plateee

As the other user said, you may be surprised! I swapped to CachyOS in January and it’s been rock solid. I play games like Hitman, Last Epoch, and a bunch of indie games without any issues.

And don’t forget GOG fucking still doesn’t have a native Linux client.

Here’s the thing. There are other places. Epic, Amazon Gaming, Origin/Battlenet/Ubi, itch, Microsoft store, gog…

Most suck at discoverability or they don’t have the variety of Steam. Some are shitty by design (Origin, Ubi, Battlenet) - intended to only get you to play their games. Others like itch aren’t built for scaling out to deliver thousands of big games.

This isn’t a thing like Apple’s walled garden, I feel like this is Steam out performing the competition.

You can find older pixels on swappa for cheap - my understanding is that we won’t see a GrapheneOS phone earlier than 2027 (which admittedly is only 9 months away).

In that case, grab one of these: GL-iNet Opal Travel Router.

They’re sub $40 on Amazon (in the states), will do bridging for you, and are rock solid. I’ve used one for the past three years whenever I’ve traveled to conferences/for work.

Wait, why are you doing this? Is there some network throughput requirement? Just bridging wifi to Ethernet won’t get you Ethernet speed, latency, or stability (since the back haul to the internet is WiFi).

This feels a bit like an XY Problem.

Edit: Wait, I’m guessing the company doesn’t allow wifi? (That seems weird, if they’re using a mandatory VPN, it shouldn’t matter how the laptop gets to the internet). Leaving this in case anyone doesn’t know about XY Problems. They’ve bitten me several times over the years.

I never signed up for the Hyundai BlueLink thing. The dealership pushed it - hard.

“It used to be free for the first year and $40/year after, now it’s free for life, so why not do it?”

“You can start your car in the office and let it warm up outside!”

“The sales agent will get in trouble if you don’t activate BlueLink!”

Well, I never activated so hopefully, whatever driving metrics it’s gathering aren’t directly associated with me. (One day I may dig under the hood and try to find the cell antenna and disconnect it.)

I’ve seen them used less for privacy and more for getting around permissions/limitations on controlled systems like work laptops. (That’s assuming work devices haven’t locked down or disabled USB drives.)

More often than not, there will still be some artifacts left over, whether it’s recently access files or terminal history that indicates a portable device/app was used.

If you’re looking at USB things specifically designed for privacy, something like Tails is where it’s at.

You can find pixels on swappa and not give Google your money.

I’m looking for a Pixel 9 Pro as an upgrade for my existing 7 Pro and it’s cheaper used (obviously).

This is what I use and it’s been a godsend in my home lab.

My first thought didn’t go to Kubrick.

Tell me you’re not American without saying you’re not American.

What I wouldn’t give for real amounts of PTO.

The trick is to use your PTO all at once and be out for a week or so - everything falls over and it reminds your boss how you’re the only thing keeping it all together.

Donut County was such a fun game.

You could also put Windows 98 Second Edition in there with some niceties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98

First, check https://meshmap.net/ to see if anyone is around. If not, you can be the first (it just will be very quiet).

Next look for a device. I’m partial to this one: https://www.seeedstudio.com/SenseCAP-Card-Tracker-T1000-E-for-Meshtastic-p-5913.html - just make sure whatever you get it’s spec’ed for your region.

Then just download the Meshtastic app on your Android or iOS device and you’re set.

Yup, another vote for brother laser printers. If you’re worried about them applying updates that add DRM to toner cartridges, but you still want network printing you can do one of two things:

1. Give the printer a static IPv4 address and block egress from your router with a firewall.
2. Give it a static IPv4 address but give it a non-functional gateway (e.g. if your gateway is 10.0.0.1, make the printer’s gateway 10.0.0.254)

Heck, do both if you’re paranoid.

Either way it’s not getting updates unless you manually change things or download the firmware updates on your Linux box and apply it that way.