I use Trisquel because it is recommended by FSF, is based on Ubuntu and I like Mate environment.

Reddit has a big community. It's about networking effect. That's why so hard to leave big platforms, because you can migrate to FOSS alternatives, but maybe most of things/people you follow don't have accounts there.

Ubuntu (because I have seen it on laptops in shops), Debian (because I found out that Ubuntu is based on Debian, is a community distro instead of a company distro), OpenSuse (I wanted to try something different to apt, it looked different), Zorin (because I loved the custom desktop environments), Mint (because a software I needed didn't work on Zorin, and because Cinnamon DE was very friendly), Trisquel (because it's 100%, recommended by FSF). I also tested other distros in VM's (Steam, Guix System, Pure OS, Dragora, Dynebolic, Alpine, Slackware and that's all I remember). A really beautiful journey!

There must be foss alternatives to every proprietary software. Big thanks to GNU and Linus Torvalds that joined their forces and created GNU/Linux!

Trisquel, Pure OS, Mint.

Newer versions of VirtualBox (from 4.2 on) depend on the non-free open watcom compiler. If you want a 100% free VM software, QEMU-KVM is the solution.

I use Linux-libre kernel, 5.15.0-139-generic.

If it's true, great story. He preferred to use his money to help existing people with existing needs instead of creating new useless needs.

Lawrence Anton is a good one.

I would recommend Trisquel. It's 100% free, recommended by FSF, based on Ubuntu, MATE environment, but there is also a KDE version, everything works okay.

2 things got me comfortable on command line: 1) A great cheat sheet (one from Ubuntu: https://ubuntu.com/download/server/thank-you); 2) Practice all the commands from the cheat list regularly. Last page is something for Pro version, but first 2 pages are great for a begginer. There is a typo at a command (or it was in a past cheat sheet): "Sudo change " instead of "sudo chage ". It helped me most to get comfortable with terminal. Enjoy!

Great magazine, thanks for posting!