I was taught that it’s really only voltage that really needs to match to avoid damage. And even that can be a bit fuzzy with modern electronics and their charging circuitry.

The wattage and amperage only measures how fast the charger will recharge the battery. There will be a minimum amperage needed to power the laptop… but as long as you exceed the the minimum the laptop will run fine even if the adapter is capable of crazy high Amps. The laptop will only pull what is needed.

oh, duh, how could I forget about my applicon™ PCI2000PFB fieldbus network interface card. I use it every single day!

I can’t even find a device to complete the joke.

oh no! Now I can’t use my… one moment.

You should be able to use dd to create bootable device. Ubuntu has a guide, just replace their iso with yours: scroll all the way down to Using the Linux command line

Wow, yeah I completely forgot that we used to connect directly to the internet. No gateway to shield us.

I used to get OS alert popup windows from random people connecting to the local Messenger Service with all sorts of scams.

A few things that people seem to have forgotten over the years:

The “Fisher-Price” visual style fiasco. (People claiming XP’s UI design choices were too unprofessional)

Extremely unstable on base release, with things only getting better after Service Pack 1.

Activation servers required to install the OS.

The start of Window’s Customer Experience Improvement Program telemetry.

Integration of Windows Update into the OS, which re-enabled Microsoft defaults like Internet Explorer, after patches were complete.

The start of confusing SKUs: Home Edition, Professional Edition, Media Center Edition, and Professional x64 Edition which was confusingly a re-badged Server 2003.

I’m sure I am forgetting a lot more. It wasn’t all sunshine and daisies like people seem to remember… but it was a lot better than now.

Yeah, whatever roadblocks are set up can easily be dismantled using the same privs.

Only way to achieve this goal is to either hand the keys to someone else or to lock yourself out.

bloat accumulated over the lifetime of Win10 -> Win11.

Microsoft attempting to “unify” brands but instead causing massive confusion is the root cause.

Does the Onedrive integrated into Windows 11 replace the one that is a standalone taskbar app? Maybe? They certainly can’t be the same thing because the taskbar Onedrive wasn’t signed in on boot while the Windows 11 account is a Microsoft 365 online account.

Is the Microsoft 365 Personal subscription going to cover Microsoft Teams that work requires? Maybe not? I mean, it was previously Skype, and before that Lync.

And is Outlook or Outlook (New) prompting a sign in?

I couldn’t begin to explain what went wrong and how to prevent such bloat in the future, because it was all official Microsoft software. There was nothing to “avoid” doing in the future. No teachable moment. Microsoft did this themselves.

I find it utterly confusing.

I had to troubleshoot a family member’s computer, and the amount of redundant but separate systems floating around in it is insane. A Onedrive integrated into the OS, a separate Onedrive for syncing specific folders, yet another OneDrive to access work resources. 365 for office, 365 for OneDrive, 365 for Teams. Don’t even get me started on Copilots being tossed around everywhere.

Half of these systems are auto-logged in during startup, the other prompting they need logins, and most of which flag for space issues and subscription notices.

Nah, this wasn’t an issue with gaming. This was just that the parts were new. The motherboard I chose used a 2024 chipset that Debian didn’t recognize. Basic stuff like detecting drives and outputting video beyond VESA standards was busted because of it. It took around 6 more months until Trixie came out with support.

I tried Debian when I built my PC back in 2025. It didn’t have any support for the bleeding edge parts I chose.

I then tried LMDE as a compromise. It also didn’t have the support I needed.

It’s a little too stable for my use-case… but runs well on my older laptops.

full vim. It always messes with my muscle memory when vim-tiny is installed as a replacement.

I never even thought to check. Was Games not a default folder?

I wonder if it’s a problem with branding.

Forgive me if I’m a bit incoherent, this idea isn’t fully formed, but… Do you think they are doing this stupid crap to differentiate their brand? Like, the push for Unity GUI and the push for Snap. Those don’t solve problems, do they? They are just different. Just things that others don’t do.

If I spun up a fork of Debian, the first question everybody would ask is “why not run Debian instead?”

…is that what they are trying to accomplish with this? to answer the question of “why not run Debian instead?”

EDIT:typo

Microsoft isn’t exactly doing anything new. It’s the same strategy that’s worked for them forever ago:

Get kids used to Microsoft products by vendor locking K-12 schools with cheap contracts.

Monetize those kids when they graduate (they never had privacy to begin with, so there is little pushback) and hope they don’t switch to Apple’s subsidized MacBooks in college.

When all else fails, lean heavily on corporate contracts, since corporations can’t change their ecosystem set up 40 years ago.

Linux wins factor very little in the equation… and anyone switching to Linux is quickly replaced by the next kid who has had a Microsoft Windows keyboarding class every year since age 9.

Hey a fellow Jerboa user! I’m also in the Jerboa camp, just because it’s so simple. I’ll use it to load my subscriptions if I’m waiting at a dentist or something.

I’ve… seen this? Well, not an AI model, but I know I’ve seen something where it takes common words and gives you the best guess on commands, and even common typos.

that’s good for testing if a device will work or not, but it’s terrible for judging how the OS performs. Mostly because your DVD/USB is going to be a serious bottleneck for I/O. Combine that with the 4GB of RAM and you’ve got some potentially crunchy performance ahead of you, which would not be indicative of the install performance.

If I were handed that hardware, the first thing I’d try is…

If what is currently being used is usable, and I don’t want to risk making it unusuable, shrink/resize the active partition with a partitioning tool. Then, assume I’m multibooting and I’d install on the secondary partition:

Raspberry Pi Desktop. I’d choose Pi OS because it is designed for an ultra low power 700MHz ARM11 that comes with the 2012 Pi 1. The drawback is it’s an older Debian install (Bullseye), but still getting long-term support until August. I assume they will release a new Desktop version when that date comes.

RetroPie. I’d grab the RetroPie script for ease of use on installing SNES emulation. It should prompt every emulator choice available for your system, and set up controller support (or keyboard+mouse) and emulationstation so you can browse your legally dumped roms after putting them in the correct directory.