@brent
@tomscharbach
This is an interesting thread, and it's caused me to add a few thoughts of my own. Like Tom, I'm 75, but I'm positive that I want to use Linux until the end of my days. Although Linux desktops sometimes have their share of issues, on the whole Solus has minimized those with its focus on curation.
I mostly use Linux for just a few things. There's email, and Solus hosts Thunderbird every bit as well as Windows ever did. Thunderbird also hosts our Google calendars that keep us from forgetting doctor appointments, family birthdays, and other special occasions.
And there's browsing. Vivaldi makes it possible for me to monitor my checking account and credit cards daily, keep track of my stock investments, follow various forums (including this one), keep up with unbiased news sources, order groceries for delivery several times a week, and buy the occasional other products I may need without requiring an excursion to a number of stores to find them.
Vivaldi also keeps me in touch with my doctors via the health-related portals, and lets me watch motorcycle racing and Formula 1 races that I subscribe to. And then, there's Netflix, YouTubeTV, Prime Video, Britbox, Disney+, Discovery+ and etc. that stream to my TV. Vivaldi likewise runs just as smoothly on Solus as it does on Windows.
When I made my living developing Windows software, obviously Windows was a much bigger part of my life, but that part of my life ended five years ago.
In another matter, albeit somewhat related, I'm a big believer in FOSS. In fact, I haven't paid for any software for at least 10 years. However, as with anything else, there is a range of quality among FOSS offerings. At best, some FOSS products are at least as good as commercial products (and many of them are released by the same companies that make those commercial products). But on the other end of the scale, FOSS might as well be synonymous with "amateur." I think that careful selection and common sense can eliminate many of the serious problems some folks run into while proudly announcing that their systems are 100% FOSS.
I've personally had excellent luck with free software versions that are released by companies that sell other versions of that software. A good example is LastPass. Their free version doesn't differ by much from the version that people (at one time including me) are willing to pay for. Microsoft's coding IDE is simply their commercial product with certain proprietary parts left out (but with plenty of valuable functionality left in). Oracle licenses VirtualBox to corporations, but releases the identical version to individuals for personal use at no cost. And they're far from the only companies that do this.
Finally, FREE and FOSS aren't necessarily the same thing. If software is free for me to use, but its producer chooses not to disclose all of its proprietary code to competitors, I can't hold that against them. Maybe that attitude stems from having made a career of producting commercial software, but that's the way it is. An example is LastPass, which is available in free and commercial versions. They don't release their source code for either version, but I don't want hackers here or in other parts of the world to know exactly how MY passwords are protected.
