u/spelmo3

I'm happy for everyones experiences with this. Especially from the UK.

I'm 35, always wanted to work with hardware. Got qualified way back in 09. Never had a job in the sector. I've always been the Tech guy in all my non tech jobs.

I've fixed and built tons of pcs and laptops. And even the odd phone screen. Lately I'm at a cross roads. I'm not passionate about my current job, pays ok, but I'm never home and work shifts. It's affected my family life and I've even took a demotion to be home more.,(50hrs down to 37.5) With this extra time I wanna follow a passion. So I've done my research to start as a local tech repair guy. There's only two competitors in the area. Both store fronts. So I can undercut because no real over heads. Il also be offering micro soldering. (I'm spending time getting more competent before offering) Il do normal solder work though

I've got all I need tool wise. Hot air stations precision tools etc. And my way of offering is to collect and deliver in person. And seems to be a viable market.

Personally il love to focus on pc and laptops. But honestly with the area demographic it's going to be smart phones and the odd games console / laptop

But does anyone have their own stories. How did you get on. Did you get a decent amount of work. Or was it just not profitable. I'm happy for 3-5 jobs a week. £150-£200 would be happy enough. Not expecting that over night. But thats the goal

So over the years I've dabbled into Ubuntu, mint and zorin.. after hiatus of 5-10 years. around 3-4 years ago I made the jump completely to Linux and went with Ubuntu.

Stability and general support is my biggest thing. Lately I'm just not on board with canonical. Don't get me wrong I've had a great experience. Minus snap. Anyways, with the new LTS out. Come the summer I'm contemplating whether to upgrade or going with fedora/debian.

Feel like fedora is a better fit for me, I just wonder on it's stability as it's pretty quick on the update wagon. But I generally hear great things.

Debian, it's been around the block. It's the basis for so many distros. Slow with updates but generally the most stable distro out there. But I see it as a blank canvas what needs a fair bit of fiddling. Not that I can tinker away. I just don't have the time.

I'm not one for distro hopping all over the place. Basically I'm upgrading my rig and fancy a fresh install.

It's used mainly for gaming and web/app development.

I run AMD, so Im not too worried on GPU support or anything.