No, once you delete a Google account it can never be used again, by anyone (link).

I use a password manager (KeePass XC/DX) to track all of my accounts.

In your situation, I would update whatever accounts you do know about to the new email address you intend to use. Set Gmail to forward emails to this account too, and then stop using Gmail for everyday mail. Leave your Google account active for a year and see if any issues crop up.

I can only speak for myself, but I would never trust opaque, proprietary software to manage my credentials, especially in a networked environment. For me, that's a total showstopper.

I've never had need to use Bitwarden or Vaultwarden as I've always been happy with KeePass, but this news would definitely have me choosing an alternative.

If you've no prior experience with Linux, I'd say just try using it. For the average computer user, the overall experience will be very similar to Windows or Mac.

Go easy on yourself, and don't try to do/learn everything all at once. Just use the system like you would any other. Once you're comfortable with the overall experience, you can then tackle more complex stuff if/when you feel the need.

Edit: Just wanted to add that Fedora, Linux Mint, and Ubuntu are all solid choices for beginners.

Just replying to my own comment to say that folks should think very carefully about switching to a personal domain name for email, for the very reason mentioned by the OP.

What if your domain registration lapses and someone else grabs it? What if you can't afford the cost five years from now? What if you just don't like the domain name someday? All of these reasons will be problematic and some can result in identity theft and significant fraud. It's definitely not a decision to be taken lightly, particularly if you have a lot of online accounts.

Noooo! Ugh, that's so disheartening to hear but I can't fault imsodin for his reasons. I sincerely hope that someone steps up to the plate, even if only for the F-Droid releases.

For anyone else interested, the discussion is taking place here:

https://forum.syncthing.net/...

For what it's worth, I only ever had sync issues when sharing a database between devices with transient connectivity. Once I added an always-on instance of Syncthing into the mix, collisions were a thing of the past.

We've been using KeePass trouble-free for many years now, sharing a single database across more than 6 devices, with frequent use and modification.

I would maybe add Linux Mint to that list, but otherwise you're spot on. Fedora and Ubuntu are the easiest and most robust systems for novice computer users.

Since adopting a Flatpak and containerized workflow, the choice of distribution matters a lot less to me now than it did 10 years ago.

The majority of apps that I use everyday can be run from any host. And I can install fedora, arch, debian, or whatever I want as a container, whenever I want it, without any thought to my host system.

Ideally, Flatpak's UX will continue to improve, and upstream app devs will continue to adopt it as an official support channel, which will improve overall security and confidence of the platform. Image-based, atomic distros will be further streamlined, allowing for even more easily interchangeable host images. At that point, traditional distros will be little more than an opinionated collection of command line tools and programming environments.

There is no one-size-fits-all, but for fits most, you're looking at KDE's Konsole or GNOME's new Terminal (formerly Ptyxis). Everything else is going to be niche, with special use cases. What are your specific needs?

Despite some of the comments here, I suggest that you don't overthink it; just buy an APC Back-UPS 600VA and be done with it. You have relatively low power requirements. The UPS will provide some surge protection (490J), several minutes of uptime, and a USB connection for automated shutdown.

The 600VA unit is less than $100 USD and replacement batteries are about half that. I've been using several of this same model for years without issue and we have many brown/blackouts being in a rural BC community. The batteries have lasted me 4-5 years.

You can always plan for something more significant down the road, if your hardware or needs change, but this should do fine in the interim.

Nice writeup, thanks for sharing. For your music woes, have you tried plain old VLC? It's what I use for music (and Mpv for video) and it's been fine. I like that I can keep my mp3 folder structure the way I like it and still be able to browse and queue albums without relying on metadata.

Lots of great responses here already. In terms of simplicity and ease of maintenance, Hugo is going to be the best solution with its single binary, built-in features, and ease of setup/use.

Same here, I use Silverblue as host OS on all of my workstations now, and Arch for nearly all of my containers.

Flatpak for just about everything in the userspace.

I can't say that I'm surprised when a privacy-focused company has a dose of unfounded or biased paranoia. For me, this is not reason enough to distrust them.

I also don't fault them for doing away with SMS when most of the populated world had already moved away from SMS by then too. As a North American relying on SMS for about half of my messaging needs at the time, I wasn't happy about it either. But I don't fault them for making that decision, and ultimately it did push me to rely on more secure options, which I see as a good thing.

Your community is so new that you might as well look to the few users who have contributed so far (OpenStars, Tux, etc). Clearly, they've identified with the group and may be interested. I would check out their comment history just to ensure their general behaviour aligns with your expectations, and go from there.

Nothing wrong with that! I prefer Inter for nearly all UIs these days, but I still think Segoe UI looks better than GNOME's current default of Cantarell.

I do this as well and for the most part it's been fine. It's handy to have options and, even for apps that do run under Windows, it's often less hassle to just fire up the VM.

Mullvad VPN provides a variety of blocklists, including ads, trackers, malware, gambling, social media, and adult content.

If all else fails, you can always spin up a Windows VM. I generally keep one around for tasks like this (or complex Excel workbooks).

From a societal point of view, that's a pretty sad read. I recently created a mastodon account--I'm not entirely sure why but I always wanted to give it a try--and this is exactly the kind of thing that has kept me from posting anything yet. It's kind of just shouting into a void and not knowing what kind of response will come back (if any, given the platform).

At least with platforms like Lemmy, there is a clearly defined topic of discussion, and generally with like-minded contributors.