Ext4 on LVM can do both volume mirroring and snapshots. The is no COW support with ext4 though.

By the way I use BTRFS with LUKS on my workstation and have for 4 or 5 years. Primarily I like it for the snapshoting. I though I would like COW but frankly very mixed on that especially since there are cases you should not use COW and if you disable COW you loose snapshotting on that file. I have not used the raid capability. One thing I do not like about BTRFS is that I know of no way to track a bad block at the sector level to what file it is in if any. With Ext4 you can.

Another useful backup tool is restic.

This is the way. Use urandom though. Then after that you can just blkdiskard to wipe. I would add sync between the commands.

Seems like one loves vim or one does not. I learned vi back in the mid 80s, hated it then, probablty not going back. These days I thankfully use Geany or nano. Learning vim seems like a right of passage or something.

Library versioning is supported in Linux. Has been for decades. Linux and Unix too is kind of based on building from source. So am not all clear how binary builds interact with library versioning for example.

Actually I both do and do not understand why they exist. I use Debian based distros and do not use either well except when I am using Ubuntu which is forcing more and more snaps.

I do actually use exactly one appimage. I use to use the snap but found it was not that stable. One also generally has to have relatively new distro releases too as both flatpack and snap need to be fairly current which can be problem for near EOL Debian stable. Hence neither flatpack nor snap is that portable.

Where flatpacks and snaps look a lot better is smaller distros with smaller repos. Hence, not that interesting for Debian based distros.

By the way, in my view, Ubuntu using Snaps rather then native packages is a negative.

Yes I would disagree regarding immutable. Such a distribution cannot be secure for any lenght of time. Security updates are required. As soon as it customize in any way it is not immutable including adding flatpacks. So I do not see the attraction.

Keep in mind you choose basically uncommon niche distributions. Go to distrowatch and choose one of the top 5 or so and use the distro repos and security updates. No flatpack is not needed for a well supported distro. That is especially true for one of the common Debian based distros.

No you probably sue them both.

Just saying, not my experience. I have used linux for over 25 years and nontechnical users in my family have also for almost 20 years. By in large it has worked just fine.

The big issue is Linux is not the OS that is supplied when people go to the store and buy something (well except for Android and Chromebooks which are Linux and are popular). It is also not the system or have the apps their friends use. It also does not have the huge supply, support, and word of mouth ecosystem. Buying hardware especially addons is confusing. Getting support is hard unless you have friends that use. Buying Linux preinstalled often costs more. Change too is hard and there has to be some driver and for most people there is not.

Using LVM is advanced. No nontechnical user should consider.

Doing dual install is advanced. No nontechnical user should consider it.

This is the big issue. It breaks a lot of X11 features. Remote desktop via VNC or RDP should still be possible. Another is ssh and sftp. Edit the file on the client. Another go all in with command line. Nano is easy. Emacs or VIM more powerful but harder. Screen is a useful command line tool too.

Interested in what others suggest.

MS supplied LO translator in MS Office is not very good. That is their issue. MS is not even that compatible betwen versions of their own software.

Ribbon bar shit, personally I hate the MS ribbon bar. So for me the LO interface is way better. Just depends on what you like and what you learned and know well.

Except for MS format compatiblity, not my experience, Not sure where MS format compatibility stands now, but that has histically been the biggest issue.

Keep on mind that MS supplied LibreOffice translator is not great either so they have issues too. MS really does not plan on being compatible even between versions of their own software.

By the way, lot of crap paper out there too. Lot do not mark which side to print on first and this is related to curl and shineyness. One has to guess. If your getting a lot of jams try flipping the paper over.

Our last ream has a deffective narrow page every 4th page too. I had to manually pull those out.

My first printer in the early 80s was an EPSON dot matrix for $800. The second was an Apple laser printer in the late 80s for $3500. The third was a Brother momochrome MFC laser printer for $500 in the 00s. You can see why they are crap, huge price reductiions. Even more if you consider inflation and capability.

Always look at per page cost. Generally that means monochrome laser.

Edit: The issues I have had with Linux and the Brother MFC is firmware upgade as it wants to use Windows for that. I have had some Postscript compatability issues too. The paper feeder for the scanner is not perfect either. It can skew the paper and you have to watch for double feeds. Not a defect but a missing function, I cannot figure out how to fax from my computer or USB stick. An oddity, it does not seem to maintain time when the unit is off and never has which is really annoying especially for faxing. Mostly like the printer but not the above issues so much.

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Mike Waltz was actually one of the more professional of the by in large clown show. He may have cared.