I’ve been thinking about doing just that for my next phone.

AI this and AI that. Yawn! All of it is a crock of over-hyped shit.

Correct. I’ve disabled and replaced every Google app on my phone with a free open souce version. Now what I need to do is figure out how to shutdown and replace Google Play Services which screams at me every time it’s disabled. Bloody thing updates weekly without the slightest change log. Fuck knows what it’s doing.

And welcome to the wonderful world of Linux, where the most difficult thing about it is often trying to get rid of Windows which will cling on to your system for dear life. When I was dual booting and didn’t boot into Windows for a couple of months, the first time I did so I was greeted with a friendly message thanking me for being a loyal Windows user. The bastards clearly know even when you’re getting ready to jump ship. Regarding your reboot issue, just do what I did and keep monkeying about until it does what you want, or take the hard drive out and scrub it completely.

I found Linux Mint familiar but also setup by default the way I always liked/wanted my Windows system to look. With Windows I was constantly wrestling with the machine, changing things to make it look and function better for me, only for Microsoft to screw it all up again after an update. Whatever distro you choose I’m confident you’ll be fine. Only issue I had with my girlfriend’s Lenovo laptop was getting into the Bios to change the boot order to boot to USB. Make sure you shut off fast boot on your Windows system (it’s under Power Management settings) otherwise it might lock you out of the Bios.

I was in the same boat as you about 9 months ago. I switched a failing laptop over to Linux Mint Cinnamon and was blown away by how it revived that laptop. Then I dual booted my desktop to a Windows/Mint system and found myself rarely booting into Windows because I was enjoying Linux so much. About 3 months ago I wiped Windows off the machine altogether because I just found the experience toxic in comparison to Linux. The Windows automatic updates were taking about 20 minutes to install simply because I wasn’t using the OS that often. Next on the cards was an ancient desktop that had been sitting in my cupboard for over 5 years. I threw a bit of memory at it and stuck Lxle on it. It now lives in my shed for playing music and browsing the web which it does rather well. It must be at least 15 years old, perhaps even 20. Yesterday I installed Linux Mint on my partner’s Lenovo laptop because I was sick of her complaining about how slow Windows 10 had become. That laptop runs faster than anything in the house. She’s delighted with it. There are many distros to choose from, but I can only give you my own experience. With Mint the transition away from Windows was easy and at first I didn’t even use the terminal. Now I use the terminal all the time as it really gives you the power to do some extraordinary things that you could never do on Windows. As for that one piece of software I couldn’t get a Linux version of? I put Windows 7 on VirtualBox and installed it on that. Not only have I learned a tonne of stuff using Linux, it’s made computers interesting to me again. Next project is an ADS-B flight receiver running from a Raspberry Pi. The good thing about Mint is it boots to a live system from USB before you install it, so you can check to see if everything is running smoothly before you take the plunge. Good luck and welcome to the dark side.

They did. And they’re called Zionists. The idea? Gaza: a more fenced off open air concentration camp approach, where you can ban world media coverage and commit genocide without anyone really knowing the full extent of the horror.

Elon’s fuckery of ‘The platform formely known as Twitter’ is the gift that keeps giving.

Here’s my suggestion for a new company motto:

“X: It’s Twitter but it’s Shitter.”

VirtualBox.

Similar to yourself, I switched to Mint about 9 months ago - initially on dual boot before ditching Windows altogether (the Windows updates kept fucking everything up). For the one piece of software that I missed on Windows 10 (Fugawi Digital Maps) I simply created a Windows 7 VM, that doesn’t connect to the internet, and installed it on there. In fact, it has made me realise just how crap 10 was in comparison to 7. Linux has been a pleasure. Not only has it made computers interesting to me again, but I’ve learned a shitload along the way. It’s nice to have a computer do what I want it to, rather than the other way around.

Once again, the US and its spoilt brat Israel revealling how they are the biggest threat to any form of world peace. Land of the free? More like land of the ZioNazi lobby.

Gaffer tape will sort it. Trust me, I’ve fixed all kinds of shit with gaffer tape.

I like it better broken. It’s more abstract.

It only needs to work once.

Don’t know if this fits your criteria, but I’ve been using Gruble a lot recently. You can personalise the look and language in the settings, plus it’s open source.