I suppose my setup already has “Xcode command line tools” installed, so gcc works as expected. It’s been a while but IIRC the process for installing the command line tools is pretty self explanatory.

I remember WSL being a whole process to setup, but it’s been a while, and as you might guess, I’m a lot more familiar with Mac than Windows.

What I do know is I had to support a Python project on all 3 OSes and Windows was by far the hardest to get working. We were deliberately not using WSL for that scenario.

Mac is very similar to Linux in that it comes with bash (these days zsh) and a lot of the command line tools you’d expect on Linux, including gcc and python3 installed by default. You’ll want them to have a decent text editor with code coloring. Sublime is what I was taught to use in university.

Windows is more difficult. The command line is very different (it inherits from DOS instead of Unix like both Mac and Linux). It doesn’t come with Python pre-installed. I’ve generally installed git-bash when working on Windows. There are some Python libraries that work fine on both Mac and Linux but have issues on Windows.

You could look into VSCode which is a decent IDE that works on all platforms. Of course, an IDE can be a bit of an information overload for a beginner, especially something like VSCode that’s constantly pushing AI features and plug-ins.

I think the one I have is the BP60NB10 LG Slim Portable. It looks like prices are at around $100-$130 for it online now though, I think they are not made anymore. I got mine up at a local computer store a long time ago.

I strongly recommend this webpage: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19634

There are some external/portable USB blu ray drives that work with MakeMKV and cost like $30.

I have set up WireGuard manually running on a home server. It’s not that hard to set up IMO but that definitely depends on your experience level.

Other than that I’d second Tailscale which is similar but easier to set up

It’s the most plug-and-play Linux has ever been from my experience.

What’s the difference?

Unless something has changed, Amazon Music only offers low quality mp3 downloads, and sometimes even includes audio watermarks.

This is why I use CloudFlare. They block the worst and cache for me to reduce the load of the rest. It’s not 100% but it does help.

Thankfully the Linux community is pretty active and just about everything is supported alreadh

Analogue Pocket also supports 3rd party emulator cores, so you can very easily play ROMs or even other consoles.

Ps5 controller is like $70, the Steam Controller has more features than that, and the OG Steam Controller was pretty expensive. I’d be shocked if it’s under $100. I’m expecting it in the $150-$200 range. But we’ll see, I’d love to be proven wrong

The controller is going to be closer to $200

It’s kinda scary that Europe is so willing to let all of their private messages go through an American data broker company that is well known for doing sneaky things to get data they aren’t supposed to have.

I tried downloading the BF6 free demo and I had to jump through a bunch of hoops trying to get it to run just to find that because the last time I used my EA account was a decade ago, my Steam account is banned from their servers until I go through customer support to unlock it.

Their Game Preservation Program (the thing the subscription is nominally for) is games that they maintain, so they probably do need to license them. And they do need a dev team to work on it, even if they do take advantage of things like existing community mods to make the job easier.

Thanks I’ll look some of these up and maybe I’ll understand why people hate systemd

Windows was developed by a huge corporation for profit, and that drives enshittification, because eventually they have all the users they think they can get, so instead they start trying to milk those users for more $$$.

Linux is developed by a bunch of nerds who are doing it as a hobby, or because they weren’t happy with the other options. This type of group does not leas to enshittification.

I’m with you I don’t really get the hate for it, nor have I seen a suggested alternative.

I found an older version that sounded like it should be compatible on the OpenRGB webpage but it didn’t work. I suppose I should look further. Thanks for the tip!