Not exactly sure when I started using it, but it was before the year 2000. so obviously very much a majority of its lifespan. The early versions back in the day were very fragile. During installation you had to answer every question correctly, and it seemed for most if you answered something wrong, the install would crash and you'd have to start over.

It's come a very long way since then and everything is easy enough for anyone to install and use.

So glad to have not needed windows for that entire time. Always favored the underdog and seeing what Bill Gates has become has affirmed the decision to go linux. There's no excuse any more for anyone to stay with Windows. Or at least very few excuses.

What is the best anti-virus for Linux?

What is the best browser for Linux?

Does Linux have a system to clean the machine of stray bits? I use Windows Disk Cleaner several times a day.

I suppose I would use Linux Mint's free version.

Thanks in advance.

Linux offers ClamAV for anti-virus tasks. It's open source and free. Though viruses are generally far more common affecting windows systems.

I don't use any "disk cleaner". I had to look that up. Sometimes disk space can fill up on a partition -- one I have called /boot is smaller than it should be, but running standard linux commands cleans that up. System temporary files are usually in the /tmp folder and could be deleted manually on occasion if needed, but I never need to. I also do run into disk space issues with my work applications but just have to deal with that as the maker of the software that is generating too much stuff going onto the disk. But generally, as an ordinary user of linux, disk space is not a problem.

Brave is my primary browser for it's anti-ad / popup ability. Youtube's are commercial free with it.

But I also use firefox for sites that need popups to run properly. I also use Chrome.

I suppose I would use Linux Mint's free version.

Linux itself is free so distributions would only be not free if proprietary software was included, or something else was billable like shipping of disks.

Linux Mint Cinnamon is what I've been using for years for desktop use. It works great. For VPS systems, Debian is a good choice.

Thanks. I am not a pro so I will stick with Mint when I change.