linuxmemes

I received a free CD of 10.04 with a computer magazine that I purchased every time I travelled.

The CD was neglected for the better part of that year, until I tried it out of curiosity. I remember setting up a dual boot configuration around two weeks in. I removed Windows around eve of 2011 and never looked back.

Since then I distro hopped every six months but kept coming back to Linux Mint as it nailed the balance between stability and UX, especially for the home machine that would be used by people from diverse age groups.

In those years, GNOME’s UX regressed so terribly with its 3.0 release, that Canonical’s Unity and Mint’s Cinnamon & MATE popped up as a response. One of those didn’t make it by the end of that decade. In those same years, Canonical started alienating its users with questionable decisions. Fedora and Manjaro became stable enough to be recommended for actual daily use. The 2010s was a wild ride.

Though by the start of 2020s, I entered Apple’s walled gardens as I no longer had time to troubleshoot my devices and tools, and expected those to work reliably.

I still use Linux on the home machine as well as the homelab. But I patiently wait for the day Linux is stable for daily use on phones. :-)