What is your partitioning strategy to achieve a stable, backup-able and recoverable system?
Maybe redbubble?
BlendOS is exactly that
More like haemophilia if you ask me
There's distros aimed at newbies. Maybe these distros should ship with a small, quick, idiot-proof tutorial saying (with fancy images too) "hey don't do this, do this instead" "if you need to do this you can do so like this" and some common troubleshooting but you'd still have some folks who refuse to listen and do something that breaks their system. And we as a community should only tell noobs to use one or two distros like Linux Mint, at most a few other options in case someone needs something more specific. But aside from these distros not every distro should aim for larger marketshares, in fact some are probably better left with low marketshares (for desktop users anyways).
Also, it is impossible to have a system that doesn't have problems at some point and users shouldn't expect to not run into issues and they should be willing to at least try and look up a solution, and this doesn't go just for Linux. The closest to an unbreakable system that I can think of is Debian where the only thing someone uses is Firefox to navigate the safe sites, possibly with uBlock Origin on and the browser is in a flatpak or contained in some way. If someone doesn't want to learn at least the basics of how to use a computer and how to try to fix your problems they probably shouldn't be using computers honestly.
Of course there's issues that aren't easy to resolve and that's what forums and IT technicians are for too.
he uses this post as the sole way to access the internet. He is forever trapped here with no way out. He weeps for there are no memes to him but his condition, as he slowly falls into the pit of insanity. He is forever condemned to read about Brave browser quietly slippin VPN services, and the occasional comment. But eventually the activity will die, and he will be condemned to a lifetime of loneliness until bit-rot will consume the thread or death will free him of his pain.
That's because the latest version of the software has some incompatibility with the distro that the distro devs can't be arsed to fix.
You are using a stable release distro (like ubuntu) and expecting it to act like a rolling release and then get surprised when it doesn't act like one. Again, if you don't know what you're doing and your tools, it ain't the tool's fault if shit ain't working the way you expect it to.
If you're not aware of how often this happens then YOU are the one that clearly doesn't actually use Linux on a daily basis.
I have been using Linux on a daily basis for years, from mint to arch, and I can tell you haven't, or more likely haven't looked up how ot works, by how easily resolved the problems you mentioned would be of you just took the time to Google and inform yourself a bit on the tool you want to use.
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK WE ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU ILLITERATE COW-FELLATER?
You're the one here who keeps saying Linux sucks because of an Ubuntu-only problem and then complaining about it when people rightly inform you that you can always choose another option that doesn't have the problem or do things differently to achieve the same result.
completely reinstall your entire system because one fucking dev doesn't like having to deal with users installing .deb files.
Takes 15 minutes or less. And if you don't want to do that you can do something else like flatpaks, learning how to do what you're trying to do with the terminal or another way. You have plenty of choice, you just need to stop baby raging, Google a bit and fox your issue.
Says you, and who the fuck are you besides nobody?
I can say the exact same response to you saying the Mint repos are small. I am someone who used mint for about 2 years before switching off of it and know people who have used it for as long as it exists and never had to install programs that weren't some very uncommon/specialized ones from outside the package manager.
Again, a cunt blaming the user for a distro removing options
The distro removing an option is shitty but if you don't want to switch to a different distro or do the necessary work to fix it then it is your fault when the problem isn't magically fixed. This isn't proprietary shit, you don't have to beg the company overlord to fix it for you (if they want). Open the browser, look for a solution to your problem that you like, and solve the issue.
Then why the fuck do all of the major distros have donation pages
To help for whatever, but they're donations, not selling you anything, not there for profit.
shops, and foundations, and all of the other things that generate money for a handful of people?
Not every distro, not even every mainstream distro, has this. And not every one of these things is necessarily there to make a profit over being a simple donation.
If you think accepting donation necessarily means wanting to make a profit then you might not be the brightest star in the sky
It's not hard to switch to another Linux distro. Many, like mint, even let you separate the home partition with the grafical installer too.
So you're complaining that your system breaks because you're trying to use it as something that it isn't, without looking up what you're doing, and somehow that's not your fault?
If you try to use a fork as an outlet cleaner don't complain that the outlet sucks when you're getting electrocuted.
This shows to me that you either didn't use Linux a lot or don't understand it.
quite often what is there isn't remotely a recent version.
That is cause you're using a stable release distro. If you wanted up to date packages you wouldn't use something based on Debian stable but either a rolling release or semi-rolling like Fedora. Or Flatpaks, appimages, and the many other options you have. Again, not hard stuff to figure out if you are willing to learn. User's fault.
Removing the ability to install .debs
Nobody is doing that, except maybe Ubuntu, you just need to learn how to do it. And if your distro does it, well wouldn't you know it there 100000 distros more you can choose. Again if you're looking for .debs first of all you're not getting something different than what you're getting on the official repo, and secondly you're almost certainly looking for software that is lesser known or has bad support for Linux. In 2023 almost everything someone needs is in the repos of distros like Mint and Debian. Certainly everything for the type of user that is too lazy to Google anything.
But you can't completely switch your system with a different version managed by different people while preserving your home folder.
You can't choose the windows you get, Microsoft chooses for you
Ubuntu maybe, but Linux ain't a product. Most Linux distros aren't there to make a profit, they're there because someone thought they'd be useful. They don't care about markets hare or anything like that.
If you put the faults of Ubuntu on all of Linux then you don't know much about Linux at all.
If Ubuntu does stupid shit, let it fail who cares there's a billions distros to choose that provide a better experience than Ubuntu, and certainly better than Windows and macOS
You act like problems don't happen on windows and macOS. But they do happen, and they're harder to fix than on linux most of the time.
Then again, with immutable distros, Debian, Linux Mint, and others, most of the time if something doesn't work it is because the user did something to break their system and in those cases put effort into it.
If you are a user that only uses the computer to browse the web, maybe play some games on steam, then you're unlikely to encounter any issues provided you chose the right distro (Mint would be my recommendation but I hear Fedora Silverblue works nicely). If you're the kind of user to tinker a lot then you're likely not a noob and you have no excuse for not looking up what you're doing.
If you aren't willing to learn at least the basics of how to do the stuff you want to do then probably you shouldn't do that stuff, not blame the system for doing what you told it to do.
this software isn't available in the selection that Fedora/Ubuntu/Mint/whatever
My man, those repos are vast as shit. The only time you will run into this situation is either if you're using obscure software (that most newbies won't use, and then again if you can't Google a few things you shouldn't be using obscure software) or stuff that isn't supported on linux at all.
limiting user choice
We aren't limiting user's choice. You can do literally everything you want on Linux, just need to know how. You need to know how to do stuff in other OSes too btw, but doesn't mean they will let you do everything.
Let's assume 1000 people, who are as real as the people you see around you. And Let's also assume these people who are in the room with us right now can't communicate with each other. You email "Team Crab will win" to 500 and "Team Monkey will win" to the other 500.
Team Monkey wins, so you send the 500 ones that saw it win another email for the next match. 250 get "Team Horse wins" and the other 250 get "Team Mr Hands wins".
Team Horse wins, so now you have: ¼ of the people who think you have a 100% success rate over only two games so they won't necessarily be convinced but may look at you with interest, ¼ which see you at 50% but come on it' only 2 games, and ½ who didn't receive your mail and are wondering what is up with that.
So let's assume all the double-winners subscribe and so does 150 of the one-time winners. That's 400 subscribers. However, you, being a big brained individual, only send an email to the 250 winners, 125 will have received "Team George W Bush will win" and the other 125 "Team Twin Towers will win".
After George W Bush smashes the Twin Towers you will have 125 happy people, 125 sad people and 150 angry people, some of whom will sue you because you didn't deliver the service they paid for, the other ones learn from the news of your scam and you are charged for fraud, losing all the money you made and then some, as well as go to jail where you will drop the soap and wake up in the psych ward with a funny jacket because it turns out you were hallucinating the whole time.
Oh I have plenty of reasons to hate em alright but this one was personal
been using adblocks without VPN for years, never had legal consequences from my country and I highly doubt it would care (doesn't even care too much if I pirate shit). So why the fuck would I give my data to the Ruzzian government?
I don't know the answers to the other questions but yes swap is important, without it as soon as your system exceeds the RAM available to it it will freeze entirely.