The lack of understanding around open source is alarming. Open Source licenses only require someone to share the source with anyone who gets a copy of the binary. So top secret military software can still be open source because if the DoD doesn’t share the binary, they don’t have to share the code either. But forcing it to be open source ensures that if that software is ever declassified and distributed to 3rd parties, those third parties will have a legal right to the source.

Yes, 6 is better on the touchscreen. In fact, its better on every front. I never used Plasma before 6 and now I can’t shut up about how great it is.

I don’t think Cinnamon (the Mint desktop environment) has a lot of touchscreen support. You might want to consider switching to KDE or Gnome, which might be easier if you picked a different distro, such as Fedora or Ubuntu.

Might even be the perfect excuse for you to try a Universal Blue distro, such as Bluefin or Aurora. They are based on Fedora but distributed as immutable container images, meaning its really hard to bork your system. Perfect for a beginner who wants to experiment without fear of rendering their computer unusable.

Pope BussyGyatt III

Hurt person here. I know I’ve hurt others and I know I’ve tried to prevent in others the hurt I experienced. We are all complicated creatures with mixed legacies.

Don’t use Windows either.

You can use an XML file with the Windows installer to disable/uninstall most of the bloat and spyware. It’ll also automatically configure local accounts for you so you don’t have to manually bypass the Windows account install step.

This site will generate the file you need based on the options you select: https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/

And this video might help you if you get stuck: https://youtu.be/h9SpKVEc_Yo