I usually use [K]ubuntu because I always try to install Debian first, but it ships with kernels so outdated that it rarely “just works” on the not-particularly-weird hardware I throw at it. That’s understandable when it’s missing drivers for my AMD 9070 XT GPU on launch day, but not so much when it’s missing drivers for the Intel AX101 wifi chipset that got released 3.5 years before. (I’ve also experienced weird installation failures with Debian related to the partitioning and/or bootloader, but I don’t remember the details of those right now. Point is, Ubuntu is – unfortunately – more reliable to install without tweaking or troubleshooting, in my experience.)

By sheer coincidence, I just made an install image yesterday and will be switching soon

I was just thinking about swapping from Mint to Debian the other day actually…

There’s an opening for a position you’re interested in, so you fill one of these long “everything is in your CV, but you need to retype on our formulary again” registrations.

A week later, they contact you via email. A very enthusiastic person, signing by their own name and no automated HR shenanigans claims to have enjoyed what they saw and you’re through to the next step. There’s some corporate “we are an amazing workplace for excepcional people” fluff, but nothing terrible, so let’s proceed.

You now have a week to type and send a document that is got nothing to do with the position or your technical skills. You need to type a biography, you need to describe how you were in high school, were you social? You need to show proof of your high school grades, then college, you need to give a biographical memoir of your life. But sure, it’s Canonical right, great for your career so you proceed.

So then a technical interview comes up. You have a time limit to fill it out, but the questions won’t be actually deep enough to test your skills - they would just veto somebody with zero idea of what’s going on, so it becomes tedious. A child with an AI Chatbot can probably score enough.

So then you move on to an IQ test, with baffling things such as tests of reaction time (if I ever needed fast reaction times in my field of study, ring the bell because a zombie apocalypse just ruptured our office building).

You’re tired of the bs, but they email you three times in a row telling you about the deadlines for completion. Now somebody wants to speak with you, and guess what, they haven’t checked your CV, or your biography, or your results from the tests, so get used to explaining everything again.

You’ll have quite a few meetings like this, always moving up to the “higher ups” that are equally unaware of who you are, until you reach a VP. And then they put you on hold… so hope things work out, because they actually can leave you in hold forever, answer that the position is actually no longer available, or finally hire you. They have KPIs that incentivize having “candidates being evaluated” which means keeping you on limbo at the end of the process is a great result on their dashboards. Oh, and don’t trust the “oh we loved you, you’re in, let’s sign next week” because the probability of not signing is still high.