You think LM being “too old” is a problem for newbies? I’ve been running some distro or other since RedHat 5. I it took me 6 weeks of waiting for Fedora to sort out most of the issues, (and I STILL have some minor ghosting issues and I ain’t no gamer), and 4 tries to get Fedora 40 to successfully take the nVidia drivers for the GTX1650 chipset in my laptop.

You think a new wannbe convert is going to put up with that?

Well, I’m not sure a cat can have a bad work ethic if they just don’t have one to start with…

Most pets don’t work because their owners don’t bother to train them to do any work. And interestingly enough, I have indeed seen a Chihuahua herd cattle. There was No Fear. It was amazing to see that little toothed monster chase a 2000lbs bull around a pen and into another and then into a barn on command from the farmer that owned him. And a Mastiff will gladly hunt fox, cougars, wolves, and even people if you want them to. They will also happily Netflix, popcorn, and chill on the couch with you after chewing up that human also.

Why don’t my dogs talk? Well, they just don’t have the physical voice box to form the sounds of human speech, (as you well know). But that doesn’t mean they don’t communicate with people. Actions, like tail wagging, barking in various tones and volumes, rolling on the ground all communicate emotions and situational reports. And us humans understand them just fine. My little Russian Spaniel does her best to “talk” to me with a near continuous stream of moans and groans, and erffs when she sits with me in my recliner. It’s almost annoying when she doesn’t shut up. And they understand my communications. My dogs understand verbal, whistle, and silent hand signals and respond correctly and instantly to them when I’m afield with them. Parrots, have a natural physical ability to mimic other sounds, (as do a lot of other birds). So they are doing what comes naturally to them - a human is not required.

There are lots of dogs out there that do jobs they were never bred for. Seeing eye dogs, dogs trained for deaf people or assistants to people confined to a wheel chair. Turns out Labrador Retrievers are really great at this kind of work. And I have trained retired Springer Spaniel hunting dogs to work in a hospital as therapy dogs. But that’s not why or what those breeds exists for. Ever see a trained animal act at a circus? They are often what most people would call “mutts”. Mixed breed dogs doing amusing things like ride bicycles and drive little cars around and jumping through burning hoops of fire. And you can often see little Chihuahuas preforming in those acts. All doing things none of them were bred for.

I like the cats that we have. One, a grey and white is an excellent mouser. But he comes from a very long line of barn cats and has a wild streak in him. The other two, are far more interested in cat toys and sleeping in laps and beds than in any mouse - and that’s fine. A warm kitty in the lap purring away is a calming and enjoyable thing to have on a cold winter’s day. But I’m under no illusion that cats or most other pets can be trained to do all the things my dogs can do.

Dogs are humans oldest and closest companions and co-workers for a reason.

Let me know when you can train a cat to herd sheep or train one to hunt and retrieve game on command. I’ve got 3 cats and 4 dogs here. The cats make nice and often amusing lap warmers. But beyond catching the odd mouse, they can’t do work.

[]https://distrowatch.com

I never said that you can’t divide liters into fractional parts. Reread the quote again.

But for demonstration - what’s easier to think about 250ml or 1 quart, (a whole unit number or if you prefer 1/4 of a gallon)? A fractional based measurement system was the first type of measures invented by people precisely because it WAS simple for everyday use between sellers and buyers. The US has just kept using it for simple everyday needs. It’s neither better or worse than your 250mls, it’s just different than what YOU are probably used to. To me, it doesn’t matter. I’m fine with either measurement.

The majority medical records are available electronically. But that does not provide the base security of also storing written records. Networks go down, networks get hacked and not all places in the US can have or trust that those records will be available electronically 100% of the time. Paper ain’t going away anytime soon.

I suppose we could go off into the weeds a bit and talk about how US Customary thread pitches made for fast to produce, smaller, and cheaper machine tools vs their same metric counter parts. And how it helped make the US into the manufacturing powerhouse it became. And how those same US Customary threads are a just a little bit stronger than their metric counterparts. But you would probably not understand much of it and your eyes would glaze over pretty quickly anyway. But these days it’s merely a matter of G20 or G21 - The machines don’t care, why should you?

Both measurement systems can do exactly EVERYTHING the other can do. Somethings can be easier in one system than the other, but it’s far from a universal idea that one is 100% better than the other. Personally, I prefer using the metric system. But I don’t get hung up on it. I will use whatever measurement system best meets the needs for the job at hand or is requested/required.

In the end, the metric system IS the official system of the US. We just didn’t force a hard adoption date on it. But we use it everyday all day and don’t even think about it. Now if you will excuse me, I need to buy a 750ml bottle of Old Grand Dad bourbon Bonded, so I can myself an Old Fashioned cocktail later today while I’m smoking a pork loin…

You are correct. But Imperial is pretty much abandoned and the US only kind of sort of followed it. There have always been some differences between US Customary and Imperial. The gallon is one of the most obvious differences.

The gallon of milk makes it incredibly easy to divide it into quarters. That makes it easy to simply double things - 2 pints = 1 quart. 2 quarts = 1/2 gallon. Two 1/2 gallons makes 1 gallon. This dates back to the days when you went to the market and told the seller that you want 1/2 or 1/4 of that container of whatever was in that container. Simple math for simple needs.

Your 1/4 of a pound of butter or one stick, (again simple divisions for a simple use), is marked with rough marks of tablespoons for cooking if you are using such measurements. But you are quite free to ignore them if you are using a scale. Not really any issue.

Yes, in the US travel distances are measured in miles. But that slowly becoming meaningless also. People, (no matter the units used to measure the psychical distance), care more about “how long does it take to get there” rather than the actual distance traveled. But, you are free to push a button and switch to kilometers if you choose.

Measuring height and weight in feet and inches and pounds is pretty much the only thing the medical system uses US Customary for. And I can’t imagine the sheer number of man hours and cost it would take to go back and convert all those medical records to centimeters and kilos. Somethings are just not worth the effort and cost for a minor data point that only matters only as a long term trend. (just like a single blood pressure is a meaningless data point but over a year may reveal a trend or not)

Each measurement system, US Customary or Metric, has it’s own advantages and disadvantages. To think one is better than the other is a chauvinism based on what you are most familiar with and nothing more.

That was just ONE aspect of the adoption of the metric system. And that was done to make backwards compatibility easier because of long lasting legacy systems. Because some systems, like say plumbing in a home or city, last for a very long time before they get replaced or repaired. New plumbing installations often use Tubing like PEX which is metric. I designed and fabricated a dozen brackets for a US customer over the weekend for delivery today. They were made using millimeters as specified.

And if you actually pay attention to how the metric systems compares to the US customary, you would see just how closely they are related from the start. Which makes sense since what we call Imperial measurements predate the metric system by several hundred years.

Yes, yes we DO use the metric system officially. In the early 1970’s the metric system was made the official standard for weights and measures.

What we didn’t do was force everyone to use it at 3:11AM 11/21/1974. It was decided to take a longer approach and let the change happen naturally and it has happened.

Everything in the grocery store is marked with metric weights and volumes. We buy butter by the gram, soda pop by the liter and whisk(e)y buy the milliliter. And everyone is looking for that same missing 10mm socket/wrench. (Where does do those things go anyway?)

How much more metric do we really need to adopt?

No translator needed. Just any 13 year old kid.

There, at the very least some truth to that. I did run across one failed attempt with a gun that fit that bill.

When I was a medic for 15 years, I was paged out to 4 suicides, two self hanging, one OD, and one wrist slashing, (all male). Nor can I remember any reports of suicide by gun either. There were also good number of attempted OD’s though. And this was in a rural community where almost every home had at least one gun and often more.

I don’t think anyone could prove one way or another why guns didn’t seem to be a choice for suicidal people in that community. I certainly don’t know. But people who are not of sound mind often do strange things for inscrutable reasons.

A good number of European cities and countries have tried Linux and open source software in the past. They use it for a few years and then they have almost always have quietly gone back to MS Windows and Office products.

As much as I enjoy using Linux, (and no, I don’t use Arch), and open source for my own needs, I would be willing to bet after a few years, this German state will quietly move back to Micosoft products again.

Sometimes having tinnitus can save you a lot of money. I can’t hear shit, but I ain’t paying $1000’s for a stereo cable.

When the store is 100 mile/160 kilometer round trip, you either figure out a substitute or do without. And if you don’t know what else to use, your favorite search engine is only seconds away from helping you with your problem. It ain’t rocket surgery.

Don’t think of Mint as an “easy distro”, but rather as a distro that tries to stay the hell out of your way as much as possible to get things done. Any OS - Linux, Windows, Mac, BSD, or Unix is merely the means to the end goal of the user and not the reason itself. I don’t want an interesting or complex distro. I want a distro that helps me to do a task.

You want something interesting? Give LFS, (Linux from Scratch), a try. That’s an advanced distro that you can make as interesting as you desire.

I’ve fooling around with Linux distros since RedHat 5 and Mandrake 6. Even wore the sackcloth and ashes of Slack for a bit. What I have learned is that it’s fine to use a “beginner’s distro” or run Slack and boot directly into a terminal to run Emacs all day.

Whatever gets the job done or floats your boat. It’s all about choice.

Just my opinion, but no I don’t think there is a generalized reason to choose LMDE over LM or the other way around. Try them both and see which you like the best. Use that and be happy.

Typed from my LM Cinnamon 21.3 upgrade from 21.2.