Eyedust

You’re probably looking for an abliterated model. Be sure you can run it, first, as localhosting models needs high VRAM. You’ll want RAM, too, in the case of GGUF models.

I’d have to write a whole half a book here to explain how to use them, but that information is freely available online. If you don’t have a beefy GPU, look into how to host GGUF models.

Because doubling down on idiocy has always worked in the past.

I agree. Too much handholding for me, imo. However, if I had a Steamdeck I might use it just for simplicity sake. If I wanted an immutable distro for my desktop I’d choose NixOS, tbh, but that’s on the opposite end of the complexity spectrum from Bazzite.

Meditation.

This. I mained Arch for 2 years and still can’t be completely trusted with sudo. Moved to Nobara, would recommend as well. Its a bit more advanced, but you don’t have to touch the command line if you don’t want to and setup is right there step-by-step when you first boot.

I did try Bazzite first. I just couldn’t get used to living the Flatpak life. I know you can force install native packages, but at that point why wouldn’t I just use Nobara, lol.

I see a lot of “just accept the gift” here, but that’s a rough choice. If you accept the gift, then you would be expected to use it over the one that you like. Your wife may even go so far as to throw the other one away (depending on what it is). So I don’t think accepting the gift was ever an option.

It really is a hard spot to be put in, and I would have probably done the same thing in your position, even though I hate denying gifts. The whole premise of gifting is flawed, imo, at least where I’m from. To me, the one being gifted is put more on the spot than the one gifting. I hate getting gifts for this reason.

So maybe this. Explain why you like the one you use better, but that you’re very happy with the gift. Ask her if it’s okay if you keep that gift as a backup if your first one breaks and store it by the first one “just in case”. Its never bad to have two of something.