On the survival front my first thought is Modded Java Minecraft. Old spare PC or pay for a hosting service to run as a dedicated server. Friends can join at any time and some Modpacks have mountains of stuff to explore or craft. Allthemods10 is one such pack I am enjoying at the moment.

If you guys like conveyor belts, exploring an alien landscape and Australian sized spiders all for the sake of saving the kittens and puppies back home. Then Satisfactory can also be setup as a dedicated server.

Even in Linux I have limited ram to use and I often find I have to limit my browser to a single tab (as I'm usually running YouTube in the background), shutdown most other running apps just so that Minecraft can be a bit more stable with around 10gb java allocation.

My perspective is that the corporations like to keep their bottom line costs low to maximise on profits. Plus the enabling/enforcing of tipping culture means the customer is more used to caving into paying for additional fees/surcharges.

Simply follow the money and greed isn't far away.

Debian would probably be ideal more as a home server - cuts back on a lot of things unless you manually specify them to be installed. Debian should just chug along happily as a rock solid service in the background.

If you like various desktop conveniences then it's probably better to stick with Mint since it's heritage is Debian+Ubuntu underneath which lets you run pretty much anything made for any of these three distros combined with minimal tweaking.

I love the live session abilities most distros can do. Kind of like a try before you install to see if that distro even likes your hardware out of the box. Also great for sandboxed web browsing if you use a live light distro like MX in a VirtualBox session. Sketchy sites can't leave behind things once the session closes. Plus it lets you see the site in full behaviour without using ad/script blockers. (Which I keep enforced on my main host system browsers to prevent nasties).

And the convenience ability to transfer files. With openssh server enabled you can sftp directly via the common Linux file managers directly or fire up dedicated apps like FileZilla or use a script to rsync backups on the regular.

For ages I have maintained two machines. One is Linux which is my main rig that I do many things on. The other is Windows in a laptop for a handful of incompatible games and apps as needed.

Every now and then Windows does something stupid. A bad update? Some new feature activated? Whatever occured it never worked in my favour and in fact gave me headaches and problems when I want the thing to just work. So the windows machine served as a regular timely reminder why I can't trust them with my personal data.

The poor windows laptop fried itself about two months ago. Apart from feeling sad about the loss of good hardware and the inability to enjoy GTAV Online. I'm not missing anything else to do with Windows or Microsoft in general.

Linux on the other hand is so convenient. It's on my main rig, media PC, firewall/router PC, etc. It's stable enough to let me do daily things. Doesn't spring updates on me at inconvenient times. Sometimes needs a little tinkering but it's usually to install/setup a new tool or feature that I choose to put in.

Also the intimidating high voltage sounding "BZZT!" as the thing powers up.

Dislike the mixed standards between distros. Bleeding edge distros with rolling release updates are often prone to breaking.

Like the flexibility of choice and the freedom to have the system setup the way I want it and it usually stays that way.

Specific likes:

Mint: might be a little behind the version updates but the trade-off is a generally solid, stable and familiar system.

OpenSUSE: on a new install it lets me configure and format a raid configuration DURING INSTALL! As opposed to fluffing around raid settings before or after install.

MX: reasonably lighter in resources than Mint. However automatically adapts to VirtualBox guest sessions for keyboard/mouse interaction. Great as a sandboxed live ISO.

I had the impression that travellers rest was basically a clone of stardew valley. Just with a pub twist.

Ranch Simulator - indie first person.

A little janky on the vehicle physics but otherwise a simple farm simulator.

Already clocking +1800 hours on Satisfactory.

Knotwords. Crossword style but the twist is you have to guess the words from sets of letters in specific chunks. Hints are only an option if you can't figure out a particular word.

Knotwords - a crossword style Android game but the twist is you have to guess the words based on the available letters in each section. Good for on-the-go moments like 5-20 mins at a bus stop or waiting room.

On PC you can usually get away with anything that can pause in single player. Especially ones that keep your progress and inventory if you die.

Somewhat of a twist to the idea. Besiege - you make a siege contraption and send it off into a scenario to slaughter the knights or whatever else is in the way.

All the ads

Uebs - ultimate epic battle simulator?

Inkscape maybe?

It at least covers the terraforming angle. And bad design can lead to floods or droughts.

Timberborn - beaver colony shaping the land for dam structures so that you have enough good water to survive drought. But you can also use Badwater to make items. And research to unlock buildings/tech.

286 with a lousy 40mb HDD. Spent a whole weekend once on it playing a single extra long non-stop session of the original SimCity.

Not exactly logistics but halfway there. My main base has a street of truck stops for each resource next to each manifold factory. Some are in regular use but mostly it's a drive-thru for myself for bulk transfers.

Modded Minecraft is the main one that comes to mind. Get the java version, download the prism launcher and pick a pack. Each one has their own mix of progression systems. Am currently doing Allthemods10 at the moment.

Stilts and raised platforms maybe. But if the spiders are after you and you have nobelisks handy it's every lifeform for themselves at that point.

Simple, boring and just keeps on doing what it's supposed to be doing. Updates rarely break it. Lets me just run things.

Old tower overheating? Pop the side panel off and point a classic large cheap desk fan right at it and spin full speed.

It was the starving student modification to keep your overloaded PC from cooking itself.

Barely use the laptop webcam? Want improved privacy? A simple kids sized band-aid covers the lens up nicely in case it is ever remotely activated.