Let's hope places like Lemmy stay relevant, vivid and slop-proof.

programs

Consider being more explicit about what you want/need. Some programs work great with wine and others have never.

The article unfortunately does a horrendous job at highlighting AerynOS' unique features by only giving vague descriptions without going into any technicality that matters.

FWIW, my two cents on AerynOS:

• It offers (yet) a(nother) novel approach to atomic distros. The gist for its ambition (or, at least, my understanding of it) would be NixOS, but with FHS intact and without a DSL.

The article unfortunately does a horrendous job at highlighting AerynOS' unique features by only giving vague descriptions without going into any technicality that matters.

FWIW, my two cents on AerynOS:

• It offers (yet) a(nother) novel approach to atomic distros. The gist for its ambition (or, at least, my understanding of it) would be NixOS, but with FHS intact and without a DSL.

There are already many good answers in the comments, so I don't feel the need to add much to it. But perhaps the following is worth mentioning:

• Fedora has got enough agency to continue efforts in what has been abandoned by Red Hat. Or, vice versa.
  • For example: it has continued to offer Btrfs as the default file system, while Red Hat has long since deprecated it.
  • Or, conversely, Red Hat has big plans for bootc. And while Fedora has done a decent job with Fedora Atomic, it certainly does not enjoy the resources and commitment it deserves; a pretty bad regression for (at least one of) the Fedora Atomic images was not considered a blocker for one of the more recent major release updates. Heck, it has become so bad that even the likes of both CentOS Stream and GNOME OS have shown to be more receptive when it comes to addressing problems and whatnot.
• It has been pointed out that Fedora would probably not survive in the event that Red Hat would cease 'its support'.

Freedom, it's that simple. Any other reason is a derivative of said freedom.

Does anyone happen to know the state of Wayland on Linux Mint?

Domain-Specific Language. In the context of NixOS, that would be the Nix language.

Vague statement. Please, fam; either be more explicit from the get-go. Or, engage with the comment section.

I suppose you meant the piracy that involves games and/or software. FWIW, I'd be more than happy to elaborate if you could clarify.

In the now up-to-date README.md we find the following line:

A couple of privacy-related patches not built elsewhere

Cool. But..., could you name those explicitly?

Mullvad Browser is also based on Firefox ESR and is the product of a joint development involving both Mullvad and the Tor Project. Could you please explain why anyone should consider Konform Browser over it?

Ah..., the conundrums of subjective morality.

I'm obviously not an expert. But, from what I can tell, the scene seems quite healthy. And I don't see a reason why it wouldn't thrive further. Especially as the Linux market share is in the lift. Anti-cheat shenanigans are a lot more concerning. Though, I'm optimistic that Valve is actively making progress on that front.

Btw, just as an FYI: I know people that were more interested in software piracy. But I digress...

Did you try rpm-ostree reset ?

EDIT: The solution provided above 'could' perhaps work, but perhaps it's way too radical of a solution 😅 ..., so I understand if you don't wanna go down that route. Instead, consider

sudo cp -a /usr/etc/containers/policy.json /etc/containers

as per this comment on github.

I agree with this in general. But, I'd like to add that well-supported hardware (like a ThinkPad) may do equally well on Linux and perhaps even better.

Thanks! I wonder who will reach the finish line first between Cinnamon and Xfce.

Glad to help out 😊!

Thankfully the model forces upon the system to keep a pristine copy around. Which enabled us to fix this rather easy :P .

The way you present "immutable distros" make them look like state-of-the-art stateless systems (a la NixOS with the impermanence module).

As much as I'd wish (so-called) immutable distros were like that, almost none of them actually are^[It's basically the aforementioned NixOS. And, even then, only if you've set it up like that. Guix System might offer it as well, but I couldn't verify it the last time I looked into it.].

Fedora Atomic, which may or may not have surpassed NixOS in popularity by now, practically just locks down /usr. That's cute, but it means that the immutability doesn't prevent persistence of hardware in most of the filesystem.

Similarly, I could go over the other popular immutables to point out how their immutability doesn't do much to combat persistence. But I digress...

OP, I'll keep it short as you might have already moved on. Security on desktop Linux isn't great. The lack of widespread sandboxing is one of the main culprits. Good 'hygiene' should keep you safe. But, if you're (rightfully) more concerned, then I'd suggest looking into secureblue^[Note: this distro might be hard to get into if it's your first distro. Consider joining community channels for assistance.].

Yet another very lengthy comment. I hope you will find it worth reading.

Wow, that's very insightful. Thank you for the effort!

If you allow me, I wish to provide some feedback and -if applicable- give pointers on how some of that translates to Linux.

I’m closer to the average user than someone who has built a fortress.

That's probably true, but you're definitely upholding excellent practices. Most people I know don't even practice a fraction of that 😅. So mad props for that!

FWIW, I will assume for now that you haven't delved into Windows Registry (or stuff like HotCakeX) for the sake of hardening. Which, to be clear, is absolutely fine. But is worth noting for the eventual mapping to a suitable distro.

I use Firefox with ublock, ghostery, and privacy badger. I use the free tier of proton vpn.

You can just continue doing these.

I run avast daily and malwarebytes weekly.

Unfortunately, I'm not aware on how we would translate this responsibly. This could be on me, though. Granted, the situation on Linux is different from how it is at Windows. Anyhow, as a non-expert, the furthest I came would boil down to:

• ClamAV as the first layer of reactive anti-malware. AFAIK, this is your only free^[To be clear, it seemed to me that you would prefer this. Which is why I specifically targeted gratis options. But please let me know if you're willing to shell out.] option for real time protection^[Note that this might not be setup correctly OOTB. Consider checking out this entry within its documentation.].
• Unfortunately, ClamAV is plagued by a tendency to output many false positives. Perhaps even moreso than most of its kind^[This is actually widely reported. See e.g. this reddit thread or see this discussion on the Linux Mint forum]. So, you'd naturally want a second opinion to verify its claims. Which, often comes in the form of relegating it to something more accurate. Enter VirusTotal. If this only happens occasionally, then the web app might suffice. But feel free to look into Lenspect for a dedicated app with a GUI, that functionally does the same. Or, if you're more interested in ease^[Labeling a terminal-based tool as the easier option might seem counter intuitive at first, but makes sense when you notice that it can scan folders. Which, makes it possible to move all flagged files (by ClamAV or otherwise) to a folder in which they can all be scanned in one go] of use and/or function, the more powerful VirusTotal CLI.
• As for your weekly Malwarebytes, a couple of options do exist, but it's questionable to what degree they're effective. Though, there's somewhat of an exception: Kaspersky's Virus Removal Tool for Linux (KVRT) is pretty legit. But I would only recommend that if you trust Kaspersky (or, rather, trust that they're not compromised due to politics).

I think that I should already be close to best practices but I’m not sure how changing OS will affect that.

It will 😜. Look into the others comments for a healthy amount of pointers on this.

I’m not really worried about being targeted for anything.

I'm glad to hear that. It would otherwise complicate things a lot.

I don’t think that I really do much risky beyond the occasional torrent or downloading a patch for a game.

You should be fine as long as they're from trusted sources.

I get games primarily from gog

Unrelated to the rest of my commentary, but this is an excellent choice! You got great taste.

don’t open strange emails or click strange links, and use a password manager to generate secure passwords

Keep this up 👍.

One of the things that I’m most unsure about is keeping everything updated. Microsoft manages keeping everything updated for the most part on Windows

So, the gist is that as long as you're installing stuff from a repository, then upgrading your whole system should be a pretty straightforward, streamlined and seamless experience. Heck, it can even be automated if you want. The following is worth pointing out, though:

• If your notion of "updated" means that the latest ('stable'^[This can sometimes be a convoluted term as it means different things depending on the context. Here, I use it to mean production-ready as per the developer of said software.]) release is found on your system, then this will affect your choice of distro. By contrast, there are distros that update in leaps. So, instead of going from versions 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 5 -> 6 -> 7 -> 8 (and so on, and so forth) , it does 1 (long pause^[In which it basically freezes and skips any version in between. Security updates are backported, though. So, you're not necessarily unsafe/insecure and/or at risk.]) -> 3 (long pause) -> 6 (long pause) (and so on, and so forth).
• Automated background updates do exist, but I'd only recommend those on systems that do that OOTB. If however, you're fine with (or perhaps even prefer) pressing a button after a prompt for updates, then note that that's more widely available.

and the last time I needed to find a driver anywhere except from Microsoft it came on a 3.5" floppy.

So, if that was your experience on Windows, then I'm somewhat optimistic that you'd be more than fine on Linux. FWIW, drivers and whatnot are mostly found within the Linux kernel itself. Thus, making Linux a very smooth experience; your drivers simply receive the updates whenever an update to the kernel has been applied. Though, while rare, exceptions do exist. And they're quite notorious:

• Nvidia used to be pretty bad in this regard, probably the result of a bad relationship. But, it has become a lot better in recent years. Still, I would recommend a distro that specifically handles Nvidia updates (about) as gracefully as they come. So, please mention it if you're on Nvidia.
• Broadcom's wireless drivers. Tough luck. Thankfully, some distros have put in significant efforts to make this work. So, again, the specific distro could matter.
• There are perhaps others, but these were the first that came to my mind.

I use my computer primarily for single player gaming, discord, and fediverse sites. I need a spreadsheet and word processer, I use open office for that right now.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Most of those translate pretty easily to Linux:

• single player gaming -> For GOG specifically, there's Minigalaxy. But Heroic Games Launcher also supports GOG very well and can do more beyond that.
• discord -> If you're fine with how it works within a browser, then you're all set. If you desire an official app, then the one provided on Flathub is your best option. However, the Flatpak format is known to have the capacity to cause 'issues'^[Many reasons exists for this, but an oversimplification -for the sake of brevity- would be due to its improved security.] with otherwise well-functioning software. So, alternatively, you may install it from your distro's repository.
• fediverse sites -> Firefox is included in many distros, so you should be good to go OOTB.
• open office -> I wasn't expecting this, but only some Linux distros have continued to include it within their respective repos. The absence of Debian, Fedora and openSUSE is quite telling. Granted, Apache has continued to create .deb and .rpm install files, so nothing's actually preventing you from installing it. FWIW, if you're not necessarily tied to OpenOffice, then perhaps the likes of LibreOffice (and many others) are worth mentioning.

I do financial and work related things on a different device.

Good job on compartmentalizing your activities across multiple devices!

Fam, as this has become an absolute unit of a comment, please feel free to dismiss as you feel like and only engage with the parts you want. If you've come this far, then I'd like to express my appreciation: Thank you!

Not the one you asked, but here's my two cents.

Arch, by virtue of its DIY nature, has little to no defaults. As such, common security measures are not pre-configured either. Thankfully, it makes up for that with its excellent wiki entry on security. Unfortunately, I don't think most users ever seriously implement what's found within.

As for Debian, it actually does come with plenty of relatively sane defaults, including security. And Debian has shown to take security rather seriously. However, (most) Debian repositories are not great at providing up-to-date versions of the software they package:

• The stable branch has outdated packages for the sake of providing a 'boring' (but reliable) experience. While security updates are backported, it is not the preferred way of keeping software safe and secure.
• The testing branch is in a disturbing condition in which it holds software that is a bit more stable than the unstable branch. However, it does not enjoy the security updates backported to the stable branch. Nor does it immediately receive the security updates as they come to the unstable branch. A rather unsettling middle ground, if you will. Definitely not recommended for the security-conscious.
• Finally, the unstable branch. Intuitively, this should provide the fix for the above problems. It should provide current software, which should mean that it receives updates as they're released, security included. But, anecdotally, the likes of Arch, Fedora and openSUSE seem to be doing a better job at offering a (semi-)rolling release distro. But, please be my guest, and prove them wrong.