Be careful with Mediamonkey. I’ve got it on my phone and PC, and my music is getting quieter and quieter on the phone. I think it’s something to do with the volume leveling on the Android version, but haven’t had a chance to figure it out yet.

I can put a song on full volume, and it’s quiet enough that it’s difficult to hear. I’ve tried the same tracks through youtube, and the volume is fine, so it’s not the phone speakers.

Do you want to call a few friends to help you move those goalposts?

It’s a 9 year old laptop that’s had problems due to software configuration issues. This isn’t cutting edge hardware that’s not supported, it’s an update that didn’t clean up after itself, and a working power setting where the software doesn’t show the available and working options. If I run the hibernate or hybrid sleep commands from the terminal, they work, but the options don’t persist in either the start menu or the power settings gui. That’s nothing to do with it being a Windows device originally.

I like using Linux, and I’m happy using the terminal - I started with DOS, many, many years ago, and the terminal brings back happy memories. Pretending that Linux doesn’t have any problems though is ridiculous.

I updated my laptop from Mint 21.3? to 22 and lost all sound. It’s when Mint switched from I think Pulse to Pipewire. The update left behind a random config file that stopped my sound device from being set up, and the only place I could find a fix was on an obscure forum post.

Hibernation and hybrid sleep are both supported by my laptop, and can be set up to work on Mint with a lot of configuration through the terminal. When I reboot though, they stop working again. The related options disappear from the power settings, but work from the terminal.

Pretending that Linux doesn’t have issues is an outright lie at this point

You’re being downvoted, but you’re right.

People want something simple. Something that just runs the basics and automatically backs up online and invisibly.

The vast majority of people don’t need to have the choice of 17 different browsers, or 43 office suites, and they certainly don’t need the terminal or Powershell, or anything else. They just need a browser and a way to maybe write a letter and view photos. Maybe a way for the kids to do their homework. If their laptop spontaneously combusts, they want to be able to sign into a new one and have everything put back as it was automatically.

ChromeOS is perfect for them, apart from being a Google product. It’s something we tend to miss because we’re technically minded, but most people don’t care about computers, and don’t want what we want. They want an appliance. If someone created that system with privacy built in, it could be great :)

A lot of it is momentum / inertia? (I can’t think of the right word).

Basically, Ubuntu was the distro for years. It was the one that just worked and was easy for new users. It built on Debian’s stability and made everything easier. All the beginner guides and how to guides were written with Ubuntu in mind, so lots of new users switched to it too.

Mint built on Ubuntu’s success, and made things even easier for people switching from Windows, by doing things like putting the start menu in the same place, and making everything look familiar. Because it’s based on Ubuntu, the guides all still work too. As Canonical started making unpopular decisions with Ubuntu, Mint took the lead as the distro to switch to.

Now, other distros like Fedora, and DEs like KDE have caught up, and even passed Mint for ease of use, that history is hard to overcome :)