OUwUO

Thank you for that! IIRC, it was one of the settings I took from bash-sensible. I can say that it definitely improved after just a couple of changes to ~/.bashrc. Add in ble.sh and it suddenly seemed somewhat modern instead of archaic.

Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what broke the camel's back. However, FWIW, contrary to how I recall my experiences with bash and zsh, I don't feel any frustration while using using fish. So it's definitely doing something for me 😉.

Thank you so much for the elaborate answer! Have a good one!

AFAIK Cinnamon is on track to be the first smaller DE with full wayland support.

I think Budgie just beat them to it. To be clear, Budgie 10.10 is literally Wayland-only.

Are you on systemd or sysVinit? If you're on the latter, could you tell if you've even noticed any difference so far? Thanks in advance!

DOOM Emacs

NVChad

You might be the first person I've found on Lemmy that actively uses both DOOM Emacs and a Neovim distribution. Could you perhaps do a deeper dive on your work flow? Thanks in advance!

As I suppose the other user already went over your main query, I'll instead focus on what might have felt rather innocuous.

my default shell is fish

I subscribe to the school of thought that one should not change their default shell^[I suppose it could be fine~ish as long as it's POSIX compliant AND compatible with bash. Which, unfortunately, fish happens to be neither of the two.] through invoking chsh (or whatever other method that applies changes to /etc/passwd). This article does an excellent job at laying down the reasoning (and the recommended alternative). FWIW, the alternative's day-to-day experience provides all of the pros without any of the cons.

fish - Ever since I've made the switch to Linux, the terminal has been part of the experience. And, honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way. Besides its efficiency, I also very much enjoy how it automatically keeps track of everything I do within. I don't get that functionality whenever I do something within a GUI. But bash left a lot to be desired in that regard; its history simply didn't record everything. It was also pretty bare-bones; no syntax highlighting, no auto suggestions etc. Thus, after trying to bend bash (and later zsh) to my will and ultimately being dissatisfied with the janky mess I was left with, I finally gave in to at least give fish a honest try. The rest is history. Heck, fish is the very first thing I install on a machine.

I definitely agree with you on GNOME being rather opinionated. Perhaps more so than most other DEs.

Anyhow, thanks again for appreciating my input and compliments!

Great write-up! Thank you for the effort!

Though, if I may: Regarding GNOME, you said:

Not particularly customisable

I would rather rephrase this to "Does not expose many knobs for customization by default.". Because -frankly- between dconf, extensions and CSS; the possibilities are actually quite expansive. So much so, even, that a KDE dev said regarding GNOME: "sometimes it (read: GNOME) can be customized better than KDE". (They say this literally in the first 10 seconds or so.)

Another striking example of the breadth of GNOME's customization would be how Niri was heavily inspired by GNOME's PaperWM extension. (Source) So, GNOME's customizability has allowed the creation of a new workflow that eventually served as a direct inspiration for one of the most exciting WMs we've got.

Do you mean Desktop Environments?

EDIT: OP has changed the title of the post since. Regardless, thank you OP for the confirmation/clarification! FWIW, I really like Eylenburg's resource on this.

The angle of smartphones taking over the role that was occupied by cheap PCs makes a ton of sense. I'm certain there's (at least) some truth to it.

I’m worried that there’s not much room for FOSS in this new world. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

I'm (at least) a bit more optimistic :P .

This is like talking to a chatbot on store site!

😅. Yeah, sorry. I suppose, in retrospect, I had (still) failed to completely grasp what your point was. And I wanted to be direct/blunt in hopes of finally getting it.

#2: not enough RAM

FWIW, over where I'm at, HP sells it with 8 gb of ram for under 400 euros. Full specs in case you're curious:

HP Chromebook x360 14

• Processor: Intel Processor N200 (Intel N-series, 4 cores / 4 threads, up to 3.7 GHz Turbo, 6 MB L3 cache)
• Memory (RAM): 8 GB LPDDR5-4800 (onboard/soldered)
• Storage: 128 GB UFS
• Display: 14-inch touchscreen IPS (edge-to-edge glass), 1920×1080 (Full HD), 250 nits, 62.5% sRGB, 16:9
• Graphics card: Intel UHD Graphics (integrated/shared)
• Operating system: ChromeOS
• Network connections: Wi‑Fi 6 (MediaTek MT7921 2×2), Bluetooth 5.3
• Connections: 2× USB‑C (5 Gb/s; Power Delivery + DisplayPort 1.4), 1× USB‑A (5 Gb/s), 1× headphone/mic combo jack
• Extra options: 2‑in‑1 convertible, 720p HP True Vision webcam (temporal noise reduction), dual mics, two speakers, accelerometer + gyroscope, webcam kill switch, H1 secure microcontroller, fast charging (~50% in 45 min), 100 GB Google One (1-year subscription included)
• Weight: 1.37 kg
• Dimensions (L × W × H): 323 × 210.3 × 20.4 mm
• Battery / charging: 47 Wh (2-cell Li-ion polymer), 45 W USB‑C power adapter, up to 11 hours
• Color: Glacier Silver
• Warranty: 1 year limited warranty (parts + labor; no on-site repair)

The same niche exists today but it is occupied by ARM and Mediatek. This is the fundamental problem.

Understood, finally. Then, yeah: Agreed. 100%.

Though, I don't know the mechanics at hand/play that have contributed to our current status quo. My naive take would be that Windows 11's increased hardware requirements has made it harder for lower end devices to support it; thus paving the way for a higher floor of system specs across the board. Hence, higher prices, even without accounting the current price hikes due to the whole AI bubble that's about to pop. Though, that doesn't quite explain what's up with the lack of cheap x86 on Chromebooks...