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I first installed Slackware around 1996. As a new Linux user, it was a pain in the rear to get everything running. But I was so fed up with the Microsoft monopoly, I was willing to learn.
Flash forward to the present. While I have used many different distributions and desktop environments, I've been using Mint for several years now. Why? It's the system I can teach aging boomers to use, and it just plain works.
New users are not going to put up with what I did my first time.
@jettisoned That is exact my experience. I started using Linux in 2000 with SuSE.
Like you, I did a lot of distrohops; today I recommend Linux Mint for 90% of use cases because it just works and does the job.
I guess, we are getting older and realize, that our lifetime can be used in a more efficient way, than just playin around with quirks and settings 😂
@thom Boy, Howdy as we sometimes say in the fascist place. Mostly, I find myself growing less particular as I age. I'm just grateful when stuff works! #retirement
@jettisoned That reminds me of my first dive into Linux with OpenSUSE, back then. I used to do the same with introducing older folks to Mint, but now since the RAM/drives/AI slop markets going topsy turvy, I've gone back to MX21.3 that uses half the resources its competition does today.
@numodular That makes sense. I run AntiX on a couple of old 32 bit laptops just because I can and they function fine. MX is a great project.
@jettisoned MX even ships zram stock, with only a couple of commands to activate it in 21.3. Zram is in the current 25 iteration, but it's too heavy for me to support with these overpriced hardware components destabilizing the market. I have AntiX on my Ventoy drive, as well as PepperMintOS.
@numodular If only we could predict when the bubble will burst. Used ram and storage are going to become affordable, yes?
@jettisoned China is in the process of refining their own memory manufacturing, but the way the US has applied tariffs, I wouldn't expect much of The West to have any hardware stability anytime soon. It's a byproduct of going too heavy on soft products, and leaving an unsustainable software~hardware metric in place, for the foreseeable future - even with an opposite US administration in place next term... too much of a regression to the mean going on globally.
@numodular There's a great article titled "Sinophobic Sinophilia" in the most recent issue of N+1 on how mixed up US policy is and has been. Personally, I am more interested in trying to rescue old computers from landfills than current hardware. It's more of an adventure anyway.
