Little known fact is that a lot of computers that ran/run Windows 10 is not supported by Windows 10 (check supported CPUs for Windows 10). The difference is that Windows 10 doesn’t actively block you from installing it.

Debian can be installed without doing any configuration. In the installer choose to have KDE, Gnome or another desktop and you will get a functional desktop with most normal apps and games. I’ve only made small changes to configuration but nothing that was blocking me from using it. Might not be the case for everyone and some other distros will be better at automatically configuring more things.

Yep, just choosing a distro can be daunting when you know nothing.

If it’s not super secret what you’re doing, you could use SheepIt. I’ve not used it myself as I’m not really good with anything that’s art, but have had my server do CPU render tasks. It also supports GPU rendering.

But the backup software verified the backup!

I think it’s “Safe” as in “No one was ever fired for choosing IBM” or more on the nose: If you choose to install Linux on all company computers and the CFO gets mad when Excel doesn’t work, why aren’t we just using windows??!?!? Then it’s your ass on the line. You will have a million enterprise software vendors that supports Windows, fewer that supports Linux.

It’s no longer the safe bet for a lot of companies/countries because of how USA is being run at the moment, but that’s s whole other reason.

Starting from version 12 or 13 (don’t remember exactly) proprietary drivers have been included in the installation images, which removed the biggest pain point (IMO) for novice users.

Yes, from version 12. I have some kind of relationship with Debian (I like the philosophy behind it) so I have always wanted to use that when I was going to switch to Linux. Version 12 was what did it for me - removed the installation pain points, as you said. I would use it on any set-and-forget computers (like parents mail-and-web computer) if I get the chance.

It comes with that magical “free software only” mentality

Less free than it used to be. Now you get closed source firmware by default, making the initial setup much better than it used to be.

Sometimes the pain is worth the gain :D Just not so many free afternoons for me in the next while, otherwise I would be trying Arch … but for now I will be using set it and forget it Debian.

I think sometimes there are hits and misses when installing a distro. Could not get Mint to boot after installing it so I ended up installing Debian - where Mint should be easier to get going, Debian installed perfectly fine for me.

To be fair, the UI Control Panel of Windows has become more and more fragmented. Windows 11 is slowly transitioning different settings into the Settings App. It’s going slow and I have no idea if Microsoft will ever finish the job. When Windows 11 was first released, Settings had so many shortcuts to Control Panel elements that it was totally useless. My thoughts (hope) are that Windows 11 is what Windows Vista was - a transition that would be a bloody mess - and at some point Windows 12 will come and people will like it because they reintroduce elements that people miss and fix some of these inconsistencies.

But how things are run, it will probably be filled with even more reasons to ditch Windows.

You would in fact be severely limited if you only used products made entirely by people who are ‘perfect’ in every way.

Who is talking about people that are perfect in every way? Do you think that people believe that Linus Torvalds is perfect? He is not. We don’t need people to be ‘perfect’, but not being part of a child molesting ring is good start.

Yep, the worst documents are yet to come.

This is true. I changed from a Windows laptop to a Mac and it was more or less the same price.

I have no experience using it with multiple monitors, but I’m using Remote Desktop Manager from Devolutions as we use that at work. They have a pretty capable free version and actually makes a Linux version too. Just a hopeful suggestion.

Maybe, I just don’t like “And as long as you have things set up properly and you know how things work then this really isn’t an issue” - you can set things up correctly and then it still screws up. Everything works perfectly until it doesn’t.

I’ve been in the IT business for 26 years and I’ve seen software screw up, even when configured correct. OneDrive have lost many files for people to the point that Microsoft more or less apologised for it in 2015.

Maybe GNOME and Mozilla will consider a separate download/package where it is enabled by default, like gnome-desktop-middle-click-to-paste-enabled :D

If it’s gotten to the place where it needs to do an emergency shutdown, either it’s operating outside of specs or the hardware is bad (design or faulty).

Just to add on to your comment: Hardware should not “shut down” due to software operations. Max fan speed and execution slow down, yes, but not a shut down, unless your computer has a function of shutting down when getting hot. Normal operation should just keep going.