Apparently my posts are getting flagged by the community. I’m not sure what rules I’m breaking exactly. I think this post might be quite helpful for other people with the same questions that I have. I’m just looking for an easy-to-use OS that doesn’t spy on me. I’m not sure what the harm is in that.
No, your posts aren’t being flagged, and you’re not doing anything wrong as far as I can tell. Not all telemetry is bad. Debian, Ubuntu, and Pop_OS have telemetry on an opt-in basis (as it should be), as far as I know. It’s enabled with dpkg-reconfigure popularity-contest and has to do with seeing which packages are installed, so the distro maintainers can prioritise packages/software for the future releases. It’s not to spy on you to see what you’re doing.
I personally really like System 76. Their Pop_OS does a great job at making sure the Nvidia drivers work with Steam games (I’ve had lots of issues trying to get this to work under Ubuntu, as Nvidia doesn’t ship 32-bit drivers, and most Windows games seem to be 32-bit), and my Oryx Pro laptop runs Haiku rather well, including Wi-Fi support.
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They were being flagged by the forum software, stating:
This new user tried to create multiple posts with links to the same domain. All posts from this user that include links should be reviewed.
In the spirit of this being a welcoming and supportive forum, I don’t want to discourage you from learning about computing and OSs. I would however avoid disappearing down a rabbit hole of paranoia.
I suggest you stop worrying about “The Man” accessing documents on your hard drive and put your effort into reducing the means by which advertisers and social media influence your thinking - much more valuable to those concerned - which means reducing the means to profile you. If you are serious about privacy, you would not be on the web. More realistically, you need to minimise cookies, tracking, and use of facebook (and other Zuckerberg’s kingdom) products, as well as google which you already identify. You will achieve a lot more by picking the right web browser and configuring it right than by changing your OS off the back of sensationalist reporting on Microsoft’s intentions. Use lawfully acquired software. Avoid dodgy websites and software. And get your IT news from reputable mainstream sources like Arstechnica, The Register, Verge, etc.
You can do all this on a (legitimately acquired) copy of windows with any ‘features’ that concern you turned off, or better still, a user-friendly linux distro. If you can run haiku for fun and education, then good for you.
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So I’m striking out with Debian. I got it installed, but I can’t get the wifi to work. I guess I’d have to put in a new wireless card under the keyboard. I could do that because I’ve done it before. But I have 0 confidence that once I do that, I’ll be able to run the correct Debian command to get Debian to recognize the driver and at that point I’ll be really annoyed.
SO, maybe I’ll try “fixing” Windows 10. A video on youtube that describes how to do this. For some reason this forum won’t let me post URL links. Not sure why.
https://www.youtube com/watch?v=nwkiU6GG-YU
I got around it by taking out the dot in dot com in the link above.
It seems your “trust level” was too low (it starts out at “new user” and that has a number of restrictions to prevent spammers.) I raised it a bit, you should be able to post links more freely now. Sorry about that.
Thanks waddlesplash! Much appreciated.
My recommendation would be to find Windows 10 LTSC (Windows 10 with all the crap ripped out), I got it downloaded at home and am gonna install it soon, the newest version available in 2019 and I’ll see if it has support for my hardware (A basic AMD Ryzen HP business PC).
Although if you really want a Linux distribution, my best recommendations to you would be the KDE version of Fedora and Linux Mint, I’ve also heard good things about PCLinuxOS as it’s based off Mandrake, I’d recommend giving all of them a try, I don’t really like Arch distros or Pop!_OS so I didn’t recommend any of them, neither do I really spend any time on them.
Not saying you have to listen to me or that you shouldn’t use any Arch distros, I just don’t recommend any for a user like you since many Arch distros like to completely melt down after a couple updates which is ironic considering that most people who use Arch barely keep the same install for a week to keep ricing.
Linux Mint offers you a way to install the driver for your network card if you have internet access so it can download it from it’s repositories which is how most distros should handle unsupported hardware like that but for some reason most refuse to, some even saying that it’s the users fault for purchasing “proprietary hardware” 
I reached out to System76 and they said the following:
Thank you for contacting us! We do not include Ubuntu’s telemetry programs with Pop!_OS. Please let me know if you have any questions!
This was my question:
Hello,
We were having a discussion on the following forum thread about POP!_os. Apparently in Ubuntu it was found that telemetry programs had been added to the OS. We were wondering if POP!_os may have removed the telemetry programs, or if those programs still remain in this distro. This is a link to the thread:
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Thanks Bob. What’s the story with Windows 10 LTSC? I’ve never heard of it before. Does it have the phone homing functionality ripped out? Is there other spyware on it? Is it different than the amelioriation of Win10?
What don’t you like about Pop_OS? I haven’t tried it, but was considering playing around with it. I had problems with Ubuntu many years ago. Everything seemed like a hassle to do. If you wanted to get any small program to work, it turned into a project of endless command line research. Is Pop_Os similar in that respect?
Personally, I think Mr Gates himself is all right, it’s just Microsoft that’s the problem here 
Also, in my experience, Pop_OS is decent. Generally, it seems like what most people don’t like is GNOME 3 (the default desktop environment in both Pop_OS and Ubuntu).
Do not forget during his active years he showed all signs of being a sociopath.
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Windows 10 LTSC is like any version of Windows, except it releases more infrequently but is supported for longer (hence the LTSC stands for Long Term Support Channel).
LTSC’s got EVERYTHING ripped out, no Cortana, no Store, no UWP “apps” period, just like windows 2000/7 
, I can confirm that all normal everyday programs like Winamp, Steam, Google Chrome, and VLC all work perfectly fine. It is based off of Windows 10 1809 so expect the UI to be more consistent and expect the overall system to be faster, it also unlocks some workstation features such as disabling all energy saving features and completeing the OOBE without a Microsoft account, and yes you still get Windows updates along with automatic driver installation which in my opinion is handy, especially for HIDs and video drivers. This probably won’t matter to you but some newer games might not run correctly and of course no Microsoft Store apps will run.
Where to get it is a question you’ll probably ask, all I can say is cast sail upon the seven seas and look for the keywords “windows 10 ltsc 2019 gen2 sep 2021” on duckduckgo, any other questions you have about that just email me ps3gaming128@gmail.com
I don’t like Pop_OS! because of GNOME, if they had used KDE Plasma instead I would’ve been a bigger fan, I do respect their use of the Ubuntu base and the nVidia driver being pre-included which is one headache less.
And with the putting in endless commands for one simple thing to work, I feel your pain. Linux is just like that because a bunch of guys NEED to do everything in the terminal for “customization”, while all that does it put off normal users coming from Mac or Windows, that’s part of the reason I have such respect for Haiku, necessity on the CLI is kept relatively low while doing basic tasks like installing applications or formatting USB drives (which it shouldn’t even be involved in in the first place!).
So Windows 285,714?
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Not to sidetrack the conversation, but I would have to agree. Scratching the surface brings some disturbing things to light, but I won’t venture further down that rabbit hole on this thread. Suffice it to say that he’s not the man we’re lead to believe he is, IMHO.
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This sounds tempting. I wonder if someone was to compare Win10 Ameliorated to WinLTSC what the differences would be.
Wasnt that clear in the ‘90s already?
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