For system files/configuration on my machines, timeshift set to run once a week.

For family photos and shared files, I built a pair of SFTP servers made from old HP thin-client PCs at two different geographic locations which automatically sync to each other once a day via cron job using vsftpd and lftp. Each one has both an NVMe and SATA SSD which run in a software RAID 1 configuration.

For any other files, a second local server also using vsftpd and two SSDs in USB enclosures. I manually back them up using rsync on an irregular basis.

I would say a used Dell or HP business laptop would be a safe bet. Most business laptops have decent keyboards, replacement batteries will be relatively easy to find, and user-serviceable RAM is the norm. Given the not especially high processing power needs, probably the middle-specced ones with a few gens-old i5 will be dirt cheap and work fine for your needs.

Arch w/ KDE gamer here. I have generally had a good experience with it. I think everything you said is generally accurate. In terms of customization, lack of bloat, and a good wiki, Arch is generally considered to be all of those things. A rolling distro like Arch I believe will also be getting the latest proton updates, which may help with sooner game compatibility/optimization updates on more recent releases.

I say go for it.

Yes, but my larger point is that you are doing the same thing, but in the negative. You are taking your specific problems and then putting forward the conclusion that they are the reasons why “regular” Linux users should not use Linux, as though these were universal problems. I am saying that I do not have those issues and that they are far from universal.

Yes, the modular nature of Linux is both a blessing and a curse. There is legitimate debate to be had on that. But that is not how your post frames the issue.

As stated above, not all of these things are even Linux problems. I would say that if iOS refuses to play nice with Linux but every other ecosystem works fine, the blame lies with Apple, not with Linux. It is not Linux’s job to fix the interoperability problems of other ecosystems. The GNOME problems are related to a specific subset of Linux users, and even before today I would have said that I would not recommend GNOME to new users because of how nonstandard it can be.

I am looking through these issues and I cannot say that I can relate on almost any of these. Sorry to hear you have been having so many issues!

I do plenty of gaming and cannot think of a time where I have had GPU driver issues (despite the fact that I have Nvidia graphics on 3 out of 4 of my systems, which is supposedly more problematic).

My bluetooth works fine, and it has been literally years since an update broke something, bluetooth or otherwise (which I cannot say the same for Windows on my work computer).

I use KDE connect, SFTP, and SMB servers and I have never had any issues transferring files between Windows, Android, and Linux. What do you mean about that? (seeing other replies, it sounds like you are using iOS. That sounds like that may be an Apple problem and not a Linux problem, because Apple tend to be terrible about playing nice with other ecosystems)

The scaling is the one point I can sort of relate on. I think there is still some work to be done regarding DPI and scaling on Linux, but it’s not enough of an issue to make me want to switch operating systems.

As for GNOME issues and window decorations, that sounds like a GNOME problem. GNOME does things very differently to all of the other DEs and forces programs to manually define their own window decorations rather than allowing standard default icons like other DEs, so my understanding is that GNOME in particular tends to be a source of constant headaches for Linux developers.

And I’m not some sysadmin or CS major. If I have a problem, I do a web search. If I can’t find it there, I make a forum thread. I don’t post a rant saying that Linux is a bad OS, lol.

I am having a hard time following everything happening here. What is all this about hotspots and your neighbor’s router? Do you not own a wifi router? Most wifi routers will also have ethernet connections on the back. I apologize for not understanding. Edit: I am guessing by “I do not have a lan line” you mean that you do not have a working internet connection at all at home? I am confused as to how you intend to run a server permanently over a phone hotspot.

My one thought is: have you gone into your router and reserved a static internal IP on your LAN? (e.g. 192.168.0.##)? Often servers and things will lose communication if their internal IP changes and your devices cannot find them.

Also, if you are porting out onto the public internet, are you using something like a dynamic DNS so that your devices can route to your public IP? your public IP will be constantly changing, so you need some way for your devices to find it.

I am only a few pages in, but speaking as a Linux user in the 2020s, I am skeptical of the claim that Linux in 1999 would “never, ever break down.”

Blah blah blah blah blah…

tl;dr the author never actually gets to the point stated in the title about what the “problem” is with the direction of Linux and/or how knowing the history of UNIX would allegedly solve this. The author mainly goes off on a tangent listing out every UNIX and POSIX system in their history of UNIX.

If I understand correctly, the author sort of backs into the argument that, because certain Chinese distros like Huawei EulerOS and Inspur K/UX were UNIX-certified by Open Group, Linux therefore is a UNIX and not merely UNIX-like. The author seems to be indirectly implying that all of Linux therefore needs to be made fully UNIX-compatible at a native level and not just via translation layers.

Towards the end, the author points out that Wayland doesn’t comply with UNIX principles because the graphics stack does not follow the “everything is a file” principle, despite previously admitting that basically no graphics stack, like X11 or MacOS’s graphics stack, has ever done this.

Help me out if I am missing something, but all of this fails to articulate why any of this is a “problem” which will lead to some kind of dead-end for Linux or why making all parts of Linux UNIX-compatible would be helpful or preferable. The author seems to assume out of hand that making systems UNIX-compatible is an end unto itself.

My particular testing was with an SSK SD300, which is roughly 500MB/s up and down. I have benchmarked this and confirmed it meets its rating.

I have thought about buying something like a Team Group C212 or Team Group Spark LED, which are rated at 1000MB/s. The 256GB version of the C212 is available on places like Newegg and Amazon for around $27 USD at time of writing, but they make variants as high as 1TB.

I have done some basic testing, and the speed of the USB stick you use does make a noticeable difference on the boot time of whatever you install on it.

If I recall correctly, A low speed USB 2.0 stick took around 30-60 seconds to load (either time to login screen or time to reach a blinking cursor for something like an arch install disk). If this is something for occasional use, even this works perfectly fine.

Slightly faster USB 3 sticks in the 100MB/s range can be had for only around $5-15 USD and work significantly better, maybe 7-15 seconds. These usually have assymetric read/write speeds, such as 100MB/s read and 20MB/s write, but for a boot disk the read speed is the primary factor.

Some high end flash drives can reach 500-1000MB/s and would load in only a few seconds. A high speed 256GB stick might cost $25-50, and a 1TB stick maybe $75-150.

An NVMe enclosure might cost $20-30 for a decent quality 1GB/s USB 3 enclosure, or $80-100 for a thunderbolt enclosure in the 3GB/s range so long as your hardware supports it, plus another $50-100 for a 1TB NVMe drive itself. This would of course be the fastest, but it is also bulkier than a simple flash drive, and I think you are at the point of diminishing returns in terms of performance to cost.

I would say up to you on what you are willing to spend, how often you realistically intend to use it, and how much you care about the extra couple seconds. For me, I don’t use boot disks all that often, so an ordinary 100MB/s USB 3 stick is fine for my needs even if I have faster options available.

As others have mentioned, secondhand laptops and surplus business laptops are very affordable and probably better value for the money than a chromebook. My understanding is that drivers for things like fingerprint sensors, SD card readers, or oddball Wi-Fi chipsets can be issues to watch out for. But personally I don’t care about the fingerprint sensor and only the Wi-Fi would be a major issue to me.

A couple years ago now I picked up a used Acer Swift with 8th gen intel and a dent in the back lid for something like $200 to use as my “throw in a backpack for travel” laptop, and it has been working great. In retrospect, I would have looked for something with 16GB of RAM or upgradeable RAM (8GB soldered to the motherboard, ugh), but aside from that minor gripe it has been a good experience.