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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Others have answered your dual-booting question pretty well. However, along the lines of “minimal” Windows, it’s not generally recommended to fuck with the system as that can break things. There are scripts that can strip a lot of the problems, though. I can’t remember any off the top of my head.

    As for not requiring an account, I have old ISOs of Win11 and Win10 where the unplugging my ethernet cable trick gets me around signing into a Microsoft account. Not sure if it works on the ISO you get from Microsoft now, however. And if you have built-in WiFi, I think there’s a way to disable it in the command prompt before you install.

    Edit: Win10 is going to hit EOL in the near future. I am going to use it until then. It’s got a lot fewer concerns (for me) than Win11, unless Microsoft keeps filtering Win11 shit into it.







  • ThinkPads are my go-to. I just got an X1 Carbon Gen 9 (i5, 16GB) for $350 and put Fedora on it after upgrading the SSD to 1TB. It’s a beautiful laptop.

    Of course, there’s the tried and true T480. Love that thing, especially if you get the right display panel and touchpad upgrades. Swappable batteries, upgradeable RAM. Those laptops can be had for cheap on eBay. Also check r/hardwareswap or the Discord for ThinkPad deals.

    XPS 13 units can do well with Linux, too. I’m just a ThinkPad fan.








  • I ran GrapheneOS (and CalyxOS) on a Pixel 5 for a while and quite liked the experience. It’s remarkably polished and get’s the job done quite well for the most part, with some caveats like you mentioned. The biggest bummer is when Google EOLs the devices, so the Graphene team also has to (last I checked). So, I installed /e/OS on my P5 and stuck it in a drawer.

    The ROM has come a long way in recent years, and I’m glad that Android Auto works now. (Now that I have a car that has AA/CarPlay functionality!) Good on you for making the plunge and I hope it continues to work out well for you. I am not surprised that your NFC car key doesn’t work, based on what I know about the trusted key system on Android when Google announced it not too long ago. That may be hard to find a workaround for, but I am not a developer by any means, so who knows!


  • I use LMDE on an XPS 13 9360 and it is a rock solid. I adore this distro, especially on older hardware. If I ever switch away from my MacBook Pro, LMDE is going to be my daily driver. (And I’m strongly considering a Framework 13 AMD as my next laptop when it comes time to upgrade.)

    LMDE squad, unite!