Was going to say, what will happen next month is he will be broke.

I’m hoping they were able to secure a bulk RAM order ahead of time, and if not, maybe delay it until they do.

That is one of the really nice things about the Steam Deck. It gives companies something to target. And once you have a Steam Deck app, well, you already have a Linux app, might as well release it as such.

The Steam Machine will do the same thing.

Yeah, if Taiwan is ever invaded, having US-based fabs will be crucial for world supply. Absolutely want to see Intel survive and TSMC continue to build factories here.

Nothing would say ‘get fucked’ like Intel going belly up and Taiwan exploding. The supply of any new computer parts would be a dumpster fire for years.

Yep. Intel sat on their asses for a decade pushing quad cores one has to pay extra to even overclock.

Then AMD implements chiplets, comes out with affordable 6, 8, 12, and 16 core desktop processors with unlocked multipliers, hyperthreading built into almost every model, and strong performance. All of this while also not sucking down power like Intel’s chips still do.

Intel cached in their lead by not investing in themselves and instead pushing the same tired crap year after year onto consumers.

Might be worth looking into a PiHole. One of the nice features is the white lists. So even if a list you are subscribed to is blocking something you need, you can still allow it specifically.

And/or run adblockers on each device individually. I actually do both, as the on-device blockers don’t get things like Windows telemetry. (Thank god the only Windows machine on my network anymore is my work laptop.)

What is disto?

A distro is the variant of linux you choose. Some are optimized for servers, some are optimized for general desktop use.

For beginners, Linux Mint is where I would suggest starting. It feels familiar to a Windows user and is specifically designed to be beginner friendly.

There is a detailed install guide here. But the short version is:

1. Download the iso

2. Put the iso on a USB drive

3. Boot to the USB drive

4. Click next a bunch on the installer. If you don’t have anything on the computer already, choose to have it wipe the drive and install Mint as the only OS. That greatly simplifies things.

Stop being a dick to OP. If you don’t have anything nice to say, you don’t have to say anything at all.

I cannot agree more with what you said, but I was giftee, not the gifter.

That makes things even simpler. You hate Windows, put what you want on it. You can’t change that it came with Windows, but you can change what it has tomorrow.

the current computer repairperson said he only does Windows

I would find a different computer repairman. That said, Frameworks are also quite repairable (that is kinda their whole thing). It’s an excellent system to get started with learning computer stuff yourself. Fixing your problems as you come across them is a great way to learn.

What’s the specific problem you are having with it? We could point you in the right direction.

Any computer repair shop worth their salt can fix a computer regardless of OS. After all, 90% of computer repair is searching for stuff on the internet.

When you give a gift, just make sure it’s using what you think they would most want. If they would benefit most from Linux, give them Linux. If they would benefit most from Windows, give them Windows.

I have had good experiences with ASRock boards. But I would say check out used sources like ebay. Should be a bunch of good AM4 boards for not a ton of money.

It wouldn’t sadden me in the least if video cards would stop shipping with RT cores. I would rather that go to more raster cores so every game can benefit from the performance boost.

MacOS getting a little side action, too.

Smarter Every Day actually made an in-person presentation to NASA stating the same thing with a crapload more detail.

Gives you more comparability on pen drives, too. Lots of people probably have a 8gb stick lying around, people are somewhat less likely to have a bigger one.

Microsoft itself, in fact, declared that all PCs will be AI PCs

It’s funny that Microsoft intended for this to be a marketing boon, but many users read it as a threat.

‘This is my hole’

Yeah, forwarding a port to a server with SFTP allows you both to have two-way links. Have done this with some of my friends as well.

Sneakernet via a HDD is also damn helpful for initial bulk transfers.

That’s great to hear!

And what about Linux?

Every distro has supported 64-bit programs for the last decade. Why aren’t you able to run 64-bit programs?