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.

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!

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

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.

Quite possibly. The gameplay is quite different though. There more conversation trees and choices there have quite some impact on the story and outcomes.

The (combat) system will likely be something you will have to get used to compared to Skyrim and Diablo. It is based on Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. So you will have to manage your actions each turn of combat in order to get the most out of your characters.

I highly recommend the game, for the reasons above and more.

I case you want to try it out, the setting I’ve used in Steam was:

RADV_PERFTEST=rt VKD3D_CONFIG=dxr11 %command%

Arkenfox its documentation is great. When I first found out about it I was blown away on how much one can do in order to improve their online privacy.

Firefox with strict settings is pretty good as a baseline. Arkenfox takes it to a new level.