Yeah, I'm surprised too by how little there is for htpc use cases. And I'm bummed by how little development plasma bigscreen has seen.

Oh, honestly most of the software I'm using on it isn't configured through nix. I'm sure I could go a bit further configuring Kodi with it, but the other things like Steam and Firefox wouldn't really benefit.

If I were you, I'd just focus first on getting the base system setup and software installed. Then once you have the software how you like, start porting configuration over to your nix config file(s). That's one of the nice things about NixOS; there's no rush to get everything in a single config file, but you can opt in when it makes sense.

I don't know about hottest, but on my little HTPC I'm running NixOS with KDE (mainly for KDE Connect, but it's nice to have a DE of some sort when things crash/break).

I set up flex launcher to auto start and added menu options for Kodi, Firefox, and Steam.

I used to run LibreElec. It was mostly fine, but the Kodi YouTube plugin breaks just often enough that I wanted to have a web browser as backup. Also, I eventually wanted to play/stream games to it.

Real talk, Fortnite is the only remaining reason I still dual boot into Windows.

I mean, if you're voting within a "first past the post" voting system for a solo position, then yeah you cannot vote outside the two expected, establishment choices and expect it to do anything other than spoil the next candidate you would have chosen.

You have to change the voting system first to something else like ranked choice.

There's a fun little article about it here.

It sorta depends. I've personally had some issues with certain software (mainly Firefox) running in Wayland on my Nvidia card. There are environment variables and flags to remedy some issues, but I'd still get the occasional application crash.

What worked well for me was setting up prime offloading so basically all of the system runs on the integrated GPU and only games run on Nvidia.

Since it's a laptop, for whichever distros you're considering I would absolutely check for any compatibility issues or weirdness others have experienced (things like sleep/wake, power management, wifi, webcam, any other features on the laptop).

What laptop is it?

You're confusing the metaphorical sort of "analogous" with the term "analogous" used in evolutionary biology.

The real cheat sheet:

The best thing I ever did was use Nvidia prime offloading to move everything to my integrated GPU and have only select GPU intensive applications (like games, video editing) interact with Nvidia.

Never had to deal with weird graphics bugs after that.

Right? I made the realization a while ago that refurbished mini PCs are a way better fit for most of my homelab needs.

Sure, if power consumption is your #1 priority then you'd want some ARM solution. But for my use cases, I've found myself fighting with software support and the relatively low computational power of even the newer RPis.

Also, T-series Intel chips (the low power ones) have pretty good idle power consumption and don't spin up the fan too much given their lower power. And a lot of uses cases require sticking a fan and heat sinks on an RPi so you lose the quietness benefit.

Also also, you (still?) need proprietary blobs to use a bunch of the hardware on RPis. You can go full open source on a regular old PC.

That's fair. But since you do have a Switch, I'd still recommend finding a used copy of Yoshi's Crafted World if you haven't played it.

If you're open to doing emulation, there's a multitude of Nintendo games that are amazing couch co-op.

We'll just have to see how quickly we get a working emulator.

Ryubing (a fork of Ryujinx) is very good, so hopefully we'll see something stem from that.

I can say with certainty that trying to argue with me about why I should support the lesser evil is a complete waste of your time and energy.

Well, I guess we'll just have to agree on that then.

You're conflating voting for someone with supporting them. I didn't support Hillary or Kamala but I still voted for them because the alternative was so much worse. That's just the shitty reality of our two-party, fptp voting system.

In this system, one of those two parties will win regardless of how you specifically cast or don't cast your vote. The time to fight for the ideal candidate is the four years leading up to the election. When you get to the ballot box, you really just have to swallow what's perfect and pick what's not terrible (at least in that moment).

Supporting the lesser evil makes useful idiots think that they're winning and therefore stop fighting back.

But the alternative is effectively accelerationism, throwing millions of people under the bus, and hoping that things shake out in your favor after a violent revolution. Which... I don't agree with as a plan, but we're kind of already on this path so 🤷‍♂️.

Also, I'm not mad at you. And I think I largely agree with you, with anger at the system and candidate selection. I just don't agree with you about casting your vote being the time and place to stage a protest (in a system like ours at least).

I get the frustration but this is a bad take.

In a two-party, first-past-the-post system you kinda have an ethical obligation to vote for the lesser evil. It's just a statistical fact you can't ignore.

It fucking blows, but if your choices are the shitty status quo or full blown fascism, you really should pick the status quo.

Obviously doesn't fix the problem with the Democrat party sliding further and further right since they can continue to claim "lesser evil"... and it also doesn't fix the DNC superdelegate shenanigans that got us Hillary instead of Bernie... but I'd rather the country be able to still exist to fight another day.