Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but why not update via stamdeck UI? You can change the “stable” branch in your steamos update settings page to “beta” or “preview”.

• stable - recommended
• beta - test for new steam updates
• preview - test for steam updates + OS updates

Yes it is. Though after using arch for a few years, I miss the abundance of packages.

If a package wasn’t in the official arch repos, it was probably in the AUR. If you use arch, you don’t need other package managers like homebrew on linux.

The first one I saw was Debian 3.1 (Sarge). I was in school and our objective this time was installing debian + getting a working Xorg session. Never heard of Linux before, didn’t get a working Xorg session, but wow man, there’s something other than Windows and MacOS. I couldn’t have imagined.

The first one I actually used on a desktop (laptop for school, in that case) was Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake).

I’ve tried oh so many different linux distributions over the years, I probably forgot most of them. Maybe some don’t even exist anymore. My goal was always Arch Linux, having seen it on a schoolmates laptop. I really fell for the “here’s a pretty minimum base, do whatever” thing.

In the end, I exclusively used Arch from 2020 until this year. Actually using Arch and reading the ArchWiki were probably what taught me most of what I know about linux in general and how things work.

I’ve been searching for a less DIY-solution which is still up-to-date (especially with kernels and mesa) and I landed on Fedora Workstation, which is what I’m currently using on my work latpop and desktop at home. I do miss some things from Arch, but Fedora has been pretty good to me and I, for the meantime, intend to stay here.

I don’t know what stingray is, but if it needs a connection to somewhere and the protocol to connect verifies os-trusted certificates, it should be safe.

Set OPNSense default policy

As far as I remember, OPNSense has a default policy rule of “deny all incoming, allow all outgoing”. If not, this should be one of the first steps to take.

Get your own VPN

If you can, you could use your own VPN service. I run a VPS for 6 € / month. If you can get your hands on something like this and install an openvpn server, you could always use that VPN for every connection.

So even if an attacker highjacks your connection somehow, he would only be able to see encrypted content and all content will be encrypted by a server you own and can verify / trust. You could also integrate this VPN into your OPNSense, so you’ll be connected as soon as OPNSense starts up and has internet.

Regarding MITM attacks

Please someone correct me if I am wrong, but MITM attacks should generally be impossible when connecting to SSL backed connections, right?

These certificates (or rather the certificate authority the HTTPS certificates have been issued by) are generally trusted by your own operating system. Therefore, if someone wanted to highjack your connection without you getting some kind of certificate error, he would have needed to get his hands on a certificate issued by a worldwide trusted certificate authority and the address name matching the certificate.