I have used an old MacBook Air as a home server with Fedora for about 2 years. Fedora with Podman can be great, especially when you can use Cockpit (a GUI for managing containers), which is pre-installed and perfectly integrated.

Another option is to use TrueNAS. I can also recommend OpenMediaVault.

For exposing your services on the internet I suggest caution. If your ISP does not let you forward your ports, you can read this. https://blog.aiquiral.me/bypass-cgnat

What are you gifting them?

He gives terrible reviews.

Because, you won’t have to guess where to download the app. And you can get a completely FOSS version. And if not using google services, unified Push can help you with notifications.

This is c/opensource

Logseq is a good alternative.

You should consider using Molly, a fork of Signal with Unified Push.

Making a work profile using Insular or something? Or maybe create a different user?

I believe you can still access internet-banking, without the need for an app?

Maybe, setup MicroG. If the your bank app just redirects you to google play store app, I think Aurora Store might be able to fool it, considering you disable or remove GPlay using adb or something.

I got Nextcloud on Hetzner. Technically, Hetzner can see the contacts stored on their servers, but I trust them enough, and everything is open source.

You can also self-host Nextcloud.

Who told you to not use Signal, and what reasons did they give? I’m very curious.

And Death Stranding even got released on Xbox.

About 3-4 years ago, yes. I unlocked my Redmi Note 8 and installed LineageOS.

I’ve used it on a Redmi Note 8 for 2 years, and am using it on a Samsung Tablet. I never had any issue.

Halo Reach was an awesome game, and so was Halo 3: ODST.

My question is that is this a USA only thing? Or is it practised in other nations as well?

Is carrier locking an America-only thing? I have never seen this in India, and have never heard of this in any European country either.

There is no objective answer to that. Maybe tell us your needs, use case.

Both of them aren’t good enough for privacy use cases. Using something like Universal Android Debloater is recommended.

If possible, buy a used device on which you can install official LineageOS.

I really, really want Ubisoft to redeem themselves with this release. But I know they won’t.

https://freelinuxpcgames.com/

I use this site. Not all games work, though.

Another option is to use 1337x and search for jc141. They put either native linux game or sometimes have wine built-in their setups, but they require you to install a lot of prerequisites.

Another option is to use emulators like PCSX2 or RPCS3 to play other games with relatively less hassle.

Valhalla base game + ragnarok took me over 80 hours. Amd I didn’t do most of the side stuff. Mirage was about 20-25 hours, iirc.