To be fair, the install guide does say you should do it all manually at least once so you understand what’s going on. However, it’s not strictly necessary.

Yes. Arch has an installer you can run by running “archinstall” from the live boot. Works well, too.

Debian is love. Debian is life.

I was in a similar boat. I’ve been using a Ryzen 5000-based mini PC for about two years now. It’s running:

Debian for stability

Flex Launcher for the 10ft TV UI

Flex Launcher has shortcuts for Plex HTPC, Netflix in a full screen Chrome page, etc.

An AirMouse Remote with a keyboard on the back and basic controls up front. It has 5 programmable IR buttons that I have bound to TV Power, TV Input, TV Select, and Sound Bar Vol-/+

My kids also use it for Steam and Retro gaming, so I have it launch ES-DE and Steam Big Picture Mode from Flex Launcher.

Other than the occasional tweaking, it has needed very little and been rock solid for about 2 years now. I have a cheap Android TV set top box still attached for when Grandma goes to use the TV. I can switch inputs and hand them the Google TV remote, but my wife, my kids, and I use the HTPC almost exclusively.

I mean…sounds fine. Why is it “controversial”?

Was sudo broken in some way that makes rewriting it in rust appealing? Genuinely curious.

Agreed. I’ve saved so much money by RTFM. As a father of three kids, every dollar saved means a better life for my family.

Car broken? RTFM, bought an ODBII scanner, and fixed it.

Need air conditioning? RTFM and installed my own heat pumps in my house, saving $7000 in labor and markup.

House has an old 60 amp fuse panel? Paid an electrician for the service upgrade, read the NEC, wired and installed all branch circuits and sub panels myself. Passed inspection. Saved $7500.

When you take the time to learn something, you not only get the satisfaction of using your own hands to accomplish something, but you also get to save money.

Linux Mint or Debian running Cinnamon DE. Stable and predictable.

There is a dd-like mode on Rufus as well called “RAW Mode”.

Mint is my typically daily driver, too. Freaking love Mint.

I used sed to replace my apt sources.list entries with Trixie…then ran sudo apt update, sudo apt dist-upgrade.

After one reboot my system was updated. Debian is basically that 80 year old tractor on the farm that still starts after sitting for 6 months with no effort. It just works. And that’s why I love it.

That’s a good point.

And LGBTQ+ distros.

And socialist distros.

And…

I like LMDE, but for gaming Debian is too stale without pulling in backports.

It’s the thing non-rolling releases use to demarc major package update dumps.

Stick with something better known. Linux Mint, Fedora, openSUSE, Arch, Ubuntu…If you’re just getting into this for the first time, full time, a niche meme distro is not your best choice.

Linux Mint is best for stability, but will be a bit more “stale” for updates, since it’s based on Ubuntu LTS. It is an incredible distro and is my daily driver for mission critical desktops, like my work PC.

Fedora and openSUSE Tumbleweed will both be great non-Arch distros that have fairly recent, yet stable updates.

Arch is basically the king of rolling, bleeding edge, always on the latest and greatest, but since it’s bleeding edge…you might get cut on occasion.

Ubuntu is Ubuntu. I don’t like Ubuntu, but it is the defacto “newbie/first timer” distro for a reason. Debian-based, lots of guides, both LTS and non-LTS options, and has variants for practically every major desktop environment out there.

Steam Deck’s OS is immutable. It’s pretty “locked down” already, although not quite as much as a Switch.

Me, with ADHD, Autism, and Anxiety.

Chances are you’ve had the same public IP for a long time. Mine hasn’t changed in 2 years.

Your “IP address” is already public. That’s why an IPv4 address is assigned to you as a “public IP address” and you NAT to a private space. When using IPv6, everything is public.

The key is to secure everything with access restrictions.