Here’s my take on it, as someone who sells 3D printed things.
Infill percentage doesn’t matter as much as wall and top bottom thickness. My go to is 4 layers top, bottom, and walls. But for products I sell I usually do 25% infill, unless it’s very thin, like a stylus, then it’s 100%.
PLA is a good material for a lot of things. But for tactile things PETG and ABS are better.
And for the other two haven’t had the need to, at least not for a third party service seeing I have a 3D printer.
They way I see it is this. I look at my computer as a tool and ask is it working for me right now? What software do I need for it to work? Is that software Windows only, if so can I move to an alternative software that cross platform?
Your computer is a tool that lets you do things. If some software, even the OS is holding you back take a look at what is holding you, and see if its worth the negative of staying to keep that software.
For me that answer was Yes Windows is holding me back, but for years I was shackled by Professional Software, games and Legacy apps which kept me to the platform.
Steam with proton fixed the games issue
Swapping myself to different cross platform software helped with my Professional software.
Legacy was managed with a cheap $20 thrift store laptop with Windows xp installed.
Imam now free to move away from windows, I chose Linux since I idealize a "do it all" pc, but Mac OS is also a viable alternative.
Not from what I can tell. While upgrading will not detrimental from what I've heard (since you can upgrade a local account), there's a lot which I personally don't like about with Windows 11 which will make me want to not upgrade. If you have no intention of moving away from the Windows, it may be best to upgrade while MS is offering it.
Otherwise, if you are willing to take the plunge Linux is the better option if you are looking for an OS which has no ads, no adware bloat, and a UI to your liking. Mint or Zorin are a Good Windows like starting point if you are looking to get started.
I moonlight as a small app developer. This is absolutely correct. I have a handful of legacy apps which uses Unity, and makes so little that moving them would cost more.
That said, if/when I do another project, it won't be in Unity.
You got the bases down from my understanding. But it can more be simplified by what's the bases of the distro. For example Linux Mint is down stream from Ubuntu which is down stream from Debain. Getting familiar with the base distro is helpful.
My strategy is just a good old VM and installing whatever I am interested in. Technically you could list all the package managers but if a distro has a different upstream source that uses apt then its going to be hard to tell that nuance.
Its down to your use case. For me I primarily game so I have a handful of games and software which I need to install. Xpadneo, mangohud, goverlay, lutris, etc. All this is testable in a VM installing is the most you'll need to do.
must have software for me is steam, lutris, dxvk, and flatpak support (lots of emulators use flatpak). The rest like libre office, gimp, vlc is usually pre-installed.
Software Manager and running the updates. Most distros aren't bloated by default. If you feel they are, the software is easy to uninstall.
haven't heard of this, so no clue.
Mint, Pop, kubuntu are all the same OS underneath. They are all up stream Ubuntu with software and Desktop Environment tweaks, tailored to their preferred configuration. Kubuntu stands out as it has KDE plasma installed, while the others have a tweaked gnome experience.
Other than feel, they all should run the same under the hood.
Fedora, Manjaro and OpenSuse are all viable alternatives to Ubuntu/Debian. Each having their pros and cons based on your tastes. In order of easiest to setup to best to tinker with this is my recommended order to try them out in a VM.
Mint/Pop_OS/Kubuntu (deb bases and has the most users/support thanks to Ubuntu)
Fedora (RHEL bases and lots of enterprise support. Other DEs can be found as "spins" if you don't like Gnome. DNF isn't my favourite package manager
OpenSuse (Good around distro. Very workstations friendly, but lacks one or two packages I want, close to Fedora for my recommendation)
Manjaro (its arch for babies. Easy to configure and setup compared to arch, but very temperamental and easy to break)
Arch/EndevourOS (if you want the best Linux has to offer, all the software and tunable to your taste. Welcome. Otherwise git gud)
Hanna Montana Linux (its the best of both worlds)
TL:DR install virtual box and try the distro. You'll know very quickly if you like it. And what you'll like in a distro.
With Microsoft's low first party performance I am surprised with how well they are doing considering the hits Sony's been releasing for over 2 console gens now.
2009 computer class in school. Buddy of mine was showing off these computers you could put together yourself, then showing me this cool operating system that has desktops with a 3d cube to change the workspace.
2024 laptop has Linux on it for the last 2 years, and I am waiting for the right excuse to migrate my desktop too.
While I agree, the issue is, that they'll want to. Thankfully Valve is handling games well enough right now that it's a non problem. Regardless which distro you are on.
I think it depends on what you are looking for. While Linux Mint is a safe option, it does have some drawbacks... well it's more drawbacks from Ubuntu but as Linux Mint is based off of it, it's also impacted. Primarily the fact that Ubuntu packages are terribly out of date. Thankfully mint makes adding PPA's painless, but for apps that don't have a PPA it's a pain to install them from scratch like Mangohud. It's not impossible, but there is an expect level of Linux knowledge which is required before going in.
Another option is Manjaro. You will hear the litany of endless criticism about it from the community, some of it is valid. But for the most part, while it's not as nice as Linux Mint, I think the OS will get you to the point where you can start using your machine faster. Mostly thanks to Arch's rolling release, as well as the AUR for filling the gap between official packages and flatpaks.
I was using Manjaro for the longest time, but switched to Mint due to a freak bootloader accident. I prefer Manjaro in terms of how well it handled Games and Windows software due to it's association with Arch. But I like how well Mint manages my laptop's battery and performance or lack thereof due to it's pitiful cooler.
Cheap as in a used iPhone that still works. Agreed
Cheap as in a new Android phone with Android Go and the bare minimum specs that will keep it going. Hard disagree unless you are using it as just a dumb phone.
Too many choices to help narrow it down for you. But you need to keep your own workflow in mind when picking out your CPU and GPU, for the software compatibility.
I use Davinci Resolve for my video editing, one of the few Professional NLE officially supported on Linux. Intel's iGPU is incompatible with the software at this time. There are hacks and unofficial patches which are pointed out on the arch wiki, but the work required isn't easy.
If you are using Adobe software you might need more power so you can run Windows in a VM, or has up-gradable storage so you can comfortably dual boot.
Good Battery is an cross x86 issue. While Intel and AMD are now trying to compete with Apple Silicon in terms of power and battery life. Stand by battery drain is still an issue. Google "Windows Modern Standby" if you want to get informed. If I remember correctly the laptop needs to have S3 Sleep enabled on it, and it's usually not specified on a spec sheet.
Another battery saving tool is a CPU limiter like Slimbook Battery. My Laptop has a terrible fan curve and I need to throttle the CPU back, else the machine overheats. But it's also good for the battery life too.
Software support is down to the Package Manager. Flatpak is your friend for most of this, but if you wanna dive into the deep end, so is the AUR if you installed Arch.
I can see the skeleton of an amazing game. For 1996 and no reference its absolutely amazing achievement. But the controls suck, gameplay is stiff and I hated climbing that damn waterfall and the combat was terrible.
I appreciate what's there but I'd need to cheat, or use save states to play any further than the second cut scene.
I'll take 20