What's the use case? Is there a reason that the disk is not unlocked at boot/login?

I think any distro will do really. I'd go for something that is friendly to new users, if you're not very familiar with Linux in general. For example: Linux Mint. Here is an example on how you can get your installation setup easily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyT4wfz5ZMg

Regarding your Valve Index. It will likely work, but don't expect it to be very easy to get it running well. I'm currently on Arch Linux with red team hardware and a Valve Index. For example, you will need to ensure the udev rules are set properly: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-devices. New issues occasionally arise, see: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux/issues. Currently, it's not switching audio devices automatically, so I use pavucontrol (with PipeWire) to switch that manually.

Love it. Too bad it's missing the eating sound we all know so well

I think Duolingo is a great place to start learning. I recommend joining a course, which has helped me immeasurably more than Duolingo with learning Swedish. Interacting with a native speaker (or someone closer to that level) is a great way to develop the skill, as they will be able to pick up what you are struggling with. Getting engaged in some video content is also nice, but I guess what would be good for you greatly depends on your interests and current skill level.

There are plenty of resources that help new speakers. I think a great start would be to search for keywords like 'eenvoudige taal' (easy/simple language), 'nederlands voor kinderen' (Dutch for children), and the like. I think it's great learning language from stuff that is meant for (Dutch) children, like https://www.dutchforchildren.nl/gratis-nederlands-lesmateriaal/.

An example of 'eenvoudige taal', weekly Dutch news: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO72qiQ-gJuFzpCgQcsdd4lkulqeeBMC3

When you're at about A2-level (and live in NL) you might like to try something like this: https://iwcn.nl/work/my-local-friend/. It's an organization that connects native speakers with non-native speakers to hone the Dutch of the non-native speaker in a way that works best for them.

Dutch people will often switch to English as soon as you start struggling/they hear something out of place/etc., a nice trick to keep things in Dutch is by saying: "Ik spreek geen Engels" ("I don't speak English", who cares if it's a lie!)

Personally, I never do it. I like to invest quite a bit into a world. The idea of having that being taken away because I do something silly feels awful.

To each their own of course. I can imagine it gives it that more of a thrill.

Could be a good idea for you to determine why you would want a hardcore world and what you'd feel if that ends.

Oh I didn't know that yet! Amazing stuff.

You're in luck. As far as i recall wincompose is inspired by Xorg's Compose feature (https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose?tab=readme-ov-file#features). Depending on your installation you can toggle it via some settings, or by running: setxkbmap -option compose:ralt

I always find the book useful for this stuff: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg/Keyboard_configuration#Configuring_compose_key

I think I resolved something like this by respeccing the character. Talk to withers and change the class. Not very sure about this, but I do recall how annoying it was. Good luck!

I have been in the same spot. Good to read that I've been able to help out. Have fun with this in combination with your gaming!

I use a gaming-mode for that. Like this:

# Create a gaming mode
mode "gaming" {
    # switch to workspace
    bindsym $mod+1 workspace number $ws1 ; mode "default"
    bindsym $mod+2 workspace number $ws2 ; mode "default"
    bindsym $mod+3 workspace number $ws3 ; mode "default"
    bindsym $mod+4 workspace number $ws4 ; mode "default"
    bindsym $mod+5 workspace number $ws5 ; mode "default"
    bindsym $mod+6 workspace number $ws6 ; mode "default"
    bindsym $mod+7 workspace number $ws7 ; mode "default"
    bindsym $mod+8 workspace number $ws8 ; mode "default"
    bindsym $mod+9 workspace number $ws9 ; mode "default"

    # move focused container to workspace
    bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace number $ws1
    bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace number $ws2
    bindsym $mod+Shift+3 move container to workspace number $ws3
    bindsym $mod+Shift+4 move container to workspace number $ws4
    bindsym $mod+Shift+5 move container to workspace number $ws5
    bindsym $mod+Shift+6 move container to workspace number $ws6
    bindsym $mod+Shift+7 move container to workspace number $ws7
    bindsym $mod+Shift+8 move container to workspace number $ws8
    bindsym $mod+Shift+9 move container to workspace number $ws9
    bindsym $mod+Shift+0 move container to workspace number $ws10
}

# Enter the gaming mode when a game is started
for_window [class="^steam_app_"] move to workspace $ws10; workspace $ws10; mode "gaming"
for_window [class="^hl2_linux"] move to workspace $ws10; workspace $ws10; mode "gaming"

This automatically moves (most) games to workspaces 10 and switches to that workspace. This allows me to use key combinations that would otherwise be used by i3.

That should be easily solved with: sudo apt install curl

I think that should be possible. You'll likely need to get Jellyfin running with that cloudflare tunnel. There are probably alternatives to cloudflare tunnel as well, but I'm not very familiar with it. I believe there are some limitations with the tunnel, so you will have to check that out. Otherwise there should be no issue.

Dozens of GB sounds like there's a lot of media files to me. I'd not share that via Syncthing. Assuming that is correct: Wouldn't a media server like Jellyfin be a better fit? Or if it's photos, I recommend Immich. Note that Immich is under active development and should not be your only place to store photos.

I think self-hosted cloud is a vague statement, but I think with your network infrastructure you will be limited in what you can do. I think cloudflare tunnel could be a good option for getting the device available online.

Then the self-hosted part. There are so many things you can look into. You can run everything in Docker, install the software you want directly on your laptop, and much more.

You'll likely also need a reverse proxy. Can use nginx proxy manager, traefik, or something similar for that.

What are your goals with the self-hosted cloud? That would help you in making it easy to find resources and others here to give you advice.

Edit: typo's

Well.. I guess I have been living under a rock. Today is the first time to have heard of info. I have been using man for well over 2 decades now.

Drop items like healing potions, bombs, etc. with one of your characters. Then use mage hand to throw it by right clicking the dropped items. It's like having a cheap (but weak) bonus healer shaped like a floating hand

It's very difficult for me to work through these logs as they are missing new lines.

But there is plenty of stuff giving errors:

Aug 20 14:07:08 blackcloud gnome-session-binary[635]: Unrecoverable failure in required component org.gnome.Shell.desktop

Aug 20 14:07:08 blackcloud org.gnome.Shell.desktop[646]: Failed to setup: No GPUs found

Aug 20 14:07:08 blackcloud gdm[398]: Gdm: GdmDisplay: Session never registered, failing Aug 20 14:07:08 blackcloud gdm[398]: Gdm: Child process -628 was already dead.

Aug 20 14:08:08 blackcloud /usr/lib/gdm-wayland-session[2472]: dbus-daemon[2472]: [session uid=120 pid=2472] Activated service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1' failed: Process org.freedesktop.systemd1 exited with status 1

Aug 20 14:08:25 blackcloud gnome-shell[2483]: Connection to xwayland lost Aug 20 14:08:25 blackcloud gnome-shell[2483]: Xwayland terminated, exiting since it was mandatory Aug 20 14:08:25 blackcloud org.gnome.Shell.desktop[2483]: GNOME Shell terminated with an error: Xwayland exited unexpectedly

You might want to try (in no specific order) to check why xwayland is failing, reinstall gnome, clean up old configuration, do a system upgrade, try pacdiff.

I have not experienced this and no direct solution. You should probably check your logs to see what's wrong. So on boot, try to log in into Wayland, then open up a shell and run these to see which errors pop up.

journalctl -b | grep wayland
journalctl -b | grep gnome
journalctl -b | grep gdm
# and for more general errors
journalctl -b -p 3

You might also want to check the book on Wayland.

I think it's great! Just like you I've been spending time on getting materials for the potions of speed. It's also nice that the alchemy system isn't too much of a hassle to use.

I think Wikipedia is a valuable common good and should be maintained. Because I can afford it, I donate monthly, even if I only use it a few times each month.