The Arch Wiki (and possibly other Arch websites, but when I checked I wasn’t able to catch it) uses Anubis (https://anubis.techaro.lol/) to mitigate AI crawlers causing issues on their servers. Anubis works by making your computer do some computations before being let in. For users like you and me, it’d be a minor inconvenience, but for these AI crawlers, it’d cost them a lot of computation as they hit these sites a huge number of times.

Using Anubis is said to be a nuclear option, but as these AI crawlers don’t care about that, sites, especially FOSS ones, started using it.

Thanks for the head’s up. I’ve switched to IronFox just earlier.

Getting it into my phone wasn’t as straightforward as I expected. I first failed to find it on Fdroid. Then I tried toinstall it via Obtanium, but somehow failed. A bit of more research gave me Fdroid repository link that allowed me to finally install it. Everything after that is a breeze though.

Moving my collections from Mull to IronFox had to be be done manually though (or maybe I just didn’t find out a better way to do it), but it wasn’t at all painful.

Thanks for the head’s up! I’ll take a look at IronFox and see if it fits my existing set-up (syncing from Linux/Windows PC to mobile). Again, thanks!

Not who you’re asking, but I’ll answer nevertheless.

I’ve jumped from vanilla Firefox, to Librewolf, and now to Floorp. I’ve also played a bit with Zen. In all of them (except Zen, which I didn’t go to the process of connecting my Mozilla account), my Mozilla account connected and synced just fine.

I also no longer use vanilla Firefox mobile, but moved on to Mull. I am able to sync my stuff from Floorp to Mull and back without much trouble.

EDIT:

Thanks to a couple of people, I was informed that Mull is now unmaintained, and that IronFox took its mantle. I’ve switched to it just earlier now, and syncing works there too!

That loop of config hell is real! It has subsided recently because I got enticed into writing my own widgets. Also, yes to rainbow pastel (tho I’m using gruvbox as a base/reference color theme).

Can’t really remember much of how it looked out of the box, since I proceeded to customize it quite heavily. However, though my memory is fuzzy, I remember it looking like a combination of Windows XP and mid 2010’s Ubuntu.

Checking with the xfce website, they have this screenshot of one of their latest versions:

KDE has sane defaults when it comes to windows: it opens a window at cursor position and whether or not it’s fullscreen or maximized depends on what it is when you last closed the window.

So for example, if the LibreOffice Calc is maximized when I last closed it, the next time I use it, it’d be maximized.

Window rules, however, can be as fairly simple or as complicated as you want it to be.

For example, this is my settings for discord:

I set it to open horizontally and vertically maximized, on any virtual desktop in the ‘Background’ activity (not really something most KDE Plasma users make use of, but I do).

I had a similar workflow with maximized screens residing on different workspaces. KDE Plasma also have window rules which you can set on a per-program/application or a per-window basis (for example, main window for a program goes fullscreen into one monitor, in a workspace you specify, and the tools window opens in a different monitor in the same workspace you specify).

I used KDE Plasma for a long time ever since I started daily-driving Linux.

I like how KDE Plasma allows quite a surprising amount of customization. I also had some experience with Gnome via Ubuntu, and XFCE. Gnome looks polished, but doesn’t allow for much customization. XFCE is a lot more customizable than Gnome, but getting it to look quite right took a lot of effort.

I might be displaying my ignorance of TTRPG systems, my Linux distro and my window manager, but here we go!

Arch Linux [uncommon armor]

• manual installation process — +2 WIS
• Arch Wiki — +2 on arcana checks
• AUR — +1 DEX
• system update — after every long rest, roll a d20. on a nat 1, you have disadvantage on dexterity saving throws until the next long rest.
• I use Arch btw — +2 on persuasion checks against people who use this same armor

Customized Hyprland [rare armor, attunement]

• attunement prerequisite: once every long rest, roll arcana with DC 25. must succeed thrice
• unlimited customization — when attuned, +2 CHA
• perpetually under construction — regardless of attunement, -1 DEX

Customized Neovim [rare weapon, attunement]

• attunement prerequisite: once every long rest, roll arcana with DC 25. must succeed thrice
• unlimited customization — when attuned, +2 to attack rolls
• learning cliff — disadvantage to attack rolls when not attuned to this weapon
• I use (neo)vi(m) — regardless of attunement, +2 on persuasion checks against people who use a similar weapon to this one (DM discretion)

Ventoy USB [uncommon accessory]

• various installation media — +1 CON

EDIT: formatting

As far as I understand those selectors work, using shift as the level 3 modifier is a bad idea since …

I suppose customizing the keyboard layout such that SHIFT can be used as L3 modifier can be done. Otherwise, you might want to refer to /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.lst.

Here’s the relevant part(s):

Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m biased against it, thanks to my experience with it.

Well, I can take solace in the fact that 99.9% of the packages you are using are in EndeavourOS too. So, I was mostly right. :)

Yeah, also I think EndeavourOS and Arch moved to Plasma 6 at around the same time too? I tried holding off the update to Plasma 6 for a few days but finally took the update on March 12.

I also wish we could replace Manjaro with a green themed EndeavourOS. Manjaro is the next biggest Linux honeypot after OpenOffice.

I think with enough faffing around customizing things in KDE Plasma, I think a green-themed EndeavourOS is doable. Would I recommend it? Not really, lol! From what I’ve seen, I‌ like EndeavourOS’ default theming.

It’s just a shame EndeavourOS isn’t as known as Manjaro (at least during the time I first jumped into running Linux as a daily driver). But then again, with Manjaro shitting the bed becoming more known, I‌ hope EndeavorOS can take the place of Manjaro as the Arch-based distro for newbies.

Converting Manjaro to Arch in place is a labour of love. I have done it myself and it is was more steps than I expected it to be. Worth it though. Good friend.

Oh yeah, I was there with him when he was doing it. I can’t do any help other than cheering him on, and to have another eye on the screen making sure he doesn’t make any stupid mistakes in the process. At few points, I reminded him of the fact that I’ve backed up my files, and if things really get FUBAR, we can just do a clean install and restore the files from backup.

… I actually use Arch. Sorry.

But really, I would have gone with EndeavourOS (instead of Arch) if it were not for my friend who really strongly advocated for Arch (even installing it for me—or rather, converting my Manjaro install into an Arch one).

If I’ve had any regrets in my Linux journey, it’s choosing Manjaro instead of EndeavourOS as my introduction to Arch-based distros.

I’m with you on liking multi-monitor set-ups. I also have several workspaces and activities (a KDE thing—you can think of it as another set of workspaces accessible via a shortcut key), which means I’ve got tons of “space” to play around with.

I‌ could have my e-mail program run on one workspace, then switch to my main workspace with one screen for VSCode (or whatever) and another for the browser window with lots of tabs that I can just refer to while doing work. And then in a different activity, a multi-media program might be playing a podcast or just some music to help me focus.

My discord is usually on the same activity as my multi-media program though, as I don’t really need to refer to it as often. If there’s a new message for me, my system gives me a notification and an icon in my system tray lights up or something, indicating a new message.

But yeah! You do you with your preferred workflow!

Yeah, using Arch is a commitment. On top of having to keep your system relatively up-to-date (this is probably the easiest part though), you also have to be ready to do some work in resolving problems when they do crop up (usually after an update, lol).

However, I think most of the work in using Arch is the installation process, making sure things run smoothly after installation, and hammering out the kinks that may arise. After that, so long as you keep your system relatively up-to-date (and having resolved any issues resulting from updates), it’s mostly hassle-free.

The only other distro (or rather, OS) that I think has as wide a source for installable software is NixOS, but not only I haven’t any experience with it, it’s still relatively new and wouldn’t recommend it for daily-driving, much less gaming.

But yeah, Arch is definitely not for the faint nor half-hearted, but it might just work out for you. Good luck and may you be able to find a Linux distro that works with your hardware.

I can’t really give you advice but maybe my current set-up can give you some ideas.

My desktop has an AMD Ryzen 5 3500 for my CPU and an AMD‌ Radeon RX 7600 for the GPU and some 16GB of RAM. I have two cheap monitors both connected via HDMI and are 1080p 75Hz. My desktop runs Arch Linux with KDE Plasma 6 Wayland, and aside from some minor keyboard-related issues, it’s running fine. My desktop set-up could be just bog-standard that things just work, but there ya go.

I am not telling you to install Arch Linux, not unless you’re willing to dive into the Arch Wiki, lots of forum posts and the occasional Stack Overflow thread whenever you’ve got a problem—not to mention dive into the command line and read lots of arcane logs to even start to know what to search for online. However, if your problems are due to lack of software support or something similar, then with Arch (or really, Arch-based distros, just stay away from Manjaro) and its wide array of packages, you might just be able to make things work for your hardware.

I switched to Wayland the moment my distro went moved to KDE Plasma 6 because according to my logic: if things are going to be broken and I’m going to adjust to them anyways, I might as well do it all at once: shock therapy style.

Plasma 6 broke a lot of my desktop customization, but that is to be expected. And Wayland? It has been surprisingly okay. I am experiencing some keyboard-related problems that I can’t even begin to track down (sometimes the keyboard flat out refuses to work for certain programs, sometimes it’s the numpad). However, I am not sure if it’s really related to Wayland, so I’m withholding judgement.

This might be a stupid question, but I‌ wonder why they (datacenters) can’t recover the water they use especially if it’s in the order of magnitude that it significantly impacts water resources in their area.

I might be missing something big here, but I am imagining water-cooled systems that transfers heat to the water, but the water is otherwise unused. This water might not be able to be fed back (to the water sources in the area) as is, but it can be cleaned up and cooled down, and then be used for other purposes, right?

I actually have some plans (no timeline though, it’s basically just a wishlist item as of now) of making my own NAS, so there’s that opportunity. And of course, yeah, getting an old machine is also an option. Who knows, maybe I’d get my hands on another old laptop that could very well be my way to testing Linux distros.