Well not really because I never stuck around on KDE very long. But I'm aware you can have tiling on any DE if you want. Its about the out of box experience you get on Pop. Its also important (for me) that the tiling is done automatically, no fiddling.
I think their current modified gnome is the best desktop that exists anywhere. Cosmic is a full desktop environment with an actual (auto) tiling window manager... a combo I think should be more common in desktops. The way they implement the tiling makes it really easy for beginners to use because you can turn it on/off by keyboard shortcut or clicking the plugin icon, and because you can just drag n drop windows to change their tiled positions (along with keyboard shortcuts if preferred). It's hard to go back regular "window managers".
The System76 devs have good ideas, they seem really cool, and sane! They have been a net positive for the Linux community and desktop development IMO. I am SO hyped for the new Cosmic DE!
Yea OK, just keep voting for same parties over and over again. Let's just maintain the shitty status quo where nothing really gets better regardless of who is in office!
Y'all need to get yourselves that Windows 10 2021 LTSC IoT badboy (IoT part is important). It's supported until 2032 and it's only bloat is edge. If I had to use windows again it would be that.
You could check out distros like mint, zorinOS, fedora, popos, and Nobara. I think all of those will come with nvidia drivers so you don't have to set them up manually. Nobara in particular is set up for gaming out of the box, I don't know how well it actually works personally. You could just install Ventoy on a USB stick then load up multiple Linux distros on it, then just select the one you one to try live at boot. Mint and zorin will be the most familiar.
I really wish DE + auto tiling combo was more of a thing. Like what Pop! has going with gnome currently. The convenience of a DE with an actual WM. Yes I know there are extensions, qtile, etc. Having this out of the box would be fantastic, so much time is wasted moving windows around... tiling then manually.. or having windows overlap, oh the horror.
You can also set your DNS in settings to an adblocking DNS such as Mullvad, that works really well for me. Rethink is also for for more precise control.
I only use wayland on my t480 and it makes a noticeable difference on that machine, but not on my desktop with Nvidia. I have been testing it for a couple of days on my Nvidia box though. So far I've found it mostly works better than I expected but some games played on Nvidia+Wayland makes it look like my monitor is about to die with the weird flickers it does at times and under certain conditions (like loading screens it's unbearable), otherwise performance is good and seems to lock in at 144hz. Also does anyone know why there are no settings in the nvidia-settings app under Wayland?
You could always try tailscale until you figure something else out. Its not really self hosting but its better than having everything accessible to the public internet. Set it up in browser and follow their set up guide then install tailscale app on Truenas and whatever other device you plan on using it with.
Well not really because I never stuck around on KDE very long. But I'm aware you can have tiling on any DE if you want. Its about the out of box experience you get on Pop. Its also important (for me) that the tiling is done automatically, no fiddling.