The original interview is no longer available, but here are references.

Microsoft CEO and incontinent over-stater of facts Steve Ballmer said that “Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches,” during a commercial spot masquerading as a interview with the Chicago Sun-Times on June 1, 2001.

Ballmer was trying to articulate his concern, whether real or imagined, that limited recourse to the GNU GPL requires that all software be made open source.

“The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source,” Ballmer explained to an excessively credulous, un-named Sun-Times reporter who, predictably, neglected to question this bold assertion.

https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/24/top_10_steve_ballmer_quotes_from_microsoft_history/

“Ballmer: I may have called Linux a cancer but now I love it” https://www.zdnet.com/article/ballmer-i-may-have-called-linux-a-cancer-but-now-i-love-it/

“Former Microsoft CEO Ballmer does about-face on Linux technology” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-ballmer-linux-idUSKCN0WC2RA/

Have you ensured that your setup will pass email authentication processes?

It has been a long time since email from random hosts is accepted for forwarding or delivery. This Wikipedia may help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_authentication

Perhaps these links will help https://rss.feedspot.com/uk_news_rss_feeds/ https://news.sky.com/info/rss https://www.reutersagency.com/en/reutersbest/reuters-best-rss-feeds/

The BBC News RSS feeds seem to be at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10628494 The page content seems to be old but the feed contents looks up to date.

There is another piece in their library that may be more appropriate “AI Took My Job”

https://app.suno.ai/song/14572e0f-a446-4625-90ff-3676a790a886/

[EDIT - fixed missing words]

I would look for a printer that supports Web Services for Devices (WSD) or Airscan (eSCL). These protocol allows you setup a scanner without installing a driver.

Here are a couple of starting points for sane-airscan. I discovered it long after I had installed the drivers for my all-in-one.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SANE#Sharing_your_scanner_over_a_network

https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/jammy/man5/sane-airscan.5.html

https://github.com/alexpevzner/sane-airscan

The Tweaks application has a switch to enable maximize buttons on windows https://itsfoss.com/gnome-minimize-button/

Gnome has workspaces. I currently 3 workspaces open. I regularly have four or more open. https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/shell-workspaces.html.en

Go to https://rpilocator.com/ and filter by your “region” and check for yourself. Most models seems to be available. The Rapsberry Pi 5 is available for pre-order from a number of suppliers.

I have pre-ordered one for delivery in October. If you look at https://rpilocator.com/ you will find various models in stock at the official price. The Raspberry Pi clearly isn’t the tool for you

YMMV, but here are some reasons

• Some people prefer to use Linux.
• Some software runs better on Linux than Windows or Mac (e.g. Docker runs natively on Linux but on Windows and Mac the Docker desktop creates a Linux VM to run Docker on).
• You have a portable, local development environment without Virtual Machines.

I have a laptop that belongs to my employer and a personal Linux laptop. It is quicker to use the Linux machine than to work out if I can now install WSL 2 or find a Linux instance to do some Linux work.

From the Windows Community

Does Windows 11 allow Windows 95 compatible computer games? … It really depends on the game, you might get some working, some might not. It is really case by case basis unfortunately.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/does-windows-11-allow-windows-95-computer-games/31ddfde0-7474-4d67-949d-ee5eab694aa9

It appears that people may have to use virtual machines to run some Windows 95 software https://www.groovypost.com/howto/run-old-apps-on-windows-11/ The article doesn’t mention using HyperV only 3rd party software.

I prefer Linux simply but it isn’t my tribe.

Took a couple of minutes to find the information above

The official docs for Toon Boom Harmony 22 seem to have a page on how to install under Linux (RHEL or CentOS 6 or 7).

https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-22/advanced/installation/basic/linux/about-basic-installation-linux.html https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony-22/advanced/installation/basic/linux/install-on-linux.html

You may get it working under Mint but it won’t be supported.

You may have to look at a virtual machine or just put up with Windows because you need this software.

These may help you to understand what Secure Boot is.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/oem-secure-boot

https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot

How much do you want to spend?

If you go for a Raspberry Pi have a look at Terrapi cases as well the obvious Argon ones.

Another option would be a Zimbaboard. It is more expensive but it has dual SATA connector (you need to buy a Y cable with the Zimbaboard) and there are 3D print designs to create a single unit, e.g. https://www.printables.com/model/224057-zimaboard-dual-hdd-stand.

I’m not sure about PoE and a NAS. Will a PoE HAT or similar provide enough power for the board and the drives?

Perhaps this page in Mint documentation may help https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/burn.html#how-to-make-a-bootable-usb-stick

The following video is more advanced but covers Ventoy which lets you have a bootable disk that you can copy ISO files onto. You will then have an USB with multiple distributions that you can pick and choose between at boot time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10L8aCY3VBs

Firewall - While this tutorial is Ubuntu 16.04 it should work current versions of Ubuntu https://www.linuxbabe.com/desktop-linux/getting-started-gufw-ubuntu-16-04 It should work for other distributions once you change the package manager.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software) I just searched for the “samba computer” and this was the first link.

See if you can find some introductory videos that are suitable for you on YouVideo or elsewhere that are suitable for you to work out if you are ready to set up your first home server.

If you just need some storage you could just get a “cheap” USB storage spinning rust external hard drive and move the data that you don’t need day to day onto the drive. At a later date you get a Raspberry Pi or second hand small PC and use the PC as a server with the same drive attached.

This is what the Microsoft system requirements page for Windows 11 says

Windows 11 Pro for personal use and Windows 11 Home require internet connectivity and a Microsoft account during initial device set-up.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-11-specifications

I guess you were building machines with a Windows Enterprise license. This would explain why you had the option to setup an offline account.

Steps to setup a local account on Windows 11 Home https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account

These are updates that will come through the repo. See the release note that is referenced by phoronix.

Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 12 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old “bookworm” media. After installation, packages can be upgraded to the current versions using an up-to-date Debian mirror.

https://www.debian.org/News/2023/20230722

OpenWRT support on GL.inet devices seems to be complex. The following is my understanding of the situation.

GL.inet have an OpenWRT fork on GitHub https://github.com/gl-inet/openwrt This is what is installed on GL.inet devices.

The OpenWRT developers in due course try to work out how to port mainline OpenWRT onto OpenWRT onto GL.inet devices.