For whatever reason, many of the editors mentioned here never worked for me … like OpenShot, ShotCut or PiTiVi were really unstable the last time I tried (might be a distro or DE thing). Also I found it hard to cut precisely when they worked. Lightworks, Da Vinci, Cinelerra, I had a hard time getting them to run. Maybe that changed in the meantime.

I ultimately stuck with Kdenlive, which is stable enough and allows for reasonably precise cutting.

Yes, and not just that … like, making sure to keep the cursor away from the images all the time because hovering over an image immediately plays some trailer including audio.

Generally, playing media elements without explicit triggers by the user is annoying, but this is the worst.

Like, who thought this was a good idea?

Hmm good point!

That’s not mutually exclusive with the author’s argument, though.

if a computer vendor offers multiple distributions to choose from, the problem of choice remains.

And if the vendor only offers one option, which one should it be? And how can a user verify that it’s a “good” option?