It occurs to me that I've made a lot of gripes about Linux but I've spent hardly any time talking about what I like. Although, in fairness, that seems to be how most people communicate when it comes to computers. But anyway, I figured I could be positive for a change, so here's some things that I like.
I like the KDE desktop, which is called Plasma. Like - I love just about everything about it. It makes Linux very easy to use and familiar-feeling, coming from Windows and that's a lot of the reason why I've hung in with trying out Linux as long as I have. The desktop is very customizable but honestly, I haven't really felt a need to add anything to it or change it. I've looked at the options, but I'm happy with the way it comes by default.
There's an app I like called KDE Connect; it syncs my Android phone with my computer. Windows has something like this too - it let me read and reply to texts, alerted me when someone was calling, and repeated phone notifications for apps I chose. KDE Connect does that, AND it also lets me transfer files and share the clipboard between my phone and my desktop, lets me use the phone as a media remote for the computer, or a remote touchpad, and a few other things. Having that interconnectedness was something I was afraid I'd have to leave behind if I started using Linux, but that turns out not to be so after all.
Another thing I was really worried about losing was OneDrive integration. Well, I still have that too. I found a utility that lets me mount my OneDrive directory to a folder I choose. Specific files and folders are kind of "virtualized" there until I specifically interact with them; but they're available to my whole machine, and stuff I put in the folder is successfully uploaded to OD. My programs like Blender can directly browse the OneDrive directory, load files from it, and save files to it. Saving and loading to it is not as snappy as Windows-OneDrive integration, but it does the job and I'll definitely take it. It's all in the file browser too - no terminal shenanigans involved, not even when installing the utility itself. I approve.
I'm still having to use Outlook webapps rather than Plasma's own app for email and calendar, which is called KOrganizer. KOrganizer is just...a bit much, for me. It's a lot of stuff I don't need and wouldn't use. There's some good news along that front though; KDE has just released an app called
Kalendar, which is a LOT more like what I want, and it looks quite nice besides. Kalendar is more like Windows' native calendar app, whereas KOrganizer while not nearly as expansive as the actual Microsoft Outlook desktop application, is more in that direction in the sense that I just wouldn't ever use like 80% of the app. The hitch with Kalendar though is that it is currently released for every kind of Linux EXCEPT Debian-based, i.e., Kubuntu, which is what I have. So I will have to wait just a tiny bit longer to get it. In the meantime, it's webapps for me.
I've played a number of Steam games using their Proton plugin and I haven't had any problems. One game I played worked better on Proton than the native Linux version.
Installing Firestorm on Linux is a little bit tricky and does require some minor console shenanigans, but once it was done, it has worked ever since with no real problems. Media works well, although sometimes video streams can sometimes take a minute to actually start. There's also a weird effect where some video streams appear as a discrete "Chrome" instance in my desktop sound settings, and I have to control the volume there (the Firestorm media volume slider has no effect). For other video streams, the FS volume slider does work. It's weird but workable.
