Installing postmarketOS on it to turn it into a full fledged pocket PC. It now runs all your favorite Linux-compatible desktop applications except for those that don't have ARM64 versions, and even then emulation layers can fix this. It's not 100% as I haven't been able to get Steam working (it starts but errors out before the login screen) though I have seen some people have success on other distros so maybe it's a pmOS/Alpine/musl specific issue even though I was using distrobox with Debian to actually run it.

Yeah, that ship has sailed.

I don't use AliExpress often but for the commodities you want to stock your workshop with, it's often cheaper per unit with cheap shipping so if you want to order a bunch of something it's usually the way to go. Pre-COVID, clone Arduino Nanos were like $2 each on eBay but now they're like $5 at minimum. On AliExpress you can still ocasionally get them cheaper. I needed a bunch of them for a project and had exhausted my pre-COVID stash so I got a bunch on AliExpress and they work fine. For the less common stuff I'd not waste the time and just get it from somewhere with faster shipping. eBay often has free shipping on stuff while Amazon needs a $35 minimum if you don't have Prime, though I do make use of the free Prime trials and stock up when I get the offer.

Amazon and eBay are my primary places to get electronics/maker parts. I don't buy them for cosplay, but I expect the things you're looking for are available from either and likely for a better price than Adafruit. If you can tolerate the wait, AliExpress.

I just donate by whatever means the project offers. Sometimes it's paypal, sometimes patreon, sometimes GitHub sponsorship, sometimes something else like OpenCollective. Read the readme or homepage of the project to see what options they take.

Honestly, Mozilla has been peddling adware for a long time now. The writing has been on the wall. It started with putting sponsored links to Amazon on the Firefox home screen, then the shitty Pocket acquisition and the stupid featured stories/recommendations garbage, then the full screen Mozilla VPN ads...Firefox has been adware for a while. Use a fork that removes the bullshit. Switch to LibreWolf.

I'm not familiar with KDE's new feature yet, but if it only supports sysfs LEDs then it won't control 99% of keyboards. Few RGB keyboards have drivers that expose this interface. Most RGB keyboards are controlled from userspace on their official software on Windows, and that's also what most Linux projects that control RGB devices including my OpenRGB project do. I wonder if it would be possible to write an OpenRGB plugin/script that exposes a virtual /sys/class/leds/openrgb device that KDE could talk to, then translate that into OpenRGB calls to set the color on all available devices. It doesn't sound too difficult.

Mozilla is going to absolute shit lately. Partnering with a fucking ad network? You've got to be kidding me. Firefox is still the better browser, but it's time to abandon Firefox proper for forks that get rid of Mozilla's bullshit. I have been using Librewolf for a while and unlike Firefox, it's not adware.

Both. I like the customizability and power of a desktop, but I like the portability of a laptop. If you can afford both, why not have both. I often have my laptop set up next to my desktop for browsing/chatting while gaming and I also often just take my laptop to game when I go to friends' places. Also, they're both PCs.

I like having a gaming laptop as it's easier to grab and go to game at friends' places. Sometimes I do like to bring my desktop and set up for a good old fashioned LAN party, but other times I want something quick. I also like having a laptop for working on projects on the go, connecting to devices for projects without having to relocate my desktop, etc. Traditional smartphones are too limited for most work and are only good for web browsing and communication tasks. Linux phones are too experimental to rely on but are getting better and better. I have done quite a bit of coding on my Linux phones but their use there is still somewhat limited. I also have a Steam Deck and it is better for gaming on the couch, on the go, or in bed, but it's not really suitable for keyboard and mouse FPS gaming and it's not convenient to do work (such as programming) on without external peripherals.

I mean, if GPUs launch with perfectly optimized drivers then driver UPDATES don't matter, but drivers literally translate foreign nonsensical (to the GPU) shader code into instructions the GPU understands. Without them, your GPU is as useful as a brick. The driver situation is not there yet especially for NVIDIA GPUs. There's a reason I run mesa-git, driver improvements absolutely do matter.

Native in this case means processor architecture, not OS. The Linux Steam is still x86/x86_64 code and to run it on an ARM system (even running Linux) will require an emulation layer. This adds substantial amounts of overhead, much more than Wine/Proton does for Windows games on Linux.