Yeah! Did that once, many years back. took a couple weeks. Used a ripper program that went out on the net and got all the metadata, saved to a HD (now on the third one). Put the CDs in Logic cases (no-wear), recycled the jewelboxes.

Over time, started to drop album folders into VLC, save the playlists, at ur fingertips.

FLAC is good, but not necessary for background listening. At 192k the average song is ~ 5Mb. 100k x 5 = 0.5 TB.

With a long, varied list of select internet radio stations, you can choose what genre (or special weekly show) you want to listen to at the moment. Picked by people, not algorithms. Keep a playlist of the stations you like best, startup your player (like VLC) with the list, and pick the one you’re in the mood for.

Or you could just collect mp3s locally for choosier days, dump a bunch of them into VLC, listen to them in album or random order. In either case, at no cost.

If you’ve not dipped into William Gibson (Neuromancer) and several trilogies since), I’ve enjoyed all that I’ve gotten to so far. (Wanna ‘re-read’ the ‘Bridge Series’ in audiobook.)

(I’m also a fan of Stephenson, Dan Simmons, Charles Stross, and that ilk.)

One of the rare examples of sci-fi mixed with a skillfully unfolded mystery. Even when you know ‘the answer’, there are plenty of ‘how did they do that’ film-making mysteries.

I forgot to mention his entirely ‘I, Robot’, VG 2004 film … maybe because robots don’t don’t seem so science-fictionish these days…

Hard to define ‘hard’, a few more I liked: (no ranking)

• The Time Machine (both the Pal and the Wells films; quite different)

• Dark City (1998, Pryas)

• Forbidden Planet (1956, Wilcox)

• The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, Wise)

• Fifth Element (hilarious, Besson, 1997)

• Alien (Scott, 1979)

• 13th Floor (Rusnak, 1999)

• Stargate (1994, Emerich)

• Steamboy (2004, Otomo)

Movies made from famed series I’d REALLY LIKE to see:

• Ringworld (Niven, a crime noone’s DARED to try).

• Some setting of Riverworld. (Farmer)

• ANY of Neal Stephenson’s SF books, esp. Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, Diamond Age, Anathem.

(Not even the BBC? I mean, who expected Doctor Who to get THIS far?!)

SPOILERS in the both the following:

This interesting 28m video goes into the book in some detail (great images as well)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2XXkauk0eU

A description at Wired

https://www.wired.com/2010/11/1101em-forster-machine-stops/

Good point. Messages sent, images taken, and ‘things happen’ in cars.

I think the last time I installed Mint (21.2) it DID create a swapfile. Don’t use it, so commented that out in /ETC/FSTAB.

When I started with Linux, I was happy to learn that I didn’t need a bunch of separate partitions, and have installed all-in-one (except for boot of course!) since. Whatever works fine for you (-and- is easiest) is the right way! (What you’re doing was once common practice, and serves just as well. No disadvantage in staying with the familiar.)

After I got up to 8GB memory, stopped using swap … easier on the hard drive -and- the SSD. (I move most data to the HD … including TimeShift … except what I use regularly.)

I use Mint as well; for me this keeps things as simple as possible. When I install a new OS version (always with the same XFCE DE) I do put THAT on a new partition (rather than try the upgrade route and risk damaging my daily driver) using the same UserName. A new Home is created within the install partition (does nothing but hold the User folder.)

To keep from having to reconfig -almost everthing- in the new OS all over again I evolved a system. First I verify that the new install boots properly, I then use a Live USB to copy the old User .config file (and the apps and their support folders I keep in user) to the new User folder. Saves hours of reconfiguring most things. The new up-to-date OS mostly resembles and works like the old one … without the upgrade risks.

And a LOT risky