You couldn’t be more wrong here, my Arch install has been my daily driver for years, and it’s sitting at a grand total of 846 packages. No reinstall. No avalanche of dependencies. No mythical fleet of 7,000 half-assembled cars in the garage. You don’t need to bolt on a crap-ton of packages just to get a working system…

Everyone has to start somewhere…

Hard to say, but I’d say no…

Sometime around 2004, I somehow managed to get a friend to try Linux. They spent an entire weekend compiling a custom kernel just to run some experimental beta driver that might have made Doom 3 somewhat playable on their system. Everything compiled just fine, but whenever they booted up the system, they discovered they had forgotten to re-enable sound support. A recompile fixed that, but performance wasn’t what they were expecting. I think they got like 15fps or something like that. After a few weeks of using Linux they reinstalled win-xp…

I still use X11 & will continue to do so for as long as possible. Wayland’s not bad, X11 just seems to works better…

That is so awesome… Please never change…

Always great to see more people curious about Linux, especially when the motivation is escaping ms-bullshit…

If she wants something that just works but still feels polished and professional, I’d actually give openSUSE a look. Leap is rock-solid and perfect for people who want a stable system that behaves consistently and doesn’t demand much maintenance. Tumbleweed, on the other hand, is rolling release, so it’s always up to date but still surprisingly reliable thanks to openSUSE’s testing process.

Both use YaST, which is one of the best control panels in the Linux world. You can do a lot with YaST, like manage users, partitions, updates, drivers, and networking all from one place without ever touching the terminal.

Mint is also a fine choice as well…

I get what you mean. The openness invites possibility, but for a lot of us can feel limiting when we can’t build the missing things ourselves…

I don’t really see any of these as deal breakers, because I think the state of Linux phones in 2025 isn’t about being “finished” or “perfect,” it’s about being part of a bigger journey. Every limitation mentioned is just a reflection of where things stand right now, not anything permanent. What kinda excites me is that Linux phones are built around openness, community, and the freedom to adapt, qualities you don’t really get with mainstream options. Sure, there are missing features, rough edges, and some compromises, but none of that outweighs the value of having a device that puts you in control…

Personally for me Arch on my system has been more stable & faster than both Debian & Fedora…

Thanks for the follow-up & for sharing your experience. I suppose this kinda thing highlights one of the quiet strengths of the X11 approach… Simple tools like xwinwrap paired with mpv tend to be more lightweight and predictable, especially when you just want a looping video without the overhead. There’s something to be said for minimal scripts doing exactly what you need with no surprises…

I hadn’t come across mpvpaper before, so I decided to look it up. While it seems interesting, my initial impression is that it might be a bit more resource-intensive compared to what’s achievable on X11. On X11, you can set up a video wallpaper using mpv with surprisingly little effort and minimal code…

if pgrep mpv; then
    pkill mpv; else
    xwinwrap -ni -fs -s -st -sp -b -nf -- mpv --profile=wallpaper -wid %WID /home/furycd001/wallpapers/wallpaper.mp4
  fi

System service managers like systemd, OpenRC, runit, or SysVinit often come down to user preference. While these systems are crucial for initializing and managing services on servers, where uptime, resource allocation, and specific daemon behaviors are important, their impact on a typical desktop or laptop is generally minimal.

For most personal devices, the primary functions of a service manager occur largely out of sight. As long as the system boots reliably and applications run smoothly, the underlying service manager rarely registers as a significant factor in the daily user experience.

For many, including myself, systemd simply works without much fuss. My choice to stick with it isn’t due to strong conviction or deep technical analysis, but rather the simple fact that I’ve rarely, if ever, had to interact with it directly. For my personal desktop and laptop, it reliably handles booting, service management, and shutdown in the background. If it’s not broken and isn’t hindering my daily computing, there’s no compelling reason to explore alternatives.

Wholesome post •^~•

I remember many years ago, someone did this with xterm, and someone else later got it working with urxvt…

M$ loves locking users into their totally bulls*it ecosystem with deliberately broken “standards.” LibreOffice, on the other hand, actually respects open formats like ODF and doesn’t treat interoperability as a threat. Word still can’t properly open documents it didn’t create, unless you pay the vendor tax and pray the formatting survives…

Worging?

If a program insists on Windows, it is instantly deemed incompatible with my operating parameters and fails my system requirements…

I have added “Piss on carpet” to my email signature…
We need to make this a thing !!

Personally never tried to do that myself, but I’m pretty sure its doable…