[Reelin]

> anyone could put stuff on the web. angelfire was filled with unpolished websites

Check out (https://neocities.org/).

> dual booting linux is hard on a laptop with stuff being locked down in the boot process

All the major distros should work out of the box with secure boot at this point. UEFI USB sticks are incredibly easy to create since you don't have to worry about magic MBR stuff anymore. (The bootloader can just go in a specific folder and have a specific name.) For that matter, turning secure boot off completely is typically a simple toggle in the firmware. Even the drivers "just work" out of the box these days for all the mainstream laptops I've tried.

> hacking on stuff seems harder then ever if your starting from nothing

This is true if all you have is a locked down mobile device. Otherwise there's really no excuse - a Raspberry Pi can be had for $35.

[tayo42]

Linux is missing drivers for how my laptop is set up. Something with raid or ahci, it's been a while since I messed with it. For the rpi you really need to go out of your way to hack on it. But that's different then being bored and deciding to break something you have. That's not the only way to hack something. Like game modding, seems more difficult.