The thing that’s been bothering me is, since when did a local, “ragtag group” of activists have this much influence on the actions of massive corporations? Bigger, more powerful groups have tried and failed to make changes like this over and over again. Why does collective shout have so much pull? It doesn’t make any sense to me.

I guess in his defense it wasn’t too bad before 2018, as far as I can remember. Most of the enshittification of fandom I can remember has happened since.

It’s not necessarily a problem, it just shouldn’t be the first thing you try. On windows people are used to always downloading the program directly from the internet first thing, but on linux you’ll have a better time if you check the package manager and/or flathub first for programs. Then, if it’s not there, then yeah download direct from the internet.

Mint is a good option, yeah. Should feel familiar if you’re coming from windows.

Note that coding experience isn’t really relevant. Only the most advanced users ever really need to write code for their system. 99% of linux users, including the experienced and power users, don’t have to regularly code, per se. Note that I’m referring to actually writing programs, not terminal use. Using a terminal isn’t coding but that may be what you were thinking of, it’s similar but imo not the same. If you wanna do more advances stuff, you’ll definitely want to learn the terminal, but for most stuff you’ll get by just fine with GUIs like you’re probably used to. Mint is particularly good at keeping stuff to GUIs.

Something to note: coming from windows, you’ll be used to getting programs by finding downloads on the internet. On linux, that’s generally best avoided - you should always look on your distro’s package manager first. On mint is believe it’s called something like “software center” or “software manager,” can’t remember off the top of my head but it will be preinstalled for you.