Hello! I’m Ernie, and I’m in my mid 70s. I’ve been using PCs since my first (and only) store-bought desktop (an IBM-compatible, with an 8088 CPU, 640MB RAM, a 100MB MFM hard drive, and a 14-inch EVGA CRT display). In the late 1990s, I discovered GNU/Linux, and watched as it grew into the modern OS it has become today. My first successful GNU/Linux installation was Mandrake, and the only problem I had with it was getting the Network adapter to work (easily resolved from Windows 95 on the Mandrake forum). After Mandrake/Mandriva stopped development, I’ve tried many distributions based on RedHat/Fedora, Debian/Ubuntu, Arch, and several independents. They all had something to offer, but none of them met all my wants/needs, until I found Garuda-KDE-Lite and Garuda-xfce. I have an older laptop PC that’ll never meet the Windows 11 system requirements, so when Windows 10 reaches EOL, it’ll become a GNU/Linux-only box, running Garuda-xfce. I dual-boot Windows 11 with Garuda-KDE-Lite on my desktop and primary laptop PCs, at least until I see what MSFT does with the next major upgrade. Who knows, I could become a GNU/Linux-only user if MSFT continues on their current path (Nuff-said 
).
I assemble all my desktop PCs from components, and I’d do the same with laptops, if there were cases available at a cost similar to what I pay for my desktop cases, but since that’s not the case, I try to get the best laptop I can afford, so it’ll last as long as possible. Including the one I inherited from my wife when she passed away, I’ve owned three laptops since the late 1990s.
If all this doesn’t tell you enough about who I am, I’m a tinkerer, experimenter (I call my experiment’s adventures), and desktop PC assembler.
Ernie