I’ve had no issues with the ProtonVPN flatpak on Fedora Silverblue.

The Change proposal has been withdrawn by the author: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f43-change-proposal-x11libre-system-wide/156330/57

Fedora and Red Hat are innovating image-based operating systems. Universal Blue builds on that work.

It would take effort to port that work to Arch. Arch is also a rolling distro, not updating means not getting security updates. Fedora’s release cycle allows them to get more stability, they don’t have to be using the latest version.

Paragon’s NTFS driver was also upstreamed in the kernel in like 5.15.

SteamOS does not get reported as Arch.

Updated the title

But you don’t need a status icon to run in the background.

If Firefox wanted to, they could make Firefox continue running in the background. They could even app a system tray entry for Firefox to access recently visited sites or favorite sites, like what Steam does.

This paradigm is actually the norm on MacOS. When you X out of an app, it doesn’t actually close. It will just have no open windows but stay open on your dock.

All those same options are available by right clicking on the app. Though thinking some more, the status icon being dynamic does give it some extra flexibility, I think it can show recently launched games. Still, does that mean Firefox should get a status icon so that you can access recently opened sites? Should your file manager?

The complaint against the app indicators is that apps tend to throw their icon in there for no reason. Why does Steam need to show itself there? Why doesn’t Firefox?

There’s also some technical reasons why they’re bad. There’s quite a few different protocols to show the icons up there, all each with their own pros and cons. But none can handle sandboxing properly, so work is being done towards a new protocol.

You can check if you are using Xorg or Wayland in the Settings -> System -> About -> System Details page. If you’re using Wayland, you’re all good, nothing changes. If you’re using Xorg, you may notice some changes. If you’re using NVIDIA on Ubuntu 24.04, you’ll be on Xorg by default. If you’re using a later version or AMD/Intel, you’ll be on Wayland be default.

To keep it short, X11 was the old protocol for creating and managing windows. Xorg implemented this protocol. But both the protocol and implementation have many shortcomings that are difficult to address for a multitude of reasons (breaking compatibility, poor code base, a ton of work, etc).

Rather than putting lipstick on a pig, a new protocol, called Wayland, was created. It was designed for modern needs and tries to avoid the pitfalls that X11, Windows, and MacOS have. It doesn’t just copy what those three did, it’s more opinionated, so some people love it a lot (like me) or hate it a lot because it changes the way things have to be done and simply does not implement some functionality, either purposefully or because the work hasn’t been done yet.

I don’t use Zoom enough to know, but it probably still works.

My last experience with the Zoom app on Wayland (a few months ago?) required me to do a manual config file change to launch the app properly. And Zoom says they fixed the screen sharing options, not sure how true that is.

Getting ready for Zoom to have instructions to install i3 rather than fixing their Wayland support.

I don’t get how a $600 could have such bad backlight bleed, but most laptops, not even high end ones, tend to be fine.

Gamescope is a compositor. It has many useful gaming features, but it doesn’t have a major performance advantage over desktops like Gnome, KDE, or tilers.

You could install Linux Mint onto a flash drive. Though keep in mind that flash drives aren’t that robust, the flash chips are cheaper and will fail faster than SSDs.

This also also affecting me. Though it was just because I was unaware of the USB wake function. Since I have, I made it a habit to suspend, then immediately lift up my mouse to turn it off. Though I guess that’s not an option for wired mice.

I run Fedora Silverblue on a N100.

It’s very usable. For most actions, it feels pretty similar to my much more powerful desktop. but has some limitations.

• I am able to run two 1440p monitors at 144hz via HDMI, but the screen occasionally blacks out for a second due to HDMI limitations. Running at a lower refresh rate should avoid the issue.
• Gnome shell animations aren’t running at 144hz, even with triple buffering (never tested if it maintains 144hz with just one monitor at 1440p). Haven’t tested KDE.
• I am able to comfortably run Minecraft with 60+ fps with performance enhancing mods, though at like 5 chunks rendering distance. Honestly it’s fun to play this way, feels nostalgic. Though performance will dramatically drop if you try to play a video at the same time, though dropping it to like 480p or even 720p helps a lot.

That’s what I’m saying. The OS installer can be super nice and intuitive, but the process of getting to that point, messing with the BIOS, is troublesome.

I know in the past there’s been tools that allowed you to install Linux from within Windows. That would be a great way to work around this problem, though I think there are certain limitations with that approach.

Honestly I think the bigger barrier is the BIOS. The button to get to the boot menu is different on every motherboard.

Major people of the project had moved on. It’s being maintained, getting security fixes, but pull requests are slow to be merged.