I switched my main gaming computer to Mint after testing it on a laptop. Being away from Windows is awesome. You know how everything always wants your attention on Windows? Your antivirus proudly announces its existence. Windows wants to know if it should remove some printers? Some PDF software needs updated RIGHT NOW. There’s a license change please acknowledge this 20 page document. Animated attention grabbing everywhere. I always think FUCK OFF when presented with this bullshit.

You know what - Mint doesn’t do that. I’ve not been internally shouting at my own computer since I went that way.

It is serene.

What if you’re already right there? You wouldn’t know!

There are many factors at play.

Survivability is much higher. A lot of the deaths are attributable to secondary opportunistic infections that are now treatable with antibiotics, which did not exist at the time. We now have a plethora of treatments that did not exist at the time, for example many people were saved from death by covid by giving extra oxygen for just a few days. That would have helped h1n1 victims too.

I share the same sentiment. Grabbed a laptop last week to be able to wfh somewhere else and entertain myself too, and to try if I couldn’t get gaming to work on Linux, and had that feeling of curiosity back about what is new and how everything works. The feeling was lost sometime after Windows 7, and replaced with a slight feeling of dread about where everything got misplaced in this newest shiniest iteration of Windows.

Couldn’t be happier with fiddling with distros!

I think your third point is key, one thing Microsoft does very well is backwards compatibility. We run programs from the 90s in production. It is a nightmare of APIs layered upon APIs, but the programs will run.

I see your WSAD keys, how is the keyboard for gaming? Would you use just the left side along with a mouse?