KDE connect can be good too but I like localsend for sharing files with any and all devices like when I’m moving phones and need to send a file to the new one or between my PCs. You’re not wrong though, KDE connect works well for fileshare too.

That looks great man. Those mashed potatoes look pretty nice as well.

Localsend is rad, super useful: https://localsend.org/

Send any file across different devices over the network. FOSS and fast. Highly recommend.

Anything to help a fellow Linux user my dude. I’m not as skilled as some of the other folks on here but I try when I can.

I think I saw someone mention hyperland which may be up your alley but you also mentioned you’d like to stay away from Arch so not sure if that’d work in this case.

KDE has changed quite a bit, you might like it better now. I think the recent changes have been good but I guess I dont change it as much as you might want.

TL:DR, Kubuntu or Fedora with KDE

Everyone will have their own opinions on this. Just speaking for overall desktop environments, KDE is my top pick. Pretty easy to pick up and change. Works well, feels like Windows but actually good and very customizable. And extensible.

As for the distro behind it, pick your poison. I think either Fedora or Ubuntu. KDE spin would be Kubuntu which is what I currently use. Both are pretty popular and supported well.

Some people dont really care for Ubuntu but coming from Fedora with KDE, its been a much smoother experience personally. Yes, I’m not a fan of snaps, but they can be turned off. In all, I’m using Linux, I’m much better off on Ubuntu than Windows privacy and security wise which are the main things I care about aside from being able to change whatever I god damn please.

I struggle less with shit not working on kubuntu. Fedora for the most part was very solid but there were more than a few times Steam for whatever reason gave me issues on Fedora. I’d consider steam a pretty easy thing to install and use but I had lots of issues with it just not starting or crashing, hanging when downloading updates. Really annoying.

Could be im just better at using linux now than I was back then as Fedora with KDE was my first real jump to Linux from Windows.

Yea you’re in the right place lol. Like others in this thread, ive also thought about this a lot.

I watched a video recently of someone using a pi for android auto: https://youtu.be/Puk_pzMGd7c

I think the only problem you’ll find is that the software would need to be more custom if you didn’t want to use Android auto. Some kind of customized launcher for the pi or something akin to that to mimic a infotainment system.

IMO, using a pi for android auto would be the easiest way to do this but totally get wanting to do it on your own.

I think as long as you use something like organic maps and have a GPS module, a pi should be able to at least do GPS. That said, I think you have to use downloaded maps in that case. I can’t say for sure but that’d be my best guess.

As for screens, my advice is just buy a screen from pi. I looked extensively for a screen that you can hook up to a pi with usb c or anything else and from what I saw, a lot of the options for touchscreens are worse and or more expensive than what pi offers at $65 and its about as plug and play as it gets since they built it.

In all I think its very doable hardware wise. Software would maybe be your only hurdle depending on how exactly you want this set up. If you wanna throw a couple weeks of work at it, I’d be interested to see it so def post again if you do.

Yea took me a minute to figure that one out. I’m really not thrilled with how Samsung does most things in their UI. I’m def going to switch to a pixel for Graphene OS not only for privacy but just for a more normal android experience.

My biggest gripe is that I can’t put AM and PM next to the time in 12hr format. Why? I know I can use 24hr format but I don’t want to, I should be able to do something this simple without rooting or loading a samsung galaxy app from their proprietary store. Ew.

So many phone manufacturers make the weirdest choices man.

No worries man, I’m just very particular about how my phone works so I play with a loooot of settings haha.

Sorry I didn’t read the other question as well and I had to figure out how to turn on edge panels lol.

Click the pen icon at the bottom of the panel, then click the 3 dot menu at the top, from there, you can remove the default options like the ai select by unchecking them.

Toggle live notifications for “media player” in your settings. I also just got this new update.

I dont like it. Idk why Samsung made everything more appleish but not into it.

For gaming and browsing, you should have a very similar if not the exact same experience on Linux save for a few cases.

Most browser stuff just works, no real issues with anything in browser in my experience over the last 2 years or so since I switched. Only thing I’ve noticed is some streaming platforms dont allow you to stream in full HD like Hulu for whatever reason, likely piracy concerns. I’m sure theres other minor things too that I may have missed over the years but nothing that really made a difference.

For gaming, aside from multiplayer games with anticheat, its been great. I haven’t had any issues with playing games in my library. Proton is fantastic for steam games and from what I’ve heard, lutris is great as well.

I’m a musician/artist and Linux has been a bad experience for me with music production unfortunately. Between most VSTs not working for me even with yabridge, things would crash, not work at all or would load but then crash in the middle of production. I actually used Reaper and was running PopOS, (great daw BTW, good choice) and while Reaper itself was great, most things, even native Linux VST didn’t work for me. I hope your experience is better than mine but I ended up building a 3rd machine just for music production running Windows 10 with no internet access. I also had Windows only VSTs that I spent a considerable amount of money on so that was also another big thing for me.

Aside from music production, other creative workflows like photo editing have been good with Krita. I’ve heard good things about kdenlive, and davinci resolve Ive heard is good on Linux as well. Ive used davinci resolve myself on windows and its a good video editing software IMO.

The popshop kinda sucks. I went to kubuntu recently just for ease of use and not being so tied in to PopOS’s weird system. I wasn’t able to do simple things like change the file manager without it breaking a ton of shit, even after editing configs. If you dont need to mess around with stuff like that, PopOS is good.

All in all, I’m glad I switched from Windows.

I’m known as the “spreadsheet” guy at my work since I’ve done a lot of upgrades to our existing tools and or made new ones. I’m learning coding just doing that through app script and am toying around with some game Dev ideas in godot but this sounds super interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Is linux ready for the education sector? Kinda depends on the tools involved.

If its a google classroom kind of workflow and or everything is done in the browser, absolutely. Theres a reason Chromebooks got popular for schools, not just cause they’re cheap, but being more locked down and basically only useful for in browser work made them a good alternative to Windows machines.

However, some stuff specific to certain courses or classes may not be compatible with linux. Something like a photo editing college course that requires adobe (ew) would be an example.

I’d personally love to see Linux in the education sector more. With immutable distros, no licensing costs, and lower hardware requirements, Linux is likely going to be really attractive to schools that are looking for alternatives.

So sick that you were able to do this. Kudos for taking the initiative and making your community better.

TL:DR, yes you can. But its not nearly as reliable as wired internet and is dependant on where you are.

I’m currently living in a place where only DSL is available for wired internet and its 1.5 mbps down at maximum so this is essentially my situation. I dont self host anything currently as I’m kind of in between projects but I could in theory self host something and access it remotely.

What I’m currently using for internet is a load balanced connection between starlink and lte. I’d recommend just using lte if possible. Starlink is good but it can be very spotty.

I’m surrounded by trees and the towers near me are old and go down more often that I would like or get bogged down so I need starlink but due to the trees it goes down frequently. Every minute or so. Sometimes I get 5 minutes of internet through it and thats fun.

IMO, the more self hostable options we have for services, the better. This sounds like a good idea to me.

Good luck with your project and thank you for taking the time to contribute to the free and open source community.

Nice

Preach man, Fedora worked great for everything except the COPR for yabridge was no up to date and you had to go through command line hell to get it to work. I switched a while after that to PopOS which I use now.

I’m a fairly capable tech guy, but I’m an artist. I wanna make music at 3 am when I have a song stuck in my head, not troubleshoot.

Yabridge works on my install of PopOS, but the VSTs that I use just don’t work except for one. And I spent around $300 on them collectively over the last 9 years or however long its been.

Also annoying that I can’t look at YouTube at all while Reaper is open. Straight up won’t play the video. Not great when I’m trying to troubleshoot why a VST isn’t working and I have to close the program I’m trying to troubleshoot.

Despite my issues with Music production, I’m still glad I switched to Linux. I don’t have to worry about my PC shutting off randomly to do updates, I can install whatever software I want, no one spies on me, I’m loving it for all those reasons.

I am giving up on making music in Linux, but aside from that, everything else will be done on my main machine. I’m making an offline only Windows box specifically for music production and nothing else. No internet access. It will only access my local network for file transfer.

In short, totally agree, but I paid money for Windows only VSTs years ago before i switched and they sound too good man. Also Reaper keeps crashing with native linux VSTs so really not here for that.

If you can do everything on Linux, that’s great. Its just less stable and polished for creative work IMO.

That makes sense, was thinking of buying a new KVM so that’s likely the path I’ll take.

Much appreciated.

Unfortunately its a no name KVM I bought used off eBay so no specs I can find, but I think you and Blue_Morpho hit the nail on the head.

I’m going to do some testing after work and see if I can maybe find specs, maybe a workaround if there is one. Was thinking of buying a new KVM anyways so if all else fails, I’ll just shop around.

Thank you very much for your help.