Going back to Linux full-time after many years

I've been using PCs since 1998. Around 2000 I started with PCLOS. Because they had the friendliest user forum for noobs. Also back then PCLOS was like the Mint of today. The easiest distro for noobs. I had to buy an external modem to get dialup. And TexStar the creator personally held my hand to get the modem configured.

Back then laptops were outrageously expensive. So I built a desktop. I had removable drawers for the hard drives that I used to clone back & forth. Because I would destroy my W98se installs. I created a PCLOS live CD. I removed both HDD. Booted to PCLOS. I started laughing like crazy because I was using my PC without a HDD! I was gobstruck.

Fast forward to around the present day. I can't remember what year I started using Linux full-time. I'm old & my memory is terrible. I think I lasted around a year then went back to Windows. And the reason I went backwards was so stupid it's shocking. It was because a fast Windows surfing session for me was 1hr-1.5hrs. Where as in Linux it was only 20minutes. I went back to Windows because Linux was too EASY!

Anyways W7 was rock solid for me. After a Vista nightmare I went back to W7. Stayed on W7 till 2023. Then jumped to W11. Since W7 I think I borked 2-3 W installs. That was until W11 25H2. What a POS.

In the last 5 weeks three W11 installs were borked. I blame M$ & 25H2. I know when a bork is my fault. These were not.

I got a new used ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 4 16GB 6th Gen i7 6600 2016. Installed Mint Cinnamon for a few days. It was clunky & froze a couple on the ancient hardware.

I then installed Debian LXQT 13.6. Wow Debian is much easier than 15 years ago. LOL. Everything is snappy except Zoom. My hardware won't run the Zoom app. But Zoom worked ok in a browser. I disabled a few unnecessary auto start services now Zoom & everything runs well.

I have one other primary laptop to install Linux.

I hope I don't go backwards to Windows.