I just gave my mate a laptop with Mint on it, this lappy's like ten years old and it's replacing a two-year-old one with win11 on it (and the linux one is faster, natch, another reason why this actually might be important, given that I've gotta live on a planet with a bunch of e-waste on it) and this is what happened: nothing

Like it was a complete non-event, I installed Mint, gave it to them, they had a quick look at the first-run thing, set up light or dark mode, chose favourite colour, did some updates, and then the very first Actual Using Computer thing they did was look to see how to install Firefox and well firefox was already installed, it came with it, so... done?

They said they'd sometimes have to use Apple computers and Mint was way more familiar than a Mac

and that was kinda... It. They just carried on with their normal computer tasks and everything was normal.

I see quite a few posts about people moving to Mint specifically who say it was kind of anticlimactic, like they were expecting some kinda Issue or they'd have to do some l33t haxxing and they ended up... not disappointed, exactly, but feeling somehow let down that Nothing Happened, the computer kinda became transparent

And I know my mate isn't gonna fall in love with Linux, and that's fine, you shouldn't fall in love with machines anyway it's not healthy

but

I think for months this is just gonna feel like Normal Computering, UNTIL this friend of mine has some cause to use a windows machine again, with all its nags and pokes and ads and trying to pester or force you into doing stuff that you don't want to do, and THAT will be The Moment

Because you forget, so easily, how normal you thought it was. Because it WAS normal, to you. You don't remember normal, normal isn't memorable even when it's a horrible sort of normal. You need to have the bad normal taken away for a while in order to see through it and notice how abnormal the normal got

When I started on linux it was Windows XP days and windows was unreliable and slow but Basically Alright, now windows is so so different, so much more malicious and creepy. Fifteen years ago linux felt like Freedom To stuff, now it feels more like Freedom From, y'know

I'm not normally, like, this rabid about computers, I don't like being the Linux Guy, I've spent fifteen years watching folk get frustrated with Windows and just kinda ignoring it y'know, all the way since WinXP days, it's Just Computers and it's not really all that important,

except maybe it actually is important, that people not have a lesson of "Consent means ask again in three days" reinforced every three days

like I really don't think that's good for us, as a species. I worry what that's doing to people's heads tbqh

I use the terminal all the time 'cause I'm a massive nerd who's always messing around with servers and shit, the difference between me and half the guys scratching their heads wondering why Linux isn't more popular is that I KNOW I'm a massive nerd

the way I, a massive nerd, use a computer, should never be considered a default

Me, 2003, borrowing someone's truck, going to start it up, cold day, looking all around, shouting to the guy "Where's the choke?"

THAT'S where the terminal should be

50% operating system market share looks like a banner across the Linux Mint support forums saying "Replies encouraging non-sysadmins to open the terminal will be removed"

Linux will take off and go mainstream on the desktop twenty years after the terminal is hidden away under "Advanced System Features" and the last guy replied to a help request with "OK copy paste this into your terminal"

I say twenty years because it's been a good ten years since the average person has needed to use a terminal but folk who've never used Linux still say it's all typing things into a black and green box, it's gonna take a LONG time for Linux to shake that off

Like, every other Linux distro I've tried has come with a terminal pinned somewhere so you can open it in one click

Back in the bad old days that felt Normal, like "Of COURSE this is gonna fuck up and you're gonna need to go back to DOSbollocking days to fix it," it was Expected that you'd be in the terminal

Now it feels like... why is this here

Like, tuck it away somewhere under Accessories or something

Have some confidence

I dare you

Linux Mint has passed that certain point, that Threshold, where a bad thing is slowly getting good, where you stop being glad when it works and start getting pissed off when it doesn't.

Like imagine drinking wine out of a glass full of sawdust, the wine guy keeps giving you new straws so you can work around the sawdust and you're actually glad of the straws, you thank him for them, you're glad there's less sawdust in your wine

And then when it's like 10% sawdust you go "Why the hell does this wine have sawdust in it" and that's where Linux is at now

It's finally good enough to be bad

Like it's pissing me off now because it's good

This is bad news actually haha

Oh no, I just realised Linux Mint is good

Firing up a new browser that doesn't have an adblocker installed yet, thinking "Ugh, I hate ads," and then remembering no, ads are great, I love ads, what I hate is LIES. I hate CRAP THAT GETS IN THE WAY. I hate being spied on. I hate interruptions. I hate seeing reminders about Products I Purchased Last Week.

Ads? Actual proper ads that say yo here's a thing that a person worked on and cared about and wants you to see? They're that proud of it, they're that invested in it, they want it to be Out There In The World so much that they went to the trouble to make an ad for it, just in case it's the sort of thing I might like? Show that ad for their weird niche hobby blog or webcomic to thousands of people completely at random on the off-chance that one of them will clutch it to their heart and say "Yes, yes, this! THIS is what I didn't know I wanted and no algorithm could have predicted I wanted!"

Fuck yeah, show me your ad.

You know those ads for games that don't exist? Like, Evony, that's a game that's been around for decades, it's a basic city-building doofer but it doesn't look good in ads so they advertise a completely unrelated game that doesn't exist?

That's because the Evony company is many people and most of them get paid the same amount of money whether the game does well or not, so Some Guy looks at the number of Clicks and Some Other Guy looks at the number of Moneys instead of anybody looking at the number of Is This Actually A Good Ad, because that's hard to Number.

Give me ads for your hobby or small (very small) business website that have Pictures and Text and are Colourful and Say Exactly What The Viewer Will Get When They Click and I will put them on my website and charge you zero dollars and that's the end of the transaction and there will be no Some Guys or Numbers involved

In case you think I'm being nice, I'm doing this out of maybe 10% altruism, the rest is like 50% old-web nostalgia and 40% PURE SPITE

This ad by @TopazRabbit has furry characters on it and says "The Industrious Rabbit: Animated tech-inspired explainer videos," and it's even got the URL in the ad in case you don't wanna click on it right now or in case someone copies and pastes the ad image somewhere without setting up the link.

This is a good ad. Like the last couple, it has Pictures And Text and it's Colourful, and the characters look like they're having a good time and want you to join in.

Here's another example of a good ad.

It says "Game Boy programming, hacking, and research" and there's a picture of a Game Boy. The text is nice bright green on a dark green background, it's colourful and fun to look at. If someone is interested in Game Boy programming, hacking and research, then they might well click this ad and get what the ad promises, which is why this is a good ad by @issotm.

Here's an example of a good ad. It's got colourful graphics and it says "Tilemap Town: Lighthearted SFW furry roleplay in a collaborative 2D pixel art world."

People will click on that if they want lighthearted SFW furry roleplay in a collaborative 2D pixel art world. And you know what they'll get, when they click on it? They'll get lighthearted SFW furry roleplay in a collaborative 2D pixel art world. This is why this is a good ad.

This ad is by @NovaSquirrel.

LB: remembered that I'm giving away advertising space for free PURELY BECAUSE THE WORST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WANT TO CHARGE LOADS OF MONEY FOR IT, please give me your 468x60 pixel non-animated banner for your hobby website or small (small!) business.

Make it colourful and cool looking like something that someone would want to click. I'm not going to put it over content or move stuff around just as someone's moving their finger to tap on something or any of that bullshit, I'm not going to TRICK people into clicking it accidentally, so if you want anyone to click on it then it has to be Actually Enticing. Put it in https://www.improbableisland.com/hobbysites.php and tell your webring.

nobody here has a normal relationship with technology