it really is comforting to know you can do 99% of stuff you want with PCs without a license from Microsoft. FOSS has its own headaches but at least you don't have to wade through a PR swamp to fix stupid bugs

Congrats! Your laptop will be even happier with a lighter but still nice-looking desktop environment like Xfce and you even have an Ubuntu flavor around it: Xubuntu.

It happened to me too.

Welcome. I just started using linux recently myself and have been loving it. I would Definitely recommend checking out all the desktop environments to see what works best for you! I've done a bit of shopping and I think I've landed on KDE, myself.
Good luck with the transition!

I started using Linux more last year due to work, so the exodus from Reddit to FOSS land has been perfectly timed for me. I think I have 4 different distros in VMs right now.

It's a good reminder of how influenced we are by our surroundings, even when we try to be aware of the effect. Or maybe especially when we try to be aware.

I was staying strong until I saw they were already sundowning windows 10. 10! They just came out with that shit. I have no intention of upgrading to the latest advertising package.

I don't understand this topic. What are you trying to say?

now to get a chromebook with coreboot to really stick it to the anti FOSS demons

same here - downloaded Pop_OS yesterday, just have to make space on my overflowing harddrives

I also started with LTS assuming they would be more usable, but the extremely outdated package have later driven me away from linux for a while.

Now I realize I can just run normal Ubuntu to get reasonably up-to-date packages. But I like the latest (non-graphical) software that is offered by fedora.

Penguin party :)

Success

Lol, saaaaaame! I've run plenty of Linux servers over the past 30 years with only occasional attempts at desktop Linux, but never got it to graduate past a secondary box or dual-boot. All of the happy Linux desktop users I've run across on Lemmy convinced me to give it another go. I tried Ubuntu for a month under the mistaken assumption that it was still a relevant, stable, easy distro (10-15 years ago, it was the distro to use if you just wanted a no-fuss Linux desktop). Snaps made me want to end myself, but not quite give up on Linux altogether, so I pivoted and now I'm on month 3 of happily maining Arch!

Boy that escalated quickly

Welcome! Don't be surprised if you feel the need to try out all the distros!