If you just want to play music locally without hassles, there are a slew of music apps that can do it for you, my personal favorite is Musicolet.

If you wanna get fancy you could always spin up your own music server with navidrome, and combine that with the android app Symfonium (what i currently do). If you don’t like the idea of always streaming your music, for example if you have bad internet service outside your home, you can temporarily or permanently cache music to your phone.

Im not a plumber and I definitely see the issue

Audiobooks saved my sanity when I had a 2hr commute at my last job. Highly recommend listening if you don’t have the space (mental or literal) to read books normally!

And is a life without cheese and butter really worth living?

Shit you got me there, milk it is!

Same! It decided ‘fuck em all’ and just downloaded all my music locally. It took some time to find a decent music player, but ended up with Musicolet, it’s a fantastic local music player. The way I see it, I’ve paid for Spotify for years, so I don’t feel bad about downloading all the music I had on there. Any new music I want I’ll just straight up buy myself.

This is why Microsoft is making it damn near impossible to set up a new computer without logging into a Microsoft account. Luckily the OOBE trick still works (for now).

Hell I switched to Linux specifically because I refused to get W11. I do have to agree with you though, the average gamer probably won’t switch to Linux unfortunately.

Looks like I’ll be using both then lol, thanks for the input!

Oh I didn’t know you could buy music from Qobuz, is it a better system than bandcamp? I’ve never used either so Im at the perfect time to find a good one.

Not that im aware of, sorry. There is a Windows based spotidown software, but no Linux. Spotidown is a web based service normally, so you could definitely use it in Linux. I actually downloaded all my music from it using my phone!

I do! I go to concerts and buy merch from the artists I listen to, which gives them exponentially more money than the fractions of a penny Spotify gives them. I’ve paid for Spotify long enough to justify downloading the music I had saved, any future music I want I’ll just purchase from Bandcamp or something similar.

When I got tired of Spotify’s shitty practices, I looked into other streaming services that could compare, and honestly I didn’t like any other offerings. So I said fuck it, I’ll just download everything and play it locally.

What made the jump easy was a service called Spotidown, I even paid for the ad free version it was so convenient. You literally copy the spotify link for songs and playlists and it let’s you download it. There’s a couple different services like this, that will make the switch easier.

It’s an S25, and I bought it mysel lol, I don’t to mess it up. My plan is to deal with it for a year, then buy a pixel for cheap and throw Grapheneos on it. If I screw up the pixel I at least have a backup.

Im so glad I finally made the jump to linux. For anyone still on the fence about it, do it. It’s so easy to switch, I’ve been using Kubuntu for a few weeks now and I have had maybe one issue with playing games, and it was solved by changing the Steam compatibility layer version.

When I switched, I installed a fresh (debloated) Windows instance on another SSD just in case. You know how many times I’ve used it? ONCE, and it was only be cause a buddy wanted me to try a game that had anticheat (I think Rocket League). Other than that I’ve had no reason to use it. There’s a decent replacement for just about every Windows software out there, and if I ever come across a need for software I can’t run on Linux, I’ll just use the Windows instance for it. Other than that Microsoft can suck it. They’re not getting any more of my info.

Now if only I didn’t just get a new Android phone, I’d swap over to a de-Googled phone…

“Misogyny is a skill issue?”.

👨‍🚀 🔫👨‍🚀 “Always has been.”

Like many in the comments, I left after the API changes. I’m not using their shitty app, and it’s so bot infested now it’s not even worth it.

The first thing I do when setting up new Windows environments (for work) is to install Notepad++. Fuck Microsoft.

Sounds like the perfect villain that’s been following them the whole time.

Well they said “co-worker”, I can understand not divulging that in a workplace.

Hey now, Windows XP was pretty decent!