I’ve used Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, and Manjaro. All viable options. I’m currently using Mint on my daily driver, Ubuntu on my HTPCs, and Debian on my servers.

I liked the rolling release aspect of Manjaro, but I missed having a system that works with DEB files. I’m not a fan of flatpak/snap/appimage due to the size (I’ve often had to use slower internet connections). I settled on Mint for my daily driver because it has great and easy compatibility for my hardware (specifically an Nvidia GPU). It worked okay on Manjaro as well, but I’ve found it easier to select and switch between GPU drivers on Mint. And Cinnamon is my favorite DE, and that’s sort of “native” to Mint.

I’m using vanilla Ubuntu on my HTPCs because I have Proton VPN on them, and it’s the only setup I’ve found that doesn’t have issues with the stupid keyring thing. And Proton VPN’s app only really natively supports Ubuntu. The computers only ever use a web browser, so the distro otherwise doesn’t matter that much.

I’m using Debian on my servers because it’s the distro I’m most familiar with, especially without a GUI. Plus it’ll run until the hardware fails, maybe a little longer.

This isn’t a meme, it’s a call to action

ALL GLORY TO THE MAGNETOAD

It’s not dumb to feel sad about it. Enshittification is sad, especially when you see it from the inside.

Canadians also use “cheque”, but I’ve got a foot in both countries. Consider me your Bri’ish/'murican translator.

I’m aware, I was simply translating for our colleague across the pond.

You might be getting the wrong idea. We have tax withholding on our paychecks, same idea. Then when you file your taxes, you either send a cheque (if your withholding was less than you owed) or you get a return (if your withholding was more than you owed).

Neates!

Stepped on a rake, smacked me right on the forehead. More plausible than you might think.

One day we’ll find out that Danny DeVito passed away, and none of us will be ready for that. Fucking legend.

*sighs* haven’t heard that name in a long time…

You can snag a Pixel 6a on Swappa for about $100. I looked into compiling the OS once, and it wasn’t worth it for me (on an i9 w/ 16GB RAM and a SSD, still would take days).

Ah, that would definitely make a difference. A debit transaction uses some form of “password” like a PIN or the data embedded in a card chip. A credit transaction technically only relies on easily available data and sometimes a signature, much more common for fraud (it’s pretty easy to read and replicate the data from a magnetic strip–one of my classmates did a project to read magnetic strips, and they had to stop letting people swipe their own cards on it because it popped up tons of confidential data).

My CU’s website definitely looks like it’s from the early naughts, but they at least kept things up to date and security practices seemed legit, and I don’t think I ever tripped the fraud detector. I guess everyone’s mileage will vary a bit.

They’re common in Canada as well. In my experience, they’re much better than larger banks for things like fees and interest rates.

Historically the main advantage of a larger bank was having banks and ATMs everywhere, but lots of CUs have formed mutual agreements for ATM access, and internet banking being ubiquitous has rendered any advantage the big banks have had moot (in my opinion, at least).

You’ll get used to it with practice. It’s fine if you prefer to type differently, but you’ll probably hit a plateau with how efficiently you can type (or you’ll rely on looking at the keyboard, which is not ideal).

I just switch to the num pad. Also worth practicing on if you do a lot of typing.

I’ve been running Linux on my laptop for a few years now (started with Mint, on Manjaro now). I have our HTPC set up with Mint, and the family is good with it. When my kids are old enough for their own, I’ll probably keep them going with Mint as well, we’ll see.

My wife’s laptop still has Windows, but I’ll likely move her over if she gets a new PC at some point.

Assume spherical chicken

Assume spherical duck

I’d hit that