Was the musician “Bono” part of your D&D group, and did he later write a song about the experience?

I think Ubuntu has a long way to go to “Microsoft levels”, but yeah, some of their actions are why people are less keen to recommend them to new users (and why I don’t myself). As the other person said, Mint is separate to that - it’s a bit like “Ubuntu with the crap removed”.

I did this for my dad, and then his neighbour… and then his other neighbours… also for quite a few older people near where I live.

Anyway, assuming the initial setup goes okay with wifi/printers etc and all the software is present, then it’s pretty much hands-off most of the time - though they’ll likely have 100 tiny questions initially, none of which they feel are “worth troubling you with” - so you may need to nudge them every few weeks a few times, and if possible go over and check things yourself.

There may be a sense of not wanting to bother you, or embarrassment about a mistake, then they just put up with it - for example, accidentally zooming in in the file browser, so all the files are massive, then just putting up with it instead of “bothering you”.

Any solving you do, you can show them where you find the answer/option e.g. teaching them to search the mint forums - but also knowing the Ubuntu ones will mostly work too (and for some things, any Linux ones).

You’ll need to remind them about updating, because it’s not forced on them, and if they’re prevously Windows/Mac users, they may distrust updates. You may also need to be on hand for version upgrades, at least in the first year, depending on how computer-literate they were previously.

It’s worth setting up some sort of backup with them, and setting up autosaves for office programs - then making symlink shortcuts to where those autosaves are kept. Generally you’re looking for ways to undo the panic if things go wrong - “here’s how to reverse it if you lose it/break it”.

Assuming you’re putting an adblocker on, you will probably need to show them how to update it and how to disable it if absolutely required by a website.

Check there’s something in place to transfer photos from their phone/camera etc - or any other use case where they want to transfer things on/off the computer - this might include things like “Calibre” for ebooks, or “Shotwell” for photos for instance.

Other than that… depends on the specific person and what they’re doing.

Generally though, Mint is pretty intuitive, especially if they used older Windowses - so you may find (as I did) there’s almost no support needed once it’s up and running.

You don’t necessarily need full sun any more (though it helps). Solar panels are a lot better than they used to be at generating power on cloudy, overcast days. You can even use them in the North of Britain these days. Of course they generate more on both of our sunny days, but they still work on our normal rainy cloudy days too.

I remember reading about some plan to fill the Sahara desert with solar panels, which would in theory be able to power the whole world, but I imagine there’s a whole lot of politics, profit and greed in the way of something like that ever working (I imagine there’s also a tonne of engineering and environmental considerations).

Thank you for doing this.

That’s great - well done and absolutely worth it :)

NTFS was around in the 1990s, exFAT is from the 2010s - and I think was also caught up in some sort of copyright/proprietary shit for another 10 years. There are brand new 2025 TVs which still won’t read exFAT.

I’m mostly echoing what’s already been said, but I have a preset in Handbrake for this, which works fine on most TVs I’ve tried from the last 10 years (possibly 15 by now) and therefore should have no problem running on any computer. I often (for work reasons) prepare video footage for looped playback on TVs and projectors at numerous places - so “TVs I’ve tried” is a larger number than it might initially sound like.

It’s roughly along these lines (as I appear to have emailed someone about before):

"H264 mp4. 1920x1080. 25 or 30fps, or similar (appropriate to source material). Constant bitrate <=12mbps. 8mbps is generally universally compatible, though you should be able to get away with 10-12mbps on newer TVs with newer USB sticks.

AAC audio 192kbps, though lower is fine.

Use same samplerate as source (i.e. 44khz 48khz etc)

If you’ve got settings for encoding profile, Main and Level 4.0 should work.

If individual files are small enough (<4GB), format the USB stick as FAT32. Otherwise NTFS. EXT2 will work on a lot of TVs, but you’ll have trouble with some computers. Exfat may work on newest tellys, but won’t on anything more than a few years old, so safe option is not to use it."

Makes you think of what could have been, if they’d done the new Fallouts as tactical/Turn Based RPGs, rather than first person shooters - although the new Wasteland games do a pretty good job of filling that niche.

Who emptied the shopping basket in the last panel?

I either use the default names, or give them “standard English older bloke names”. The grander the adventure, the more un-grand a name they get.

Things like “Ian Williams”, “Neville Smith”, “Terry Phillips”, “Frank Jones” etc. The sort of names that would work for the City Council’s Road Maintenance Department.

This must be an older map - where’s Acid Reflux Ridge and Think-I’m-going-to-shit-myself Mountain?

Depends how he dies.

If he gets Gaddafied by his own people, I imagine his successor might try to do things differently.

Yeah, the Steam Deck is actually pretty good for this on most games.

On a computer, you can, I suppose, set up a keyboard shortcut to pause the process, but you still think “this should just be part of the game in the first place”.

Not being able to pause or save at any point.

I’m a “grown-up” these days, but I grew up with games and they’re part of my life, and I love them - but in the larger scale of things, they’re still toys. The requirements of a pet/partner/child/phone call/doorbell will always nearly always outrank them.

“We don’t let you pause because it’s a simulation and and you can’t pause real life so it means the game is more realistic” = piss off

I can’t tell if this is real or not.

Also having " and @ in the correct place, and being able to £.

A few months ago.

Last time I tried Wayland (with Cinnamon), it didn’t support any keyboard layouts other than American. That’s a bit of a deal breaker if you’re not American.

No. He needs to take more. The amount he’s currently taking is a measly “woke-trans-vegan-lib-radical-left amount for girls”.

If he was a real man and a genius, he’d double the amount of ketamine and cocaine he takes every day.

So twice as much today, 4x as much tomorrow, 8x as much the day after…