Rpi 5 is overkill. You can probably do this with a Rpi zero W

You or someone may have an old router with usb in a closet somewhere. Many routers have repeater capability.

Can’t you run timeshift from a live usb? Never tried, but i believe its possible. Obviously more time consuming and bothersome, but possible.

Two days ago my Mint system got borked by a kernel update. I booted from the grub menu with the prior kernel, and rolled back with Timeshift. Pretty painless. You don’t need Atomic/immutable distros for that sort of reliability.

I’m playing with kinoite in a VM, though.

“Generally” is the key word. I’m a linux user since slackware on diskettes. My daily driver is Mint, because lazy. I have 2 VMs with kali and kinoite.

A couple of days ago a kernel update borked my install. A problem with the Ryzen graphics driver.

For me it was trivial. Boot into the previous kernel, timeshift roll back, and back in business, but I can see how a newbie woul go into panic.

A satisfied “customer” will recommend you to a friend. A pissed off one will tell 10.

Is every open source app audited? Look at the XZ near disaster. And XZ is pretty critical software. Open source doesn’t mean it’s safe by default, it means that the code can be read.

Banks, Insurance , etc. are ultraconservative as far as tech. They want ultra stable systems. I had an acquaintance that had a business reselling ATMs to banks. Banks had a hard time sourcing EOL ATMs or spares. I remeber a story about some specific 486s CPUs and SIMMs that sold for 1000s, due to not being sourceable new from any supplier, and being needed as replacements for certain ATMs

Banks and insurance companies are also scared shitless of something breaking during upgrades to systems that control billions in funds

I run Mint Cinnamon. It’s been Rock solid for me. You can modify, add, remove whatever you want. With Flatpacks you are mostly up to date. If you want to install a newer kernel you can, and if you have Timeshift running and something breaks, you just roll back.

I see Mint as an Un-enshittified Ubuntu.

I find cinnamon very frienly and comfortable, which I need in a daily driver. To play I have things like NixOS. I could Arch, but I’m not vegan. :)

That said, I’m giving Fedora Kinoite (Atomic) a try in a VM

I’m almost a boomer. I started out in a Big Iron shop that mainly ran Cobol I haven’t touched it in decades, and I was an Admin, so I barely touched the stuff. Now I could read the stuff, but not code a hello world.

A few years back a friend my age, who was a CS major, but had mainly been a mom for 2 decades returned to the job market, thinking that she faced an impossible task, that she had obsoleted herself. She was working within a week, maintaining Cobol at a bank, and making mint.

I just tried it in a VM, and it had me jump through some hoops for flatpaks to work. Not ideal for newbies

Actually Mint is un-enshittified Ubuntu

Will try. Thanks

I suspect that there is something like that, since the Linux VM can access the share

There are, and they are installed

I have considered using an external NVME I have in a USB case, but It’s a clunky workaround.

Thanks

Thanks. I’ll try.

Some people have, with not great results. The software is the Affinity suite (design, photo, publishing, and I have used Inkscape, Gimp, and Scribus, but they aren’t there yet for me) A windows VM is fine for now, but VB is a bit sluggish. My aim is to set-up a physical partition for the VM, and try GPU passthough.

Why does it ask to access MY data in so many sites? According to Firefox, that includes passwords

I have a windows VM to use Affinity (Photo, Publisher, and Designer), a Pro level suite that will be fine for most work, and is pay once, not subscription.

I use office online, as a PWA.

I very rarely have to boot into Windows.