I’ve been eyeing Graphene for a while now but I’m not really a tech person. I fumbled my way through installing and doing basic tweaks on Linux Mint but I don’t know the first thing about coding or programming. Is that kind of knowledge a must for this OS or is it more dummy friendly? And what’s a good cheap phone to grab to start messing with it and getting familiar, do you have any recommendations on that front?

I’m not really a tech guy at all and I let these nerds talk me into trying Linux Mint, I haven’t bothered with Windows 10 for several months now. There was some frustrating troubleshooting at first but once the settings are tweaked how you like them, the updates don’t negate your tweaks like with Microsoft. I’m sure there’s a lot of functionality I’m not maximizing but I don’t feel the need to. I got my productivity stuff figured out, my game stuff figured out, the last thing I really need to get sorted is why my printer is being such a wiener but I use it so sparingly that there’s not much motivation to mess with that. I did dual boot for a while so I wouldn’t feel overwhelmingly stupid when it came to Linux, so I was able to familiarize myself with the new setup at my pace and that helped quite a bit I think. No harm in going that route, then you can see what happens with Warzone before fully taking the plunge

I went from AoE1 to OG AoM years and years ago and didn’t think there was a huge jump in feel or quality, but I’m just a filthy casual that plays these on toddler difficulty because I want to relax when I’m gaming. If you’re on my level then you really can’t go wrong, it’s a fun game that can be played in a very simple manner if that’s how you wanna go about it.

I upgraded mine but haven’t talked to the wife about including her yet because the family plan is for up to 6 so it’d be cheaper to just buy two individual subscriptions, she doesn’t really care enough to justify that much extra cost. Hopefully Proton adds another plan or two for groups!

This is what I’d do as well, paint will be a lot less effort and a whole lot easier to touch up as it gets used. Plus the kid can paint their own patterns or emblems or logos or whatever on it

First you should edit the title so it makes sense, then you could try clamping a sacrificial board (MDF, 1/4", dimensional, whatever’s easiest) beneath and running the drill faster but moving slower. You might even try just going back to trying tape but changing your drilling method just to see if that improves anything before killing another piece of wood