jkmooney

Seems to be working OK for me on FF with Ublock and Privacy Badger running.

I believe LMDE includes the proprietary stuff you might need and, as others have said, Debian 12 is starting to as well.

For a new user who just wants a good OS to start with, Pop_OS is a fine choice. A little surprised you had trouble with Mint identifying your WiFi card but, I see others have posted on it. Mint is typically my go-to recommendation for new Linux users.

I looked at LBRY for a while, but it kinda looked like the “trashy tabloid” section of the internet.

Palia is brand new (still in open Beta) It’s more focused on low-key crafting/farming and community, but opportunities to socialize are there.
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Guild Wars 2 is my favorite “no subscription required” MMORPG that could work for you (but you have that one).
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ESO Online is my favorite “subscription” MMO and I’ve met people there.
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FFXIV is decent for socializing but, the hard-core gamers can stress you out. Works best if you join a low key guild that doesn’t want to speed-run all the duties and crap on you for not being as good as they are.
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General rule for MMORPGs in general is, find a guild you like and hang with them.

Have to agree. They had a great start by enhancing Debian and being user friendly but, then they just kind of lost their way.

Although, speaking as a fan of Mint who used it as my “daily driver” for years, I think the time has come for them to switch from Ubuntu to Debian and embrace Wayland. I know that, if I’d stayed with Mint, I’ve have gone to LMDE by now.

NIce! Thanks :)

…and Cable TV didn’t eliminate commercials…and ATMs didn’t reduce banking costs resulting in higher interest on savings…etc…

I don’t know, Linus is still trying to excuse and justify. It would seem taking him out of the driver’s seat was the right call. As for the rest, they are responding because their backs are against the wall. Time will tell if they will really make any changes.

I’ve been trying running a VPN on my phone as a matter of course lately (Proton). I’m assuming it not only keeps your ISP from knowing where you’re going but, more importantly, advertisers and trackers as well.
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…or do I have that last bit wrong?

I generally tell people on Manjaro to stay off the AUR. If it’s not in their “curated” repository, then just go with the flatpak.

I’ve used both. Manjaro, in their attempt to be “user friendly”, winds up disconnecting you from what makes Arch good. EndeavorOS, on the other hand, is basically Arch nicely set up for a “daily driver” PC along with some nice tools of their own you can use or not at your discretion. I’ve also used just plain Arch and I actually prefer EndeavourOS of the three.

Firefox is my go to but I keep a chromium based browser for when I really need it. Currently running with Vivaldi for that. As for other browsers, I’d love to see Gnome Web (formerly Epiphany) start allowing extensions like Bitwarden, etc.