Re: packages
What software specifically are you not finding in the repos? If it’s FOSS there should be a simple way of getting it. If it’s proprietary you kind need to pick your least hated option:
- Third party repos - very hit and miss, easiest to troubleshoot, can be awesome rock solid or buggy as hell
- nix package manager - i have no experience but very popular right now
- Flatpak - can be managed by Gnome Software or KDE Discover, no system theme integration, config files are in weird places
- Snap - similar to Flatpak on Ubuntu, YMMV elsewhere
- Appimage - if no other option, similar to Windows binaries, cant self-update
I’d pick one and stick with it as much as possible. Mixing several solutions is where things get confusing (for me at least)
Re: settings
UI scaling is a rough edge on Linux. Non-integer scaling (1.25, 1.5, 1.75, etc) doesnt always give perfect results on X11, and Wayland scaling only works on Plasma, Gnome, and the various compositors. Themeing isnt really a thing on Gnome, so only Plasma has both good scaling and themeing, and Plasma is especially guilty of the “settings in 3 places” phenomenon. If you want simple menus and good themeing you can use MATE, Cinnamon, or XFCE but then you lose wayland scaling.
I have run into the same bug with Display Manager not scaling on Plasma, but i dont have this issue on Gnome or on x11 desktops. Plasma may be the common denominator here.
Re: laptop
My advice is to try to like Gnome. It’s got the best scaling support right now. Disable all extensions, learn the keyboard shortcuts for window and desktop management, learn the touchpad swipe gestures, and pretend you dont miss themeing. If you can get past the initial apprehension, you might find a modern desktop with an elegant workflow. Add back in as few extensions as you can live with; each one is a potential source of instability/bugs but as long as you keep it to a small number you should be fine. I have 4 extensions currently enabled, and i wouldnt go too much higher.
If you end up hating it then Plasma is the next best option for your hardware. Plasma is in heavy development and still has lots of small issues, but things should improve over time
or you could try Hyprland
Re: photo editing
Curious about your workflow. I do a lot of wildlife photography as a hobby and I find just Darktable to be too much. I usually end up cropping, adjusting brightness and colors, and then exporting to a jpg.
What sorts of things are you doing with your photos? I dont think i have a solution for you, just curious. Also, can you run an older version of Blender? There might be a containerized solution for that already.
Thanks for the detailed explanation! Very interesting