At least for Linux-Reaper:

Use Jack. Install the “Pulse Jack Module”, route Pulseaudio through Jack to simultaneously connect Reaper and everything else to the Jack System out. Always autostart Jack and use the Pulse Module “autoconnect” parameter as a startup script (QJackCtl helps here).

Should fix 1-3, 4 I’m not sure.

Well, that may be the case, but you made the claim that using a beginner-friendly distro solves all problems and I gave an anecdotal example of that not being the case. Macbooks have a substantial markt share, like it or not, and are subject to planned hardware obsolescense, so people will try to install Linux at some point.

Besides of all, this was not purely a hardware issue. Else, no configuration would have worked out. There were differences in the default configs of the distributions that caused this erratic behavior and it was not just a pulseaudio/pipewire thing.

That’s not true.

I’ve also had a lot of success on most hardware, but the worst device I ever touched was a 2016 Macbook (one of the last with normal ports) and that thing was a total mess.

Arch: Video, no sound. Debian: Sound, no video. Ubuntu: Everything works, reboot, nothing works.

Probably heavily related to hardware, but still, very inconsistent. I was never able to find the actual issue after weeks.

The final somewhat working configuration was Debian+Liquorix for the video firmware.

So no, it’s not guaranteed.

Ok, I suppose I misunderstood your comment. I thought it was about the actual lead kernel developers and not all Linux-related devs in general and thought to myself “Well, Torvalds is a married man and most other maintainers I’ve ever seen didn’t look that out of the ordinary”.

Again, not to take away anything from anybody, but maybe that explains my surprise to that comment.

Name me one, please.

No meant as a transphobic remark, to clarify. Just curiosity.

Not bad.

What riff?

Dude I love Placebo!

I wouldn’t say that viral videos are memes, they are viral videos. But their content can become a meme, which could be a quote from it or some kind of content shown in a different context.

E.g. the Area51 Naruto runner is a meme, but the report where he appears is not.

Question: Isn’t what you describe in the first paragraph the very definition of a meme?

I push my fingers into your…

What do you mean, not safe? I always thought “do not use in your ear canal” was just a joke they wrote on the packaging. Like, actually good one, what else are you gonna do with it?

Seems like a cheap excuse, the law doesn’t say specifically that.

But, of course, manufacturers like to lock down their devices as much as possible. And such laws play into their hands.

Since when is this the case?

I thought it was one of the original peepys at first.

Username totally checks out.

Hey, just out of curiosity, which Debian version did you install and when?

The Trixie release shouldn’t mess with your sources at all, just because 12 is being moved to oldstable, you shouldn’t have to do anything.

You wrote that you run a headless server, so when you command an update, it lists you all obsolete packages with a request to run autoremove. Did you miss that or update some other way?

Worst case, if you got a new kernel (200-300M) every week and never removed old ones, you’d end up with 10G obsolete data a year. That’s about what I usually see with old Windows update files in the disk cleanup utility.

Not great either, but at least in the default configuration, Ext4 leaves a 5% reserved space, so that files can’t fill up your partition and make it unresponsive. Windows doesn’t do that…

You’re pointing to my colleague?

What’s this from?

Well, the recovery argument really only checks out when there are recent restore points made and a recovery partition is present, which is not the case in every or even most Windows configs, otherwise you’re SOL anyway.

Often times even those failed on me when Windows had shat itself and told me it can’t fix the issue and needs a restore medium, on which I then manually had to /fixboot and /rebuildBCD from the console. That’s not any more feasible for the average user.

I think installing Linux is definitely a hurdle, but you could usually find someone or a shop to do it for you or help you.

Otherwise, with all the new random prompts and welcome screens in Windows, I think any Linux system will stay out of the users way much more and let them work on their stuff without distractions.

Sure, Linux troubleshooting is bad for the average user, but you can also get help with that and Windows forums are bloated with trash replies and not any better quality-wise (same with Android nowadays, unfortunately).