JPEG XL support in Waterfox is nice.

Just yesterday I overwrote some pacnew files and borked user authentication for myself. Very rough time

I agree with this the most. People obsess over the start menu paradigm simply because they like it in Windows. I desire more open mindedness when it comes to looking into alternative ways to interact with your computer, so I align with GNOME.

“Anything immutable” is bold. Any bad experiences, personally? I don’t think they’ve negatively impacted the desktop Linux landscape as a whole…

This is a balanced take in my opinion. Also an Arch user. Distrobox has helped remedy things somewhat.

I don’t know if Lemmy is the best place to ask, lol

It sounds like it is time to defederate. We’ll miss the instance but we understand why it must be done

There occasional hiccups with Linux that are sometimes by design, like Flatpaks not having access to /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. This makes some things need minor workarounds where they wouldn’t otherwise, because there aren’t enough people on Linux to make these workarounds the norm. I don’t really mind, but it is nice not having to do anything like that on macOS (although there are other issues there, like not having access to /usr/bin in the first place :P)

At the end of the day, though, the development workarounds necessary on Windows are absolutely insane. Even as well documented as they are, I am very glad I don’t need to touch Windows ever again because they still suck.

VLC isn’t a native Windows app, as it isn’t a native Linux app. Celluloid uses native styling on GNOME systems & is super easy to install with any package manager GUI that supports Flatpak. Installing apps on Linux is always easier by a long shot compared to Windows, especially with Flatpak.

I don’t know what is default on most distros, but it is so easy to change in this case that it is hard to even consider the default media player relevant compared to on Windows where there are fewer options for apps like VLC that actually give you a native experience

As far as video types are concerned, Linux’s multimedia codec support is much wider & more flexible than Windows via Windows Media Player. The app Celluloid for Linux (based on MPV) supports everything under the sun

Sounds like you’re entrenched. If that’s the case, don’t look at Linux until you’ve accepted that things aren’t going to be identical to Windows & there will be drawbacks to your workflow as well as benefits