Here are the things I’ve gathered are non-cosmetic:

Based on https://kde.org/de/announcements/megarelease/6/, I think that many more things are not just purely cosmetic changes.

I must be missing something.

I would say you simply have the wrong expectation that with a so-called mega release a lot of big changes have to happen that the user has to notice immediately. However, many of the changes in Plasma 6 are probably not huge. But many smaller changes are also many changes.

And as others have already written, the changeover to QT 6 was probably not an easy task.

I also see Plasma 6.0 as a basis for things that are planned in Plasma 6.1 or later versions, for example, and are therefore not yet visible to the user. Articles on the development of Plasma are regularly published at https://pointieststick.com, which provide a more detailed insight into the development process.

As always, such statistics should be treated with caution.

What methodology is used to calculate Statcounter Global Stats?

Statcounter is a web analytics service. Our tracking code is installed on more than 1.5 million sites globally.

Source: https://gs.statcounter.com/faq#methodology

It is assumed that there are more than one billion websites worldwide. It is therefore not exactly unlikely that a Linux user will not access any of these 1.5 million websites.

Furthermore, it is quite common for Linux users to use tools such as Pi-Hole that simply block such statistics scripts. This means that these users would not be counted even if they accessed one of these 1.5 million websites. For my part, I also use computers with Linux that I don't use to access websites. Some of these computers don't even have access to the Internet. They are therefore not counted either.

Finally, let's come to the most important point. Percentage values say not much if you don't know the actual number of users behind them. Let's assume, for example, that 3.5 per cent Linux users were detected in December and only 3 per cent in January. However, if the total number of users was higher in January, it is therefore possible that more users were detected in January.

Nowadays, servers that are not connected to a monitor, keyboard or mouse are often referred to as headless. Regardless of whether they have a graphical user interface (which can be used with tools such as Guacamole, for example).

I'm not trying to say that this is correct, but simply to point out that the term "headless" is now often interpreted differently.

It's more than just a simple tool with which you can tweak audio. Some features are listed at https://valvesoftware.github.io/steam-audio/. The tool is mainly intended for the development of games (also under Linux).

And yes, it's basically just about the fact that Steam Audio is now completely open source.

• Virus scanners only detect a fraction of the harmful programmes.
• Virus scanners can often be tricked.
• Virus scanners often have security vulnerabilities themselves, which are usually quite serious, since such programmes embed themselves quite deeply in the operating system.
• Virus scanners cause many users to become careless because they rely too much on such tools.

Therefore, from my point of view, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Therefore, I do not have such a tool permanently installed, neither under Linux nor under Windows. However, every 6 months I scan my Windows installation with a USB-bootable virus scanner. No actually harmful programme has been found for years.

In my opinion, the following things are much more important than any security software.

• Install updates as soon as possible. Under Windows, you can use tools like Chocolatey for this.
• Only install software from trustworthy sources.
• Only install software that you really need.
• Only use root or administrator rights if you have to. For everything else, the rights of the user account are sufficient.
• Create backups regularly.
• Think before you act.

Especially the last point is a problem for many users. I can't tell you how many times I've witnessed someone receiving an alleged invoice from mobile provider A by email and opening it, even though they had a contract with provider B.

When it comes to SBC, the choice has always been a Raspberry Pi. Why? A Raspberry Pi may not have the best performance. But in return you can be sure that it will still be supported after a kernel update. And that is exactly the problem with many alternatives. They support a certain, mostly old, kernel. And that's it. Furthermore, the community around the Raspberry Pi is simply huge.

• Create interesting content on your Lemmy instance.
• Participate in discussions on your Lemmy instance.
• Tell friends and acquaintances about Lemmy without missionizing.
• Create for example content on your blog that points to Lemmy.

All this should be much more useful than doing anything on Reddit.

• ZSH (Shell)
• Ripgrep (alternative for grep)
• Bat (alternative for cat)
• Exa (alternative for ls)
• Fd (alternative for find)
• Fzf (fuzzy finder)
• Micro (editor)
• VS Code (editor)
• Jq (sed for JSON data)
• Mercurial (version control system)
• TortoiseHG (graphical interface for Mercurial)
• Terminator (terminal emulator)
• KeepassXC (password manager)
• CopyQ (clipboard manager)
• Vivaldi (browser)
• SchildiChat (matrix client)
• RSS Guard (feed reader)
• FileZilla (FTP / FTPS / SFTP client)
• Double Commander (file manager)
• Hugo (generator for static websites)
• DBeaver (database tool)
• And maybe a few others that I can't think of right now.

You can follow the submissions via an RSS feed.

For example, if you use the link Https://lemm.ee/feeds/u/Corr.xml?sort=New, all your previous posts will be displayed.

Instead of lemm.ee you need to specify the instance where the user in question is registered. And instead of Corr you have to enter the username. For example https://discuss.tchncs.de/feeds/u/fryboyter.xml?sort=New. That would be in this case my contributions.

To go x86_64-only was a mistake for Arch.

• The development team of Arch is comparatively small compared to other distributions.
• To support platforms other than x86_64 one should have access to appropriate hardware to test the packages. I for one have not had i686 hardware for a while. This is probably true for many other users as well.

Therefore, from my point of view, they have done everything right. Just like other, non-Arch based distributions, which are also now only offered for x86_64.

Distros like Fedora or Debian, or openSUSE have universal building systems and infrastructure for building packages for different architectures.

Right. And all have more collaborators and more money. For example, according to https://nm.debian.org/members/, nearly 1000 people participate in Debian.

Arch's core development team, on the other hand, consists of just 28 people without being paid for it. In addition, there are some "trusted users" (a bit more than 60 iirc) and some people responsible for support (wiki and IRC moderators etc.).

Arch just creates unnecessary fragmentation for the GNU/Linux landscape: software need to be packaged for the distro and for the same time PKGBUILDs cannot be reused in general for anything to go full Arch Linux.

Fragementation has always existed. Before Arch I had used Mandrake / Mandriva. With it I often could not use Redhat packages although they technically used the same format (RPM).

By the way, in the case of Arch or distributions based on it, you can in many cases use PKBUILD files for other platforms as well. Often it is sufficient to modify the line arch=('x86_64') accordingly. I have done this in some cases where a software for Alarm (Arch Linux ARM) was not officially offered. I simply took the PKBGUILD file from Arch Linux and changed it accordingly. And yes, this does not always work.

In general, I would like to note that a rolling distribution does not necessarily always have to offer the latest packages as soon as possible. Rolling primarily only means that updates are offered gradually via the same package sources.

But this is just a general remark. :-)

when it’s the main reason why so many people use Arch Linux?

AUR is one reason why I use Arch. But not the reason. Besides AUR, Arch has many other advantages from my point of view. Like for example the wiki that also users of other distributions use. Or the many vanilla packages. Or that you can easily create your own packages through the PKGBUILD files. Or that, based on my own experience, Arch is quite problem-free to use despite the current packages.

One reason why other distributions don't have something like AUR could be that AUR is not an official offering, so no verification is done in advance either. Thus, it has happened at least once that someone has manipulated PKGBUILD files in bad faith (https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/2018-July/034151.html). The Wiki does not warn against the use for nothing.

However, it is much easier for the user to check the files in the AUR in advance than it is, for example, with ready-made packages in an unofficial PPA.

With https://build.opensuse.org and https://mpr.makedeb.org there are also at least two offers that are somewhat similar to AUR.