I still prefer *bin over Lemmy for the UI and the domain-blocking feature, even with Lemmy having post-hiding features. 🙂
Dunno what sort of setup you have, but what I would do, considering my setup and by being a tad on the neurotic side, is to unscrew and detatch any drives but the one to be flashed. This, I think, is the only way to be absolutely sure nothing goes in the wrong place.
If you mean different physical drives, I would suggest detatching the drive with the already installed system when installing the second one.
Also, Linux installers may behave differently from one another, so I would suggest testing on another machine if possible, or at least backing up what you cannot afford to lose in the current machine, shrinking the Windows partition with its native partition manager instead, and picking a system whose installer can spot the correct partitions, maybe e.g. Mint with its option to be installed alongside an already installed system, or Endeavour which, from what I remember, can detect empty partitions.
Also if during install, grub is not set up to have both Linux and Windows as start options, there is a grub manager on Linux too, so that can be salvaged.
And lastly, a word of warning, and reiterating a past point, testing something as big as a dual boot in a computer with sensitive and already existing data is playing with fire.
Tried flashing an USB stick and putting the system ISOs in the stick afterwards?
On not finding anything, see if OpenSuse has anything like apt-cache. On Debian-based systems, it helps a bunch, as it looks for packages (programs) containing in the name or description the keyword you are looking for. Regarding messing the installation, making back ups periodically and keeping the more volatile stuff you do not want to lose on different physical drives could help.
If you’re sticking to Firefox-based browsers, Waterfox seems to be the fork closest to Firefox without being controlled by Mozilla.
If anything can be salvaged, I’d suggest backing those up, and then proceeding to make a fully fresh install. That will ensure you don’t come across issues inherited from the previous blunders, and also, I think, will give you the chance to take the same steps, but wiser than before, and so able to avoid the issues you either caused or came across. (Also something I’d recommend maybe around every 1~2 years, precisely because of being able to restart but wiser)
I’m more biased against Google than against Microsoft, and as mentioned in another comment, the search engines are proxies of the respective companies, so it’s hard to give an objective opinion.
Now, what I would suggest, trying to be as neutral as possible, is to test both and see which fit your needs more. After that, use mainly the better one and keep the other as a fallback option.
It may be a good idea to launch the game through the terminal for troubleshooting when it doesn’t launch through the UI. More often than not on Linux, the terminal carries very useful info, of which often you can find solutions online once you spot a suspicious line. And for Steam games specifically, to not change the test environment too much, the command for starting a given game is steam steam steam://rungameid/[game_id], where [] is the number that appears in a given game’s page on Steam, e.g. 211820 for Starbound, making the command steam steam://rungameid/211820.
Maybe flashcard programs could be good? For things like Anki, I presume you could find packs for a given language, specially French, rather easily.
Even if the “grace period” (aka “offline mode”), Steam also times out without connection, and if market coverage statistics are to be believed, most people don’t seem to use services that provide DRM-free gaming. And as Steam also provides movies and series (they still do, right?), the situation is worse as barely any stores offer DRM-free videos.
(On an upside, at least musics seem to be fairly common DRM-free, including on Steam.)
Never paid much attention to that feature, but it sounds similar to microblogging, e.g. Twitter’s posting system. And given that, maybe you’d be interested in checking Mbin (has Reddit-like UI/UX), Piefed (dev says microblooggin is in the roadmap), Mastodon (Twitter-like UI/UX) and/or Misskey (also Twitter-like UI/UX)?
https://thebrainbin.org/m/[email protected]/t/563178/Some-quasi-features-for-Mbin-through-Ublock-Origin-filters
(edit - weird, the link isn’t appearing directly on The/Brain/Bin…)
On a more personal take, I prefer Mbin because “it just works”, I use far more RSS than the sites directly, and when I use them directly, I use an UBlock Origin filter to hide posts I either vote up or down (very responsive =D ) and block sites I recognize as manipulative (rather common sadly). That also makes so I end up not missing much on Lemmy’s functions.
Not familiar enough with PieFed to give an opinion, but among Lemmy and Mbin, of things I can observe:
On theming, akin to Linux, I don’t think there’s much room for breakthroughs, or at least they’d be harder to achieve, being more a case of picking the “flavor” you want instead. Furthermore, I think this applies to UI as a whole in social medias, federated ones included.
Now, one thing that annoys me and I think that falls on branding is how most of the federated platforms don’t have proper names. As I follow communities and people primarily by RSS, I like things to be organized, and having to figure out how to fit “names” like kbin.social (RIP), lemm.ee, feddit.uk and the sort is a bit of a migraine. "<.<
Personally, if I don’t see something as good for me, I move away as soon as possible. And in cases where there’s a mix between likeable and unlikeable figures and communities, I stick around only if blocking features hide those figures from my feed. Since often communities have their own cultures, but, or some times instead, some are worse than others, it makes things more easy.
No one cares about servers
I’d like to see the source for that.
And even if it is/was true, looking at what came before, you’d just be paving the path to become that which you were against.
If one is to depend on a single element, when it fails, it becomes the failure point for the whole ecosystem. Like with the instance I originally stuck to, Kbin.Social, where, if was the sole instance of the federated forums, when it died, the “fediverse” as a whole would have died overnight.
Also, a centralized platform is far easier to be taken over by either good or bad actors, and at least with fragmentation, when you notice degradation in one of the pieces of the fediverse, you can easily jump to a platform that hasn’t been compromised while not having to build the community and groups from scratch.
Sites with specific niches and scopes that still allow for integration, and the culture that ensues, are also an alien concept on a centralized site, and what takes over basically becomes the face of the site’s ecosystem as a whole. With the federation/defederation system, however, it’s much easier for a site to build its own ecosystem while letting in and out just enough of/to other instances to oxygenate it.
And lastly, like with email and Linux, while some may be rather passionate to defend it, I think that, despite that, it’s still a technology, or at least an idea, with great potential, even if slow but constant, as, once more, anyone can make instances in their own vision, or join a platform that better fits what they need while not making a walled garden to force users to stick to it.
Hopefully the issues are waning nearly a week after the original post! But what I would do, in a case of waking up both early and stressed for whatever reason, is also to check music, specifically going through my selection at random until one that clicks is selected. Usually also they’re power metal, symphonic metal or related, the cheesy stuff as I like to say, but it helps me kickstart the day 😅
Been some years since I last used Fedora, so not able to confirm nor deny anything. Sorry for not being able to help further. =/