I think you're wildly underestimating the cost of people's time, resources, infrastructure etc

"You can't have it both ways" is exactly right. If the internet was user funded, as in, the user subscribes to every website or internet service they wish to use, then the internet would probably stop existing. (maybe I'm being too dramatic but also maybe not)

What's the true cost of YouTube without ads or data harvesting? Probably only the rich could afford a subscription, which in turn would destroy the platform user base.

Absolutely agree with your comment.

I don't really know the solution either... I can't afford to pay for all the things I enjoy online.

I was considering supporting 1 Twitch streamer I enjoy until I saw subscription cost. And if I paid that for every streamer or YouTuber I enjoy, I'd be broke in a single day lol.

I get so much incredibly good info and discussions online about my hobbies, all for no charge.

I used to subscribe on Patreon to my most useful resources/people, but in the end I just could afford it and had to cancel all my Patreon

I hate ads but I don't understand how the internet would function without ads. No one could afford it

Wow I love your arrow keys, that's brilliant

In an 8 hour day, I'd say probably 7 hours

The other hour probably bathroom trips, coffee/water breaks, occasional quick chats with coworkers throughout the day

I can't hit a full 8 hours actual work unless I do a 9 hour day.

Sometimes I have a shorter lunch break or try not to poop until I get home lol, so I can hit 8 hours quicker

I'm still on Nova because it just works so right for me, many others I tried didn't.

My needs are very basic

• A home screen I can place icons in specific positions (eg not forced auto sort)
• folders (drag multiple icons on top of each other to create a group/folder)
• Message count on icons, e.g my Whatsapp icon should show a little number indicating amount of new messages
• and finally, an app drawer showing all apps in a single list (without any fancy grouping)

Maybe this is normal now but years ago Nova seemed to be the only one that offered all these basic features together

I just found every little thing so hard in Linux.

Screens, scaling, nvidia drivers, games... Even spent an hour on gnome trying to get my desktop background image to fill the whole screen instead of repeating to fill the space. Solution ended up being download an image editor and resize the image to be the exact same size as my screen resolution. Tried KDE and kept hitting 100% CPU bug

In the end I just wanted a pc that worked, so went back to Windows with WSL.

Seems a perfect combo. Do my dev in WSL, and the desktop just works.

However I'm getting increasingly frustrated at every UI change Microsoft make... Which is what made me try Linux in the first place. If Microsoft Win7 and early 10 was great, I wish they'd stop touching UI and just improve under the hood

What's wrong with your pc if Task Manager runs like ass lol.

Task Manager is like... The one thing guaranteed to run on a potato

What is wrong with flat pack? I heard they were good

(noob question probably)

My favourite so far is Windows as my DE and WSL for my Linux

Thanks for your reply.

I've heard many people mentioning EndevourOS and I think that's based on Arch?

EndevourOS was top of my list to try next time I'm willing to give Linux another shot.

The most interesting distro I tried was MicroOS (opensuse immutable). I really liked the immutable concept, keeping the base OS clean and mess around inside containers. Very cool

2022 and 2023 I made multiple decent attempts to go Linux and I've finally ragequit back to Windows where things finally just work. Currently using WSL for my Linux needs.

So many frustrating hours.

• Unresolvable sound issues
• Multi monitor issues
• Size scaling issues
• Couldn't get my games working even for Gold rated proton games
• Don't think I ever got nvidia drivers working correctly
• Really struggled on some distros to find the correct packages for some things because they were named differently?
• Couldn't find how to set a desktop background that filled my entire screen in Gnome. It kept repeating to fill the screen instead of just "zooming"
• Got 100% CPU usage in KDE just doing nothing
• Didn't even want to start figuring how to run my Windows-only apps because by that time I was a bundle of stress and just wanted to use my pc without fighting it every step

Conclusion for me: Windows is best DE, so use Windows+WSL

I'm a bit sad about it because I'm getting more and more frustrated with Windows 11 direction. It seems each update brings a new configuration or "feature" that makes things more difficult for me.

I do feel I am being pushed out of Windows.

For about the last 10 years I try going Linux roughly every 3 years. So I'll give it another shot in a couple of years.

I fully understand for some people it just works. But it is not yet my personal Year Of Linux Desktop

Self hosting nothing changed my life.

So much free time and less stress once I abandoned self hosting 😅