My first gen Framework 13: Fingerprint reader, check! (Fedora KDE). Screen, ports, performance, check! Sound, WAY better than my ThinkPad. Touchpad… cough cough

I’ve always found that there’s generally a new way to do things in Linux, but I rarely have issues. I have an Acer Nitro laptop with a Ryzen integrated AMD graphics and then an Nvidia 3060, and I had to look up how to install the drivers, which was rpmfusion, click, click, done. Instead of the usual launcher for games, it’s either Steam or Lutris. The only real bitch of a thing was some school stuff. Like, gnomes boxes handles all my virtualization, but school demanded VMware Workstation, which was legitimately a pain on Fedora. Likewise, Microsoft Teams. But web Office was fine, Libre locally… I get hella better frame rates on MHW in Linux than Windows. I didn’t pick the machine for its Linux compatibility, it just worked.

I just did three nodes this evening from 8.4.1 to 9, no issues other than a bit of farting around with my sources.list files.

Not noticing anything significant, but I haven’t tried the mobile interface yet.

I was going to say this.

Never more in my life have I wanted to send a stranger a larger hard drive.

Yup! Mint is, like, 90% Ubuntu, so almost every instruction that works on Ubuntu works on Mint. The only thing that’s different is that Mint “likes” flatpaks over snaps. These are two different ways to install apps, but honestly, you may never need to use either, and you can use either, both, or neither and not worry about it. Linux has a lot of “I like A over B for X reason.”, cue whining and moaning. You can mostly ignore it, or you can troll us Linux types over their particular A by saying “But I heard B was better…” None of it really matters. Gnome/KDE, apt/dnf, flatpaks/snaps, it’s all just a couple different ways of accomplishing the same thing, which is getting it done without paying some megacorp way too much money and giving up your data.

I use ProtonVPN on Mint, and I did have to type a command into the console to install it the first time, but I just click on the Icon in the start menu to launch it now. All the Major distros have an update feature that can be run from the desktop. My version of Mint (Cinnamon) has a little update notification icon on the bottom right just like Windows does. It’s pretty easy. I like Mint, but I have distro hopped for years, and I am mostly settled on Fedora, but I still have a Mint installer on a USB for rescue missions. Its Live Linux is great. Making the computer totally dead would require a lot of effort, since you can always boot into a live Linux USB and have a usable system. Heck, I have booted my Mind stick on a system with no Hard Drive and used the machine anyway. Linux is actually easier in that respect than Windows, since you never have to Putz around with licenses. My only caution would be to make sure you have access to another computer somewhere, in case you need to write a new USB installer. That’s about all for caution.

You can make the system stop booting for a bit if you screw up the install, but if you keep a Windows installer USb and whatever Linux USB installer handy, you can always get the system booting again. If you know someone who has done it before, dual-booting is a good way to dip your toe in. I keep a small windows install on most of my systems, just in case I have that one app or whatever I need to run, but I almost never boot into Windows anymore.

Yes!

This is what the community will likely tell you: Gnome is more for “I just want it to work and stay out of my way” and KDE is for “I want it to behave in some crazy fashion, and I CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN!”

I find the opposite.

I get Gnome, and I add tweaks, extensions, desktop wallpaper thingies, task bar nonsense, etc. I get KDE, and I just use it as is.

So clearly, the correct answer is: XFCE! Mwah hah hah!

Feel free to ask questions if you have them. I am no expert, but I am willing to try to help if you get stuck.

1. You are going to find people who have done both. A lot of NAS devices run kind of low powered CPUs so separating it out into two devices can get you more compute power than a single device. For example, an old as the hills file bay may cost next to nothing, and then using your “last” desktop will get you a lot more storage and compute than a 1500$ modern NAS, but it’ll take up more space, cost more in electricity to run, and make more fan noise. This is the route I went. A modern NAS should be able to run what you listed though.
2. TrueNAS scale is all about storage, but it lets you also run containers. Proxmox is all about virtualization, but you can then run a storage solution inside a VM or container. It’s not the kind of thing you’re going to get a right answer for because either way can work. Both are well-documented, capable solutions. I have tried both at times, but I had a lot more experience with Proxmox by the time I deployed TrueNAS, so I stuck with Proxmox and use a TrueNAS box (bare metal) for backups. It really is a matter of preference.
3. If you have a MiniPC and NAS as separate devices, you will want to set up a network share, so you can seed on the MiniPC the copy that’s on the NAS. My seeding, Jellyfin, Plex, etc, all happen in a virtual hard drive mounted in a separate container from the services. Each of the services "see that drive as a network share despite being hosted on the same physical hardware.

I use ProtonVPN and it sets up a “leak shield” interface when you start it and destroys that when you end it. It keeps traffic from flowing out over the non-vpn internet. The problem is, if the VPN crashes or doesn’t shut down gracefully, that interface kills all traffic.

To test if it’s something like that, try pinging an outside address, first by name and then by IP. If you can’t get either, it’s not the DNS messing you up. If you CAN ping the IP but not the name, then it is the DNS messing you up.

I have LMDE on an old Lenovo Yoga, but it doesn’t disable the keyboard when in tablet mode. It’s on my list of crap I need to fix. Make sure to check that behavior before you go full install.

I have a Tiny connected to a startech dual USB drive dock. The drives get warm, but not deadly hot. Moving big files is a bit slow, but for streaming on Plex and Jellyfin it works fine.

I didn’t know anything about docker when I set up my NC years ago, so I ran it as a snap on bare metal. Man, it’s gotten so much better! It used to really suck. Like, simple file transfers just didn’t work half the time, so I’d be retrying the same thing over and over… A few years ago, I literally migrated it from bare metal to a VM, but kept the exact same install. I have so much crap on it now, I think I’ll never bother switching it out to docker, just because of the inconvenience. I know the snap version can just run using a local hostname, you just have to set it in trusted domains setting. Might be the same in the docker image?

I use Gpoddersync to keep my phone and tablet in sync, but I have one podcast that keeps glitching out and redownloading over and over. Not sure why.

That article had 891 “partners”. Holy hell.

I feel like I should throw in a good word for Fedora. I run a combination of dnf and flatpak, and have a grand time, and am doing an IT diploma program aimed very solidly at Windows under Fedora. I’ve used Ubuntu, Mint, and Manjaro, and landed on Fedora for my desktop experience.