Turns out the reply in my thread telling me the best way to combat not caring about Linux is to care about Linux was absolutely correct.
I picked up a laptop, installed Linux Mint Cinnamon, and I’m already obsessed. I haven’t had this much fun with a PC in a long time and it’s just a cheapo Dell Inspiron 3520.
I got tired of the advertisements for paid Ubuntu security updates in the terminal. That’s honestly the main thing. Overall, I like the idea of Mint being based on original Debian, rather than a derivitave of a derivative. I haven’t noticed any differences from the ‘normal’ Mint, other than what I mentioned about the terminal. I don’t think there’s any reason not to install the Debian edition, but the experience will be 99.9% the same either way.
Thank you! I think I’ll try the Debian Edition then.