Kind of defeats the purpose

That’s why the why matters. Some people might just not trust Windows to keep private data secure, but be comfortable running certain software on it in a VM, possibly a VM that isn’t usually allowed network access.

If you’re sufficiently motivated to get off Windows to invest time learning different workflows, there certainly are options. It sounds like you’ve tried some for image processing and found gaps. People might be able to help fill them if you go into detail about your current workflow, but there is no 1:1 replacement for Photoshop on any platform. If you’re a heavy Photoshop user, there may be no path to happiness for you.

There’s surely a 1:1 replacement for Visual Studio outside of Windows-specific development (which wouldn’t make much sense to attempt on Linux anyway).

I really want this to work out.

Why?

I don’t ask that to talk you out of it. I like desktop Linux. I’m typing this on desktop Linux. I’ve been using desktop Linux for most of my adult life. I ask because your reasons will inform the advice people can give you.

I do a lot of .NET programming and photo editing [with Windows-specific proprietary software]

There isn’t necessarily a good solution to this. Those are large, complicated programs with very deep workflows that are almost certainly going to be dissimilar in any substitute software, which is itself going to be large and complicated with its own ways of doing things. Using those specific programs may be more important to you than what OS you run them on.

It looks like Photoshop is probably usable with Wine, while Visual Studio isn’t. Using Wine means putting up with occasional instability and reduced performance. If you spend a lot of time in Photoshop, this may not be for you.

Another option is to run Windows in a VM for those apps. This will likely work smoothly with regard to the apps themselves, and generally performs near native, but does mean a less polished interaction with the rest of your desktop.

If you’re patient and want to gain a deeper understanding, try Arch itself rather than an Arch-based distribution that’s easy to install.

You’ll spend a long time on the initial installation and setup and you’ll read a lot of documentation in the process. When you have a usable system, you’ll understand what’s installed, how it’s configured, and why. Expect to spend a couple days just to get it usable though - this approach isn’t for everyone.

The Arch docs are top tier, but they’re not necessarily step by step guides because there’s more than one way you might choose to set things up. The docs tell you how the pieces can fit together, but it’s ultimately up to you to to do the assembly.

It’s OK not to know what you want. It’s especially OK when you’re 18 and in high school. It’s OK to choose an option now and change your mind later (though if you choose no, she probably won’t be available to you later if you change your mind).

It’s even OK to tell her that you don’t want to talk about your relationship, but she’s probably going to take that as you not wanting to be in a relationship with her. If you don’t want her to take it that way, then you need to talk with her about your relationship even if the thing you have to say is you’re unsure. Of course there’s a good chance she’ll respond unfavorably to your uncertainty; most people don’t like being a second choice or a backup plan.

I’m seeing a little of what I’d describe as toxic monogamy in this question. That’s not to imply a monogamous relationship isn’t right for you; it’s what most people want, so just statistically, it’s probably what you and your girlfriend want.

What I mean by toxic is that the belief that it’s unacceptable to be friends with an ex or that you can’t be in a relationship if your feelings for a former partner aren’t completely gone can poison relationships. People are usually more complicated than that, and while both of those things sometimes lead to problems, they don’t have to. Talking to your partner about their feelings surrounding the issue and agreeing on boundaries that are acceptable to both of you will prevent a lot of problems. That brings us to…

she asked me about our relationship and I told her to stop talking about it

I don’t usually like to speak in absolutes when it comes to human interactions because different people are different. I’ll make an exception here though. This was the wrong answer if you want to have a relationship with her.

It’s still the wrong answer, and that’s where you left things. If you don’t want it to end there, your best chance is to tell her you know that was a mistake, apologize, and offer to talk about your relationship as much as she wants to.

Anything to weaken Trump will help.

Calling your senators and representative to urge them to vote against specific legislation sometimes has some impact. It’s my understanding that phone calls have a bigger impact than emails or letters.

I learned about it looking through lists of projects using ActivityPub. Decentralized Reddit seemed like a good idea, so I checked out the dev-operated lemmy.ml and found little other than far-left and CCP-sympathetic politics. There was maybe one other operational server I could find, and it was pretty dead. I stuck it in the back of my mind as something to check out again later to see if things changed.

Reddit pissed a bunch of people off, and I saw that the team behind the generally well-regarded mastodon.world was spinning up a Lemmy server, so I joined it and started participating regularly.

That annoying “Fediverse chick” thing

I got a DM on Mastodon from that account; I didn’t realize it was spam. It was on an account that gets a modest amount of interaction from strangers, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.

if Reddit bans the word “luigi” both subreddits are affected

Several people have responded with things like this, but OP didn’t ask about that scenario. Of course federation solves that problem.

the need for a Fediverse wide fix being your opinion to be necessary for Lemmy to not be eventually destroyed as a whole

I think it’s more likely that Lemmy will stay niche than grow large enough to have an eternal September problem. If it does grow large, I think the risk is more a degraded experience than destruction.

I’m not understanding your point here. Can you reword it perhaps?

If I’m not happy with how /r/knives is run on Reddit, I can make /r/knife to compete with it.

The modlog entries I’ve read show the offending comment as well as the moderator given reason for a ban.

It shows part of the comment. I think there’s a limit on length, and it does not show media. The mod log is a good idea, but there’s room for improvement.

Where I’ll disagree with you that one has to exist or Lemmy will fail.

I never said Lemmy will fail, and that is not my position.

its easy to create an identically named community on another instance

It’s easy to create a differently named community on systems that don’t have this sort of server-based namespacing.

Modlog documents all actions including moderator censorship.

The part that’s missing is the original content mods removed. If I’m an abusive moderator and I want to censor someone, I’m not going to put “I don’t like your opinion” in the removal/ban reason; I’m going to put something that sounds reasonable like “racism” or “harassment”.

Beehaw is an example of a Lemmy instance immune to “Eternal September”

Time will tell. Either way, that’s not a solution for Lemmy as a whole.

I agree, but the server owner imposing unpopular rules is not one of the two problems the OP asks about. Those are:

• The first to create a community control it. This was easily exploited on other platforms, particularly in regards to astroturfing, censorship, and controlling a narrative.
• If/when Lemmy starts to experience its own “eternal September”, what protections are in place to ensure we will not be overwhelmed and exploited?

Decentralization with federated servers does not address those problems.

Decentralization provides a lot of important benefits, such as protection against worsening the whole system for profit, or imposing unpopular network-wide rules. I like it here; it’s fun in the way the old web was and the corporate web isn’t.

I think we’re in agreement that preventing moderators of popular communities from being assholes and handling large-scale abuse as OP asked about are not among those benefits.

That does not appear to be the problem OP was asking about.

None. Someone is going to say federation helps here, but the effect is the same as creating an alternative to a popular subreddit under another name.

Total Webhosting Solutions

I’ve been with Porkbun since Gandi got acquired. No complaints.

That sounds like a novelty page to show off CSS/JS tricks. I think that’s out of scope for the original question, which I took to be about sites with a functional or informational purpose.

I do what I want.

Tipping in restaurants is normal in Germany; here’s the German Wikipedia article on the subject. Staff asking for a tip doesn’t seem normal though, and I’d find that rude.

Tipping at restaurants is already normal in Germany, France, and Italy if there is not a service charge on the check.