Excessive for my threat model, one more thing which could break something (even if by no fault of its own).

I like it as a concept, but many of my devices don’t use it.

Why not Debian directly instead of MX?

Debian requires more config out-of-the-box to get a nice desktop/laptop experience. This is ready to go.

I’m only used it as installed onto a USB, and in fact I chose it for that reason, so my experience isn’t ideal because of that USB drive speed but it’s a great lightweight OS that looks nice out of the box. Lightweight doesn’t have to look clunky or feel strange or unfeatured. I recommend it if there are reasons that lightweight is important (old hardware, low-end hardware, portable OS, … )

Defenestrit

That’s it, I’m deleting the internet

Oh hey, my anniversary is coming up.

For base daily driver on desk and lap, just a stable standard beginner friendly distro. I’ve customized it a lot, added custom hotkey scripts here and there, but it’s so close to base that a stranger could use it. VMs for anything specialist, a couple of portable USB distros for presentation/demo/one-purpose OS environments, but for the most part I’ve just kept it simple and clean.

And eventually, maybe they’ll even tell their old people friends about it. I can definitely see one of my mom’s friends complaining about how slow their computer is, and my mom saying “well my son put this Linux stuff on our computer, and it sped everything right up” and then boom you got old people getting curious about it too.

That’s a good point. If we’ve reached a point where the basic experience Just Works while solving real Windows issues (incl updates and performance), then it’s going to get word-of-mouth praise instead of complaints. And if regular people start hearing about Linux stuff improving their computer, it’s going to mean far more than my ideological rants about owning your own tools and community created software.

he is still completely new to this so I want things to work out perfectly for his first experience.

If you’re able to be there for the install, then great. I’ve had a couple of times where, due to certain hardware, it needs a different sound server or some other workaround. In an extreme case, you might need to fallback to a second choice of distro.

but I have been hearing a lot about Bazzite lately and see that it offers a very nice gaming experience

Is there anything specific you’ve heard that applies to your friend’s needs? (Honest question, I haven’t looked deep into it.)

If it’s just small things like ‘Steam and [etc] is installed already’, then you can just do that easily anyway.

no typical package management like apt or pacman as I browse their docs, instead it relies heavily on Flatpaks [snip]

Keep in mind that Mint uses apt and (optionally, but IMO inevitably for a gamer/dev) Flatpaks integrated in their package manager, which has gotten much smoother but still is two different systems which can cause confusion. I don’t know how Bazzite handles this.

I wonder if this has any practical benefits over running a Windows OS in a VM…

edit: piping, or easier collaboration between, Win32 and Linux programs could be an example. The creator mentions creative and gaming applications.

Win32/Hurd when?

For an extra answer, GrapheneOS is based on stock Android, in contrast to the Linux-phone options they mentioned. Since it’s only (officially) supported on Pixel phones and focuses on security and privacy more than other customization, it’s actually the most stable and easy transition I’ve made, coming from an Android phone already. Installer is super easy compared to other phone OSs I’ve tried, you can do it by connecting the phone to a computer, opening https://grapheneos.org/install/web , and just pressing buttons to do all the normally-complicated steps. I was very impressed with that.

This post just gave me flashbacks to when I was trying to make a custom Plymouth boot logo on QubesOS and kept having to restore from backup after bricking.

But hey, at least eye strain won’t be an issue for your lxdm now

Yep. “Hmm, ‘unknown?’, let’s assume they’re all Linux!”.

Linux is doing well, no need to lie about it!

That’s true.

On one hand, there are often ways to change the settings to make things more like how they were on Windows,

On the other hand, sometimes there’s a good reason for it to be different, so I always try to check why it’s different before changing it. An example is some window managers putting the taskbar panel at the top of the screen or on the side instead of the bottom (top panel is more convenient with a mouse, side panel takes up less space on a wide/landscape screen).

Always good to try out a few distros before settling in for the long run. As much as I love Mint, there are always cases where one distro has issues with your hardware where another doesn’t.

Copy paste did take a while to get used to.

Which part, the highlight-middle click part or something else?

Also the default screenshot tool doesn’t automatically put the snip on the clipboard.

In Mint? You’ve made me realize that would be convenient for me so I looked into it, I believe copying straight to clipboard is a default keyboard shortcut option I didn’t know about.

Yep. Like many arts, gamedev is something people do for free, so it’s very difficult (or torturous) to do it for profit.

I found it fun to do amateur gamedev, for my own little enjoyment (e.g. making a super-basic FPS with a gun that shoots a thousand cubes like a shotgun, then making it shoot a thousands spheres that explode on impact like a grenade launcher). Lots of engines are accessible that you don’t need to learn much/any programming skill to make something fun. You can do plenty with free assets, I never paid for anything, but if you are willing and able to pay small amounts for premade assets, then it will be even faster and easier to make something more pretty.

I’ve also done level design (and LoC) for some open-source FOSS games. This is easier for some games than others, but it’s also rewarding. I was particularly known for making experimental or puzzle-like levels, so it was nice to get feedback from others and improve. I’ve mostly grown apart from games these days, but I don’t regret the time I enjoyed making them.

Like some already said, how long ago is “a few years ago”? Because last year my installation had an annoying issue which is now fixed. And maybe five years back, some (newer or rarer) hardware/devices needed a fix through the terminal, but now work perfectly by default.

I haven’t tried Bazzite, but I’ve heard good things about it and what I know about it so far sounds good. Although @jlow mentioned some alternatives which I wonder if they’re even more suitable since you didn’t mention gaming. Out of habit, I still recommend Mint to former Windows users. But I haven’t needed to input a password for web, graphics tools or office apps, only have to type a password when updating, installing new apps or doing special terminal stuff (which I do by choice!)

On one hand, Mint’s default experience (Cinnamon desktop environment) generally resembles Windows which can make the switch smoother. On the other hand, some other ones fix a lot of defaults Windows chose wrong. Even little things, like moving the taskbar to the top (closer to other options) or to the side (takes up less space), so even if you pick a smaller leap to start with, it’s good to casually look around once you’re comfortable.

Yep. Although…

Is it safe to use the OK hand signal again?

Words and symbols cannot be divorced from context. Like @SineSwiper@discuss.tchncs.de hinted at, putting a date of birth in a username is common and there are so many other meanings for these numbers so it would be ridiculous to jump down someone’s throat for simply using them, or using common gestures. Unless that friend in the story was also saying some reactionary things in their comments, I think it’s silly and careless that someone challenged them on their name.

I been told by some international friends that one of the political flags over in Australia, the Eureka flag, has a similar situation where both trade unions and white nationalists try to claim its legacy, so it’s common to see in both the pro and anti immigration rallies. Context is what makes it either a potential nationalist/racist dogwhistle or a symbol of workers’ rights.

That’s just coincidence, I’ve been using the term for a long time. It’s not new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism