Supposedly both the display manager and greeters have system-wide configuration for this purpose, however. And the issue with notifications and DE overlays are present post login, too.

Did you look this up?

What do you think is more likely - that KDE Neon does not have a testing version of Plasma Login Manager or that a sensationalistic news headline is not giving you a 100% accurate and complete understanding?

Things I’ve run into:

1. Out of the box, the lock screen comes on after screen unblanking - late enough that when things aren’t snappy you can briefly catch the desktop without reauthing.

2. Sometimes randomly after wake, keyboard input is not recognized in the password field at all. Except for Esc, which in this state appears to crash-restart it and makes it work again

3. With a multi-monitor setup, I have still not been able to properly force the primary monitor. Is an issue because things like notifications and the login input will only show up on a usually turned off projector. This one might be PEBCAK.

I have issues 1 and 3 with XFCE on lightdm, too, though.

Are you able to try it with other SATA drive models?

Are there any relevant BIOS Settings like “legacy USB” that could make a difference? Do you have the latest firmware for the motherboard?

It works. Go ahead, try it.

but is this currently the case

sorry, is what the case?

The expected payout is negative so no, not similar to investing. It becomes the opposite, pretty much.

Another thing they may have in mind is ATX PSUs. The pinouts on those for the same physical plug vary not only by maker and model but sometimes even by year. So if you get an aftermarket ATX-to-SATA cable that fits just fine in the SATA plug on your ATX PSU, it may put 12v on the 5v and fry your drives or mobo when you plug it in even if it’s from the same brand.

Don’t ask me why there is a voltmeter on my desk.

Personally I’m too paranoid about security and sus of Intel to be comfortable with vPro but you do you.

That said, I’d go for 1, considering you already have that 6th gen on hand in case you need a spare.

Otherwise 3 or 4 (whichever is available on secondary markets for a decent price) and hang on to that Pentium in case need arises. Doesn’t sound like the extra power draw of an i7 is worth it for this build.

Up to 300 or so could be reasonable if the RAM and SSD are decent.

OK?

I think 2013 gear and low-end hardware can still be useful in 2026. And that it can be win-win to give old gear a new home.

But it wouldn’t be honest selling stuff that can’t physically handle what a reasonable user would expect from a PC to someone who is not capable to install an OS themselves and doesn’t understand what the limitations are.

Not too dissimilar to marketing CMR HDDs as “NAS drives”, which I hope we all agree is a scam.

And just so I don’t get misread on that part, “HD” = 720p.

In that case I’d give it away for free. Or sell it without an OS to someone who knows what they’re getting and leave them to figure it out.

OK, so let’s cut it down and say we have 4 PCs for someone with a family and home server, each with 4 DIMMs each.

You are saying the first rule of PC building says that this house should have at least 16 unused DIMMs on the shelf. I’d say 2-4 is reasonable if they are all compatible.

“Buy two extra of everything” is a good rule and scales for the individual. “Buy double of everything” is not.

Do you get a different result if you replace that :0 with your actual DISPLAY value?

Also make sure you run that in a context that does have access to the x server (i guess keep your display manager running as you do this).

Depending on your setup you should be running such commands as normal user instead of root.

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In the offchance that shenanigans are afoot, some malware will fudge mtimes (but not always ctimes) to prevent detection.

If you get files showing up as changed with -cmin but not modified with -mmin, that’s a bright red one.

Can it play Youtube in HD without lagging?

I guess that would be roughly my bar for what I’d feel OK with passing on to someone clueless.

I always heard the first rule as “stay grounded”. Having 1TB of RAM on stock just in case sounds not grounded.

A spare kit or two should be enough for most folks. With one or two spares of everything else so you can test suspicious parts separate from prod.

A bit of redundancy and foresight is good but no need to be excessive about it.

Unless you took a backup I guess it’s not relevant anymore but if it happens again you can narrow down files last changed around some timestamp like so: find /var -mmin +4 -mmin -5

journalctl -xb-1 i believe gives it for last boot (if it even gets that far?)

Also dmesg.

And just in general, to see recently changed logfiles to look at after a reboot: sudo find /var/log -mmin -3 for files modified within last 3 minutes for example.

I’m not sure about your CPU but I’ve had times when similar issues play out differently on different distros (I guess due to differences in kernel buikdconf, modules, or drivers) so while it’s a long-shot you could give that a go.

Try also the LTS and Zen kernel flavors.

I’d try Arch, Debian, Fedora (or perhaps some other rpm-based alternative that doesnt deprecate so quickly)

Like someone else said, anyone who hasn’t had your exact issue will need logs and details to give more helpful advice.