I've been rolling Debian more and more this year. If you've got solid Linux chops, it's really great.
I also really like LMDE, it's what I run on my Business laptop.
I love Mint, it has become my workhorse distro. I use LMDE on my personal business laptop. I switched my parents from Windows 10 to Mint earlier this year, and it's been great on their very old and low power desktop.
Cinnamon is not the prettiest or slickest DE, but damn if it ain't the most stable DE I've used.
I'm a KDE fanboi myself, but when I spin up a machine that I need to just work in a super dependable way and is no muss, no fuss, I usually choose Mint with Cinnamon.
Damn it, why do I want it so bad??
I've slowly been decorating my IT office with various Linux trinkets.
I just got a foam stress "ball" Tux recently, and I plan on getting a Debian coffee mug, maybe some Linux/FOSS related stickers lol.
Ventoy folders are next on my list :D
I recently submitted to the Ventoy path, can't believe it took me so long.
I actually thought I had messed something up after burning it on a USB. The drive mounted an empty folder and I thought, "no way it's that simple, I don't just drop the ISOs into the folder do I?"
Yes, you just throw all your ISOs into that folder, unmount, and you're good to go!
I had a cheap automatic in college, sadly lost it in a move.
But I loved it so much, kept itself wound up without issue, and it was amazing to look at all the tiny parts that made it work.
In my experience, Linux folks are just happy to find each other in the wild.
Hell, I'm just happy to meet people that are Linux-curious lol.
It's mostly online that the distro wars are fought.
If you eat meat, the breakfast crunch wrap supreme is made by angels.
If Taco Bell ever releases a Breakfast crunch wrap supreme with impossible sausage, I will eat it 5 days a week and balloon to 400 pounds.
when they are available, the nacho fries are incredible also.
Depends on the pizza. If you are eating a traditional pizza just like mamma mia made back in the old country, skip the Tabasco.
If you're eating greasy sloppy pizza from a dirty little place called, "Joe's" load up that Tabasco and the chili flakes, and add some of that artificial Parmesan powder that comes in little packets!
Most people don't care, they won't even notice sadly. They will walk into Best Buy, get swarmed by 3 sales people, tell them, "I'm looking for a new laptop."
And the sales people will take them straight over to the laptop section which is all filled with the latest Microsoft swill and sell them one of them.
There will be no discussion of privacy, no discussion of Microsoft's recent scandals, no discussion of alternatives. They will parrot whatever Microsoft's talking points are, "it's safe, encrypted, secure, fast, etc..."
If we want consumers to care, we have to reach them before they buy their new upgrade. This often starts with your family and close friends. You need to inform them, you need to tell them there is a better way.
This is how I got my parents switched from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. They were asking me to help with their computer problems, (10 year old computer that was pretty low-power when it was new.)
I told them that Windows 10 was EoL next year and their hardware was way to old to upgrade. I said that I could put on Linux which would be much faster, more secure and private, wouldn't require a new computer, and would do everything they needed. My mom was nervous, but I went over everything her and my dad used it for, (browsing, email, Word and printing, PDF reading, Turbo Tax, and Spotify.)
Only slight pain point was getting my mom onto Turbo Tax cloud. But she is slightly tech savvy, so it wasn't too bad.
They've been on it for about 9 months now and it works great. Their computer is much snappier, and I don't have to worry about them getting viruses, (my dad is 0% tech savvy and will click on almost any link he sees.)
"python is the second best language for everything..."
I love that summation! Python has been key for me to learn programming concepts. I hope to move into other languages in the future, but for now, Python does everything I need it to.