Off Topic Windows 10 issues

Sorry geezer, see above post.

 

I've heard good things about Mint, very reliable and consistent through incarnations, unlike some others.

I hadn't heard Ubuntu are ditching Unity though. Shuttleworth's made a big deal of it, as opposed to contributing to Wayland, so I'd be surprised by this. They do like to go off on their own tangents rather than collaboration. Their choice of course. Linux is all about choice.

I thank Ubuntu for getting me started with Linux but I soon got tired of stale software and six month upgrades. Arch may be bleeding edge but It's been far more stable than Ubuntu ever was! Rarely ever have a problem and if I do it's easily fixable with such good forums and one of the best Wikis. That's if I can't fix it myself of course, and using Arch you have to get your hands dirty and you learn loads.

Pacman's the best package manager I've used and the AUR is brilliant. Building stuff is a doddle and I build my own kernels with the CK and BFS patchsets and the BFQ i/o scheduler.

Arch can be any distro you want anyway, it's just the base system and you add whatever you want. My wife and daughter's laptops all run Arch with XFCE on top, as that's easier for me! I don't run any DE myself, just keep it lean and streamlined. My desktop's basically Compiz (0.8), Cairo Dock and Conky.

I think I detest Apple more than Microsoft, they're the biggest patent trolls on the planet. Plus they're more of a walled garden, like you say.

p.s. love your sig