by default, it phones home to find updates.
Do you have a source for that? I just did a rough check using nethogs (on my Arch box) and I didn't see any connections originating from kitty.
I also found this comment from the author mentioning that he wasn't a fan of automatic updates (which implied it wasn't a feature).
and no I dont want to do automatic updates, am not a fan of those. If and when you have an issue or want to try new functionality, its just a simple command to update it.
They don't have to be financial - many corporate apps will not work on custom ROMs - the most popular ones being the ones by Microsoft - eg Teams, Outlook etc.
Similarly, some games may also not work, such as all the ones by Niantic (Ingress, Pokemon Go etc) and typically many online multiplayer games.
Finally, this will also affect popular streaming media services, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.
There are workarounds for some of these - some with certain compromises - but there's no guarantee that they'll continue to work. So before you look into any workarounds (if you use the above three categories of apps), know that it's a constant game of cat-and-mouse, so it's not for the faint hearted.
Everyone here have already explained their various stances very eloquently and convincingly - so I won't argue against that - so instead I'll just put forth my own 2c on why I use Silverblue instead of Nix/Ansible.
The main draw for me in using Silverblue (well, uBlue to be exact) is the no-cost, cloud-based, industry-standard, CI/CD and OCI workflow. Working with these standard technologies also helps me polish up my skills for work, as we've started to make use of containers and gitops workflows, so the skills that I'm gaining at personal level are easily translatable for work (and vice-versa).
With Nix (the declarative way), I'd have to learn the Nix language first and maintain the non-standard Nix config files and, tbh, I don't want to waste so much time on something that no one in the industry actually uses. Declarative Nix won't really help me grow professionally, and whilst I agree it has some very unique advantages and use-cases, it's completely overkill for my personal needs. In saying that, I'm happy with using Nix the imperative way though - I don't need to learn the Nix language, and it's great having access to a vast package repository and access my programs without having to go thru the limitations of containers.
As for Ansible, I'd have to have my own server (and pay for it, if it's in the cloud), and spend time maintaining it too. And although we use Ansible at work as well, so the skills I gain here won't be waste of time, it's unfortunately too inflexible/rigid for my personal needs - my personal systems are constantly evolving, whether it is in the common packages I use, or my choice of DE (my most recent fling is with Wayfire) etc. With an Ansible workflow, I'd be constantly editing yaml files instead of actually making the change I want to see. It's overkill for me, and a waste of time (IMO). You could argue that I'm already editing my configs on Github with uBlue, but it's nowhere as onerous as having to write playbooks for every single thing. And as I mentioned, I like to maintain some flexibility and manual control over my personal machines and Ansible will just get in the way of that.
With the uBlue workflow, I just maintain my own fork on Github with most of my customisations, + a separate repository for specific dotfiles and scripts that I don't want to be part of my image. Pull bot keeps my main uBlue repo in sync with upstream, and I only need to jump in if there's some merge conflicts that cannot be resolved automatically. At the end of it all, I get a working OCI image, with a global CDN and 90 days of image archives, allowing for flexible rollback options - all of this without incurring any costs or wasting too much time on my part. Plus I can easily switch between different DEs and OCI distros, with just a simple rebase - I could go from a Steam-Deck like gaming experience (Bazzite) to a productivity-oriented workstation (Bluefin), or play around with some fancy new opinionated environments like Hyprland and River (Wayblue) - all with just a simple rebase and a reboot, without needing to learn some niche language or waste time writing config files. How cool is that?
Are you using any power saving /power management tools? Maybe check the power settings in there and see if changing the power profile makes any difference.
Also:
fwpudmgr for any firmware updatesI'm not really a mouse person, but I recall there was a change made in kernel 6.1 which broke hi-res scrolling for some folks, but I believe it was fixed in kernel 6.3(?) Here's a thread discussing this: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1032x5q/linux_61_update_screws_up_the_mouse_wheel_of_my/
FWIW, I just tested this with my Logitech G900 (kernel 6.6.14, KDE Wayland) - the scroll events reported using both the wireless (dongle) and USB are identical - they generate one REL_WHEEL and one REL_WHEEL_HI_RES event, which would seem to be the behaviour prior to 6.1. Not sure if any of this helps though sorry.
I doubt this is an Akko-specific issue- most keyboards should be using the standard USB HID drivers built into the kernel. This has most likely got something to do with your DE or distro config, maybe an error in a config file somewhere, or some script/plugin behaving funky. I know in the past KDE's Snap Assist plugin was known to cause the keyboard to stop working; kwin scripts could also do weird things. Or could be a third-party program, like a keyboard remapper (kmonad, wayland-mouse-mapper, kbct etc).
You could try switching to a different DE temporarily to rule out a DE issue, but before you do that, maybe boot from a live USB of a different DE or distro (or maybe even try two ISOs of your current distro - one ISO with whatever DE you're using currently, and another ISO with a different DE) and see if it works in there? You could create a Ventoy live USB to make it easy - just dump all the different ISOs on the drive and you can select which them when booting.
If, in your testing, you find that your keyboard works fine with the same distro and DE, then it would point to a config issue. In that case, the easiest fix is to just blow your .config folders away (or create a new user account) and start fresh.
But if in your testing you find that the keyboard works under a different DE but not the one you're using, then it's likely a bug with the DE, so perhaps consider filing a bug report. But maybe try the same DE with a different distro first to make sure it's not a distro-specific bug.
It's only been a couple of months, give it time. You'll surely run into one of these issues sooner or later, 100% guaranteed. But you don't have to take my word for it though, just browse the Arch forums and you'll see the kind of issues people run into - and so will you, eventually.
How good is its Wayland support these days?
Seconded. I love that it works under Wayland too, unlike Autokey.
Which distros exactly, and for which applications?
For the Debian based distros that I mentioned before (Pop, Zorin, Elementary), I've never heard of any normal user having to fire up the terminal. And by "normal" as in someone who doesn't have any special software needs and just uses Facebook, email etc, maybe ocassionally prints and scans stuff or plays games from Steam. And you can ask my elderly mother - she's been using Xububtu and Zorin for almost a decade now and never had to touch the terminal.
Hmm, sounds like you used a binary build that wasn't packaged by your distro, which explains why I didn't see any network traffic from my Kitty which I installed from the Arch repos. The config docs mentions this: