[riskneutral]

This brings back memories for me, but I don't know if they are "great." I have memories of being in high school and downloading Linux binaries and HOWTOs over a dial-up modem, messing around with Debian on the family computer. So much of my youth spent (wasted?) on this. I wish I had spent more time making friends and playing sports, or learning something more fundamental like math or programming. I don't even work in the tech industry.

[herewulf]

Not squandered at all because it's not too late to learn something like programming, for example, and knowledge of Debian will help you get started. Linux is a great platform for programming. Languages, libraries, IDEs/editors are only an `apt-get` (or what have you) away. It's so powerful, even Microsoft had to come up with WSL to try to remain relevant to developers.

[MonaroVXR]

So does Windows have Chocolatey and Windows package manager.

[ASalazarMX]

Eh. I played football as a kid for who knows how many hours, and never became a professional player. It isn't a waste if you enjoyed and learned something from it.