Great write-up! Thank you for the effort!

Though, if I may: Regarding GNOME, you said:

Not particularly customisable

I would rather rephrase this to “Does not expose many knobs for customization by default.”. Because -frankly- between dconf, extensions and CSS; the possibilities are actually quite expansive. So much so, even, that a KDE dev said regarding GNOME: “sometimes it (read: GNOME) can be customized better than KDE”. (They say this literally in the first 10 seconds or so.)

Another striking example of the breadth of GNOME’s customization would be how Niri was heavily inspired by GNOME’s PaperWM extension. (Source) So, GNOME’s customizability has allowed the creation of a new workflow that eventually served as a direct inspiration for one of the most exciting WMs we’ve got.

Do you mean Desktop Environments?

EDIT: OP has changed the title of the post since. Regardless, thank you OP for the confirmation/clarification! FWIW, I really like Eylenburg’s resource on this.

The angle of smartphones taking over the role that was occupied by cheap PCs makes a ton of sense. I’m certain there’s (at least) some truth to it.

I’m worried that there’s not much room for FOSS in this new world. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

I’m (at least) a bit more optimistic :P .

This is like talking to a chatbot on store site!

😅. Yeah, sorry. I suppose, in retrospect, I had (still) failed to completely grasp what your point was. And I wanted to be direct/blunt in hopes of finally getting it.

#2: not enough RAM

FWIW, over where I’m at, HP sells it with 8 gb of ram for under 400 euros. Full specs in case you’re curious:

HP Chromebook x360 14

• Processor: Intel Processor N200 (Intel N-series, 4 cores / 4 threads, up to 3.7 GHz Turbo, 6 MB L3 cache)
• Memory (RAM): 8 GB LPDDR5-4800 (onboard/soldered)
• Storage: 128 GB UFS
• Display: 14-inch touchscreen IPS (edge-to-edge glass), 1920×1080 (Full HD), 250 nits, 62.5% sRGB, 16:9
• Graphics card: Intel UHD Graphics (integrated/shared)
• Operating system: ChromeOS
• Network connections: Wi‑Fi 6 (MediaTek MT7921 2×2), Bluetooth 5.3
• Connections: 2× USB‑C (5 Gb/s; Power Delivery + DisplayPort 1.4), 1× USB‑A (5 Gb/s), 1× headphone/mic combo jack
• Extra options: 2‑in‑1 convertible, 720p HP True Vision webcam (temporal noise reduction), dual mics, two speakers, accelerometer + gyroscope, webcam kill switch, H1 secure microcontroller, fast charging (~50% in 45 min), 100 GB Google One (1-year subscription included)
• Weight: 1.37 kg
• Dimensions (L × W × H): 323 × 210.3 × 20.4 mm
• Battery / charging: 47 Wh (2-cell Li-ion polymer), 45 W USB‑C power adapter, up to 11 hours
• Color: Glacier Silver
• Warranty: 1 year limited warranty (parts + labor; no on-site repair)

The same niche exists today but it is occupied by ARM and Mediatek. This is the fundamental problem.

Understood, finally. Then, yeah: Agreed. 100%.

Though, I don’t know the mechanics at hand/play that have contributed to our current status quo. My naive take would be that Windows 11’s increased hardware requirements has made it harder for lower end devices to support it; thus paving the way for a higher floor of system specs across the board. Hence, higher prices, even without accounting the current price hikes due to the whole AI bubble that’s about to pop. Though, that doesn’t quite explain what’s up with the lack of cheap x86 on Chromebooks…

Then, please, could you help me understand whether a device with the specs found below does (or does not) satisfy you:

HP EliteBook x360 1030 G2

• Processor: Intel Core i5-7200U
• Memory (RAM): 8 GB DDR3 RAM
• Storage: 256 GB SSD
• Display: 13.3-inch touchscreen, 1920×1080 pixels
• Network connections: Wi‑Fi with 5 GHz support
• Display outputs: HDMI
• Connections: 2× USB 3.0, Bluetooth
• Extra options: Bluetooth, card reader, HDMI, touchscreen, USB‑C, backlit keyboard, webcam
• Graphics card Intel HD Graphics
• Operating system: Windows 10 Pro
• Keyboard layout: QWERTY
• Weight: 1.28 kg
• Dimensions (L × W × H): 218.5 × 316.9 × 14.9 mm
• Price: €235,-

If you don’t want refurbished, then how about the following device?

HP Chromebook x360

• Processor: Intel Processor N100 (Alder Lake, quad-core, up to 3.4 GHz turbo)
• Memory (RAM): 4 GB DDR5
• Storage: 128 GB eMMC
• Display: 14-inch touchscreen IPS, 1920×1080 pixels (Full HD), 60 Hz, glossy
• Graphics card: Intel UHD Graphics (shared)
• Operating system: Google Chrome OS
• Network connections: Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.3
• Connections: 1× USB-A 3.0, 2× USB-C 3.0 (with DisplayPort Alt Mode and power delivery)
• Extra options: Touchscreen, 2-in-1 convertible, backlit keyboard (not present), HD webcam (720p), card reader
• Keyboard layout: QWERTY
• Weight: 1.37 kg
• Dimensions (L × W × H): 323 × 210.3 × 20.4 mm
• Price: €419,-

And, finally, if you actually want somewhat modern hardware, how about this one?

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 2-in-1 14

• Processor: Intel Core 3 N355 (1.9 GHz to 3.9 GHz turbo)
• Memory (RAM): 8 GB LPDDR5-4800 (soldered)
• Storage: 256 GB UFS 2.2
• Display: 14-inch WUXGA (1920×1200) IPS touchscreen, anti-glare, 300 nits, 60 Hz
• Graphics card: Integrated Intel Graphics
• Operating system: Chrome OS
• Network connections: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3
• Connections: 2× USB-A, 2× USB-C (with Power Delivery & DisplayPort), HDMI, Combo Audio Jack
• Extra options: 2-in-1 convertible, touchscreen, backlit keyboard, Lenovo USI Pen (Gen 2) support, haptic touchpad
• Keyboard layout: QWERTY
• Weight: 1.40 kg
• Dimensions (L × W × H): 320 × 223.5 × 19.9 mm
• Price: €549,-

As many others have already pointed out: it’s currently not the best time to buy hardware. FWIW, you could have grabbed Star Labs’ StarLite^[1] last year for 750 €. Currently, it starts at 1014 €.

Btw, OP, perhaps I’m obnoxious/oblivious/obtuse (or what have you), but I wasn’t able to parse what you mean exactly with Linux compatible hardware. If it’s not too much trouble for you, could you be very explicit?

EDIT: At one time, the StarLite was available for 416 (!) £. At least, as per this article of GamingOnLinux.

I’m glad to hear that you found the most egregious culprit. Hopefully you’ll be able to get it to work after your subscription list ‘functions’ (again). (I’m honestly completely oblivious of what this software is or how it works.)

Though, if you allow me, I would like to give some comments. So, without further ado.

Throne came up with another error, it was unable to change file ownership in /usr directory

Hmm…, curious. I would think that it shouldn’t even (necessarily) require anything like that. And, if it does, perhaps the maintainer/contributor should be addressed in hopes of resolving the issue; I’m sure they can figure out a workaround (or so).

(of course it couldn’t, it’s an immutable system)

😅. This is actually a very nuanced topic:

• Bazzite has for example made plenty of changes to /usr compared to its upstream; i.e. Fedora Atomic. So, there is a supported way of doing this in order to create an image with the desired changes to /usr. If you got any such needs, consider taking a look at this page of Bazzite’s documentation.
• Furthermore, instead of making changes to the content of folders like /usr/etc, /usr/share et cetera; one could instead make changes to the content of folders like /etc ~/.local/share et cetera.
• If you only want to write to /usr once and would like for said changes to not persist after a reboot, then commands like rpm-ostree usroverlay and bootc usr-overlay are worth mentioning.

So, to be clear: while it is true that Fedora Atomic does not like/support making changes to /usr at runtime, it’s not like it’s necessarily limiting you if you really desire to make changes to /usr. Even if non of the methods 100% function like how sudo <input change> /usr/<some content> would on a traditional distro*.

Thanks a lot for so much effort figuring things out!

It has been my pleasure 😊!

Bazzite shows that terra-release is indeed installed

Assuming it is disabled (as happened in https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/issues/2580)

Interesting conflict; as these seem to be at odds with each other. I wonder what’s up. If it’s indeed disabled, then I would like to apologize for causing any confusion. FWIW, I may have been mislead by Terra’s own documentation. I suppose it might be outdated.

Anyhow, perhaps we can undertake the steps to uninstall terra-release (even if it’s not there) and (re)install it.

Uninstalling terra-release

If terra-release is layered^[1], then we’d have to start with rpm-ostree uninstall terra-release. Afterwards, to delete the Terra repository, even if it’s not even there^[2]: sudo rm -rf /etc/yum.repos.d/terra.repo

(Re)installing terra-release

To (re)install terra-release (as per its own instructions):

First evoke the following command:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/terrapkg/subatomic-repos/raw/main/terra.repo | pkexec tee /etc/yum.repos.d/terra.repo

And then, evoke this one: sudo rpm-ostree install terra-release . I’m unsure if sudo is required. Personally, first I’ll do is without sudo. Only after it fails due to permissions will I do it with sudo.

A reboot is probably required for it to take effect. Hence, try evoking rpm-ostree install throne only after performing a reboot.

Nekoray in particular doesn’t have .rpm

Perhaps they don’t provide any themselves. But installing it from a repository is preferred anyways. To be clear, it’s found within Terra’s repository. The very same Terra repository that’s enabled by default on Bazzite. So, as I see it, there’s nothing that would prevent rpm-ostree install nekoray from working. Have you even tried this?

I don’t know why V2RayN doesn’t work though. Try Nekoray and let us know how it goes.

EDIT: I just noticed how Nekoray has seemingly lost its maintainer. Thankfully, someone forked it and renamed it to Throne. And, with it, we find ourselves an RPM repository to install from. Thankfully, you don’t even have to go through any hoops, as it’s also found in the Terra repository. So you’re simply one rpm-ostree install throne removed from installing it.

What have you tried? Why doesn’t rpm-ostree install nekoray work for you?