I’d say play with Linux in Virtualbox or Hyper-V. I used the former before transitioning.

Also, I’d say don’t use Ubuntu; it jumped the shark years ago and has lost much of its quality.

I usually recommend PopOS for people new to Linux, as I find it to basically be decrapitated Ubuntu.

I don’t personally use openSuSe (I’m a big Debian/XFCE guy), but its YaST settings are more comprehensive than other distros.

However, I would warn you you might not be able to avoid config files and terminal sometimes, though. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, though; sometimes, the terminal and text files are the most efficient way to do something and a GUI simply can’t expose a program’s full power. That’s why I recommend you starting in a VM - you can have a bit of fun without the full commitment.

As for ffmpeg, I don’t know that there is a good GUI. Honestly, though, learning command line ffmpeg isn’t the worst idea - I’ve found it very useful and something I got used to. If that doesn’t work for you, then best of luck finding a GUI.

For trying to run applications designed for a different distro, you could use distrobox. However, it’s pretty rare these days that an application doesn’t have a universal Flatpak. Honestly, if an application is deliberately limited to one distro, I find it isn’t worth it and may signal low software quality.

For notepad++, you could use something like VSCodium, but honestly, if you’re used to Notepad++, just run it under Wine.

For virtualization, don’t use Virtualbox on Linux. It doesn’t use the built in hypervisor module, KVM, but its own proprietary one. I’d recommend the Virt Manager GUI instead.

Most distros seem to have OpenSnitch in their repos.

I found a prebuilt OpenCore for KVM. https://github.com/thenickdude/KVM-Opencore

I then changed the config.plist to make it think it was a 2019 Mac Pro.

And that’s why there’s a “-2” on the end of that arch vm - there was one before that I borked while trying to update it because I hadn’t used it in so long.

It’s a terabyte SSD. I’ve currently got 136 GB left on it. I think part of it might be they’re auto-expanding qcow2 images, so they don’t actually take up the full space provisioned for them.

10, plain 11, 7, and funny enough, Server 2022 are all legit licenses (I can get a key for server through my university). Actually, I’m pretty sure the 11 one, I upgraded a Windows 7 VM to 10, then to 11.

Every other Windows version that needs it (11 LTSC, 8.1, and Vista), I just temporarily host a phony KMS server whenever it needs to be reactivated.

I apologize for talking so much about Windows on a Linux sub. May Stallman break into my house and give me 10 lashes as I slumber.

Insert vaguely relevant Xkcd:

Does the BIOS have a way to factory reset itself?

Could it be a Secure Boot issue? From what I can tell, this is roughly a late Windows 8.1 era machine, and I think Microsoft already required OEMs to have Secure Boot around this time; I have a 6th gen Intel laptop (don’t know about 5th gen, which I think this laptop has) with TPM 1.2. Lots of laptops are big jerks about this, and sometimes you have to disable it at least until you allow non-Microsoft Keys.

Also, can you change the title of your post? I feel like it doesn’t convey what you’re actually asking and sort of scares people away from wanting to respond to you. Maybe something more like “Tablet Boots to Black Screen After Attempted Debian Install?”

I’m guessing that the 7 or 8.1/10 thing is probably to select between legacy BIOS CSM or UEFI. What is it set to right now? Maybe try playing with that.

I may have misconveyed my meaning. I wasn’t necessarily arguing that systemd has no viable alternatives. I meant to say that where systemd doesn’t work (embedded systems being a good example), chances are the lack of support won’t be a burden for a reasonably skilled user.

Honestly, it’s 2024, and as a result, this post gives me a bit of a chuckle. For most purposes, systemd has won, and honestly, I hardly even notice. (Granted, I have only used Linux during the systemd era.) If systemd actually interferes with one’s needs on a technological (not just a vague philosophical) level, little stops them from seeking out a way to use another init system.

Has it gotten more difficult to use other init systems these days? Yes. However, by the time a person has a problem where systemd can’t do the job and have to use a different init system, they’re probably more than competent enough to create custom services. I also feel like in terms of software support, only the most idiotic, worthless projects have no possible way to port hem to another init system.

I’m pretty sure some basic stuff is running on the Windows Dev Kit 2023 (no thanks to Qualcomm), which is very similar. See https://www.phoronix.com/news/Windows-Dev-Kit-2023-Linux

I wonder if the endgame for getting Linux running on these freakasauruses is not to create a custom UEFI firmware for each laptop that could abstract away the differences between each laptop with an ACPI API, rather that modifying the kernel itself.

It sounds daunting, but people have done it for the Raspberry Pi before. I don’t think it runs as actual firmware on the device - I think it’s just an ARM binary that could then execute and provide abstraction for a bootloader.

There are difficulties with that, obviously. For one, the Raspberry Pi is one hardware platform, and a Broadcom-based one at that. Still, I can’t imagine that you’d have to redo everything from scratch on every platform; it’d basically just be something like a device tree to define the ACPI info built into every firmware build variant. If this idea worked, people could just have an environment to install an operating system on that is almost like a normal UEFI PC but with ARM.

Truth be told though, I kind of wish Ampere would get more into the consumer space; I feel like they have the least insane configuration of almost any ARM device, being users of UEFI. I don’t know if they could viably scale down from their 192 core beasts, though. Now that BNL song is going through my head. “If I had a million dollars, I’d buy an Ampere workstation; a power-hungry ARM beast.”

Honestly, no. I just use direct apt commands on my Debian installs for native stuff, assuming I even use the shell for that; sometimes, if it’s not a complex update that’s going to hold back 1.0*10⁶ packages, I just use Synaptic or Package Updater, frankly, as one of those is what I have my XFCE Package Update Indicator set to use on any machine I use frequently and it’s convenient sometimes.

As for Flatpaks, I just run the flatpak update command whenever I feel bored. I wish Warehouse GUI supported updating, just because I find it really weird that’s excluded from an otherwise pretty slick application that gets rid of me having to muck through the Flathub.

I don’t write Rust code at the moment, and as for Python, I’m either using the Debian version of Python packages or scattered venvs that follow a de facto standard for Python developers: “What’s an update?”

Having used the same Testing install since early 2022, I’d say it’s not too bad. Stability-wise, I only have a major problem once a year.

Eventually, you get tired of having to switch to Flatpaks while packages transition. I’ll either stay on Trixie when it goes to stable or reinstall. It’s still an ext4 system and I want something different, as stable as ext4 is. I’ve been using btrfs on my new laptop for about a month and have been happy.

Honestly, in the age of Flatpaks, stable Debian is fine for most people in my opinion.

I like CoreCtrl. I don’t know how well it works with Intel and Nvidia, but it’s great on my AMD Thinkpad and desktop.

Nice thing is it’s in most distros’ repos these days.

I haven’t researched this (I don’t have kids), but out of curiosity, what type of mobile device is your daughter using? Also, I think PiHole is a solid recommendation like others recommend.

Otherwise, from a quick Google, I don’t know of anything that can integrate both Linux PC and mobile phone screen time. Honestly, this sounds like a fun project I could implement someday if I ever had the will. However, for right now, in terms of screen time all I can think of is reading system logs (perhaps via SSH) to manually analyze your daughter’s screen time.

ROCm is basically AMD’s GPU compute system, like CUDA but worse but better because the card is actually usable for desktop stuff.

However, they only support it on specific distros, and they’re really weird about what cards they support. This should be changing soon - Debian’s been working on packaging it natively, and I think so has Fedora.

Assuming you have a free PCIe slot, maybe just buy a PCIe USB card to use instead of what seems to be a faulty AMD USB controller.

I agree with you on the 580, although I got mine new and use it with 2 1080P monitors. I do wonder if ROCm works any better on newer cards, but I don’t have my hopes up.

Honestly, just play with Linux in a VM for a while.

For your sanity, I have several recommendations:

• Linux has a central location to install apps called package repositories. Those packages are well-tested and tend to be extremely safe, so try to install from there first.
• Sometimes, apps aren’t available from the main package repository, so you have to source them from elsewhere. To avoid some of the fear, you can try using a thing called Flathub. I won’t go into all the intricacies of how it works or why it exists, but suffice it to say, some of the apps there have a verification checkmark.
• Also, when installing an app, research it online and find the Git(hub/lab/ea) repository. Start by checking if it’s under an open source license like GPL, BSD, or MIT. Although not a sure thing (like the XZ incident, which was an isolated incident), half the time if it’s under one of those FOSS licenses means the app is legit. In addition, check to make sure the source code is actually there- repos with just an executable file and a readme telling you to buy something are red flags.
• Finally, don’t go running random commands online without first researching what it does (with manpages or the like).

I would recommend Googling the following and reading about these:

• Linux directory structure
• Linux package managers