If you want to learn Linux, install Gentoo. That’ll give you a pretty good understanding of what’s going on. It’ll be an intense process though.

If you just want to install and use Linux, pick one of the usual suspects: Mint, Fedora, openSUSE Leap/Slowroll, whatever. If you come from Windows, picking KDE Plasma as your desktop environment (DE) is a good choice. Mint’s Cinnamon should be good too. Picking a popular distro usually means troubleshooting is easier, since someone else out there most likely has the same issue you have, and documentation is more comprehensive.

Remember that many distros provide a live environment you can run from a USB stick. Try a couple with different DEs and see what fits your needs. Honestly, the distro doesn’t matter that much, they all do the same thing, more or less. Maybe try to pick your DE first and then just go from there.

If you want a simple answer, pick Mint.

Just the favorite one.

Heartache to heartache, we stand. No promises, no demands. Love is a battlefield.

(Don’t let em) Grind ya down.

I thought humanity’s problem was lack of access to information. The Internet proved I was catastrophically mistaken. The real world beat that idealistic youth to submission.

When Facebook came around, I immediately saw what it would lead to. Hell, just the thought of sharing your personal details for anyone and everyone to read was extremely creepy to me. Any time I tried to communicate this to people asking me why I wasn’t on Facebook it achieved nothing. Pushback was useless, people want what they perceive as “convenience” even when they have to (almost literally) sell their souls to the machine. No, I don’t think pushback would have helped, because people want these - and I shudder to call them such - services. The Internet was doomed the day it became mainstream.

When I was young, I was called a nerd for using computers. People online were primarily nerds who cared about tech. Those days are long gone, and there was nothing that could’ve been done to prevent the rot. It was inevitable as the Internet became more popular.

The masses will always be asses. They don’t care. They will eat corporate slop and ask for seconds until their bloated corpses burst. The best we can do is create alternative infrastructures and wait with horror as they start to rot too.

Jesus, I think I’m having a bit of a blue day.

I hate to say it, but the French are right on this one. I feel dirty. Hold me.

Why is no one upvoting my comment?

Bah, I’m old enough to not care about upvotes or approval, I just shitpost for the love of the game and to sniff my own farts.

Joke’s on you, I don’t have that reflex. I’ve gotten some concerned looks from doctors.

Oh shit, I didn’t know this was a thing. I’ve just been running Plasma on a used mini PC, but Bigscreen seems like it could make for a more comfortable experience. Neat!

EDIT: Aaaand it’s not available in Debian 13. Well, that’s unfortunate.

Thank god it’s not Alot, because

Japan has had a “Lost Decade” of economic stagnation since the 1990s.

America stands alone. They know what they did.

I think you’re refering to this. The community appears to be in the process of setting up their own association and eventually the infrastructure and assets will be transferred to them. We’ll see how that shakes out.

Wait, again?

When I got back to Linux some years back, I tried using GNOME because I had had good experiences with GNOME 2. Modern GNOME is awful, terribly opinionated and - in my view - has actual usability issues. Every interaction with the DE felt like pulling teeth and I didn’t enjoy it one bit. GNOME Classic was better, but even that never felt quite right. At the time I wanted to use Wayland and therefore had limited options, so for the first time ever I tried Plasma, and I immediately found it to my liking. With only a few small cosmetic tweaks it felt like home. Things made sense to me and everything was where it should be - more or less; nothing’s perfect. Since then I’ve looked at other options, but Plasma usually has one feature or another that alternative desktops lack or struggle with. So for now I’m sticking with Plasma, and I have no real reason to look elsewhere.

To be sure, I don’t hate on anyone who prefers GNOME, it’s just not my cup of tea. Not by a long shot. Use what works for your use case.

I fucking had to keep pushing back buying some more RAM. Yeah, that was a great move. Now I can only hope the bubble bursts and prices crash.

I mean, I get by fine with the RAM I have. I don’t need much. It’s the principle of the thing, you know? Sometimes being financially responsible and careful sucks.

I think the lawsuit was with PS3, not PS2.

It’s a copy of Linux for Sony’s Playstation 2 console. Yes, it was a real thing.