folekaule

It really depends what you want out of your computer, how much you like to tinker, and how comfortable you are getting your hands dirty. I got back onto a daily driver Linux desktop a little under two years ago, but I've been running Linux on servers since um..mid 90s? I've had Linux desktops mostly on secondary computers, but didn't go back fully until more recently. I don't run Arch, but I feel like that community is probably closest to the feeling Linux had back in the day--when we recompiled the kernel with the specific drivers we needed for everything to save memory, I knew every process running, every program I installed. I compiled most of my own programs from source. Or maybe Gentoo is the current version of that. If that's your jam, go that route. For a while in the early aughts I ran a ton of servers with RedHat and developed an aversion to rpm and its mess of dependencies. Debian felt so much more stable and I've been picking Debian for servers ever since. If you want boring and stable, you can't go wrong with Debian. I have many times just set up Debian with automatic update and reboot, and those things just keep going for years. I can't remember when a Debian update broke my system, which I definitively can't say for every OS. Then, I started wanting to game on Linux. The flip side of boring and stable is outdated. So when I planned my new Linux desktop build I went distro shopping a bit. I tried out a few live distros at first. I knew I wanted up-to-date drivers (for new hardware), but not a lot of tinkering, because I got a lot older and less patient at this point. I ended up on Fedora this time. My choice was driven by the balance of being up to date enough for my (simple) gaming needs, yet mainstream enough (read: boring) that if anything broke, there would be forums available and I could get back to just enjoying my computer. I prefer KDE Plasma over Gnome, so that's what I ended up with. I'm happy with it and not planning to change. But I do get that sinking feeling of not really knowing what my computer is doing, because, just like on Windows, there are a hundred processes running in the background and I don't know what half of them do. It's just that at this point I'm not curious enough anymore to go digging into the man pages and the wikis and peruse the source code to find out. I just want it to work and let me get to my doom scrolling. So for mainstream and boring, I recommend Debian or Fedora, maybe one of the Arch derivatives like CachyOS. If you want to customize and tinker, probably plain Arch or one of the smaller distros that are well documented and less opinionated. I didn't mention Mint, because I think it's a bit *too* simplified for someone with some Linux experience. I would install it for my parents, though.

95 in Europe is like 87 in the US. Different ratings.

Fair point, and taken. Interviews are a two-way street: the candidate should ask about everything that matters to them, and the company should ask about everything important they want. To avoid situations like this, it’s best not to assume anything unless you ask first. Windows is the de facto standard in business, yes, but not everywhere and not in every industry. If your work OS matters to you enough that you will pass on the job if you can’t pick, then you should ask. I would not want to hire someone who will be miserable in the job. And as a middle manager I probably don’t have enough pull to make an exception just for this guy anyway. Rock stars play by their own rules and they will get whatever they ask for. For the rest of us, we just have to take what we’re issued.

Why would you not be very clear about this right at the start of the interview process so you’re not wasting everybody’s (including your own) time? If this is one of your absolute show-stoppers, then say so up front and we can either work with IT to get you what you want, or decline and move on to the next candidate.

I think Slackware dwarfed even Office on floppy count, but it may have depended on which modules you needed. I’ve had the pleasure of installing Windows 95 and Slackware from floppy and I can’t say I miss that part. I also have a box just like the one in the picture sitting in my drawer right now. With floppies. One of them has Netscape on it. I really should clean some day.

Old and tired: use the release year in your product version. New and exciting: increment all your past product versions as they age! Your users will love it!