If you don’t mess with your EFI partitions and your windows partition you’ll be fine. The windows built in partition manager works well and is good enough. If you’re sitting with issues shrinking your partition, use the native Linux partition manager to do it when you boot from the USB. I’m not familiar with Fedora so I won’t be able to help much there. If you do need to use the Fedora partition manager, make sure to disable bitlocker on windows for the drive before you do it. You can just enable it afterwards. Hope it helps!
It worked… ok. The lack of a USB dock really hurt the “desktop and laptop in one” concept that I was shooting for. I had to plug / unplug 3 things to get into “desktop mode” which was a hassle for how much I switched between modes. It ran things like Valheim really well but utterly failed at FPS games like Apex (<15fps, horrible stuttering, totally unplayable).
If you already have a laptop, a GPU, a desk, a decent monitor, and you typically play low-requirement games and just want to play on high settings – then by all means it’ll be great for that! Another way it may make sense for you is if you play around with CUDA and need a compatible GPU on a budget.
That being said, don’t convince yourself that you’ll get full use out of something like a 4070. If that’s what you want then, as of now, a desktop is almost certainly your best option.
I would have said Doom Emacs but given your note about vim, I’m assuming it wouldn’t be a great fit for you. Still, I used to write in Darkroom on Windows, because I really liked the totally minimal and simplistic nature of it, and Doom Emacs with writeroom-mode is a perfect upgrade.
As for other alternatives, it all depends on your own taste. I don’t think the issue here is really the amount of apps, just finding the right one. You mentioned Writer sends you on a constant formatting spree, so maybe a text editor would fit you better than a word processor like Writer.
In that case, I suggest you look at something that would resemble notepad. Lite XL is my favourite notepad-like text editor but I don’t think it’s usually available as a package. You can also try Gnome Editor as it is essentially Gnome’s answer to the lack of a super-minimalist app like MS notepad on linux. People have mentioned Obsidian and while it’s nice, if you’re not going to be using Obsidian’s graph or linking features I’d say you’re better off with a simpler markdown editor, Marktext is pretty nice imo. Sublime text is another good option for customizability, ease of use, and minimalism (Although not FOSS if that matters to you, neither is Obsidian for that matter).
You can also try and find a port of the original darkroom, as far as minimalism goes it really gets it right.
Overall, from what I can gather from your post, I suggest you use Marktext or LiteXL, if possible. Try out one of the other mentioned apps if those don’t fit your workflow.
Edit: For clarification, these are my suggestions for writing, formatting is a completely different practice and might need other tools.
I have an AKiTiO Node Titan eGPU enclosure with a GTX 1070 hooked up to an Ubuntu 22.04 laptop and it's working pretty well. I'm doing PCI passthrough to an Arch Linux VM, since my company mandated that all Linux users must use Ubuntu. To stave off comments about this, I'll say that it's not just that I dislike Ubuntu. They're requiring me to lock down so much stuff that I can't do my job. Plus, the endpoint security sensor on the host plays absolute hell with anything that uses heavy multiprocessing. The GPU (with external monitors), second NVMe drive, mouse, keyboard, audio interface, microphone, webcam, 30 gigs of RAM, and 11 CPU cores are passed to the VM, and the host OS gets the laptop GPU + monitor and my continuing disdain.
I've been using this setup for a month. My experience thus far has been positive. I start the computer up with or without the GPU connected, connect the GPU if I haven't yet, launch my VM via libvirt, and things just work. I really thought I'd have more problems with the GPU, but the USB passthrough stuff has been the truly problematic part (I can't just pass the whole PCI USB controller for IOMMU reasons). It's important to note that the GPU displays directly to external monitors. I think it's possible to like, send the data back to your laptop screen? But I really didn't want that.
(As an aside, the security people at my company have no problems with VMs lol. They know what I've done and they don't seem to care).
Xorg has no fractonal scaling so I have been uaing wayland since I have switched to linux on nvidia and yes I use it for gaming. Not silky smooth but great so far.
I’m going to reframe the question as “Are computers good for someone tech illiterate?”
I think the answer is “yes, if you have someone that can help you”.
The problem with proprietary systems like Windows or OS X is that that “someone” is a large corporation. And, in fairness, they generally do a good job of looking after tech illiterate people. They ensure that their users don’t have to worry about how to do updates, or figure out what browser they should be using, or what have you.
But (and it’s a big but) they don’t actually care about you. Their interest making sure you have a good experience ends at a dollar sign. If they think what’s best for you is to show you ads and spy on you, that’s what they’ll do. And you’re in a tricky position with them because you kind of have to trust them.
So with Linux you don’t have a corporation looking after you. You do have a community (like this one) to some degree, but there’s a limit to how much we can help you. We’re not there on your computer with you (thankfully, for your privacy’s sake), so to a large degree, you are kind of on your own.
But Linux actually works very well if you have a trusted friend/partner/child/sibling/whoever who can help you out now and then. If you’ve got someone to help you out with it, Linux can actually work very very well for tech illiterate people. The general experience of browsing around, editing documents, editing photos, etc., works very much the same way as it does on Windows or OS X. You will probably be able to do all that without help.
But you might not know which software is best for editing photos. Or you might need help with a specific task (like getting a printer set up) and having someone to fall back on will give you much better experience.
I’d rather get three mid range 1440p monitors , stack two horizontal and the third over the two horizontals but offset. It would probably still cost less than one of those ultrawides.
(Perhaps) unrelated background informationxD , I started writing a reply yesterday and it got unwieldy real quick. So, I got discouraged and not long after I fell asleep. In the morning, I was surprised to see that a lot of your questions still weren’t answered, so I mustered some motivation and here it is. Don’t expect a very thorough response, but you should find enough pointers to make this work.
Preface:
Last summer I tried dualbooting Windows 10 and Fedora Silverblue and succeeded. So I will be sharing my experiences based on that. I don’t know if doing this with Windows 11 will be different and/or more challenging (or not).
It’s also got an Nvidia GTX 4060 in it, which will probably not be optimal from what I hear (so any tips on that are much appreciated as well!).
Yup, the gist of it would be that Nvidia’s proprietary drivers are not found in the native repos of most distros. This also applies to Fedora. However, you should be able to acquire the proprietary drivers by following the instructions found on RPM Fusion. But, Nvidia’s proprietary drivers are known to not play nice and might require you to get into the nitty gritty later down the line to save your system. Don’t get me wrong; some people never have issues, but unfortunately this doesn’t apply to everybody. Therefore, it’s very good to approach this cautiously. If, instead, you’d prefer a managed solution; so one in which your input is left to a bare minimum but somehow Nvidia’s proprietary drivers are installed and (at times) fixed by some black magic shenanigans (or just good engineering) going on in the background, then look no further than uBlue’s Nvidia images. Delving further into what uBlue is and why IMO you should consume Fedora Silverblue through it would be out of scope for this comment.
How would I go about actually shrinking Windows 11 down to make space for Fedora? Is “partitioning” the right word to use here?
So, unfortunately I don’t quite remember what I did exactly. But I can’t imagine I would do anything beyond the following two scenarios:
I just did what I always do and used GParted to shrink the size of the Windows 10 installation.
I used Windows’ own tool to do the shrinking (assuming they even offer something to that effect).
After I shrink the partition, is it then just a matter of running the installer and using automatic partitioning with the unused space left over after shrinking Windows?
If memory serves me right, automatic partitioning by Fedora’s Anaconda installer was for some reason undesirable. I don’t remember the specifics, but it’s likely either one of the following:
It straight up took hold of the entire disk and thus wanted to remove Windows.
Issues related to the bootloader; either it just forgot about it or tried to coexist with Windows’ bootloader or tried to hijack Windows’ bootloader. Nonetheless, all of these might result into some issues later down the line. Therefore, ideally, it should have its own separate bootloader (or at least one it shares with other non-Fedora(-based) distros).
Therefore, I did something slightly different. If I recall correctly, one should adhere to the following instructions:
After you’ve shrunk the Windows partition, make a new partition (preferably using GParted) with the following specifics:
512MB (in size)
Set as file system "fat32"
Give the partition the “boot” and “esp” flags
Reboot into Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite’s installer and when you get to the screen found below:
First select the disk you’d like to perform the installation on and then select Custom (optional: you’re free to choose the “Encrypt my data” option as well). After you’ve done this, press “Done” in the upper-left corner.
A new screen should appear, in here I selected “Click here to create them automatically.”. This should apply the default partitioning on the empty disk space. However there are a couple of things to keep track off:
Ensure that nothing from your Windows partitions is touched.
This includes the EFI partition of your Windows; if Fedora wants to do anything with it, then ensure it remains untouched.
By default, at least in my case, a new EFI partition specifically for Fedora Silverblue wasn’t made. This is where the earlier created partition using GParted will play an important role;
Select the earlier created 512MB partition
Mount Point: change it from blank/empty to /boot/efi
File System: Set it to EFI System Partition
Ensure the checkbox with “Reformat” that’s found to the right of the selection box for “File System:” is enabled/blue/checked
I don’t recall what I did exactly with the selection box under “Device Type:”, but it likely was Standard Partition. I didn’t encrypt it.
(Optional) You should have noticed that this screen also enables one to create partitions. There’s a chance I created mine using this instead of GParted, but that would mean I would have departed from my ways. If the method in which the partition is created with GParted didn’t work and you don’t know why, then it’s at least worth trying to create the partition here instead.
After you’re done with the previous screen, select “Done” in the upper-left corner. This should prompt a popup screen that summarizes the changes. Ensure that this doesn’t do something strange to your Windows partitions and make sure that it looks otherwise as you’d expect. If you’re done, then select “Accept Changes”.
The rest of the installation should progress like how you’d expect from there.
(Post-install) Depending on how you’d like to have GRUB (read: default bootloader on Fedora) configured, you might have to do a thing or two to ensure you can access both Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite and Windows however suits you best.
I’d also love to know what kind of issues the docs are actually warning about as far as dual-booting. Will Windows wipe the bootloader on update or will Silverblue / Kinoite wipe Windows out somehow? If it’s Silverblue wiping Windows out, that may cause me to go with a different distro - but if Windows wipes Silverblue, it’ll be annoying but not a deal breaker
As long as the EFI partitions are separated, there’s nothing to worry about. And if anything, it’s Windows that might wipe out whatever Linux distro you’re dualbooting.
I plan to use Silverblue / Kinoite for development exclusively, so everything will be on GitHub.
Grab a USB with enough capacity (8 GB at the bare minimum), and use Ventoy to create a bootable USB drive out of it. Then, put the .iso files for both GParted and Fedora Silverblue (or uBlue) into the designated location (read: partition called “Ventoy”).
Regarding Ventoy, ensure to set it up specifically for your needs (GPT vs MBR, SecureBoot or not etc).
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