Decent point. Not every grandmother is my grandmother. And a 21 year old that has only used phones and tablets to consume content may actually be less tech literate than an older person with no screen experience that knows how to fix their car, blender, or sewing machine.

Mint is very boring and middle of the road, exactly as a default recommendation should be. They are also very protective of the user experience. They are unlikely to embarrass me.

Mint has a familiar UX if you are new to Linux. It is not nearly as foreign or locked down as GNOME. It is not as configurable and complex as KDE. There are good GUI tools for most common tasks.

Mint does not change too rapidly or have too many updates but the desktop and tools are kept up-to-date.

They are being very conservative with the Wayland transition. But nobody on Mint is moaning that Wayland is not ready. They are very protective about the user experience.

And there is really no desktop use case that Mint is not suitable for.

I do not use Mint but it is a very solid recommendation for “normal” users.

I think Pop!OS is back to being that too and COSMIC is Wayland only (so no future transition to manage).

I find it pretty solid if a bit bare bones. With the basics in place, it should improve fairly quickly.

They are planning a 26.04 LTS release. We will see what it looks like by then.

Passing a law that is explicitly unconstitutional to end a labour dispute is pretty next level. Saying that this is a threat to democracy overall is not hyperbole. If governments think they have that kind of power with that low a bar, we are all in trouble.

People recommend Mint mostly as a better Ubuntu I think. Ubuntu is still the most popular and, increasingly, not the best distro to start with.

Fedora currently fills the space that Ubuntu used to fill. Probably the biggest caveat with Fedora now is the lack of codecs by default.

Windows is a platform for Office. Linux is not a supported platform for Office. Most businesses will not migrate their desktops off Windows because they will not migrate their workforce off Office.

Beyond that, Windows is not as important to Microsoft as it used to be. The real money makers are Azure and Office. With Azure, they do not care if you run Linux. They even have their own distro ( Azure Linux — previously CBL Mariner ).

Azure is the future ( even for Office ).

Since Windows is less strategic, Microsoft is looking to milk it as a cash cow while they can. So, Product Management is tasked with finding new ways to monetize it. Data is worth a lot of money. The best way to farm data from users these days is to frame it as security ( or AI ).

Expect a lot more SIngle Sign On. Expect a lot more AI. Expect a lot more cloud integration. Expect all of these to focus on data harvesting.

A bit later, expect “services” for Linux that attempt the same. Like Google on Android. This is harder though as Windows does not have monopoly control over Linux as a platform. I am sure they are having many meetings about how to change that.

This is absolute gold.

I am sure you are aware of this: https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

Can”t we just re-write Electron in Rust and then use it for everything else? /s

You are relying 100% on physical security. If nobody can take your drive or physically operate your computer, it is safe.

If I could boot a USB stick on your machine, or pull the drive, accessing your data would be trivial.

It seems that Costco is selling gold at pretty much market price. As a small investor, that is a good deal.

That said, physical gold is a poor investment for most people. You can invest in gold other ways without taking physical possession. This is often available in smaller quantities as well ( less than an ounce ) which makes it more accessible. It can be easily sold again at any time for the market price.

Owning physical gold is risky ( it can be lost or stolen ) or expensive ( you have to pay to keep it secure ). It is also somewhat illiquid which means that you are unlikely to get what you think it is worth when you sell.

When you buy physical gold, you own a hunk of shiny metal. You actually have it ( good and bad ). If you buy a gold derivative, you have a piece of paper or computer entry that says you are entitled to the financial value of gold stored somewhere else—you may not even know where.

In today’s world, the computer entry is less expensive, more convenient, more secure, and more liquid.

So, why buy physical gold?

Honestly, other than the emotional or novelty value, the only real benefit of physical gold is if you believe today’s world may disappear or radically alter. If you believe computer systems or financial markets are likely to collapse, the a computer entry is not worth much. If you believe that the rule of law may fail, the contractual obligation of a company to pay you is not with much. If you believe the government may seize your assets, having them under the control of a government controlled institution is a risk. Any or all of the above could happen if the government collapses.

If you think you may need to flee the country before the banks open, concentrated wealth that you can fit in your pocket could come in very handy.

The classic thesis for gold ownership is that it is an alternative to cash for storing wealth and that, unlike government currency, inflation does not destroy its value over time. The truth of this is complicated.

So, are precious metals as an asset class a good investment? I am not going to give financial advice but gold adds diversification to a portfolio and having to a few percent may be valuable.

Does it make sense to buy physical gold from Costco? That is a totally different question.

I see the upvotes but I cannot support this comment. FOSS could use a lot more support at every level, including users.