Me but with cameras. I have 2, maybe 3 working ones. Lots and lots of bits of others.

I would regard myself as Quite Computer, not Very, and yet, have still managed to bugger my Linux box by messing with the bootloader.

No drive or USB ports recognised on boot. No way to boot from iso. Yay me.

I recoiled in horror. Thanks.

That’s a lot easier than I thought it would be. Thanks so much.

It’s snoozing.

I was going to say - what’s wrong with Mint?

Yep. In my house it’s mint, mint, pi, pi, osx, osx, osx, and the work laptop running win 11 because argh.

When I find out a) what distros are best for the older MacBook Pros that’s ideally not Gnome and b) what the best photography workflow/retouch tools are for Linux then it’ll be all except the work machine.

A lot of what you’re saying is spot on and I respect your experience in this and the other comment.

I don’t hire for fun though. I hire for a diversity of perspectives, integrity and authenticity. We teach people how to constructively challenge and go after problems or objectives that may have no off the shelf solution (if they do, we may acquire it).

The problems are usually P&L quantified and prioritised before they get to us - we only have to do that legwork if it’s something we’ve generated.

It does feel like a playground to a degree and I do love the work - perhaps yes it’s less ‘professional’ and structured. We do have experienced devs and architects who I would hope aren’t reproducing problems - but it’s often our job to find a technical solution (if appropriate) to a problem, not to ‘productionise’ it or maintain it. This involves a handoff to others in the business and they ultimately determine how it is rolled out.

I get that this isn’t typical of the market and thanks for your response / take on this. One thing we have to be careful of is being ‘institutionalised’ and that will come across as naive, perhaps it is, but that has been a help.

R&D, software and embedded systems. Small team, hugely collaborative by its nature and sometimes find ourselves faced with problems / puzzles with no apparent solution or precedent. Hugely rewarding when we can crack them.

I do genuinely feel for other respondents who seem to be bitter or cynical - despite the banter.

😘

Wow. What’s happened to you to make you so cynical?

Yeah ok people.

It’s not possible to flourish in my line of work without genuine engagement, and a tenacity beyond curiosity to solve certain problems. A jobsworth will not do.

Neither, on the other hand, will a soulless boss or employer, manage to engage.

So keep up with the downvotes and good luck.

Seriously though. I wouldn’t hire someone with that attitude.

100001111 = maybe not

Oh bollocks. How do I cancel the voicemail I left Randolphilus.

Some background checks will look into your taxes and finances. Cousin Randy needs to be organised and rich.

Hmm yeah don’t do that with any job with decent background checks.

Gwan.

Absolutely. Put the gun away. You got me at nerdy.

This is an exceptional write up, thanks!

I started with Mint and it was very simple to set up. I don’t really like the DE though (personal preference, I’ve used OSX for over 10 years). From your description it sounds like I can change Cinnamon to something else - is this fairly straightforward to do?

I’m looking to use the machine as a photo processing platform (from film and digital) and finding alternatives to Adobe products like Lightroom and Photoshop… with a view to ultimately having a NAS and cloud backup once I get to it.