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to use as a media centre and multiplayer gaming system in my living room

Based on this, you're basically looking for the 'game console experience on your couch'. If that's the case, honestly you shouldn't look beyond^[1]^ Bazzite.

If, instead, you actually wanted to play retro games primarily, then please let us know.

1. While ChimeraOS and HoloISO also offer the 'game console experience', they don't support Nvidia GPUs. So you would be on your own at best; which would be a horrible experience for a new user. If you feel particularly adventurous, then Jovian-NixOS is actually another option. But arguably less newbie-friendly compared to Bazzite.

Ow wow, that's a lot! Unsure to what degree you've used them; but if you feel confident talking about (at least some of) them, would you be so kind to offer us a rundown of what you liked and didn't like? Thanks in advance!

Basically, you want to not disable kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone.

For a temporary solution that has to be redone after reboot, there is sysctl kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone=1.

For a lasting solution, consider echo kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone=1 | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/99-enable-unpriv-userns.conf.

In either case you're foregoing security for the sake of convenience/functionality, so I understand why you would rather not act upon either of them.

I don't know what the solution is that would be analogous to installing bubblewrap-suid. Perhaps, it's worth exploring the projects found within the github page of Awesome Fedora Security for some pointers.

I don't know by heart if it's able to do your bidding, but perhaps it's worth checking out penguins-eggs. I guess the following would be its elevator pitch:

"penguins-eggs is a console tool, under continuous development, that allows you to remaster your system and redistribute it as live images on usb sticks or via PXE.

The default behavior is total removal of the system's data and users, but it is also possible to remaster the system including the data and accounts of present users, using flag --clone. It is also possible to keep the users and files present under an encrypted LUKS file within the same resulting iso file, flag --cryptedclone.

You can easily install the resulting live system with the calamares installer or the internal TUI krill installer."

Well I guess I’m a Linux user now.

One of us! Welcome!

Gnome apparently doesn’t let you create desktop shortcuts unless you resort to command line.

GNOME is indeed very opinionated. Consider taking a look at any of the "Desktop Icons"-extensions on extensions.gnome.org. This enables one to engage with desktop shortcuts without opening a terminal.

Linux is NOT dumbed down enough for the average user yet.

Depends. I can't imagine how something like Endless OS could cause troubles to someone that only requires simple functionality (like e.g. their favorite web browser working etc) from their OS.

As a final note some Linux users push harder than crack dealers I’ve met.

Yes. We can be very enthusiastic at times 😅.

I do think that engaging with different desktop environments at this stage of your Linux journey might be very beneficial in the long run, but I can totally understand it if you'd like to settle down for (at least) a moment.

The link for uBlue didn't work for me. For those interested: uBlue

Not OP.

getting downvotes etc

That was mostly on the first day. OP was probably very frustrated and disappointed after their initial impression. The way the rant that followed afterwards was written didn't do them any favors 😅 and the downvotes that followed afterwards were therefore not very surprising...

I allredy forgot which distro worked for you

Pop!_OS

I hope to read more about OP's experiences with Linux and if they decide to stick with it. Let's hope we get updates on those soon 😉.

Understandable! Please consider coming back to this at some point (also possible in private) as I'm genuinely curious to hear from you.

Again an association is made between butt plugs and Arch users. I wonder if moving forward showing a collection of butt plugs will become the next "I use Arch, btw".

I disagree with most of the benefits you list

I'm curious to hear your objections.

chief among them “increased security”

Do you deny that specific protection to some attacks is provided through the chosen model of 'immutability' on at least one of the atomic distros?

not to mention half of them are already supported by traditional package managers

Hmm...,:

• atomicity; nope
• reproducibility =/= reproducible builds for some packages (if that's what you meant)
• declarative system configuration; ansible (and any other solution that I've witnessed being mentioned in such discussions) succeed (at best) at convergent system management, while e.g. NixOS does congruent system management by default. Consider taking a look at this page if you're interested in what these are and how they're different. (Spoiler alert) congruent is better and therefore more desirable.
• increased security; security is not limited to chosen model for 'immutability' if at all; as Qubes OS (read: most secure and private desktop OS) doesn't rely on it for its security. So I can understand where you're coming from, but I have yet to see any non-security focused distro that provides the elevated protection against particular attacks that some atomic distros offer by default.
• built-in rollback functionality; sure, this is not exclusive to atomic distros. Perhaps I should have done a better job at making clear that it isn't a feature provided necessarily by atomicity. But, the fact that I listed it at the very end, alludes that it isn't as exclusive and consequential as atomicity is. At this point, however, it has become almost synonymous with atomic distros, while the same can't be said about traditional distros.
• regarding the consequences; I'm unaware of any distro that does those out of the box (barring Pop!_OS with their factory reset). Though, I'd love to be educated on this.

I was genuinely curious so thanks for the rationale.

It has been my pleasure ☺️! I'm also genuinely curious to read your reply to this comment😉.

Not OP. But for me, atomic updates, reproducibility, (to some degree) declarative system configuration, increased security, built-in rollback functionality and their consequences; rock solid system even with relatively up to date packages, possibility to enable automatic updates in background without fearing breakage, (quasi) factory reset feature, setting up a new system in just a fraction of the time required otherwise are the primary reasons why I absolutely adore atomic^[1]^ distros.

1. I prefer referring to the so-called 'immutable' distros as atomic distros instead. It's more descriptive, because the distros aren't actually 'immutable' but instead they're atomic.

Distrobox is directly inspired from Toolbx and was created because of limitations of Toolbx and how Toolbx' maintainers didn't want to implement some features at that moment in time.

Currently, Distrobox is almost a superset of Toolbx. Though, I've come to the understanding that Toolbx does better at some tasks.

If you would like to stick to just one of them, then Distrobox is probably still the better one and should be preferred. However, if its added functionality doesn't do it for you, then please feel free to continue using Toolbx.

Why is toolbox preinstalled and not distrobox?

Because Toolbx predates Distrobox and is developed by developers that are associated with Fedora and even specifically designed in hopes of solving some issues pertaining to Fedora's Atomic distros.