I’ve just found it’s more polished right out of the box. Definitely more new-user-friendly, like Ubuntu, but with Snap gutted out.

I have been using the regular Mint (based on Ubuntu), but I’m probably going to use the Debian edition next time I install a new system

I suggest Mint or straight Debian. I prefer Mint for anything graphical, Debian for headless

That’s fantastic, I can’t wait to go home and install it

For Google money I’d do it too…but I wouldn’t do a very good job of it

This is just for him to get a basic feel for the various distros, before choosing one to permanently install; setting up a VM properly is probably going to be too technical

devices with an x86_64 architecture

Sounds like the opposite of what you want; you would want x86_64 code on devices with an ARM architecture.

But I didn’t actually read the article, so maybe that line is poorly worded

Nice

I use NTFS with Linux a lot, and have for years. The only issue I’ve ever had was Linux not being able to recover it properly after unsafely disconnecting it, but Windows fixed it just fine

Fair; that was mostly a general warning, not necessarily directed at you, because many people do copypaste terminal commands without knowing what they are actually doing.

As long as you understand what a command does, absolutely go for it. No point typing that shit out when somebody else already has

Do not copy and paste into Bash if you don’t understand the commands you’re pasting in

This is the biggest thing. I’m very comfortable in Bash, but that is not the norm; the second my wife needs to run sudo apt get, she’s out, fuck that

It’s probably the standard in both POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification, so I guess ask Ken Thompson?

LxQt is nice, it is barebones like Xfce, but built on the Qt framework like KDE. Xfce uses GTK, like GNOME.

I specifically like Xfce or LxQt, because I generally run older hardware; I suppose my biggest question is how easily I could use either (not overly picky about which). I’m not sure which desktop environment LMDE defaults to, but both Gnome and KDE are deal-breakers for me, unless it’s easily changeable.

I don’t have that problem on my actual Debian machines, because they’re headless anyways, there is no desktop environment at all

I’ve been curious about LMDE, I use the Xfce version of regular Mint, but am comfortable in Debian (at least, server Debian). How does LMDE compare?

Linux vs. Windows doesn’t generally affect the cost unless you’re building the machine yourself, or buying from a Linux specific vendor like Framework (which are generally more expensive than what you’ll find at Best Buy anyways). The major PC manufacturers are going to have Windows pre-installed whether you want it or not.

Pascal or Camel are best cases

It’s not real, it’s an xkcd joke

The best book is either Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks, or Fine Structure by Sam Hughes.

Oh, you meant programming books. Maybe still try Sam Hughes, it’ll probably be more blog post than book, though

Edit: You might also like Ra by Sam Hughes; it’s magic as a field of science/engineering, and spells have programming-like syntax. Spoiler: ‘magic’ is not actually magic

Always Debian. I’m most comfortable in an environment with apt, and that’s even more important on a server