I’ve been running Linux on my laptop for a few years now (started with Mint, on Manjaro now). I have our HTPC set up with Mint, and the family is good with it. When my kids are old enough for their own, I’ll probably keep them going with Mint as well, we’ll see.

My wife’s laptop still has Windows, but I’ll likely move her over if she gets a new PC at some point.

All it takes is a little hypnosis and a bunch of LSD.

I usually move static assignments outside the DHCP range, but in general, most routers will avoid re-allocating it even if it’s within the DHCP range.

Exiled Kingdoms - it’s a labor-of-love project inspired by classic 90s RPGs. I’ve played through it a few times, it’s solid.

Looks pretty heckin wise

Tried installing Windows 11. After a few hours screwing around trying to find the right drivers for everything, I tried a live USB of Mint. Everything worked great out of the box.

Also, the ads, and Microsoft’s insistence on forcing user accounts.

It was updated this year. They moved on from the mini-CD limit (50MB?) to a regular CD (700MB). Spiritual successor, newer target.

I’ve been using LineageOS on my Pixel 7, and it’s been great. As much or as little Google stuff as you want, plus more direct control. Updates are easy, overall would recommend.

Approaching infinite volume, by the looks of them

They’re more different than people might expect. I like both, but they’re very different experiences.

Yeah, but by putting up the “we don’t support this” banner, they won’t have to deal with the complaints in the first place.

It’s also possible they want people to use Chromium for telemetry or other data-collection reasons, not sure.

Sort of. I imagine the idea is they only need to test on Chromium-based browsers.

700cm

I’ll throw Alpine Linux into the mix. Not sure how well it supports older hardware, but it’s really small.

They obviously don’t have the features that Rufus has, but I’ve ended up using the default USB image writers that come pre-installed (found them on both Mint and Manjaro, probably available on others). If you’re just looking to write an ISO, check to see if you already have one.

You can make most distros work like most others, with enough tweaking. The main difference at this point isn’t what you can do with them, but how they’re set up by default, which typically reflects their thing (e.g., Debian is super stable vs Arch giving access to the latest and greatest).

To be honest, I think the homogenization is a net positive. I doubt we’d have the diverse driver support that makes Linux a viable desktop OS if we didn’t have lots of similarities. And it’s a natural thing–it turns out that most people want computers to do a relatively similar variety of things, so all the major distros end up moving a similar direction. And with open source, when one distro implements a really nice feature, it makes sense everyone else would port it as well.

Welcome! I was actually in the same boat a year or two ago–every time I tried before that, there was a lot of finagling to get everything working. When I upgraded to Win11, and was having a rough time getting drivers going, I ended up trying Mint. Everything worked out of the box and I haven’t looked back.

1. I find it helpful to have a separate data partition (though I don’t actually use it for /home because I find that gets messy quickly). Separate data is nice in case you’re concerned about something getting messed up, or if you like to try another distros (I ended up switching to Manjaro a while ago). Not necessary, but whatever you do, I recommend keeping it relatively simple.

2. Can’t comment, haven’t tried.

3. Last I checked, there was no client for Google Drive or Proton Drive. Not sure about Dropbox. I’ve heard of rclone but haven’t tried it.

4. I usually try apt first, then check the GUI for a flatpak if needed. I personally prefer native apps/deb packages, but that’s a subjective thing.

5. I use the default terminal and Firefox install. I ended up moving my actual personal data out of /home and it’s been easier to keep it all tidy (there’s even a way to point the file manager shortcuts to an alternate location). Tip: if you happen to have an Nvidia card, there’s a GUI utility to switch to a non-free driver, which improved things for me. My other tip: especially if you have a separate data partition, give yourself permission to not get everything perfect, and that you might want a clean install somewhere down the road. Mint isn’t quite as easy to reinstall as something like SilverBlue, but it’s not that hard I’ve found.

Have fun!

Oh, I meant putting a hole in Abe Lincoln’s head.

/jk

Pretty sure that’s a federal offence.