Microsoft wants to know everything about you like all big tech companies and link it to your personal identity hence the mandatory microsoft account. They have one goal, to make as much money as possible. No ethics.

Linux is open source, built by the people for the people. Their goal is to protect and respect you as an individual. Sure there are a few nefarious actors out there but from my experience thus far, very rare. If you are looking for digital sovereignty and are moving from windows and want a good solid support community to help fix any odd issues you come across, linux mint is definitely a good choice.

Could you re-iterate you last question, I don’t quite understand. I have become aware that by using big tech feeds they are mentally destructive to most, especially the vulnerable. They know it hurts mental health, destroys lives and ultimately makes people miserable. But it turns a profit, and that is all they care about. The occasional fine is nothing to them.

As for myself, personally. Being more aware of this I am making changes, taking the time and effort to do my own research. Improving my research methods. Everything I have learnt about privacy and big tech, moving to linux, managing the different systems involved in this I have not been social and asked for help. I did it all off my own back, sought out the information from scratch.

This is not a “look at me” moment, rather I struggle deeply with social situations, even online. Joining this community is a change for me. I am challenging myself at this point in my life. I need to. I’ve found a place that appears to be aligned with my way of thinking. This community never even asked for an email, I consider that a bold statement sending a clear message about what this place stands for. I feel I could be comfortable here.

I’m not sure if that answers your question hence the request to reiterate but I think it is along the lines of it.

If you want digital sovereignty, linux is the place to go. I think the process helps to learn more about it and why you would really want it.

Out of curiosity, what has delayed your migration? Is it the effort, the lack of perceived need, not knowing where to start? Just wondering.

Yup, that was part of my decision making process. The popularity and support community was a big factor for me, this was all new to me, the good community and popularity meant there was a better chance of being able to fix something that did not work as expected. The fact it was not trying to be the latest and greatest but provide a good, solid, stable computing experience for the average user transitioning from windows was another point for me.

It is working well for me. May I ask, how does my decision to go with linux mint make more sense because I decided to switch to cross platform open source software on windows? Surly by doing that it meant that going to any linux distribution becomes an easier transition.

I have been using timeshift from the word go. Creating a snapshot before software installations and any tinkering I was about to do. I have researched how to restore from a timeshift backup if the system will no longer boot too. I plan to test in a VM at some point to get a better understanding. I did not update or tinker with the system until I had system images, backups, timeshift snapshots and knew how to restore them all including how to boot from a bad kernal update. But I’d like to actually go through the procedure so like I said, going to get a few VM’s set up for tinkering so I am more confident in the procedure.

Thank you for the advice but I am going to leave unverified flatpaks off until I learn more about installation packages in general and what exactly unverified means in terms of risk. Open source is not enough as I do not understand how to read the code, I instead conduct research into what are the best software for this and that, go through reviews from multiple sources to build an opinion on the software itself.

I have yet to have libreoffice come across a file that it could not read properly. I am aware of only office and if I did hit an issue would probably give that one a go. But for now, libreoffice has been working great for me.

Thank you, and thanks for the welcome.

Good to hear you have got a family member on board. I think the world needs more average users to embrace the open source world.

You are welcome. I am glad you found a distro that works for you. Maybe as time progresses I will start to customise more and distro hop. But for now, I am very happy with mint.

You are welcome. During my research I found longer write ups to be more helpful and informative so decided to do the same thing. It seems as though win10 is going to now be supported until oct 2027 under the esu program so there is still time to transition whilst receiving security updates on win10.

I have had a good experience, for me, it helps to bring peace of mind and control, it just involves some effort, planning and research.

I wish you well on your journey.

What is your primary reason for switching to linux?

Thank you for welcoming me. I still do use big tech, but when I want to now. I use invidious for youtube and redlib for reddit to avoid interaction with the sites themselves. I still have much of FOSS to explore.