Every once in a while I will try something like degoogled chromium because hey it’s probably a bit faster or works in a few more places.

But then nope, right back to librewolf. It works on everything I need it to work on, and I use the browser all day. I use Linux at work so all the Microsoft suite like outlook, teams, and onenote are webpages.

The performance of Jellyfin is so much better in my experience. That and the FOSS benefits won me over quickly, and I have had a lifetime Plex pass for years.

The downside is that you have to do a little IT work if you want to share with family in an easy (for them) way and use https. For sure, it’s a thing, but for me as a non web dev it was worth it.

Now I can give family and friends a URL, login, password, and one or more app suggestions depending on their device and type of media. And all of them seem to have snappy performance while not showing my people ads or hitting them up for paid services.

From what I’ve watched & read, it’s usually depicted as the freeze plug melts and the liquid salt flows into multiple small holding tanks below it. That way the fuel mass will be physically separated, which helps stop fission on top of any other mitigations like lining the containers with neutron absorbers, etc.

Mint is Ubuntu with the icky proprietary Canonical stuff removed and with an extra layer of polish.

Mint Cinnamon even has a windows-like desktop/taskbar-like setup out of the box. I don’t know of any reason I might recommend somebody replace windows with Ubuntu rather than Mint.

Throw something like Mint on their old laptops and they may not need new ones at all!

Unless they don’t have current ones, then ignore me, lol.

I too struggle to believe it is possible, but I also know from direct observation that it is not only real but widespread.

This is Poe’s Law that you’re running into, where parodies of extreme views become indistinguishable from the real thing because the real thing is so ridiculous. So even if this specific example was fabricated by some random internet person, the same thought process works for millions of Americans.

They have been conditioned to believe that the mainstream media is evil and constantly lies to them in order to facilitate the woke communist takeover and destruction of the USA.

So it would be an understatement to say they are working from a position of willful ignorance.

They probably care less about whether it is true, and more about whether they can get their buy in before everybody else.

That’s such a nice thing about Linux and FOSS in general. The issues you run into are different than what you may be used to with Windows, but at least the system and its developers aren’t working against you.

Heck yeah. Once in installed Mint on my PC at home, it was only a matter of weeks before I double checked my backed up files and nuked my windows partition.

I still have the windows partition at work that I never use, and I have heard some bad stories about machines getting wiped when IT upgrades people to win11, so it might just have a little accident in its sleep.

Yeah, work is where they get you. I’m fortunate to be able to use Linux at work too, but the company is still paying for my M365 account which I use in a browser for meetings and communication.

This year presents a big opportunity for many of us to get user friendly Linux distros on family members’ PCs that are currently running win10 and not able to upgrade to 11.

I’m already a Linux Mint fan so that’s right where I’m headed.

Yeah of course, it is by definition coping. Zero disagreement from me. But from my perspective of trying to find practical ways to achieve a fulfilling existence, good coping strategies can be a very positive thing. Bad shit will always be there, and we all have our own unique collections of it and unique internal reactions to it.

And the spirit of this from me is to encourage others to explore what’s possible, not to say “you should X.” We all have unique minds going through unique life experiences, so it would be silly for me to try to lay out some kind of roadmap to happiness like I know you (or any other people who might read this).

It took me several years to get my head to where it is now, and that includes ongoing medication. My goal is to help others however I can, so whether that is by providing possible techniques or just convincing them that a better existence might be possible, I will take whatever I can get. Incremental improvements are a good thing, even if tiny.

And indeed a big part of that is to explore what restrictions and burdens we place upon ourselves. If people in way worse conditions than us are happy, and people in way better positions than us are miserable, there must be some wiggle room where we can find a better outcome given our own unique inputs.

I found a lot of inspiration in the philosophy of the stoics and Buddhists, plus Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. That doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you to be stoic and control your emotions, because that would be some ignorant shit. But I think there’s a general idea there that’s worth encouraging others to consider, that you may be able to pilot your brain through the craziness of life in a way that suits you better.

And like I think I said before, the “decide to be happy” platitude is important but it is only the first baby step of a long journey. Genuinely changing your emotional state is not just a simple decision, but it may be possible over an extended period of time if you are consciously working towards it and making small beneficial decisions over and over.

If I may end with another platitude that is way easier said than done, we have to play the hand we’re dealt. Not because there’s anything good about that plan, and not because that is fair, but because that is reality. I found it difficult to find contentment with my life while also wishing my life was something else. And I know that probably sounds negative and discouraging as text on a screen, but think of it more like putting your effort towards practical improvements and not wasting your energy dwelling on things you cannot change or on the inherent unfairness of life. That includes acknowledging your privilege along with accepting your burdens.

I hope something in there made sense to somebody!

That’s one reason I threw in “to the extent that you can control it” because sometimes bad shit just happens.

But for what it’s worth, between 2019 and now I’ve had three financial disasters and my financial picture is way worse than it was. Debt free with emergency savings, used that up on a mess with the house, then lost my job twice over the Covid years after having been at the same place 15 years. But I’m also on the other side of it all where I have a job I like and I can start to rebuild.

But I also have a family and a ton of animals, so I’ve been holding all of that close. I wish you well!

Insert “that’s the neat part” meme.

I think of it like a positive nihilism. Nothing inherently matters, but existing and being self-aware is such a crazy thing that just being able to consider the question is an extremely lucky state to find yourself in. So to the extent that you can control it, why not actively choose to live a positive and fulfilling existence and be a source of positivity in the experiences of others?

After working through my personal shit for several years, the stereotypical circular platitudes you might expect to hear from a monk like “to be happy, choose to be happy” make sense in a whole new way. That kind of thing isn’t the single magic step to finding fulfillment like it might sound in the surface, but it is a critical first step that informs a million future small decisions.

It’s like that is the hippo’s Slayer form from Baldur’s Gate 2.

But they have a Bruce-Banner-esque secret… they are always the Slayer.

As I get older I have found that making my world smaller and focusing on the things I genuinely care about (and not the things I’m “supposed to” care about as a “good” man/American/worker etc) results in me being happier and more satisfied with life.

Lemmy is my close little corner of the internet. I hope that the fediverse grows ands takes over for the good of other people, but if it stays in this niche for another decade I’ll be happy because I already love it for what it is.

If you are the “computer person” in your family, you probably have experience screwing with, breaking, and fixing whatever OSes you have used over the years.

The refreshing difference with Linux is that the software and the people who created it are not trying to prevent you from doing what you want with your computer.

Already done. I dual boot at work (translated: I have a dormant win10 partition just in case, but I’m more likely to use my win10 VM in Linux) and at home I’m Linux only, having wiped my windows partition to reclaim the space within weeks of installing Linux.

I use Mint Cinnamon in both places. It’s a very polished, all in one, install and go OS. But it’s still Linux so I have the terminal available and I can find out how to fiddle with and change whatever I want.

For all manner of 2D desktop use, I find it superior to windows. Even being a very full-featured distro, when the software is made to serve the user and not 50 competing corporate priorities, you can tell. It’s so much more responsive and nice to use. (It is not flawless of course)

For gaming, I don’t play the newest stuff or multiplayer games with crazy anti-cheat, but I have not had any regrets so far. Many games have native Linux versions, probably thanks to valve and the Steam deck, but windows games running in proton have been smooth sailing for me.

I think I’ve just dealt with enough computer crap in my life that I prefer using not just Linux apps but FOSS software for as much as I can. If some game or some photo editing suite will absolutely not work in Linux or work acceptably in a VM, I am fine with it not existing in my world. I used to not find that acceptable, but now I’m over it. In a chill way though, not an angry anti-Microsoft way.

I use mint on two different machines with Nvidia GPUs. One is a several year old desktop with a 1080 and the other is a two year old Dell laptop with a discrete nvidia GPU in addition to the Intel one on the processor.

Now granted I don’t play a ton of games right now, and when I do they usually aren’t cutting edge, but I don’t recall many problems so far. I use NVENC for Jellyfin and editing videos more often, and that has been pretty smooth. The one issue I had was related to that though. Kdenlive (flatpak) updated and could no longer export videos because it was looking for a newer version of something my mint-supplied nvidia driver wasn’t yet updated to have.

Trying to install a newer driver manually was a whole damn thing though, so I rolled back the kdenlive flatpak to the one that worked.