Much respect @Papadad111 … well thought, good senses, and way to act. I saw the great @hydn post with options; will watch your transformation with interest.
Welcome to life after death! Not hyperbole:
Last I checked a Windows system ( ~August 2024 ) remotely, compared to yesterday, a lot has changed. Mostly psychologically. Those with no other environment for their thoughts are being slow-boiled ( standard frog analogy exactly; put in cold water, slowly increase temperature, frog boiled alive by not sensing the temperature increase ) and now it is at ‘simmer’ right before full “this is your brain on drugs” … I cannot fathom having any coherence left with all that is going on in the “operating system” there. A virus you can ask for by name!
As a programmer, trying to deal with windows is like being locked out of your own house and being forced to watch and kept back by police while a robber ransacks everything and abuses everyone you love. Yet not many notice that.
Anyway pardon the acknowledgement before even my own introduction post, but your post gave me a little burst of faith in others today and I thank you @Papadad111 … FREE ROBERT
PS. VERY sorry to hear about your wife feeling ill. All my support to you as you stand with the woman you love. May she be well //
PS:
My wife is chronically ill, I work 40 hours a week (home office) and look after her. I know what it’s like and I feel for you.
Thankfully, we have so-called long-term care insurance in Germany. It helps financially and if I should ever be ill, a nursing service can come.
@toadie and @migrator, Thank you for replies and thank you both for your kind wishes for my wife. She has lung cancer and they operated (won’t go into details) and they say they got it all for now. Both in recovery mode now, so it’s a day at a time as they say. I’m sure you know what I mean toadie. My best wishes to you and yours and I pray circumstances change for the better. We are in Scotland by the way. migrator…you described Windows down to a tee…lol…oh so true. Going to load Zorin tonight and have a play around with it. Heard good things about it…soooo, onwards and upwards…My thanks again…
My wife pulled through >10-year life-threatening medical crisis, and turned back from death many, many times. I hold hope yours will too. I believe your parallel fights are equal, in keeping hope and courage. I have my hand on my heart, with knitted-brow, and send you power to overcome from whatever I can spare in my own spiritual accounts.
I am relieved to hear you see what I said about psychological warfare against ‘civilians’ going on in Windows as the outcome of a >30 year slow-boil. I first used Windows 3.0 and immediately felt like I was being programmed to see and think in certain ways, whether intentional or not. Ever since then my outlook has been an Easel design target and not a Windows framing of my will. I put on the screen what ought to be there and whatever alters or re-frames my Self is warfare against my soul. It is not too-strong a statement, and both Mind and Word are eternals. We are drawing on easels and sharing them, not looking through bordered boxes into a world already there without us.
Thank you for pursuing your own freedom while at the same time as fighting beside your wife. I would hold this is one and the same will, beating the level.
I’m a retired software engineer; been retired for 7 years now - goes by fast. My interests are systems administration, simple tool and script writing, and Linux distro hopping. I’ve cut down a bit on the distro hopping but I still have 3-4 distributions, a few duplicated on three of my systems, all laptops, and six distributions on my newest laptop. Started my interest thanks to my eleventh grade Algebra-Trigonometry teacher, who took us on a field trip to see a large computing lab at a nearby research laboratory. That set my interest in computers and software.
HI @Brian_Masinick Welcome! Its great to have have you here. I think soon we will have to rename this forum the 40+ Linux Community. So many of our members have decades of experience in Linux and/or devops.
What are those other 2 to 3 that would use/recommend?
It’s amazing how early life experiences can help shape the rest of our lives.
Thanks! I also found a REALLY OLD post in that blog, discussing the “instability” of a few early versions of the Firefox Web Browser! " Firefox 1.5
I have found Firefox 1.5 to be pretty useful, but nothing earth shattering. Just before I downloaded Firefox 1.5, I had a rare crash with Firefox 1.0.7. Shortly after I installed Firefox 1.5, I had another browser crash.
My systems have never been known to frequently crash anything. Last time that happened, I was days away from a total hard disk failure. Hope that is not the case again!"
Regarding 2 or 3 distributions that I recommend continued here:
Hi anyone can just call me Powder! (Because I love Powder from the Arcane series) Yes, not my real name but this is the internet so maybe when I get to know people better here. Anyways I like Linux, I love open source and the community around it, it’s super cool and fun to learn! That being said I AM A BABY. (I’m actually 31) But what I mean is I just started getting into computers at the end of summer 2024. Long story short, I was ready for my next life chapter and some growth and change and I picked programming. I did the google cybersecurity certificate, it took me about 6 months. Catch 22, in hindsight it wasn’t worth much but on the other hand, I didn’t have the knowledge about literally anything in this field before that to understand that so.. it was a stepping stone on my journey. Okay trying to wrap this up, I’m interested in most things in computing but since that’s a black hole I have chosen to learn and focus in cybersecurity because really I just want to support myself doing something I like and am good at. (currently I drive trucks and landscape) My outline for 2025 is web application vulnerabilities so that I can do bug bounties. It appeals to me. I’m not good at working for people I guess or at least I feel more comfortable with my freedom. It sounds fun. I enjoy minecraft (Valhelsia 6 modpack), pretty active I like martial arts (taekwondo) and I’m pretty big into art and drawing. Lots of scifi stuff like StarTrek (DS9 all day!) and anime and cartoons. I crochet. Sew. Garden. IDK pretty witchy, artsy and nerdy all around. I found this site while googling how to run deepseek locally and read the about page and decided to stay! Nice to meet you all. (In the future)
Welcome @Powder Sounds like you’re diving headfirst into Linux, cybersecurity, and bug bounties, good call! The Google Cybersecurity cert might not be the golden ticket, but like you said, it was a stepping stone, and that’s what matters!
If you’re going for web app vulnerabilities, start hammering OWASP Top 10 into your brain. Burp Suite, SQLi, XSS, SSRF, etc. learn to break stuff and understand why it breaks. PortSwigger’s Web Security Academy is free and top-tier. Also, TryHackMe is a great playground.
Sounds like you have a solid creative side too. Nice mix of hands-on and digital. If you ever get into self-hosting, Linux security, or just breaking apps in a controlled environment, this is a good place to chat.
Nice to meet you. Feel free top open a topic in any of the categories, a bunch of us here are excited to meet new community members.
I used gentoo.
I am using fedora kinoite.
I am going back to gentoo… just waiting it to finish compiling KDE and all packages which I use [just copied /etc/portage and /var/lib/portage/world and emerge -uDN @world]
I use systemd, but plan to move to 66 as soon as possible [But I have quite a few software which I need and it needs systemd… sorting that out 1st…]
Then I plan to move from glibc to musl.
Still learning C [and Rust].. my 1st proper software will be a systemd compatibility layer around s6/66; I also plan to help adoption of nsss; s6’s alternative to glibc’s and musl’s nss/nscd…
No, am not against systemd. I just prefer alternatives…
Hi All, my life is better now I have found this site.
My life is boring as all I seem to live for is tech, fixing computers, networks, phones and bloody tablets! Why is it so hard for people NOT to break those screens.
I love Linux, its the best! I know all systems have flaws but for admins I still don’t see how Linux is flawed . I have been in IT for the last 25 years, still not rich either
I am really looking forward to becoming part of the system here.
Nice to have you. A lot of us nerds here can relate to your story. Welcome! @shybry747 keeps copies of Novell Netware in is home still. He’s our community hoarder.
Greetings to all from Croatia, the city of Rijeka, where the first torpedo was made.
I am an electrical engineer employed in IT since 1995., have been working with Microsoft for years (was also MCSE).
I got infected with Linux more than 15 years ago and increasingly sick of Microsoft.
Like to play basketball, windsurfing, building things, programming in C, …
Its great to have have you here. I think soon we will have to rename this forum the 40+ Linux Community. So many of our members have decades of experience in Linux and/or devops.
. I have been in IT for the last 25 years, still not rich either 
