The original interview is no longer available, but here are references.

Microsoft CEO and incontinent over-stater of facts Steve Ballmer said that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches," during a commercial spot masquerading as a interview with the Chicago Sun-Times on June 1, 2001.

Ballmer was trying to articulate his concern, whether real or imagined, that limited recourse to the GNU GPL requires that all software be made open source.

"The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source," Ballmer explained to an excessively credulous, un-named Sun-Times reporter who, predictably, neglected to question this bold assertion.

https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/24/top_10_steve_ballmer_quotes_from_microsoft_history/

"Ballmer: I may have called Linux a cancer but now I love it" https://www.zdnet.com/article/ballmer-i-may-have-called-linux-a-cancer-but-now-i-love-it/

"Former Microsoft CEO Ballmer does about-face on Linux technology" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-ballmer-linux-idUSKCN0WC2RA/

There is another piece in their library that may be more appropriate "AI Took My Job"

https://app.suno.ai/song/14572e0f-a446-4625-90ff-3676a790a886/

[EDIT - fixed missing words]

I would look for a printer that supports Web Services for Devices (WSD) or Airscan (eSCL). These protocol allows you setup a scanner without installing a driver.

Here are a couple of starting points for sane-airscan. I discovered it long after I had installed the drivers for my all-in-one.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SANE#Sharing_your_scanner_over_a_network

https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/jammy/man5/sane-airscan.5.html

https://github.com/alexpevzner/sane-airscan

The Tweaks application has a switch to enable maximize buttons on windows https://itsfoss.com/gnome-minimize-button/

Gnome has workspaces. I currently 3 workspaces open. I regularly have four or more open. https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/shell-workspaces.html.en

YMMV, but here are some reasons

• Some people prefer to use Linux.
• Some software runs better on Linux than Windows or Mac (e.g. Docker runs natively on Linux but on Windows and Mac the Docker desktop creates a Linux VM to run Docker on).
• You have a portable, local development environment without Virtual Machines.

I have a laptop that belongs to my employer and a personal Linux laptop. It is quicker to use the Linux machine than to work out if I can now install WSL 2 or find a Linux instance to do some Linux work.

The official docs for Toon Boom Harmony 22 seem to have a page on how to install under Linux (RHEL or CentOS 6 or 7).

https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-22/advanced/installation/basic/linux/about-basic-installation-linux.html https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-22/advanced/installation/basic/linux/install-on-linux.html

You may get it working under Mint but it won't be supported.

You may have to look at a virtual machine or just put up with Windows because you need this software.

How much do you want to spend?

If you go for a Raspberry Pi have a look at Terrapi cases as well the obvious Argon ones.

Another option would be a Zimbaboard. It is more expensive but it has dual SATA connector (you need to buy a Y cable with the Zimbaboard) and there are 3D print designs to create a single unit, e.g. https://www.printables.com/model/224057-zimaboard-dual-hdd-stand.

I'm not sure about PoE and a NAS. Will a PoE HAT or similar provide enough power for the board and the drives?

Perhaps this page in Mint documentation may help https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/burn.html#how-to-make-a-bootable-usb-stick

The following video is more advanced but covers Ventoy which lets you have a bootable disk that you can copy ISO files onto. You will then have an USB with multiple distributions that you can pick and choose between at boot time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10L8aCY3VBs

Firewall - While this tutorial is Ubuntu 16.04 it should work current versions of Ubuntu https://www.linuxbabe.com/desktop-linux/getting-started-gufw-ubuntu-16-04 It should work for other distributions once you change the package manager.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software) I just searched for the "samba computer" and this was the first link.

See if you can find some introductory videos that are suitable for you on YouVideo or elsewhere that are suitable for you to work out if you are ready to set up your first home server.

If you just need some storage you could just get a "cheap" USB storage spinning rust external hard drive and move the data that you don't need day to day onto the drive. At a later date you get a Raspberry Pi or second hand small PC and use the PC as a server with the same drive attached.

This is what the Microsoft system requirements page for Windows 11 says

Windows 11 Pro for personal use and Windows 11 Home require internet connectivity and a Microsoft account during initial device set-up.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-11-specifications

I guess you were building machines with a Windows Enterprise license. This would explain why you had the option to setup an offline account.

Steps to setup a local account on Windows 11 Home https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account

Without new programming languages we would still be using FORTRAN, AGOL and LISP.

https://fortran-lang.org/learn/quickstart/hello_world/

https://lisp-lang.org/learn/first-steps

https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/insider-membership-news/timeline-of-programming-languages

One reason why new languages are developed is the creation of a "Domain-specific language" or DSL. See Wikipedia for more information.

Programming languages are tools you pick the one for the job, there are situations where Java's garbage collection could be a problem so it would not the right tool to use.