Reviews on Steam makes it seem promising, but I’ll wait for a gog.com release before buying.

Seems like SecuROM won’t install from playing singleplayer:
https://www.gog.com/forum/fear_series/gogs_blatant_lies_regarding_securom_in_fear/page4

A Debian 12 (Bookworm) with Cockpit for server webui, Portainer for docker webui and then installing a docker image, f.e. https://github.com/jammsen/docker-palworld-dedicated-server, would be my recommendation.
Makes it dead easy to selfhost other game servers as docker images too.

I would increase BASE_CAMP_MAX_NUM_IN_GUILD and maybe also BASE_CAMP_WORKER_MAXNUM for the dedicated server.
There’s raid bosses that you summon in camps, and it is nice to be able to have a camp that is dedicated for said raid battles.
Increasing workers allowed per camp allows you to make those battles easier as you have more troops out at the same time.
https://github.com/jammsen/docker-palworld-dedicated-server/blob/develop/docs/ENV_VARS.md

Obsidian Entertainment has gone from Fallout: New Vegas where you were free to kill anyone, even at the cost of disrupting main quests, to Outer Worlds where most of that freedom is still intact to Avowed where the freedom to do evil choices is either taken from you (npcs not reacting to being shot in the face) or having no impact (npcs ignoring your stealing of money and food in the tavern).

I agree with your thought that it’s a directorial choice, not attention to detail, but it’s one that goes in the complete opposite direction of what the studio is known for.

As someone who loves the freedom of games like TES:Morrowind, Fallout: New Vegas and the Outer Worlds this was a great way to make me lose interest in Avowed. That friendly NPCs doesn’t react at all when you steal in front of them or when you shoot them in the face sucks big time.

Best of luck with the build!

I think the 7800X3D is the best bang for the buck when it comes to gaming cpus. It might bottleneck the 4070 super on 1080p though - I think that pairing is more common for 1440p gaming.

The 7800X3D is a good fit for the 4060 Ti

1. Does the distro I pick matter?
   Packages
   When you install a distro it will have repositories of apps that you can easily install and easily keep updated using either the GUI (GNOME Software for GNOME, Discover for KDE) or the package manager in terminal (dnf in Fedora, apt in kubuntu and mint). It’s similar to how you install apps on a smartphone.
   The good thing about the apps from the default repository is that they’re (in theory) tested to work well with the distro.
   You can also install applications from other sources when necessary.
   Update Frequency and new tech
   Another difference is how new kernel and software you get from the repos.
   The latest Debian Stable runs kernel 6.1 while Fedora just updated to 6.12 and arch has been running 6.12 since december.
   If you’re running the newest hardware then the chance of having drivers available automatically increases with a newer kernel.

2. Company-run distros and alternatives:
   In my opinion Ubuntu is the ones doing the most forcing as of now, and even they are angels compared to Microsoft.
   Fedora had discussions about including opt-out Telemetry to aid them getting data to improve the distro. They listened to community feedback and backpedaled that into opt-in metrics:
   https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Telemetry
   https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Metrics
   Debian and Arch are both examples of distros without enterprise involvement and that have no upstream distro that can affect their releases.
   Map of distros here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

3. Stability of the distro:
   Of your frontrunners I’ve only run Fedora but that has been stable and been working well for me for my primary PC. So has Debian which I run on my servers (I have a Debian VM running Portainer for dockers, one for running Jellyfin and a third for Forgejo).

4. Monitor support
   Multi monitor support
   I don’t have the desktop space for double monitors personally, but I’ve heard that KDE 6 (Plasma) handles multi monitor support well.
   HDR
   Should be working since November

• https://9to5linux.com/kde-plasma-6-2-4-re-enables-hdr-mode-for-users-on-nvidia-565-and-linux-6-11

5. Both KDE and GNOME are customizable. KDE is more similar to Windows and I realized that most of my GNOME customizations was to make it more similar to Windows and KDE. I’ve since switched to KDE and must say I really enjoy having a proper file browser as default. Nautilus (default GNOME file browser) has been simplified to death and caused me to create a script to replace it with nemo.

Nvidia is a whole lot simpler to use than people make it sound like, though I’ll stay team red:
https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/NVIDIA#Current_GeForce.2FQuadro.2FTesla
Fedora guide for Nvidia drivers unless you’re running a really old card:

sudo dnf update -y # Update your machine and reboot
sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia # Installs the driver
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda #optional for cuda/nvdec/nvenc support (required for Davinci Resolve)  

• Gaming including emulation
  First person shooters with kernel intrusive Anticheat won’t work in Linux as they expect to spy on a Windows OS.
  Other than that gaming on Linux is really getting there as I’m sure you’ve realized when using a Steamdeck.
  Outside of Steam you have Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris and Bottles for running windows games on Linux.
  I’m mostly using Lutris but I think Heroic Games launcher is the more popular one.
• Firefox
  Default browser in most distros
• VLC
  Available in most default distro repositories.
• Spotify
  Available as a Flatpak on Flathub, haven’t used it myself.
• Discord
  I know people has had some trouble with screen sharing but that the DiscordCanary (think Beta version) solves it.
  https://github.com/flathub/com.discordapp.Discord/issues/380
• Godot
  Can be downloaded as a simple bin file from their own site: https://godotengine.org/download/linux/
  Also available as a Flatpak on Flathub
• Visual Studio
  The closest you get is VSCode.
• Git
  Not a problem.
• Photoshop cs6, audacity, davinci resolve
  Photoshop might be trouble, Audacity and Davinci Resolve should work.
• Misc “Tinkering” (Handbrake, dvd burners/rippers, Really any weird thing I come across that I want to tinker with)
  Handbrake is available as a Flatpak on Flathub, there’s dvd burner applications available too.

Regarding HoudiniFX it seems they have Linux installs, and a free (with watermark) version for hobbyists - https://www.sidefx.com/products/houdini-apprentice/
Other than that I’d say Blender is the goto app, showing up as one of the most popular apps in the Discover app.

My recommendation would be to use clonezilla or a similar tool to make an image of your windows install and save that on the external ssd.
Then I would install Fedora KDE or whatever’s your poison on the internal drive.
If you wanna switch back to windows then you can always use clonezilla, or your tool of choice, to restore the image.
You could also use KVM/Qemu in your linux distro to restore the image into a windows vm.
virt-manager gives you a desktop gui while cockpit + cockpit-machines gives you a nice webui for handling virtual machines in linux.

Clonezilla guide, for both linux and windows
https://www.linuxbabe.com/backup/how-to-use-clonezilla-live

Both Cockpit and Virt-Manager are available in Fedora KDE’s Discover app if you prefer GUI installs:
Cockpit

Virt-Manager

Reason I went or self-hosting Forgejo is to know it when federation comes along for real.
I’d love being able to federate my self-hosted Forgejo with my friends self-hosted Forgejo servers.
https://forgejo.org/2025-01-monthly-update/#federation

Linux Routing Fundamentals

Linux has been a first class networking citizen for quite a long time now. Every system running a Linux kernel out of the box has at least three routing tables and is supporting multiple mechanisms for advanced routing features from policy based routing (PBR), to VRFs(-lite), and network namespaces (NetNS). Each of these provide different levels or separation and features, with PBR being the oldest one and VRFs the most recent addition (starting with kernel 4.3).

This article is the first part of the Linux Routing series and will provide an overview of the basics and plumbings of Linux routing tables, what happens when an IP packet is sent from or through a Linux box, and how to figure out why. It’s the baseline for future articles on PBR, VRFs, and NetNSes, their differences as well and applications.

Civ4 is the one I still play. I like my stacks of doom and could never get into the hexagons and no stacking units of later games.

Ah yeah, this was the line I read a bit too fast:

Any modern Linux distribution should basically be in good shape for the AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors. The one recent caveat is needing Linux 6.12+ for the AMD Zen 5 CPU power reporting if that is important to you otherwise it’s an easy one-liner patch to backport.

Compatibility for desktop pcs is a whole lot better nowadays. Main thing to check is the motherboard; Bluetooth, WiFi and BIOS updates without windows can be pain areas but even that is getting rarer. Laptops require some more reasearch.
If you’re going cutting edge (AMD Ryzen 9800X3D) then you’ll need kernel 6.12 or higher.
Here’s a Linux review of the 9800X3D - https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-7-9800x3d-linux

I second this. OEM machines usually come with weird caveats where they saved money on the PSU or other parts that isn’t used in their marketing of the machine.

In my country many online computer stores offer to prebuild your custom pc, offering warranty on the whole build.
Great if you don’t have the time to put it together or if you want the warranty offered.

Uconsole bigger one - https://www.clockworkpi.com/home-devterm

Beepberry - https://beepy.sqfmi.com/
https://liliputing.com/beepberry-is-a-79-hackable-pocket-computer-kit-with-a-blackberry-keyboard/

Colorberry - https://www.elecrow.com/colorberry.html
https://github.com/hyphenlee/colorberry

PC Pilet old but cool looking one - https://soulscircuit.com/pilet
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/pilet-mini-pi-5-modular-computer/

ESP32 - ESP32 is a SoC, example of handheld using it is the LILYGO T-Deck Plus - https://lilygo.cc/products/t-deck-plus-1
https://linuxgizmos.com/updated-t-deck-plus-an-esp32-handheld-device-with-gps-and-lora-support/

Mecha Comet with the switchable keyboards - https://mecha.so/comet
https://www.geeky-gadgets.com/modular-linux-handheld-mecha-comet/

Some links to help checking out the handhelds mentioned.

Some developers make gog users second rate citizens, some don’t publish on gog at all. I wouldn’t call it a sinking ship though, later years they’ve had more big name games such as Baldur’s Gate 3 than before.

Also, if gog shuts down tomorrow I can still install all my games from the installers on my network share, something I can’t say about steam.

I am very happy about Proton/SteamOS and how they assist in making games playable on Linux. I hope the SteamOS devices become popular enough that developers stop trying to shut Linux out.

I’m not looking forward to what will happen with Steam when Gabe is no longer around though.
Having one big marketplace/launcher might be comfy right now but that can turn into a nightmare quickly when there’s a new owner in town.

Personally I’m trying to buy any game I can on gog.com instead of Steam. Both to get my own offline installers and to ensure not all my eggs (games) are in one basket. I launch more games from Lutris then Steam today.