I just know I’m gonna get raked, but try Lazarus. A Delphi clone using the FreePascal compiler. Has a framework similar to the VCL, but has pluggable backends. Qt, GTK, Windows, Cocoa, and a native one, though I’m not sure of its maturity. Component programming that is relatively easy to extend.

Use Mate. It is based on the old Gnome 2

Old Scratch is another name for the devil, so Linux From Scratch sounds like a winner (loser?)

Whether a Thinkpad has soldered RAM or not is model-by-model thing. When I was laptop shopping I tried to stick to the only non-soldered ones, but they are definitely more expensive, as they are the higher-end models. I absolutely cannot wait for CAMM to, if it ever does, become a normal thing for RAM modules.

All I know is it’s not Unix.

That’s just what I’d expect an evil chicken to say.

Code???

You’re the APL of their eyes

The tag indentation is a required part of the syntax and don’t forget colons at the end of the tag