Thanks. I will probably end up keep using gimp and krita.

Looks interesting, hadn't heard from it. Thanks.

Personally I self-host on a raspberry pi. It took me a few weeks to setup, but it has been running without problems for almost 2 years now at practically no cost (beyond purchase and electricity).

Are you familiar with the theory of predictive processing? If not, look it up esp. In relation to autism. Tldr: human brains do not process information to form an image of the world, but we predict what the world may look like at any given moment. We use our sensory input only to correct errors in our prediction. There are two thing at play with autism here. 1. We are aware of more errors than NTs (inability to sift critical errors from non-critical ones) 2. When human brains detect an error it can choose to believe the input or the prediction. NT brains assign higher value to normative rules (sometimes they value input more and other times the prediction (internalized belief)) While autistic brains give more value to sensory input. Anyway, this is what I know of the current state of neurological difference, but I'm no scientist.

I tried lsd once in my tweens. Didn't really like the trip itself but remember feeling good for a week afterwards. Never tried shrooms. Might consider it. Just not sure where to get it (safely). Thanks for the advice.

Runs fine on my computer. Getting a consistent 40-60 fps without lag or stuttering in a 10K city.

• OS: Manjaro
• KERNEL: 6.5.5-1
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT
• DRIVER: 4.6 Mesa 23.1.9
• PROTON: 8.0-4

I too recently made the switch from Windows to Linux. I wonder what people mean by a "new user"? My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20, followed by a C64 and later an Amiga 500. The OS on the Amiga was somewhat like Linux (at least from memory). I tried Linux a few times in the past 30 years or so. Once because I was curious I ordered a CD (do not remember which distro that was), then 20 years ago because of work (I think that was Ubuntu) and a few years ago (maybe 4-5) because I had an old laptop that couldn't run Windows any more. Since it was just an old laptop I only used to watch movies/series on, I distro-hopped a bit on it. Of all the ones I tried, Manjaro was the fastest and the one that gave me no problems with hardware working out-of-the-box. Mind you, none of these experiences with Linux were very intensive. And while I am a programmer and I learned at school how computers work (this was in the 80s), I consider myself a noob when it comes to Linux. Does that make me a "new user"?

Recently I was planning on building a new PC and contemplated going from Windows 10 to 11, but the whole software market has been irking me for a while now. Everything (not just software and OS mind you) seems to be switching more and more to a subscription model, which just feels wrong to me. Not to mention the ever-increasing breach of privacy by the big companies. As such, before building my new computer, I tried a few distros on my old PC. First I tried all the flavours of Ubuntu and decided fairly quickly that KDE is my desktop environment. Gnome is just too restrictive for my taste and the others feel too much like Windows (just a personal opinion, obviously). In terms of actual distro, I noticed all the Ubuntu flavours gave me problems after using them a few days, so that one was crossed off the list. While doing my "research" I quickly came to the conclusion I prefer a rolling release over a regular release cycle. Partly because some of my (new) hardware is/was not part of the kernel yet, but also because I do not want to do a major update every (x) year. But rolling does come with a higher chance of breaking things. This is why I went with Manjaro. The 2 weeks (or so) of holding back updates -which others seem to see as a problem- I see as an advantage.

I have only been using it for a month now, so far so good. Still learning and getting lost a lot in how it all works. So far I am happy with my choice, we will see how I feel in a year ;) I already made some silly mistakes, like I wanted my /home directory on a separate drive and stupidly thought I needed a 1TB drive for Root as well... lol. Now got this big empty space on one of my drives not sure what to use for. The choice between X11 and Wayland is a touch one, but I stay with X for now. I do have one question though: What is pipewire and should I switch to that?

Oh. That clears up a lot. Thanks!

Thanks for thesugestion about mangohub and corectrl. Seems perfect.

I debated whether or not I should respond to your reply for a few hours now. I just want to point out that everyone is different and have their own circumstances. I recognise you do not know me and know nothing of my circumstances. Mainly because I didn't divulge them because I thought they be irrelevant. But I have a disability which makes it difficult for me to go outside and impossible to travel. My life takes place 90% at home. And while I am mobile and can do other things besides sitting behind a computer, it is my main "escape" from my situation (besides tv, books, etc.) And I am also ashamed to admit I do not have a "shitty wage job" but a "shitty disability income".

I empathise with your existentialism. I have had that my whole life as well. It is the root cause of my depressions. "Funny" thing is, that in my country (not America), psychologists are not trained to deal with such issues. As soon as I bring up the concept and talk about the pointlessness of life they say I am too philosophical and they cannot talk about philosophy. And then they go on about e.g. the "self" and "free will" and "self-control" and "responsibility", and when I then point out to them that those concepts are based on philosophical ideas from the era of enlightenment but never scientifically proven to exist, they defend it by saying it is the "norm", I point out to them that a "norm" is by definition non-inclusive. At which point I am labelled "difficult" and "non-cooperative".

Thanks, I didn't know about ProtonDB. I never play multiplayer so that won't be a problem.