No, the average user will never know the difference. I couldn't tell you exactly what the current performance impact is for hardware encryption, but it's likely around 1-4% depending on the platform (I use LUKS under Linux).

For gamers, it's likely a 1-5 FPS loss, depending on your hardware, which is negligible in my experience. I play mostly first and third person shooter-style games at 1440p/120hz, targeting 60-90 FPS, and there's no noticeable impact (Ryzen 5600 / RX 6800XT).

Same, I've switched all of my workstations to Kinoite and Silverblue over the past 18 months, and couldn't be much happier about it.

Radicale on the home server, which syncs contacts and calendaring for us. Thunderbird on the desktop. Fossify Calendar on Android, synced to Radicale via DAVx⁵.

It's available via Flatpak though. It's been a dream to use...very fast, lots of options, and excellent container integration.

Simple SMS, obtained from F-Droid, is probably the best universal option until the Fossify project adds the fork to their suite (assuming they do).

If you have the ability to toggle network access for your apps (GrapheneOS, etc.), Google Messages is a very solid SMS app that receives regular updates. I would normally only recommend FOSS apps, but many of those options are limited and/or dangerously outdated for SMS.

My home server is a NUC inside an Akasa Turing fanless case with an 8TB Samsung 870 QVO SSD for my file shares. Works great and it's completely silent.

It should go without saying that routine, off-site backups are an important element of server administration, regardless of drive type. Mine are completed monthly, and critical data (docs, keepass databases, etc.) is also synced across multiple devices using Syncthing.

I've been running Fedora Silverblue on nearly all of my PCs for about a year now and overall it's been great.

• Automatic and unobtrusive updates for the core OS and user apps (everything happens in the background without interaction; flatpak updates are applied immediately, and OS updates are applied at next boot)
• I can choose to apply many core updates immediately, but rarely do
• Atomic OS updates means that everything must be installed successfully or none of the OS updates are applied, which prevents a partially updated system
• Being an image-based distro, I can and do easily rebase to Fedora's test/beta/remix releases, and just as easily rollback, or run both stable and beta releases side by side for testing purposes
• Being image-based means there's no chance of orphaned packages or library files being left behind after an update, resulting in a cleaner system over time
• In the event that anything does go sideways after a system update (hasn't happened yet), I can easily rollback to the previous version at boot

Some elements not unique to Silverblue but part of its common workflow:

• Distrobox/toolbox allow you to run any other distro as a container, and then use that distro's apps as if they were native to your host system; this includes systemd services, locally installed RPMs, debs, etc.; I use distrobox to keep most of my dev workflow within my preferred Archlinux environment
• Flatpaks are the FOSS community's answer to Ubuntu's Snaps, providing universal 1-click installation of sandboxed user apps (mostly GUI based); Firefox, Steam, VLC, and thousands of other apps are available to users, all without the need for root access

My only complaints about Silverblue are more to do with how Flatpaks work right now, such as:

• Drag & drop doesn't work between apps, at least not for the apps I've attempted to use; for example, dragging a pic into a chat window for sharing; instead, I have to browse to and select the image from within the chat app
• Firefox won't open a link clicked within Thunderbird unless the browser is already open, otherwise it just opens a blank tab
• Many flatpak apps are maintained by unofficial volunteers, and this isn't always clear on Flathub; I view this as a security risk and would prefer to see a flag or warning of some kind when a flatpak is not maintained by the official upstream developer

That said, I'm confident that these issues will be addressed over time. The platform has already come a long way these past couple of years and now that the KDE and GNOME teams are collaborating for it, things will only get better.

Like I said though, overall Silverblue has been a really great user experience, and as a nearly 20-year Linux veteran it has really changed the way I view computing.

I can't speak for all methods but in the case of GNOME's greeter, autologin doesn't apply to remote sessions.

Hah, thanks I appreciate it! Re-reading my post, it sounds pretty glum, but that wasn't really my intention. I fully appreciate that Lemmy is still in alpha development, and I didn't have great expectations that it could compete with reddit in its current form.

And I don't mind the smaller communities, nor my own diminished usage. Since breaking away from Reddit, I find myself spending more time exploring the small web, rediscovering niche blogs, working on websites within my own circle, and generally just enjoying the break from doomscrolling and getting overwhelmed with the lack of humanity displayed in that worldview.

I might still have one kicking around somewhere. Probably with my OG Quake discs.

I really wish the 70s and 80s aesthetic had lasted longer, particularly where automotives were concerned. Would love to have something like this today.

I'm beginning to feel this way too. We need to distribute the load, especially at this early stage.

What is also missing from the big picture is a dedicated "About" link in the navbar of Lemmy instances, providing users with a statement of detailed information on the people/organizations behind a given instance, its location in the world, its hardware, etc. A byline in the front page sidebar isn't enough.