Consider that any gift with a monetary value is likely something that they will need to report.

Sending two cards, one to them and one to their boss is one way to show your appreciation.

If you’re not sure about their boss, send the second card higher up the chain.

Are you turning it the right way?

I’m asking because I’ve seen circumstances where everyone was convinced that it needed to go one way, but many expensive hours later were proven to be wrong.

Also, is there something jammed in the pipe, like say roots or a snake?

If you don’t have mobile coverage, the local library or community centre. MacDonalds is also a popular option.

I’m going to answer your points below. Not because I want to tell you to move to Linux, but because the information you state is incorrect. Linux is not for everybody. It works for millions of people and it works for me, but that doesn’t mean it will be what you’re looking for.

In order:

1. There are no .exe files. Neither are there any on MacOS, iOS, Android, or anything else that isn’t Windows/DOS. To start software requires that it’s on the search path in exactly the same way that Windows requires. You can see what that is with the command: echo $PATH. Most Linux distributions have a graphical user interface which features icons and menus, but if you don’t want that, you don’t need to install it.

2. You absolutely can, but it doesn’t work the same way as Windows, because it’s not Windows. You can for example login to Linux because the login manager started at system startup. You see a desktop after logging in because there’s a startup system for your account. The printer works because the software driving the print queue is started.

3. Wine is a tool. It’s not a replacement for Windows. It’s not intended to be. It’s intended to help users and developers make Windows software work better on Linux.

4. LibreOffice is one of many office suites. I have been using it as my productivity software for 25 years in my company and I’m not at all disappointed to have escaped the Microsoft Clippy, Ribbons, Office365 abominations.

5. I have used Libre Calc for most of my numerical analysis processes. I used real tools like R and gnuplot when I was analyzing terabytes of data.

6. The terminal is a tool. I use it daily. At any time there’s a dozen of them open. Not everyone needs a terminal, but there are plenty of things that you can only do in a terminal. A random example, list all the files in your account, group them by extension, then add up how much space each extension takes. In case you’re wondering:

find ~ -type f | egrep -o "\.[a-zA-Z0-9]+$" | sort -u | LC_ALL=C xargs -I '%' find . -type f -name "*%" -exec du -ch {} + -exec echo % \; | egrep "^\.[a-zA-Z0-9]+$|total$" | uniq | paste - -

Source: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/457241

Linux is not Windows. It never was and it never will be, neither is any other operating system. The community around Linux is helpful, the ecosystem is vibrant and it’s free. If you want to pay for support, you can. If you don’t, there’s plenty of opportunity to do your own thing.

If you want it to be like Windows, you’re going to be very disappointed.

There are plenty of other names and I’d be surprised if the ones you used are the oldest or even the most popular.

I found that it didn’t all come off on the first attempt. I used a cool shower and washed it off. Soap didn’t seem to help, but if I recall, it was a few years ago, sorbolene did help wash it off.

Ultimately it’s likely still in your pores and causing grief. I was still pulling hairs off days later.

I didn’t need an immediate result, so not quite the perilous journey that you are experiencing.

Good luck.

It’s a package management system in the same way that Flatpack, yum, apt-get, snap and dozens of others are.

If you use MacOS and Linux, it’s not inconceivable that you might want to use the same package management system across both.

I’ve used it, didn’t particularly warm to it and didn’t install it on my most recent MacOS install after it shat all over itself on a previous installation.

I didn’t know that it was available for Linux. Not tempted to try.

I’m a firm believer in apt-get and failing that, Docker with side journeys into podman.

Also, the word you’re looking for is: “headless”, as in, “headless install”

The traditional way is to use a serial console from another device.

What is it specifically about Linux that doesn’t work for you?

I’m asking because I’ve been using it for almost a quarter of a century as my main desktop.

I was born in Australia, moved to the Netherlands as a child and as an an adult moved back to Australia where I am now.

I had no access to or use of a car until I was around 23. Up to that point I lived in a country where you could cycle for most of your daily routine, take the bus a couple of times a month and the train sporadically.

I moved to a country where cycling was for the poor and foolhardy, me for several years, and public transport was atrocious.

Public transport has marginally improved, my bicycle hasn’t been used for 20+ years and our household has one car.

Learning to drive is a process. It takes time. Just like learning to fly a plane takes time. If you have a need to drive, learning how is step one. In my country even when you pass your test, you are required to keep a logbook for at least two years and drive in a variety of conditions before you can actually upgrade your probationary licence.

Welcome to the community, we’re all still figuring out what to do with it :)

When you want to reconnect with the hobby, after looking after yourself, look for my callsign, VK6FLAB. I have produced a weekly article about the hobby for the past 13 years and there’s plenty of suggestions for things to do and learn.

Based on what you wrote, referencing burnout, I suspect that the issue isn’t that you need a hobby, it’s that you need to make time to do nothing at all.

Go for walks in nature, away from technology, walk alone or with friends, laugh, tell stories, share secrets and dreams.

The more you do, the more resilience builds up, the better you can cope with stress and work.

Only then might you find joy in a hobby. For me it was Amateur Radio, but it might be different for you.

Back propagation happens during the creation of the model, not after it’s deployed.

In my opinion, you’re solving the wrong problem with the wrong solution.

The user base for Canonical, Red Hat and SUSE is not the general public watching traditional TV to decide that they want to install Linux across their enterprise data centre, it’s ICT professionals who talk to other ICT professionals and read white papers and implementation guidelines, then pay installation, management and subscription fees to get ongoing support across their shiny new data centre.

Growing the user base with mums and dads is not something that Linux vendors are interested in, since it only costs money instead of generating an income stream.

Linux as a commodity comes from rolling out Android phones and tablets, from deploying embedded Linux on network routers, security cameras, in-car entertainment systems, set top boxes, etc.

The final hurdle for general desktop Linux is not resolved by getting more users through advertising, it’s through having a product that can be purchased. Chromebooks were promising, but missed the mark.

System76 are trying, but the scale is too small and Linux isn’t ready as a general computing platform yet. I say that having been a Linux user for 25 years.

If you don’t agree with that last statement, consider what all computer manufacturers would do at the drop of a hat if they thought it would be cheaper, they’d drop Windows like the hot mess it is.

Unfortunately, it’s still cheaper to pay the Microsoft tax because the associated support network is already in place for the general public.

That’s not there, yet, for Linux.

It remains to be seen if ever will be.

I don’t have a touchscreen, so I have no lived experience, but this should get you started at least:

https://wiki.debian.org/TabletAndTouchScreen

What about something novel, like installing actual Debian?

Start with reading Wikipedia articles.

This won’t answer all your questions, but it will give you paths to investigate.

Some articles will be written as if you already know the subject matter, but they should give you enough stuff to keep digging.

This won’t give you a degree in any of this, but it will give you plenty of puzzle pieces to build on as you see fit.

The 2FA codes are just images. You can save them where you like. No requirement to backup your 2FA “to the cloud”.

Just make sure that your storage is backed up.