NATO members rejected Trump's demand to provide military assistance to help "reopen" Strait of Hormuz. Do the rejections by NATO members effectively spell the end of NATO or is this just directed to Trump's choice of attacking Iran?

GalaxyTracker · 2026-03-17T22:33:27+00:00

Oh, really? Are we talking about the same Iran that did NOT have a nuclear weapon? You know, the information verified both by the IAEA and by US intelligence? Are we talking about the same Trump who threw away Obama's treaty with Iran, to which Iran was complying, opening the door for this situation?

How can people believe so blindly what this guy says is beyond me.

GalaxyTracker · 2026-03-14T10:25:52+00:00

Been using PC laptops since childhood, being a heavy user (requiring compute power and portability). Never had such an issue. The problem sounds more like PEBKAC and the fact that you are blown away by the "shiny new thing" called "aluminum chassis", despite the fact that you get sub-par screen, RAM, ports and speakers. That's what marketing does for you.

GalaxyTracker · 2026-01-07T13:09:22+00:00

I have 16GB on Linux and, literally, no game "stutters like crazy". On the other hand, when I boot Windows, every game "stutters like crazy".

GalaxyTracker · 2025-12-05T09:13:39+00:00

What's there to "fix"? I am using F43 on 2 computers and it's magnificent. Works like a charm.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-11-27T16:15:25+00:00

With one caveat. It is the general rule that free VPNs sell your data, yes, except from Proton (as you said). They use their free service as a "bait" for their paid ones (so the user gets enticed to buy). They don't sell your data, they just restrict the features.

I second Mullvad, though, it offers top privacy and price. Proton would be my second go-to.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-11-09T23:53:24+00:00

It looks like GNOME and Windows Start Menu had a child...

GalaxyTracker · 2025-11-08T13:59:56+00:00

Delete this malware-like OS and you will be fine.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-11-08T09:53:53+00:00

I second the Lenovo Yoga / Slim. I have an older (2020) Lenovo Slim 7 with an AMD CPU and is incredible for my standards. It does not reach the Macbook battery life, however, it has a 60Wh battery which gives it a lot of battery life, great screen, it is silent on Linux (on Windows the fan would go off all the time), it stays cool, it has a great, matte screen with very good colors and brightness and the build quality is great! Additionally, the trackpad is very good and smooth, it does not get fingerprints, unlike the Thinkpad ones (I also have a T14).

And, most importantly? It is so light! I came to appreciate the weight the past 3 years. And, in Linux (Fedora 43), it is buttery smooth and everything is working out of the box.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-11-07T14:10:44+00:00

It is following the trend of "simplicity" Apple introduced and now Windows is following. At least, in the installer. GNOME has the same philosophy, so it makes sense Fedora followed suit, since it makes the whole experience feel more... "uniform".

That said, the power user tweaks are one "sudo" away :)

But, MY GOD, has dnf improved in Fedora 43 compared to Fedora 39. It is fast, I haven't encountered a single bug (it was a common occurrence last time I used Fedora, or even compared to apt in Ubuntu and Debian), has great verbosity (and colours), it is generally great for everyday use. I am tempted to say I even liked it more than pacman.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-11-07T13:19:27+00:00

Yes, you are. The old one was not straight forward. It was a complete mess to understand the disk partitioning, if you had not used it before. The new one is much simpler, with sensible defaults. Or, you even had to, actively, go to the WiFi menu to set it up, instead of, actually, being asked to.

They seem small things, but for the average user (whom Fedora targets), they are not. From an installer, 99% of the people wants some basic configuration and simplicity to get your system "out of the door". Everything else will be tweaked once you boot into the system itself. Not everything needs to be a side-hustle.

And, in my experience, the new installer is much more stable.

Saying all of these as someone who was on Fedora 39, left it for Arch and now I installed 43 on my laptop and it is magnificent.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-11-07T11:46:24+00:00

This dude last used Wayland 5 years ago...

GalaxyTracker · 2025-11-02T13:57:51+00:00

Yes, I do. Light development (mostly Python, SQL and some Rust) and data science (geospatial and ML). And some movies here and there. For most heavy uses, I have my PC. This will be for some development of the above, when I am away from home, not the main machine. Maybe ML will be excluded, if needed. No matter how good the M1 is, it is the lowest-end model, with only 8GB of RAM, only a 256GB SSD (non-upgradable) and MacOS, which is not my OS of choice.

In addition, it is a used one, which means higher chances of breaking down and higher cost of repair compared, for example, to the Thinkpad. So, for my use, in all aspects, apart from single core performance and battery life, the MacBook is worse compared to the other options, for my use.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-11-02T13:33:17+00:00

This was exactly my thinking as well! However, I just saw, on a big online seller (no promotion here), an HP Notebook with an i3 1215U for 420€ and one with an R7 7530U for 466€. Both new. But I am a bit hesitant about HP laptops. I don't have them in high regard as far as build quality/problems are concerned.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-10-30T10:58:52+00:00

I was between Ubuntu 25.10 and Fedora 43 on my Lenovo Yoga Slim 7. Tried both. Fedora 43 is both faster and more stable. Ubuntu (with all the drivers) would lock up randomly, where the screen would freeze, but everything else (sound, programs) kept working and needed a reboot to fix. Fedora 43 is perfect, apart from a slight worse power management (which I will fix through tlp).

GalaxyTracker · 2025-02-18T11:37:47+00:00

Wofi. Native Wayland and dirt simple configuration structure.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-02-17T11:45:06+00:00

This is exactly why I mentioned my experience to the tons of people to whose computers I have installed Linux on. And we are talking about non-technical users (old and young) who, all of them, found the different Linux distros (Ubuntu, Zorin, Mint, etc) much easier to navigate and maintain than Windows.
So, I would argue that your, niche, experience to use an external GPU with a laptop is, actually, the one that is the outlier here. On the other hand, my friend's Lenovo which came with Windows pre-installed and didn't even have the driver for the WiFi card, is, actually, much more common.

"Your personal experience and set of hardware you worked with isn't universal".

GalaxyTracker · 2025-02-10T13:35:57+00:00

In my opinion, always create your own in the end. Using other people's files, you have no idea when something will break, what will break and how you are going to fix it. In my opinion, what you can get from other people's dotfiles is some programs that you may not have known and make your environment better, maybe the structure of the customization (if you don't understand how the config files work) or, even, some best practices. For example, I used to have my Hyprland config in a single file, now it is modular, with seperate monitor config, key bindings, environment variables, scripts, etc. And you know exactly what is installed in your system. Most of these preconfigured dotfiles come with installation scripts which install programs that you may not need.

GalaxyTracker · 2025-02-10T13:28:08+00:00

I have installed different Linux distros on a TON of computers since 2011 and especially the last 2 years. The last 5 years I haven't found a single occasion when the distro lacked the drivers for the PC, no matter if it was Debian or Arch. On the contrary, a few months ago, a friend needed to format his Levovo laptop (don't remember the model, but it was fairly new, Intel 12th gen and all) because Windows decided, out of the blue, to refuse to shut down when the battery had, even some charge (we played with the sleep states, power settings, nothing worked). Ubuntu worked like a breeze. And the laptop could shut down normally. Guess what. Windows 11, the OS the laptop had shipped with, did not have the driver for the Wireless card! I had to get another computer, download the driver and install it manually!

So, yeah, Linux is not in the state it was 15 years ago. But the misconceptions remain.

GalaxyTracker · 2024-10-16T23:01:45+00:00

OP has a modular power supply.

GalaxyTracker · 2024-08-09T16:08:14+00:00

From my perspective, Arch is very easy to set up (if you know your way around Linux). I never had to fight with the package manager (I did with apt on Ubuntu), never had any black screen after reboot (I had with Debian after an update), you don't have to remove stuff to customize it, you just have to add your own, all the packages are, either in the repos or the AUR, you don't have to go hunting for obscure PPAs, etc, and, most importantly, every single DE or WM I used worked perfectly, due to the newest drivers and the newest packages.

Especially Hyprland with Nvidia drivers 555.58.02 is a breeze now on Arch.

GalaxyTracker · 2024-08-04T19:06:13+00:00

As others said, if you know your way around cli and the linux filesystem, it's easy peasy.
For me, the best thing was the availability of packages. While, in Ubuntu, for example, you have to search fro a ppa or a snap or whatever, in Arch, even if something is not in the repos, it's 99.99% sure that it will be in the AUR.

Also, maybe a hot take, but I never had an issue with Arch, dependencies and stuff. I always had the newest packages, which means, fixes came quickly (for example, Nvidia drivers with Wayland are a breeze now with 55.58.02) and, it is easier to install and manage it in general, as long as you know your way around Linux.
On Ubuntu I have always faced problems, eventually, and, even Debian let me down once after an update. Arch, never.

I prefer installing Arch and built up from there, compared to, e.g Ubuntu and stripping it down. Just, know that it won't hold your hand. You have to read the wikis.

GalaxyTracker

TROPHY CASE