I’ve tried PopOS as I have a machine with an Nvidia card but every tine I’ve done the first apt upgrade it nukes grub and won’t boot again. Probably something I’m doing wrong and it has been a couple of years since I last tried.

Debian, on servers and a desktop. I spent a long time using Ubuntu so I’m used to APT and Debian is suitably lightweight for my not amazing hardware. I also like the non rolling nature of it.

I’ve never noticed any hate for Mint, it seems to be a pretty good option. It’ll easily run on anything that was able to run Windows 10 (probably 8 too) and the default desktop environment Cinnamon is easy to navigate if you’re coming from Windows. Even if you have some obscure piece of hardware with Mint being based on Ubuntu there’s probably a tutorial you can follow to get it working.

Linux is a clearing in the woods. You have the freedom to build a cabin yourself from logs with your barehands with LFS, buy building materials and power tools to build a completely custom house yourself with something like Arch or Gentoo, get a kit and put it up yourself with Fedora or Debian, put up a prefab with Ubuntu, or just pull up a trailer for a while and move on with a live ISO.

I used LXDE for a while on old crappy machines when I first started using Linux so just used to it I guess

Gnome on one machine, LXDE on another.

I use Gnome on my main laptop, a Thinkpad P50. I bought it with a dock thinking I’d use it at my desk and on the sofa but it’s a bit of a beast so that stays on my desk and I use an L440 with LXDE on the sofa. Considering trying LCARS on the sofa machine.

Same. Gnome currently but will certainly be trying Cosmic

Yea I didn’t think about that but if someone said to an AI powered robot “Hey, can you shred my reports?” as they leave work they could easily come back in the morning to it tearing their junior staff into strips like “Morning boss, almost done”.

That first one reminds me of a part of HHGTTG where I think Ford starts counting in front of a computer to intimidate it because its like walking up to a human and chanting “blood, blood, blood”.

Where’s the socks?

So it’s just paranoia then…

Yea, not going to lie that is probably the primary motivator here.

I don’t trust Chrome, Zoom or Teams, but sometimes have to use them. I will keep them in a separate VM but will look into Firefox profiles.

Such as?

It’s not that much work. I created a VM which is running the same distro as the host. I removed all of the apps except for the terminal. Then I cloned it for each VM I need.

The Whatsapp/ email client VM and the Librewolf VM start with my OS so it’s like having them in separate windows. The others I only start if needs be.

I’m also based in the UK. I don’t run a business but have occasionally encountered problems trying to use Librewolf on the web, especially with Noscript on.

I tried to use Qubes to separate my activities into VMs but I found it difficult. So I did my own, less extreme, approach using KVM.

I created a virtual machine which only has Chrome on it. This is what I use for accessing my bank, Paypal and doing online shopping.

I have a second machine I use for Whatsapp and email and finally a third with Librewolf for general web browsing.

Each uses the same VPN service but different servers.

I only use Freetube and Retroarch on my main machine.

This is on a very beefy Thinkpad I essentially use as a desktop in my office. I use a smaller machine downstairs with VNC on it as a remote when I’m sat on my sofa.

True. I can’t understand why anyone would choose having the newest features over stability. But each to their own.

it’s literally Ubuntu (But better) in every way except no snaps.

That would be Debian, friend.