jacek

You need to use Wayland instead of X11 for fractional scaling. On Gnome, you need to enable it first.

I am so grateful to KDE developers and developers who work on the whole ecosystem around it.

After years of using Gnome, I got fed up with problems at every upgrade, and switched to KDE Plasma. Suddenly everything just works as expected. Including fractional scaling, which still can be pain in the neck on Linux.

I recently donated to KDE and would encourage you to do the same [1]. I'll keep doing that occasionally.

[1] https://kde.org/community/donations/

I had exactly the same experience. I've been using Gnome for the last 7 years, with few extensions that were essential. The latest upgrade to Fedora 38 broke everything. Extensions, fractional scaling, Gnome and apps were crashing.

I tried KDE after many years. Other than some UI choices that I find not that great, it has been an amazing experience. Everything works out of the box. No hacks are needed for electron apps, fractional scaling, no extensions necessary.

Thinkpad X1 Nano. I think you can even order with Linux preinstalled.

Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen. 6 with Fedora and Windows 10 Pro.

However, Thinkpads are not what they used to be and always come with some tiny, but annoying issues. For example fingerprint reader is terrible, there are some minor date/time issues between Linux and Windows (partially fixed with BIOS update), etc.

I hope to keep the laptop for a few more years, but if I had to buy now I would consider one of the two:

* TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 - Gen7 (https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/TUXEDO-InfinityBook-Pro-1...)

* Framework laptop

1. Gladwell has a difficult relationship with truth and reality. 10,000h rule is utter nonsense and has been debunked many times since.

2. You don't need to master anything to switch careers. You just need to be useful and productive. Many employers will value your experience, work ethic, knowledge and will trust you to learn on the go.

All Thinkpads have matte displays, including the ones with touchscreens. Some have a glossy option (the ones with HDR AFAIK).

I used to work as a research software engineer in life sciences and I absolutely loved it. Jobs at universities allowed me to learn and experiment. However, universities cannot compete with industry when it comes to salaries.

For example, in Germany where I now live, all public universities (and almost all prestigious schools that do high-profile research are public) have strict salary rules. You can find tables (like this one [1]), according to which your pay is determined. It depends on the job, land (state), degree, and years worked. While this kind of money allows comfortable life (or at least did before the inflation hit hard), industry offers at least 30% more (based on my perception).

[1] https://www.jobs-beim-staat.de/tarif/tv-l_e13

I can relate to quite a lot to what you said. First of all, you need rest. I am not talking about weeks, but rather months. I once was in similar situation and it took almost 5 months to start working little, another month to start working full time.

I would also recommend therapy. I felt very directionless too, and therapy improved my life significantly. In that time I really gained courage to change things in my life and go my way.

My final piece of advice is to go freelance. A while ago everyone wanted to work in a startup. But the startup life has made me very cynical. It turned out you give so much to a company that is not yours, and owners will really exploit everything you've got while trying to hustle you out of the ownership. In the end you work for their futures and money, not yourself. The only people that were truly happy working for startups I have seen were freelancers. They were paid fairly, had no unpaid overtime and did not have to participate in that shitshow.

I am also bad at networking, but there are ways around it. It looks like you have a lot of experience and a broad skillset. There are freelancer agencies that can help. Usually they screen potential freelancers, have a interview and then they find projects for you (also I am getting best paying jobs through agencies). The main advantage of freelancing for me is that I am paid for every minute I work and not more. As a result, the employers don't abuse your time, because they have to pay for it, and you can control you time and work-life balance way better. Also I earn much more than I used to.

I wish you all the best and would love to hear from you in the future. Let us know how you are doing.

EDIT: Also, you are not a loser, you are human. Everyone in your position would feel the same, everyone learns through experience. I am very happy for you that you are asking these questions at 28. It took me 4 more years to do it myself.

Alternative with a modern interface: Rnote (https://github.com/flxzt/rnote)

I signed up with a few agencies (some required interviews and a small project or a test), used local sites connecting workers with employers and improved my LinkedIn profile. So far agencies work best for long term, well paid projects, sites for smaller, short term. From LinkedIn I am getting lots of spam from recruiters and calls that usually lead nowhere.

So far I have had breaks after every project, so I did not have to look for a new one while I work. But recruiters keep calling. These conversations can be wrapped up in 5 minutes.

I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult in my thirties and I have been taking medication for the last two years. I am also in EU.

I would recommend two things (YMMV). First, use ADHD to your advantage. People with ADHD have tendency to be inquisitive, but easily bored. Because of this I have become a jack of all trades. Although I have my specialty (ML), employers really appreciate that I also able to do Linux administration, create a web app and write a paper.

The second thing would be going freelance. I've done that last year, and it has been a blessing so far. I learned many new skills in new industries. Meeting new people and learning from them has been a valuable experience. The projects can be short enough not to get bored there. As a solid full-stack engineer you can earn better money, and have longer breaks in between.

What a clickbait. There will be no ads in KDE. It's just Qt adding new feature.

These are not that well known, but I highly recommend them (Firefox):

* Bypass Paywalls Clean - the name says it all - https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clea...

* Web Archives - easy access to cached websites, also useful for paywalls and sites heavy in JS - https://github.com/dessant/web-archives

* Vimium - use keyboard for browsing - https://github.com/philc/vimium

* SponsorBlock for YouTube - skip in-video ads - https://sponsor.ajay.app/

* Old Reddit Redirect - use old reddit design - https://github.com/tom-james-watson/old-reddit-redirect

* Reddit Enhancement Suite - https://redditenhancementsuite.com/

Recently released Gnome 40 also improves gesture support. I have not had a chance to test it yet though.

[1] https://forty.gnome.org/

It looks like there is still no fractional scaling out of the box (always possible with hacks). The elementary team has defended the choice not to introduce it before [1], but it just makes it unusable for me and many other users.

KDE Plasma handles fractional scaling well. Gnome does it mostly fine on Wayland. Now you can also run Gnome on X11 with fractional scaling (at least with Pop OS [2]).

There's a cost of running the DE with fractional scaling of course. But I am fine with that if that makes the DE usable!

[1] https://blog.elementary.io/what-is-hidpi/

[2] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/10/system76-continue-impr...

Thank you for your reply. You might be right about that. I worked in academia before and I absolutely loved it. Maybe that's the style of work for me.

In my defense, I think that was a special case. This was a product to be certified as a medical device. Regulations require keeping records of all changes to the code that can be linked to well-defined "software requirements" and "stakeholder requirements". This can be done in a complex spreadsheet or by linking issues/merge requests in a certain way. I chose the issues. Also, as the product might affect health outcomes, I felt responsibility to make the product as solid and maintainable as possible.

This looks like a lot of useful information. Thank you, I will go through it all.

I absolutely loved del.icio.us back in the day and I would love to use it again. No other method of bookmarking/collecting sites worked for me as well as del.icio.us. And I have never found the right alternative.

This is a rebranded laptop from an ODM [1]. It is also available from Schenker [2] and was reviewed by the Notebookcheck [3]. It looks really good, but I would love a few things to be fixed/updated: better 16:10 screen, Ryzen 4000, more USB-C ports, USB-C charging and dual-channel memory.

___________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_design_manufacturer

[2] https://www.schenker-tech.de/en/schenker-via-15-en

[3] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Schenker-VIA-15-Laptop-Review-...

I love that idea and I am installing it now! Thanks!

Thank you for your work. I just installed your app and it is working well.

I would also recommend DBeaver[1]. Cross-platform with really nice features.

[1] https://dbeaver.io/

That's great news. It looks like Fedora will be available on the P series (powerful workstations) and X1 Carbon. I hope it will soon be expanded to other laptops. I am really interested in T series with AMD Ryzen 4000 line (should be released later this year) and would love to avoid paying the Windows tax.

I just wonder if the fingerprint reader is finally supported on Linux. Also the LTE modem on my X1 Carbon (6th gen) has no support.

Looks like Clevo L141CU [1]

[1] https://www.clevo.com.tw/clevo_prodetail.asp?id=1264&lang=en...

No, I would also love a laptop with 3:2 or 16:10 screen. And a Ryzen 4000 APU.

Actually System76 might offer self manufactured laptops with AMD Ryzen in the future [1]. I hope they will consider a better display then. Currently they are basically rebranding Chinese laptops (like Clevo).

[1] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=System76...

Nothing mentioned in this article is convincing. The author is not even trying to be convincing, she seems skeptical.

> I’m not sure if it’s “working,” but I’m also not sure that it isn’t.

I wasn't clear enough. I meant newly introduced laptops at CES 2020 with Ryzen 4000 chips. None of them are on the market AFAIK.

You are right, we need a bit of patience. Reviews of last generation Thinkpads with AMD have been very positive. I hope the next generation will be even better. I would love to see one with 16:10 screen, but that's rather unlikely.