FYI Don’t use this command. I think it was intended as a joke, but I just want to clarify.

Fun fact: you didn’t have to reinstall; you can actually boot up a live usb and chroot into your install to fix things.

That is kind of awesome.

I wish Debian’s default Grub theme was less ugly; I know I could change it (and I have on other installs, but I’m quite lazy about theming these days. Part of it is I have a laptop that I rely on for college and don’t want to risk any theme glitches, so I keep its Debian install as vanilla as possible.

Most browsers support it, but most web apps, including some Google Suite stuff ironically, don’t support uploading a webp.

Rubbing alcohol and a microfiber cloth.

Also, I feel like I’ve had good luck with k3b, though mainly for CDs.

As for drives, as others have said, USB ones tend to be janky; go for an internal. I like my LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray drive.

If it’s a desktop, it should be easy to hook up with SATA, though if you have a newer case, you might need to dangle a cable out the side like I do.

If you have a laptop, though, you’ll probably need a USB adapter, though there might be a hack using an M.2 slot to hook up an SATA PCI-E card.

Honestly, even those don’t run that horrid for me when I have to use them.

Did you restart the computer after the upgrade and before reinstalling third party repo packages?

The “half the programs not working” kind of sounds like you had packages compiled for a newer libc and the like but the newer libc wasn’t in memory yet because you hadn’t restarted.

May I ask how your Debian upgrades go wrong?

I mostly say so because I recently upgraded from 12 to 13 with almost no issues; the only issue was something with Apache that ended up being a quick fix. I followed the official Debian guide and temporarily remove third party repos and packages.

External drives? Usually on most distros and file managers, it’s just one click.

I have had a bit of a horrid time with Bluetooth, though, especially when it comes to audio. However, I will say Linux allows you to do some nuts things with Bluetooth like emulate a Nintendo Switch controller with NXBT, allowing you to use a PlayStation controller on a Switch with a spare laptop.

As for audio, I feel like life has gotten much better for the layman since Pipewire.

I don’t think VR setups are that common, and the Venn diagram of VR owners and Linux users has to be even smaller. I’ve probably only known 2 people who actually own a headset, and both of them were standalone Oculus affairs.

Overall, I feel like it’s possible to conceptually understand Linux and which config file is while, while Windows registry is an incomprehensible beast. Also, it feels like Linux tends to have better errors that correlate to a specific problem, whereas the same Windows error could be caused by many different things and lead you on a wild goose chase through forum posts filled with generic advice and dead ends.

This should just be working if it’s standard USB audio; I’d recommend just researching issues with USB headphones in general. Maybe also try another cable.

If nothing works, it looks like you can use a double 3.5mm cable on this model, which pretty much every large retailer with an electronics section should have.

If you don’t like bog standard Debian, you might really like Debian Testing.

It allows you to get decently new packages; I’d say typical lag is one week to a couple months depending on the popularity and/or complexity of the project.

I’ve been using it on my desktop for over three years just fine. It’s been quite stable while still getting new software versions in a mostly timely fashion.

Do note though that Testing means Testing; it’s not really concerned with being a rolling release distro, but with preparing for the next release, so there’s a few quirks:

• Sometimes, a package you’re using gets removed while its dependencies undergo a transition, forcing you to use the Flatpak.
• When a new stable release starts to get close (usually 6 months), they’ll start what’s called freezes, where they let in progressively less changes until release, after which things start speeding up again.
• As a general annoyance of anything rolling release-esque, software behavior may change over time, meaning a previously good config can suddenly break, and you have to fix it.

Personally, I’ve grown tired of Debian Testing and rolling release in general; while I still using Testing on my desktop, I’ve thrown Debian Stable on most things I’ve owned since then, and if I really need a newer version of software, I’ll just install the Flatpak or use a container.

Debian Stable. Get it installed, get everything working right and configured the way this person likes it on a reasonable DE with default themes, and more likely than not, you won’t have to touch this thing for years.

The setup’s not necessarily for noobs, but if you’re the one doing the setup, you should be able to get it into a place where it will pretty much never break for them.

You should probably give them KDE or GNOME (probably KDE, as it’s more Windows-like and less my way or the highway than Gnome). As much as I love XFCE, it’s probably a good idea to give a layman a feature-heavy DE so that nothing is likely to be missing; also, it’s way too easy to accidentally delete panel items or entire panels on accident and a little annoying to restore things back to the way they were. KDE’s panels implementation mitigates these issues.

Persistence should be near impossible; you most likely have a bad habit or other factor that makes you vulnerable. As others have said, check your router settings; make sure your router firmware is the latest to patch any vulnerabilities. Check devices on your network to make sure none are compromised.

My first guess, like others, is you’re doing something horribly wrong with your port forwarding, followed by you’re installing suspect software. Don’t go installing from random Github/Gitlab repositories without at least doing a bit of background research. Also, sometimes even legitimate open source projects get compromised. Ultimately, try to stick to the bare minimum, just stuff from the Debian repos, and see if it still happens.

If you still have the problem, then my last resort is to ask this (and this is really paranoid, hopefully an unlikely scenario for you): do you use your computer in a safe environment where only people you trust can access it?

I mostly ask because if not, maybe someone has physical access to your computer and is pulling an evil maid attack, installing the software when you’re not looking. Maybe it’s a jerk coworker. Maybe it’s a creepy landlord. A login password is not enough to defend against this; it may be possible for the attacker to boot off a USB stick and modify system files. The only way to prevent this is to reinstall and use full disk encryption, which I do on my laptop. You can try to use Secure Boot and TPM¹ to add further protection, but honestly, your attacker just sounds like some script kiddie and probably won’t perform a complex attack on your boot partiton.

1: Despite their obnoxious utilization by Microsoft, they can actually be quite useful to a Linux user, making it possible to set up auto-decryption on boot that doesn’t work if the boot partition has been tampered with (in which case you use a backup password).

Honestly, GIMP feels like it’s been getting rapidly more livable as a photo editor recently.

Like, I still wouldn’t call it suitable for professional use, but it’s been causing me noticeably less pain since they finally introduced some non-destructive editing.

I remember my 1st Surface Go’s microSD card reader being pretty good.

I think you’re mixing up Office 365 and Office Online.

Office 365 is a subscription for Microsoft Office that includes access to both the full, more powerful desktop Office applications and the much less powerful Office Online.

Though I don’t think it’s even called Office 365 anymore, but I don’t respect MS enough to bother to Google what they’re calling it now.

What model Thinkpad was it? Just curious.

Part of me wants to plug Thinkpad E16 as the cheapest new laptop you can get away with, but if the trackpad is the same one that drives you insane. Honestly, I don’t really care about the trackpad because I exclusively use Trackpoint.

Also, I would call the speakers mediocre, but honestly, I rarely listen to audio on my laptop, so they may be total crap.

FYI, 14” is sort of the new 13.3”. A lot of newer 14” laptops are the about size of an older 13.3” laptop, but just have less bezel.

Same situation as with 16” vs 15.6”.

All I was thinking about watching this video is “I wish they’d open a MicroCenter in Phoenix”; I’d had a blast visiting the Tustin location after seeing TMBG in LA this May.

I then googled it for fun and found out they announced they’re opening one a month ago! I checked national news to see if I was in some jolly alternate timeline (unfortunately, no) or dreaming, and it appears not.

The big 2⁵!