nanook

@mbirth Not missing much, I don't think the net IQ of that site exceeds a single digit.

@original_reader Here I've got a mix of Ubuntu, Debian, Zorin, PopOS, Fedora, Alma, Rocky8, MxLinux, Mint,and Kali, but the primary work horse is Ubuntu.

@LandedGentry You can partition a thumb drive and install just as if it was a hard drive. I create thumb drives this way mainly for restoration of a system is something gets broken to where it can't boot, kernel corrupted, initramfs, etc.

@original_reader Install on USB thumb drive and give a test drive, when you like, install on main media.

@DieserTypMatthias Sorry if freedom is not important to you but perhaps that's why you're on lamey.

@communism Only difference between a "server" distro and a "desktop" distro are what packages are included, and given that most all distros put all the packages on their repositories you can start with any and tailor to your needs.

@nichtburningturtle The Pentium II is 32-bit and possesses an MMU, so provided you have adequate memory, pretty much any 32-bit distro such as puppy linux or antix should work fine. Newer Ubuntu which is now 64-bit only will not.

@obbeel Stunned at Microsoft's audacity? Where the fuck have you been the last 40 years?

@gpstarman I only use Asus and Gigabyte boards, both have the ability to flash the BIOS using the maintenance engine on the board without even having a CPU or memory installed, let alone an OS booted.

@CaptDust It's great when those odd occurrences of things "just working" actually happen.

@GnuLinuxDude I mostly use HP printers because with Linux they are always plug-in-play and because although they will provide a message telling me my ink is cheap third party ink, they will none the less accept and print with it.

The model I previously used, HP OfficeJet 5258 All-in-One Printer, the printer always worked well but the scanners kept breaking. I went through four of these before I tried an Epson. The Epson initially worked with 3rd party ink then after a software update didn't so at that point I trashed it and bought another HP, this time a HP OfficeJet 8015e Wireless Color All-in-One Printer which is much more robustly constructed. In fact while taking it out of the box, I accidentally dropped it from chest level and all it did was bounce, no pieces broke off, nothing. So far it has been reliable both for scanning and printing although the scanner is easier to jam but at least it doesn't break in the process of my unjamming it.

@TCB13 Problem is by being one big bloatware, rather than a set of small discrete tools, if one part of it misbehaves, your entire system is toast instead of just removing, replacing, or fixing that one part. That's why that philosophy belongs in Windows NOT Linux.