if you’re using windows and expect any privacy at all […] throw that notion out the window

Correct. And the same is true even if you are using linux, macOS, android, or a butterfly to manipulate bits to send a message through the internet.

Because if your message ends up on the screen of a windows user, it’s also going to be eaten by AI.

And forget the notion of “anything you post on the internet is forever”, this is also true for private and encrypted comms now. At least as long as they can be decrypted by your recipient, if they use windows.

You want privacy and use linux? Well, that’s no longer enough. You now also need to make sure that none of your communications include a (current or future) windows user as they get spyware by default in their system.

Well maybe not quite by default, yet

They are yeah, but in that scenario you would also not have a window decoration with a close button, so I assumed the OP meant maximized :P

Reread the OP. They say:

not on GNOME, because you have a panel at the top

And

when usign GTK apps on those [non-GNOME] desktops

So you would not “access the controls above the app”, because having controls above the app is not covered by this scenario.

The scenario is:

1. You don’t have a top panel
2. You have a maximized GTK app

Which makes the close button be in the corner of the screen, but without actually extending to it.

On topic: never knew this was a problem, guess I got spoiled by the Qt environment

I thought mint was switching to a debian base but it looks like I am mistaken. While LMDE exists, it’s still not the default.

Got the feeling that’s probably gonna change soonish, we’ll see.

Not so fast now! High resolution video only available on edge on windows

Used discord on Firefox within the last week, no issues detected.

Disable all your plugins and check if this still happens, a few months ago I ran into an issue where every tab would load for a good few seconds before actually opening, even super lightweight stuff. Turned out to be caused by an addon that was umantained because the maintainer passed away.

Don’t remember which addon it was, but I can try and remember / search if you are interested.

Where do you live where banking sites don’t follow industry standards, even for web development?

I’ve never had a problem with a website outright not working on Firefox, although in some cases features are restricted which usually just require a user agent change (like huddles on slack).

Do you have concrete examples of websites that outright don’t work on Firefox?

Both work flawlessly for me. In fact, discord on Firefox works much better than the standalone app specifically for calls.

Sounds to me like something is broken or misconfigured on your system.

In my somewhat limited but relevant experience, the amount of platform specific bugs is indeed that low. I mean, there’s of course a layer of platform-specific low level stuff which is highly subject to platform specific issues, but once you go above that layer and into game code proper, most bugs are just bugs.

I didn’t fix 400 “Linux-only” bugs, but I did fix dozens of “seems Linux specific” and “only happened when at least one Linux client was connected” bugs, and a grand total of 2 were caused by platform differences. And of those two, zero were Linux specific. The platform difference in this case was about how different compilers optimise non-crashy types of UB.

Of course, we don’t want UB at all so the fix is to remove it.

So, again, you are either implying that you run pirated windows on your work machine, or you are saying you can’t install Linux on your work machine. Neither is what this is being discussed. Having a boss is completely irrelevant

I don’t know, I’ve been using Linux for the better part of 15 years now, on my desktop, so for me it’s been the year of the Linux desktop for a while.

Sure, there are some issues here and there, but far, far fewer than in windows. Even 10 years ago.

My IT department likes to install antivirus software that makes it impossible to do your job because it will scan every compiled object file, inflating compilation times by an order of magnitude, even for distributed compilation jobs.

Or stupid “workspace management” software that will randomly uninstall work-related software and / or reboot your machine whenever it pleases.

Luckily I can use Linux at work, otherwise I’d have to either quit or tamper with my work machine to do my job.

And yes, the IT department knows. But they are always “understaffed” to fix stuff. Curiously, they are never understaffed to roll out new stuff that doesn’t work though.

Then why would you need to quit your job if you installed Linux on your personal devices?

You are the one that brought up that installing Linux would require you to quit your job, on a post announcing that one method to pirate windows no longer works, implying that either you use pirated windows at work, or your employer has the right to fire you if you install Linux on your personal devices.

Since the latter is extremely bonkers and, quite frankly, unheard of, assuming the former seems much more reasonable. Especially considering that tons of people do indeed run pirated windows at work, and I myself witnessed as much.

Well drop stuff was mostly unavailable to me to begin with, being based in Europe.

So this is a net positive for my POV: if I can get drop products cheaper than importing them from the US, and they keep being decent, that’s a net win.

I’d they cost too much and / or their quality drops, it’s the same as usual.

Hopefully Corsair will leave the drop team so their own thing.

People usually recommend Linux mint or some Ubuntu version. I recommend neither.

Ubuntu is a proprietary-solution-ridden piece of hot garbage that tries to hinders what you do at any chance. I use it daily for work, unfortunately.

It’s been a few years since I tried mint. It looked good and felt nice for the first few hours, after that I don’t remember what happened, it was maybe lack of configurabilità or lack of support, but I noped out very quickly and I just remember that my thoughts were “never again”.

I never tried it, but it looks like Pop!_OS might be the thing to look out for in this space.

Besides that, know that Linux is different from windows starting from its very philosophy. Keep an open mind, it can be a confusing journey for a beginner (which is why I am holding back about telling you about the many possibilities).

One thing to keep in mind is that some software that you were used to will not be available, and that you might need to look for alternatives. But as far as the things you mentioned go, these are my recommendations:

• browser: Firefox
• gaming: steam
• streaming: OBS