Just install a distro that doesn’t fail like that by overwriting system files on a whim. You’re saying that you’re going from an arch based system (which are prone to get weird errors every few weeks), to NixOS, which has at the very least a steep learning curve. My assessment is that you are asking for trouble yourself. I know that Debian-stable sounds boring, but it never breaks like that. If you’re truly burnt out as you say, you would go with the safe, unglamorous solution. I used to tinker with Linux all the time (I started on slackware in 1998), now I just run Mint on laptops, and Debian on my PCs. I just don’t want bad surprises anymore, I’m at an age that the OS needs to work as expected.

You will have to reinstall the OS, and redo the partition table (256 MB boot partition (that’s enough for a single OS), 2 GB swap, and the rest / root partition). Then install Debian with XFce on the / partition. You use it normally as with any other Debian-based OS, that Zorin is also one of them, but you use the terminal to update the system. It’s very usable.

For 16 GB SSD with 4 GBs of RAM (which is what most Chromebooks used to be), you will need Debian with XFce, with 2 GB of swap partition. Nothing else will either fit, or work properly. I have given away 3 such laptops to friends with that setup (Arch might fit ok too, but because I was giving it to friends, Debian was easier to work with). After installing the v12 Bookworm Debian OS, with libreoffice, a couple of simple games (e.g. solitaire), Gimp, and that 2 gb swap partition, I was left with 5 GB free space. I had to occasionally do sudo apt autoremove to make sure the space wasn’t eaten away, but overall, it stayed steady (dh -h will give you that info). With Trixie, you might end up with 4 GBs of free space, as it’s bigger. Bookworm has updates until 2029.

If the issue is under X11, try their Wayland session. Otherwise, you will have to wait until December, when they go fully Wayland with their more stable version. If you’re already using Wayland, use X11. I don;'t think there’s much to do otherwise for such an issue.

Anything from Debian. I even run Debian-Testing, and it’s rock solid. Also, Linux mint, on my other partition.

Only thing bothering me on the cosmic desktop is really the fact that the app menu doesn’t have a shadow behind its window. So white menu on white window on the back, you can’t see where one window starts and where the other ends. A patch for that would be great, to be honest.

You are the only one with the answer closer to what I’m looking for, everyone else is thinking in terms of user accounts, where root can override. An encrypted volume can not be unlocked by root without having the password of the said volume.

No, it’s something else actually.

Yes, there is. If a folder or file is encrypted (with a different password), it is safe from root too. That’s what I’m after. Root can’t change the password of an encrypted volume.

Not if you have an encypted folder etc, with a different password than the user account. That way, is safe even from the root account. The problem here is that the app is a .deb, it doesn’t come as an appimage, and it needs constant updating too. So it’s the main system executable file that I want to make user-authenticating, with a different password than that of the user account.

I’m having trouble with wifi with two macbook airs from 2011 and 2013. Those broadcomm chipsets are simply not maintained anymore well on the linux kernel. The solution: a $5 usb wifi adapter. Works wonders (blacklist first the internal wifi).

Mint is very, very stable. However, not all hardware is compatible, especially since Mint is using older libraries. For most people, Mint is the best solution. For your hardware, it seems to be Debian-Unstable. I personally use both and I’m happy with both.

QCAD can read/write DWG files on Linux, it costs just 40 bucks, and it has an autocad-like interface. But if your instructor says that they need autocad, better keep a Windows machine too.

Another way to read/write DWG files is to download and make executable the appimage here. It converts DWG to DXF. https://www.opendesign.com/guestfiles/oda_file_converter Then you can load the DXF on the Community (Free) version of QCad.

Sure, you could load that DXF file on any Linux app (e.g. librecad, freecad), but qcad is the most autocad-like app of them all. Even Librecad is a very, very old fork of qcad, which hasn’t progressed much since. https://qcad.org/en/ You can make their trial version of QCAD (that supports natively dwg) to become free community edition by removing some library files they request on their UI. The ability to read dwg goes away, but then you have the converter above to do the job.

Linux user since 1998 or 99. Debian-Testing for my desktops, Mint for my laptops. I like things that work well with a GUI (I dislike the terminal, despite being well familiar with it), without bad surprises (Debian-Testing is surprisingly stable).

Ι must say that Arch Linux’s wiki pages are easily understood. But man pages are not. I can’t follow the standard manual format. Just like with IKEA instructions, they just don’t make sense to me. My brain is like that. But Arch Linux pages are good.

Different OS, different apps. When you move to another OS, you move your apps too, not expecting to run everything Windows does. If you really want to play that game, stay on Windows. Although you probably did something wrong, since others can play cyberpunk fine (maybe not the cracked version though, or a special pack for it – just vanilla game).

If you want a compatible laptop, you get one that has a version that comes with Linux, without major kernel changes. For example, the DELL laptops. The DELL laptops get hate, but they are tested against Linux. I personally got the 5640: https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/129/776/310/532/073/original/ffe65da00bfd0b39.jpg It now runs Mint and Debian-Testing.

I paid just $900 euros with 32GB of RAM, and my husband got the same with 64GB of RAM for $1000 here in Greece. Everything works 100%, except touchpad’s palm rejection (I made a bug report about it).

The ability to upgrade my cameras’ firmwares, as it requires specialized Win/Mac utilities. Other than that, nothing.

Avoid. It’s mostly games that work well. Use open source alternatives instead.

It’s very simple.

You simply switch your apps too, not just the OS. Everyone thinks that they can switch the OS 1:1, but it’s not like that. You will never be happy if you expect the same apps on all the OSes. Instead of photoshop, you use Gimp. Instead of Illustrator, you use Inkscape. Instead of resolve/premiere, you use kdenlive. And so on. You will have to invest some time to relearn not just the OS, but the apps too.