as with anything: There are ways to circumvent that issue.

I can’t remember Skyrim or Fallout 4 releasing in that bad of a state and I’ve owned those games since release. Fallout 76 on the other hand… Yikes. I might also be completely wrong as years of playing with unofficial community patches may have clouded my memories. CP2077 had way more issues than just bugs at launch. Witcher 3 was buggy as well, but at least somewhat feature complete. I can kinda forgive jank in games if the product itself is compelling to me and I’m just a sucker for Bethesda-style RPGs. Will still be waiting for Starfield’s launch on GamePass before I buy it, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 had awful writing and that’s nothing that a patch can fix.

Yeah, part of the reason cars back then were so serviceable was because they broke down all the time. A modern car with regular servicing can last very long mechanically. The amount of electronic creature comforts, safety devices etc. are often what drives up repair costs and lead to some cars becoming uneconomical to repair. Cracked windshield? That’ll be 1000 bucks because the rain sensor for your automatic wipers will have to be recalibrated. Dead headlight? $2000 because we can’t replace individual LEDs, have to take the front of the car of to replace the whole headlight assembly and calibrate the adaptive front lighting system so that it follows road curvature again.

Yeah, beef jerky, even when making it yourself like @CloverSi@lemmy.comfysnug.space does, can be quite expensive depending on where you live. Thankfully beef jerky doesn’t require high-end cuts of beef. Round Eye is one of the preferred cuts and even in regions with relatively high prices for beef (e.g. Germany) it’s still quite economical compared to store-bought Jack Link’s.

Japanese society is very old-fashioned, male dominated, hierarchical and “I’m older than you so that means I’m right”. Japan’s cybersecurity minister admitted a couple of years ago that he had never used a computer in his life. While I understand the frustration it is (unfortunately) not surprising that these changes do not happen in a timely fashion.

Playing on original hardware has its charms but emulation is often a better experience anyway. I have an N64 sitting in the closet collecting dust because a) it’s a PAL console (sigh), b) the analog stick is shot and c) my TV doesn’t support SCART. I know I could get an NTSC console, buy replacement gears for the stick, buy a RetroTink to get HDMI support, etc. At some point it’s just too much of a hassle for nostalgia’s sake.

Hmm, I don’t know… Leaving privacy aside (we are on /c/privacyguides mind you) it’s not that bad but it has become so incredibly bloated with features that I almost feel overwhelmed especially coming from stock Chrome or Firefox. Might just be me tho