(I know it’s a late response but I only saw this post now and wanted to response to your particular comment) It was also the case for me because I usually didn’t consume stuff from my age or from my native language but I still stopped using their services for the most part and deactivated any kind of telemetry from them for the remaining stuff I still use because despite all of that, I still don’t want to support their business model or the companies themselves, as well as their constant push to consumerism through ads drowning. So privacy isn’t the only reason to stop letting them listen to you I think.
You don’t update Windows “when you feel like it”, it does when it feels like it. Several times, after delaying the updates so many times because I knew it takes dozens of minutes to apply each time and I didn’t want that to happen as I often had to restart my PC or had to let it run in the background, Windows eventually forced me to update the next time I shut down my PC.
Pop!OS is a pretty stable distro, so there shouldn’t be any dependencies problem: you usually have that on arch or arch based distros, even if it’s quite rare. Have you ever uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it but without some of its dependencies? Or ignored a package it asked you to install with it afterwards? If not, maybe it’s just an update that went wrong, like the PC shut down during an update or something. So update your system, uninstall firefox and reinstall. Your data stored in your home directory (in .mozilla, a hidden folder) like your history, extensions, opened tabs, should be conserved, even if you use apt purge.
I’ll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.
Let me give you an honest answer that no Linux users is willing to give you (certainly because they fear to scare people off of Linux): you will never see the day where Linux will be equal if not better than Windows for gaming (which it can be sometimes, but it’s not always the case) if not a certain amount of people get out of their comfort zone and are willing to try something new. In fact, nobody can improve anything in their life if they’re not willing to get out of their comfort zone.
You’re already using a PC to play video games, I did this choice too, so trust me, you definitely have the energy to change for a better OS, something ever you recognize as having qualities outside of games. Otherwise, you would’ve played exclusively on console where you actually have a plug and play experience… unfortunately at the cost of your freedom to use the machine you bought however you want, besides all the other considerable disadvantages.
For me, Linux made as much progress as it can do, meaning now, for Linux to be viable for gaming, either companies start to move their asses and make Linux native games (which they can easily do, if they’re willing to use the right tools for their game like Vulkan) but I hardly see that coming any time soon, or new users have to come to Linux so that companies would finally care. Personally, I made my choice by making the first step.
Openboard and Florisboard are pretty good alternatives. I don’t like them though (nor do I prefer Gboard or Swiftkey) as I prefer a type of keyboard very practical to write due to it’s rounded keys, which is Typewise.
Unless it’s a RAM filling issue, because you would have too little RAM, and even then, the entire OS crashing and not just Firefox would be very unlikely, I don’t see any reason for it to crash your entire OS. Regardless, there are Firefox forks that use much much less RAM. You’re using Windows, Mac or Linux first? Try to uninstall, clean everything and reinstall with a new profile, it may work, who knows. If not, then it has to be your OS.
Math is a tool of the mind to describe our world, imaginary numbers is only a extension of that tool to allow us to go beyond what mathematical logic prevents us to do, while still getting in the end a real number. Math, despite being powerful, is a flawed tool, so getting around its flaws by creating things like imaginary numbers isn’t absurd and doesn’t make the result any less real at the end.
On the other hand, I don’t think calling everything we don’t understand “magic” or the new trending words “supernatural” and “a miracle” and give god or anything else (like karma) credit for it would be more clever. Back then, we didn’t understood the concept of thunder and interpreted it as god’s wrath. Now, we understand it’s a transmission of electricity from the negatively charged clouds to the neutral ground through ionized particles in the air. I don’t think that scientists now, despite referring to the same phenomena, are talking about the same thing as we did a long time ago.
So no, no scientist will discover the afterlife “but we’ll just call them “Post-Human Conciousness Wells” or something, and insist it totally isn’t the same thing as that ancient superstition.” as it won’t be.
(sorry for the late reply) Custom ROMs are something else and are in no way necessary for rooting the phone. You can totally root your phone with Magisk while staying on your manufacturer’s ROM, or flash (install) a custom ROM without rooting the phone and not being locked from anything your Android phone can already do. But you won’t have full access to your phone if you don’t root and will eventually need at least some degree of power over it, which is why most people root their phone too. But custom ROMs alone are also great, you can check if there are good ones (or if there are any) on xda-developers by searching your phone on it. But be careful and follow the instruction to the letter: you won’t be able to blame anybody for bricking your phone (look for hard brick and soft brick) as all authors clearly state they’re in no way responsible if you fuck up something and your phone doesn’t work anymore. The best thing to do as a beginner is to search deeply on the internet for days if not weeks in order to feel more confident and more importantly understand what is a ROM, what is a recovery (TWRP being the main one), a bootloader, etc, so you know what you’re going to do.
You have to give them a reason to get interested in the OS and the programs they’re using. I gave Linux a try because I was concerned about privacy and I wanted to use more ethical and user respecting OS and software than what I used at that time. Linux and the FOSS world was an obvious choice for me. Custom ROM on Android was sort of the bridge which allowed me to transition. If it wasn’t for that, I would still be on Windows and I wouldn’t learn that much on how an operating system works and what differentiate them, aside from the look. The fact they’re kids or that they play games have nothing to do with it: a lot of adults don’t know either what type of OS they’re using, despite it being in their best interest. The problem is that we don’t give or show them the reason they should be interested, or at least be curious about it and most of time, before people get a degree, we end up killing their curiosity.
As they play Minecraft, you can advise them to switch to Prism Launcher instead of the minecraft launcher, especially if they mod the game, it’s much better for that. It could be a good start.
Of course they work. Though if you’re rooted, you just need to install/flash a module named “Magiskhide” which will basically hide the apps your want from your root, as a lot of banking apps consider a rooted device not secure enough… (even if it completely is but whatever)