Hold on, let me call my senator to have him put the gun genie back in its bottle so I won’t feel the need to have one.

I don’t comment on life in Mexico because I don’t know the first fucking thing about life in Mexico. Maybe you should concern yourself with life in Mexico.

That’s cool. You don’t have to buy it. Statistically it’s not all that likely my house is going to burn down either. Doesn’t stop me from having a more comprehensive than usual policy on my homeowners insurance, and a couple fire extinguishers. Why? I’d like to have a fighting chance when shit happens to go sideways, regardless of statistics.

And yes. I do feel powerful with a gun on my hip. There. I said it. It makes me feel like I have the power to not cower when someone decides to level violence at me or my loved ones.

It has already happened once. Someone tried to assault me in my front yard of all places, someone I didn’t know or recognize. He drunkenly hit my parked car, and when I pulled out my phone and started recording, he came out with a wrench in his hand and started ambling towards me. I drew, and he immediately went the other direction. And wouldn’t you know it, that statistic was never recorded. No statistician is aware of the unrecorded instance where a gun made an occurrence of violence not happen.

It happens WAY more often than you think it does.

That said, I don’t give a fuck what you think, and I don’t have to.

The other comment got the answer. Anti gun people regularly try to bait gun people into looking like idiots.

I’m not telling you where I live. But I will say that it’s a city in america that is notorious for violent crime, and my work takes me to places people of my complexion probably shouldn’t go. Think about one of the worst ones. It’s probably the one you thought of.

I’m sure you’ve heard the same old shit, it’s like a fire extinguisher, rather have it and not need it, etc.

It’s a lot at first. Figuring out how to carry with different clothes, investing in belts and holsters and realizing 90% of what you thought would work well for you actually doesn’t. After you figure out what does work, it’s a way of life. Like people that wear a watch every day (me) or people that carry a knife every day (me). You feel weird when you don’t have it.

Also, I carry a knife for cutting stuff at work, opening letters when I get home, and slicing open stubborn packs of fruit snacks. Pocket knives are not for self defense.

Glad you’re sticking around partner. Stick to sprays, Saber red is the gold standard.

My wife drew the spray when our dog was getting mauled by a stray pit. I never have.

I’ve drawn my pistol once, no shots needed to be fired, but the other party immediately ceased hostility.

Is this a genuine question or bait?

After spending a lot of years living in a place where having self defense options is a pretty good idea, I’ve learned to stick to the basics.

Sabre Red pepper spray for when an attacker is unarmed or alone.

Glock 43x chambered in 9mm for when an attacker is armed.

Unfortunately in a self defense scenario you have to make very rapid and final decisions while considering how they will be potentially viewed by a jury.

As cool as the various alternative non-lethal options may seem, they usually don’t stand up to real world usage, which is why police carry traditional sprays, a taser, and a handgun. Those are the tools that work.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to bonk the immutable Stans over the head with this logic, but it never works. They install bazzite, play their game of choice on steam and occasionally use their web browser and “ALL NEW USERS MUST USE BAZZITE ITS SO EASY”

Any distro is easy when you use it like a fucking Sony PlayStation.

The machine hasn’t shipped yet, and won’t until July. Framework has a page for downloads of their BIOS updates for their various generations of mainboards, and for Linux users all firmware can be updated by LVFS via fwupd as far as I’m aware.

I have my preorder in for the 13 pro, and I know full well there may be some firmware growing pains with the new chip architecture, but I think 6 generations in, they’ve proven themselves capable of addressing any issues that arise.

Oh well that’s great news. I would still do a little legwork, like searching “DistroOfChoice on Intel Mac” just to make sure you don’t run into any unforeseen issues.

If you’re on an M-series chip, Apple silicon as opposed to the older intel based Macs, your only viable option is Asahi Linux, which is specifically made to run on Apple silicon. If you would like to try this out, I have no promises that you won’t brick your machine. I highly recommend you watch some tutorials and read some documentation about the Asahi install process to see if it is something you’re willing to attempt.

So, the other poster is correct. You need a new non-Apple device if you intend to use Linux freely like the rest of us.

There’s good news though. Linux runs wonderfully on older hardware. Depending on what level of gaming you intend to do, you could get a decent used gaming laptop with a discrete GPU, or even a Thinkpad with integrated graphics for fairly cheap. Carefully consider your hardware choices based on your needs. If you take this route, the world is your oyster, and I highly recommend doing some distro-hopping in your first year.

Linux mint is a great place to start. As far as I am aware the only proprietary software involved is multimedia codecs and Nvidia drivers, but you would want those on any distribution, because the user experience without them is severely lacking.

Fedora is great, but it won’t install the multimedia codecs for you like Linux mint will. You’ll need to start learning how to use the terminal straight away. I consider Fedora to be an intermediate level distribution, unlike Linux Mint or Ubuntu which are very beginner friendly. Fortunately there are plenty of step by step guides and support forum posts to help you through things if you’re willing to do the work.

Arch based distros like CachyOS, EndeavourOS and the like, will challenge you. But that challenge will teach you a lot. I would say after getting comfortable in something like Linux Mint after a few months, give EndeavourOS a try if you want to develop your knowledge.

That brings me to an important point. Back up your files. With either a secondary SSD, or an external HDD/SSD, literally drag and drop the files you can’t bear to lose. Linux is very easy to wipe and reinstall, and hopping from distro to distro until you find your home can be a lot of fun, but having a safe backup so that you can do so without any worry of losing data, is extremely important.

Recommending Omarchy, or any distro based around a tiling window manager to a beginner is probably the best way to make sure they don’t use Linux. I can’t believe I have to keep saying this.

You’re not even trying to help, you’re just saying “I use Omarchy BTW”

I’m currently running CachyOS, where I installed Hyprland and ML4W dot files (basically a well refined set of config files for Hyprland) alongside KDE Plasma. ML4W (MyLinux4Work) has great YouTube videos detailing their installation process.

Hyprland, like i3, is pretty amazing to use once you get used to it, but sometimes it can break, so having the option of rock solid KDE right at the login screen is a nice bit of insurance.

CachyOS is based on Arch, so you’ll need to get cozy with updating and installing software, both from the repository and flatpak, via the terminal. If you’re not already comfortable with that, it’s a great opportunity to learn.

I didn’t really enjoy YaST, but I’ve got a freed up secondary SSD, maybe it’s worth giving a try again.

The biggest difference? Arch forces you to the terminal more. The easier distros come pre packaged with GUI tools for things like graphics driver selection, adding and removing repositories, installing and removing software, etc.

Vanilla arch doesn’t come with any of that. EndeavourOS, the more fleshed out Arch based distro I use doesn’t either. You could use Mint, Ubuntu, Pop, or Fedora, without ever needing to see the command line. You CAN use it, and should from time to time to start learning, but Arch throws you right into the deep end of the pool of using the command line for almost everything you do.

Some of these people will likely try to say “well actually there are GUI frontends for pacman” or whatever, it’s not the same as using Mint where graphical tools that are easy to use are baked into the system.

I’ve only used yay but afaik paru is very similar and well put together.

Op was asking for advice. You have different advice? Give it. I don’t care what you think of my advice.

I have a 70 year old father running Ubuntu on a laptop without issue for a couple years now. Everyone’s mileage may vary.

Poor OP probably has no idea what to do now.

Yes start over.

Ubuntu, Mint, Pop_OS, Fedora.

Save your important files on a separate drive, install your new beginner friendly OS of choice, and don’t be afraid to break it. A reinstall from a USB stick takes like 15 minutes, and with your important files stored separately you don’t have to think twice about wiping the system and starting over.

Honestly it sounds like you’ve mastered a completely new kind of operating system, based on Linux but evolving in its own direction, and there’s probably only a handful of people using it at that level. It’s pretty cool to learn more about, so I appreciate what you’ve had to say.

I already know and love traditional Linux and don’t see a compelling reason to change, and as I’ve repeated, I don’t think it’s the way to point a newcomer.