Completely done with Linux forever

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My mobo is a P4M800, and the printer is an inexpensive HP that wastes a lot of ink during startup. To use that printer in Windows requires quite an installation process that is several minutes long, and all of that has to be repeated if I disconnect that printer and connect an identical twin I have as a backup. However, I had never tried turning the printer on before connecting it in Mint, and maybe that would make a difference. Here is the thread where I had first tried:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=53722


Ubuntu is a spin-off of Debian testing, and I am using a "rolling" Linux Mint Debian on my machines that cannot run the Ubuntu-based Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop. However, neither will my older machines run Debian's Gnome3 desktop.

Cinnamon isn't "mandatory" when using Mint (although it looks nice, at the very least), as it's fairly straightforward to install other frontends. HP releases linux software with built-in support of 1,500 devices.

Rollig-release Debian Mint? What's the name of this distro? It sounds interesting...

I have it in 64-bit PAE and MATE on my older desktop that cannot run Cinnamon or Gnome3, and in 32-bit PAE (686) in my Dell 1150 notebook. But as I recall, it is also available in 32-bit no-PAE (486 version, like also with Slacko Puppy) for even older hardware. Overall, I prefer LMDE over Linux (Ubuntu) Mint Cinnamon even though that it what I have here on this newer Dell 1737 laptop that can handle the graphics but cannot charge its battery!

I think it's a shame some major corporation didn't invest serious money to develop a Linux desktop that could have competed with Windows and MacOS. Or especially they could have developed a high-end desktop or laptop based on a Linux build optimized for that specific platform.

They could have seriously interfered with Apple's progression toward dominance of personal computing.

I think it's too late now.

Apple doesn't really dominate anything in terms of software.

I think that there are more devices in the world that use Linux than any other operating system. Linux completely dominates several categories including smart phones and supercomputers and is the most used operating system for Internet servers. It may also be the dominant operating system on mainframes by now.

The last time I looked, Apple has a slight edge in tablets and is second behind Microsoft on personal computers and laptops.

What do you really gain from it? OS X, while not linux, is still mostly open source and extremely hackable. I haven't found anything that I wanted to do to my system that OS X wouldn't allow me to do - even if it took a lot of trial-and-error on my part.

A pissed Linux user base. They dig in and resist the moves Canonical tries to make.

OK I think I get it. @sliqua-jcooter is saying MacOS is OK because he is able to hack it.

That wasn't my point. My point is that, with sufficient money and motivation a well-integrated high-end system based on Linux, that could have successfully competed with Apple, might have been possible. However the opportunity to introduce a new player into the PC/laptop ecosystem is long past.

It would be a lot more convenient to install Darwin (which is almost identical to OS X in most aspects), then. You can install this everywhere without violating Apple's EULA, which means that you can legally experiment on it in a virtual machine.

As seen here:
https://mastodon.social/@knoppix95/114923693789281084

Holy thread resurrection Batman!

-Linux user for 24 years and counting.

Why should they want to compete with Windows on the desktop since they have Microsoft whipped on the usefulness of their desktops? I, for one, would hate having to use a Windows desktop.

There are Linux desktops that are meant to be like Windows, but they don't seem to be used all that much. It seems that most people want something better than Windows.

I'm a Windows person. My brother is a Linux person. We have some interesting discussions at family gatherings about this.

I've had Linux screw ups several times over the years. One Mint install, instead of installing dual boot like it promised, wiped my Windows partition completely. I've had years of drivers that wouldn't install. Finally a few years ago I got Mint to work with everything on a spare laptop. It came in handy when I needed a boot SD card for something that ran on Linux. The program to create the image would not run on any Windows computers, but I got it to work on the Linux laptop.

And I often refer to the Linux environment as "open sores" software.

^ that raises a good point, Linux has always been an os with compromises, but it's really good for machines that can't run modern windows, which with the high minimum specs of win11 is becoming more important.

Basically, if I were to "revive" an older machine with windows xp or Linux, I'd choose Linux. For convenience though, windows will be my main os.