I’ve developed a hobby of restoring old laptops, repairing them, and putting Linux on them. Taking old discarded hardware and making it useful again gives me some degree of satisfaction. The machine I’m using now is an old ThinkPad T470 that I assembled from 3 non-functioning machines. In my previous Linux posts, I talked about my Alienware and running the high-performance CachyOS on it. Well, since then, that machine suffered a catastrophic mainboard failure due to a voltage issue. “Fried” is the technical term for it. So I scavenged the NVME drives and the RAM and installed what I could into this Lenovo. I’ve been very pleased with it. I’ve been driving it daily ever since. I just can’t game on it. Business Class laptops are potatoes in the Graphics department. But it does everything else just grand.

In my new hobby – I’ve been working on machines up to five at a time. I have a small arsenal of USB Thumb Drives loaded with a different Linux Distro on each, and I’ve been testing a number of different Distros at the same time. I’ve now tested over thirty different Linux Distros… and I have opinions. The three easiest Distros are Ubuntu, Zorin, and Mint. The latest Ubuntu, 26.04.1, is hands down the most complete and polished of all of them, offering a very easy switch to Windows Refugees. You don’t have to know how to use Linux. You don’t have to know how to use Terminal Commands. You can just use it, and it just works. Everything is where you would expect it be. It was easier to switch to Ubuntu and Mint and Zorin, than it was to switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

Linux Mint – Daily Driver on my MS Surface. Two thumbs up for ease of use and performance.
Pop!_OS – Had performance issues on the Alienware.
Zorin OS 18.1 – Had a few issues on the Alienware that I could have fixed.
EndeavourOS – If you dig Terminal Commands, this is you.
ElementaryOS – Liked it. A lot. Super simple and easy. Worth looking at if you want something nobody else in the coffee shop is using.
Fedora 44 – Updating the OS locked it up due to my old hardware. Had I used it on a different machine, I’m sure it would have been great.
Ubuntu – Now the Daily Driver OS for my ThinkPad T470. The more I use it, the more I like it.
Bazzite – Fun but sluggish on my Alienware due to driver issues. On a different machine, it’s probably great.
Arch – Liked it, but complicated and not for a Newbie.
Kali – Life is too short, unless you’re a Hacker.
MiniOS – When you want as little OS in your OS, this is your OS.
Gentoo – Meh. I really didn’t like it at all.
KaOS – Meh. Too much Terminal Time required.
Tiny Core – Potential for older machines.
PearOS – This is MAC OS for someone that doesn’t want MAC OS. Not as polished as others of this type.
Neptune – Where others want to look like Windows, this one wants to look like Mac OS. Not a bad distro at all.
HeliumOS – While I had issues at this time on my old machine, it should mature into a great Distro in time. Worth keeping an eye on and trying on some newer hardware.
Ultramarine – I like it, but it needs some more development and a dedicated in-depth trial. (Just read it had a big update)
Nitrux – Potential, but lacks flair. Super basic and lean.
I’ve tried a few others as well, and will continue to test things out when I have an abundance of spare time.

Windows has become nothing but Spyware to use to train AI and to serve you up advertising. You pay for to privilage of becoming a commodity. They sell your data. You’re a crop. Windows runs your computer, not you. Break that cycle.

“But you can’t Game on Linux.”
Actually, can game very well. My entire Steam Library runs great on Linux. In fact, I’m getting higher frame rates at higher resolution settings. The only think that does work on Linux, is 3rd Party Anti-Cheat programs that want kernal level access. Linux doesn’t allow that. Opening your system up to a 3rd Party is a stupid thing to do anyway.

The Man with No Name. He has a name.

In “A Fist Full of Dollars”, the Grave Digger calls him Joe, repeatedly.

In “A Few Dollars More”, Lee Van Cleef’s character turns in a bounty, and asks about another one. The Judge who pays the bounty tells him another man asked about it already, and said that man’s name was Manco.

Thus we have The Man with No Name’s name. Joe Manco.

In High Plains Drifter, the Stranger is not the same person. The Stranger has the name Jim Duncan.

SILVERSHOT is officially DONE and off to the Editor, after all this time. It’s taken a good while and required a trip back to Utah to visit the Uintah County History Center. And I hope the results are found to be worth it.

Silvershot is a story based on the folklore in the Uintah Basin area of Utah, specifically about the legend of the Skinwalker. The Ute Tribe, when they are willing to talk about it, tell of an evil Shaman who can shape-shift that was sent to conduct magical warfare against the Utes. The story I tell is based on that, wrapped in other local legends.

What’s next? I have a number of irons in the fire, and I’ve decided that PRIVATEER needs to be finished next. After all, it’s over 1/2 way done already. And work on that has already resumed.

So my Alienware 17R3 is old. Over 10 years old. But I’ve invested a lot of money into keeping it running and upgrading it. It has 32 Gigs of RAM and 3 TB’s of Solid State Drives, 2 NMVE’s and one SSD… So this old machine is as fast as it’s ever going to be. This limited factor is the GPU. An old NVIDIA card that is capable of playing Skyrim at Ultra settings… But nothing a day newer.

I’ve used it to test drive a number of different Linux distributions on it. Here’s the breakdown:

The Distros I tried out most recently:

CachyOS – Currently the daily driver on my Alienware. Performance oriented, and it shows. Arch based, so it can be complicated. Linux

Linux Mint – Daily Driver on my MS Surface. Two thumbs up for ease of use and performance.

Pop!_OS – Had performance issues on the Alienware.

Zorin OS 18.1 – Had a few issues on the Alienware that I could have fixed. Now the Daily Driver OS for my ThinkPad T470. The more I use it, the more I like it.

EndeavourOS – If you dig Terminal Commands, this is you.

Elementary OS – Liked it. A lot. Super simple and easy. Worth looking at if you want something nobody else in the coffee shop is using.

Fedora 44 – Updating the OS locked it up due to my old hardware. Had I used it on a different machine, I’m sure it would have been great.

Ubuntu – Has everything a new user might want. Easy to use. Lots of added features.

Bazzite – Fun but sluggish on my Alienware due to driver issues. On a different machine, it’s probably great.

Arch – Liked it, but complicated and not for a Newbie.

Kali – Life is too short, unless you’re a Hacker.

MiniOS – When you want as little OS in your OS, this is your OS.

Gentoo – Meh. I really didn’t like it at all.

KaOS – Meh. Too much Terminal Time required.

Tiny Core – Potential for older machines.

PearOS – This is MAC OS for someone that doesn’t want MAC OS. Not as polished as others of this time.

Neptune – Where others want to look like Windows, this one wants to look like Mac OS. Not a bad distro at all.

HeliumOS – While I had issues at this time on my old machine, it should mature into a great Distro in time. Worth keeping an eye on and trying on some newer hardware.

Ultramarine – I like it, but it needs some more development and a dedicated in-depth trial.

Nitrux – Potential, but lacks flair. Super basic and lean.

CachyOS is delivering the best performance, by a good margin. The Alienware feels a LOT faster than it used to be Windows 11 or the original Windows 10 that was first installed on it. Of my 94 game titles in my STEAM library, it plays almost all of them. And the ones it doesn’t play, are because the graphics requirements are too high for my Potato and couldn’t play before… (Cyberpunk) Or required 3rd Party software that is wants too much access or something. Or it just doesn’t want to play along… For example, Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s launcher. The launcher isn’t launching. Oh well. All my other games not only run just fine, but they actually run BETTER. Gaming on Linux is a blast.
Most everything I do has software that is Linux native or compatible, or is Web Based, so the platform doesn’t matter.

As mentioned before I also use my little MS Surface Tablet. With the attached Keyboard, it’s basically a small portable Laptop, and I use it as such. That’s running Linux Mint, and it’s PERFECT for what I do with it.

So my divorce from Microsoft is complete in my private life. For work, Windows 11 remains a requirement… as is using MS EDGE for my work browser. But for personal use, I’m 100 Linux now. And it feels GREAT.

Update on the Distro Trials: The ones I had some troubles with, such as Zorin OS – Turns out the issues were with the Nvidia drivers. On another machine, Zorin OS turned out to be fantastic. It’s now on my Thinkpad T470. But that’s a topic for elsewhere.

Righteous Anger is righteous. The want for Justice is righteous. The call for Revenge and Reprisals however, is not. Sit on your hands and bite your tongue until you are rational again. Today is September 11th. Much to Remember today. Much to contemplate. My goal is to spend more time thinking than speaking.

Last Week on Tuesday, I watched my father die. My brother Josh was there, as was Dad’s wife, Joyce. We were standing around his bed as the Hospital Staff unplugged his life support. The previous Thursday Morning, he had a massive heart attack and stopped breathing. But they managed to get his heart restarted but he had been without oxygen to his brain for about five minutes. He was in a coma since the heart attack.

We held on to hope that he would recover. That he would wake up. An MRI scan was done and it showed a glimmer of hope, initially… But then a neurologist took a look at it and determined that the damage was severe throughout all of the brain.

We all knew Dad didn’t want to live like this. He had a DNR on file… that the hospital wasn’t aware of initially… And we knew his chances were almost zero, and it turns out to have been exactly zero. We didn’t know what would happen once we pulled the life support… He his body could kick in and he’d live. Or he would expire… Doctors said it could be five minutes or five days… In God’s mercy, it was only about 1 minute. His body gasped for air for awhile and then the gasps came fewer and fewer until it all stopped.

In the very moment of his passing… He smiled. Just before he went slack. I believe it’s because he saw his Father, his Mother, his brother Bruce, and my brother Zach.

I’m grateful for these last few years I had with him… Because we had always had a rocky relationship and I had learned a great deal about him that I didn’t know. This knowledge became an understanding of the reality of things that he had always kept away from me and my brothers. All the pieces came together and the picture it made was one of a man that sacrificed so much for us. For me. I didn’t know how much he loved me until the end. I had no idea. I miss him terribly.

Shadow over Miskatonic is now available in Paperback.