Well I wasn’t going to, but I guess I’ll give a shout out to Garuda, which has given me the gift of Arch but spared me any of these problems!

You could always Dremel it out. First try black electrical tape.

I don’t know what distro y’all are on, but I’ve been a beginner on an Arch based distro for a couple of years and I haven’t had a major issue that wasn’t fixed by an update and reboot.

Just install pamac, it can update every time you shut down. I don’t mind it updating every day if I don’t have to babysit it.

I’ve had a great experience as a Linux noob using Garuda. It comes with an Nvidia version and has worked great out of the box.

Pamac is great too, and it can run all your updates at shutdown.

After I left Bazzite as “my first Linux” I landed on Garuda. It is Arch based, is gaming and performance focused, comes with different desktop environment options, has pacman and works well with pamac, and has been noob friendly.

No ragrets.

Garuda has been easy and stable for me. It’s gaming and performance focused though, so how well that works for you could depend on your laptop.

On the one hand, I feel your pain, on the other hand… You could have just reinstalled Garuda and chosen a password using characters that exist on a US keyboard to get it all set up before switching your keyboard layout to the one you want and then updating the password.

Sorry the journey has been so rough.

After Bazzite I switched to Garuda. No regrets. Might be worth a look.

I just got a HIFI Walker G7 and I’m kinda loving it. It runs full android, is made to be an mp3 player, but operates more like a phone without the phone parts. It has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but apparently has no location services, which is inconvenient if you want navigation, but great for privacy. It even has a camera.

They have non android mp3 players too if you want something more simple.

If you want a gaming focused Arch distro, Garuda has been easy and hassle free for me.

Garuda is an Arch based non immutable distro with a similar gaming and performance focus to Bazzite. It’s where I went when Bazzite felt off to me.

For anyone thinking of a switch, it’s worth a look.

Garuda should be up near Bazzite

For me it was that all you did in your email was talk about how you didn’t want to compromise your ideals. All that stuff your told us about how hard you tried, how much you compromised, how many times you were blocked then reset aren’t there. Those are the things that make your experience actually meaningful and relatable.

It would have been a lot better to send your preamble and wrap up with, “if you are able to provide a functional setup with the required environment for me to continue my application, I am happy to continue, otherwise I am afraid I must withdraw.”

I mentioned it because a lot of people already have a card they need to accommodate, not to try and convince you.

I mean … it’s not required. So, good for you, I guess.

After I left Bazzite I switched to Garuda, it is also gaming and performance focused, works with Nvidia, and has been super easy as a beginner.

It may be worth a look.

I keep looking for something better, and yes it has some limitations, but the free online version of SketchUp is the easiest and most intuitive 3d design program I have ever used and I keep coming back to it.

You need to set up a free Trimble account to use it, don’t let that stop you from giving it a try

Keep your eye open for opportunities to advocate for Linux in the workplace, change will come.