12v fans will typically run fine, albeit much slower at 5v. This was a favorite trick many moons ago to reduce fan noise in desktops before quiet fans became mainstream. The main watch out is that the fan doesn’t stall at startup and fail to spin completely.

I second this, it’s why I went with Bazzite on my main rig - it just needs to work and be reliable. The last thing I want to be doing in my spare time is funking around trying to fix anything that happens to break.

All my other devices run whatever I feel like so I can scratch that curiosity-itch but they get reinstalled if anything major breaks and I can’t fix it in a reasonable amount of time

“Steek and Bergers”?

So far, so good but I haven’t really thought about it since. It may not suit a purist, hardcore or someone who tweaks their system endlessly but for someone like me, I don’t want to spend me free time fiddling, breaking, then fixing my home gear.

Until Win10, I never liked to “upgrade” any OS, preferring a clean slate approach and from what I understand, that’s what I’ll get here. A clean new OS with each upgrade that eliminates any gradual degradation due to a build up of clutter and abandoned packages. All while the flat packs and my data/config reside safely in the use partition (anyone, let me know if I’ve got this wrong!)

Thanks! I’m genuinely encouraged by learning Linux. That’s why I’ve been documenting things here, to share with those like me who have tried before or hesitant to make the jump.

Agree - software is the greatest blocker these days. My recent software restriction was simply a tool I was only using for study.

I was still skeptical that it would be so easy as I’ve been burnt before by Linux on YouTube or articles that exclaim just how easy it is but I usually run into at least a couple of major issues that become a pain to overcome. Not so this time! Every PC I’ve cut over during this process has been painless.

Literally the only issue I’ve had to date was my monitor not waking from sleep - a minor fault that was fixed by selecting any colour profile that wasn’t the default.

As long as you are domain joined, group policy will get rid of all that BS (I think that’s the requirement, I’ve been out of ops for a couple of years now and the memories are fading fast!). These days, that’s the only way to make Win11 somewhat decent.

Definitely no hate for Arch, just me being a smart arse ;)