I found out that xubuntu spams users including me, which to me is a no go.
I’m looking for a linux based ad free distro that lets me work with libreoffice, vlc, tbb, transmission, okular, pdfarranger, hexchat, gimp and ocr.
I’m going to use it to edit text, watch movies, download multimedia, chat and edit audio with audacity.
it’s not going to be a server and I’d like to work with the terminal as much as possible. At the same time, I’m a newbie.
just go stock debian xfce, keep it simple.
It’s what my 70 year old mother is perfectly happy with for several years since I told her to drop lubuntu.
install flatpack +flathub f you want even more app convenience.
MX > stock
Would you mind elaborating?
I’m aware that MX works on a lot of excellent GUI tools that are shipped with it. Which is great, but perhaps necessary; because they ship a systemd-less distro. Which, in the end, might cause more work than it should. (I’m aware this is in part caused by software just assuming that systemd is installed by default.) And while I think it’s a noble endeavour to maintain a relatively easy systemd-less distro, I don’t think it’s enough to justify a recommendation to a relatively new Linux user. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on this?
sysVinit is only the default, it comes with systemd as well.
The tools are useful no matter the init system, and make life easier, especially for beginners.
In essence MX is just Debian with tools to make desktop use easier.
TIL. Thank you!
This is the answer. Current stable Debian already has the latest release of Xfce (4.18); and for recent gui apps there’s flatpak.
For packages like syncthing you can enable official apt repos to get the latest versions.
Other packages for which the latest versions are desirable though the flatpak versions get a bit too finicky (like vim & emacs), you can compile from source. It’s not hard, even for a newbie.