Libb

Thx for the info, I will look at that.

Issue with these updates is they happen “behind” and may need a reboot ; this is the only moment I found Debian to misbehave, decide to reboot & I get it when I see the machine updating some component before rebooting again

I don’t think I have that many reboots but I should also say that I will turn off my computer every time I’m not in front of it, which happens multiple times a day. You know, save power and stuff like that. It just boot so quickly it’s not an issue.

I think gnome is perfect in that context also, the lack of Menu is just one hit on the Meta key away, which, if you trim down the install to their exact need will be accessible, confortable.

For me, with Cinnamon and with Xfce, the only real issue was that I had to spend some time tweaking (and searching online) how to make the desktop behave exactly like I wanted it to. But since the OP will be installing it for them, they won’t even have to bother. Which is great.

If I was to suggest anything to the OP, which seems to know much more than I ever will about Linux, it would be to set up an automated backup of their home folder on an external drive (I would go SSD, because I would not fear bumping it or even dropping it), so they will not lose anything even if some serious shit was to ever happen (this is not at all based on my own personal experience as a beginner that may have done some stupid mistakes. No, not I ;)

As a 50-something non-geek that searched for a zero issue distro himself, I can tell you I settled on… Debian (and I love it!) on my desktop and, on my laptop, it’s Mint (which I like a lot too).

I tried and kept Mint because, unlike Debian and a few other Distros I tested, Mint was able to connect to my Airpods out of the box. Like I told you, I’m not really the most extreme geek ;)

The funny thing is that, as much as I was happy with Debian/Xfce, I also quickly learned to appreciate almost everything else with Mint/cinnamon and how it… just works (coming from a 35+ years Mac user). It’s like they made it for ‘mere’ users like me.

Debian and Mint share many things, but the two I appreciate the most on a day to day base (beside the utmost stability and snappiness, even more obvious on Debian as far as I’m concerned) is

• the lack of too frequent updates. There a bit more on Mint, but even there, it’s not a bother.
• The easiness to make everything larger, texts, menus, and cursor. I’m getting old and I don’t have a good eyesight like I had in my 20s ;)

Hope this can help.

Does it have problems? I mean, some may prefer other distros to Ubuntu or may not like some stuff that come with Ubuntu, that doesn’t mean Ubuntu has any issue ;)

I don’t like bananas, no issue at all with bananas. I prefer Debian (on which is based Ubuntu) and I prefer Mint (based on… ubuntu) because they suit me much better, that’s all. At least for me. edit: one thing I don’t like for example are snaps, me not liking them does not mean they’re necessarily bad.

Yes, I could have mentioned it too. It’s such a neat feature to have.

There are probably other things worth mentioning. And then a few others that have become a real pain under macOS, imho. For example, the new settings app has morphed into a Windows-like mess ;)

The problem of unintuitiveness is sadly very common in Free software, but it’s getting better… in a few spaces anyway.

It is getting better and even if it was not, I would still be ok with it: I may have been slow but I learned to favor my privacy/freedom over comfort ;)

That said, I know from talking with people around me (and from myself) that it can be a huge obstacle, no matter if they’re older like I am or much younger people. If it doesn’t just works, it plain sucks.

Thx for the suggestion ;)

• Prepare for a shock, I miss… Apple Notes.
  Like, really. Imho it’s a great note-taking app that is also performing really well even on large number of notes, that also natively syncs between the Mac and iOS, with full-encryption. It’s also an app that, well, does not expect its user to become an engineer and/or a dev unlike some certain others text editors out there ;)
• The other one basic app I do miss is Apple Photos.
  Like with Notes, I miss its simplicity while still including those very few more advanced features an amateur and very occasional photographer like myself seldom needed access to. Sure, there are excellent Libre alternatives, much more powerful and more complete, but they are all also much more clunky and complex to use which make it so that I use them a lot less than I used to use Apple Photos.
• Pixelmator Pro, for the even fewer more advanced photo edits I need. Here too, we have Libre alternatives but I have yet to find a one that is as intuitive to use as Pixelmator is.
• Affinity Designer. Inkscape is on its way to replace Designer for me, that’s one thing.
• My spell checker/dictionaries/grammatical guides, for French and English: Antidote.
  It used to run offline (no Internet required) on Linux, on Mac and Windows, and I happily paid for its license to be able to do so. But the latest version has dropped its support for Linux, unless one is willing to use the coud version, which I’m not.

All those apps are very different but they share one thing: they are not complex and unintuitive apps (I reckon it’s at this point I should get flamed to death, so be it).

I mean, even the most ‘complex’ apps I mentioned (like Antidote or, say, Affinity Designer) most users should be able to start using them quick (not master them, but start using them) because they’re not that complex and not that different. Mmm, I’m not an expert UI designer, it’s difficult to explain my feelings around that notion: many things are familiar if not similar between those apps, heck some are even so simple that there is no such thing as a ‘save’ button. I know it’s also very much a question of education and of acquired habits, but still this matters a lot to me and probably to other people like me. I’m getting old (and I’m not in good health) and I want to spend as little as possible of the time I have left learning new apps, to tweak them, or search for workarounds just so I could do what I’ve known how to do for many decades already. If I was to summarize what I failed to say: I switched to Linux not because I’m interested in learning new apps or in changing my desktop look (it’s really cool, I just don’t care much). I switched because I worry about the lightning fast erosion of our privacy in this digital world. It’s the ideology that attracted me to GNU/Linux. I have no major issues using apps under macOS/iOS, I only have major issues with Apple (and MS, and Google, and Facebook, Twitter, and so many other corporations) acting like assholes willing to destroy our societies and even the world itself so they can make a few dollars more during the next quarter. F. that, that’s my motivation to use G/L ;)

Also, thx for reading to that point without burning me (you will find a box of matches in the second drawer over there, you know where to find me) ;)

Then, I would do as I suggested: either install Windows +Office in a VM on your PC, or find a dirt cheap used one with its windows license, do a clean reinstallation of Windows (to be safe) and then only use it when you need to run Office.

Sometimes, it’s not worth the time to try to find workarounds.

Now I really have to use MS Office applications for my school. Libreoffice is good but not completely compatible

Indeed it is not. It all depends the tools you have to use and your level of expectations. But you still may want to some research to see if there is no simple fix available?

How do you guys manage to open MS files appropriately?

I don’t try to ‘manage’.

I mean, if it’s work-related (aka with a deadline and clients waiting for me to deliver) and if I need full compatibility or a very specific set of Office tools and have no alternatives, I simply use a Windows PC with Office installed on it. I would only use it for that purpose, though, as I don’t want Windows to get their dirty hands on my files, but I would use it.

BTW, there is no need to spend a fortune on that machine/Windows key. Office will run fine on older hardware that can be purchased for dirt cheap used and that Often comes with a Windows license. Maybe you PC has its won Windows license you can still use.

Also, since you’re a student, your school should provide you with an Office sub or something like that, or they should not be allowed to require you to use it.

One other thing you may want to do is explain your teacher the issues you and maybe other students are facing by requiring you to use tools that are not relying on open standards. Maybe also suggest alternatives if you know some?

I don’t care much about Neofetch and flatpak, but how would I run my scripts without a shell?

I reckon that would make me switch back to Mac exclusively ;)

What desktop do you favour and why? Explain your thoughts.

Xfce & Cinnamon.

If I had to pick between KDE or Gnome, I would go KDE without any hesitation as I quite like it whereas I’m not really a fan of Gnome. Gnome UI is OK I guess, it’s just the way they want to decide for everything I am not a fan of (After 35+ years using Apple, I did not switch to let anyone else decide for me ;). If I don’t use KDE it’s mostly because it requires too much work to “tone it down” and make it behave like I want my DE to. Out of the box, there is too much features I have to turn off and configure, features that are also spread between too many (and not all of them… obvious) menus/settings. What’s great with KDE is that it’s at all possible to configure all that, it’s amazing. It’s just too much for me. Be it XFCE (on Debian on my desktop) or Cinnamon (on Mint on the laptop) I barely need to change anything to have them do what I wish.

So, to summarize I would say it’s my untamed laziness that dictates my choice of a DE :p

It’s also the reason why I do not use one of those tiling WM I know exist and I know, as a user spending my time with my fingers on the keyboard, I would love to use in place of the standard floating windows. Alas, having them correctly configured and running, and then having to relearn decades old habits, would require a time and an energy I have no desire to spend. So, I don’t. Still, I understand why some people like them so much ;)

edit: clarifications

is this really that bad?

As someone who slightly customize his Linux DE, I would say that the real but potential issue when using some non-official theming (or very niche ones) is that one does indeed risk having issues after a major system update, thing breaking off or just plain not working anymore. It’s no 100% certain, but the risk is real. And that is something that, on a work machine at least, is never an option (the machine is supposed to be available and work in a predictable and reliable manner, hence why I’m so madly in love with Debian plus it’s so well optimized :)). On a personal machine? Well, that’s up to anyone to decide what their priorities are.

Luckily one is not required to use extreme theming. Personally, I limit myself to whatever is provided with my version of Linux in order to change font size, colors/theme, wallpaper, cursor appearance and so on. So, everything is easier to see for my old eyes.

It works very well and since it’s part of the distribution I know it will not break after an update. The downside is that it’s often much more limited than what some other dude may have done somewhere on their own machine and then decided to share online. I don’t mind it ;)

90% of those are nvidia related.

I’m not a Fedora user (Debian and Mint are my go to) but I don’t have a similar impression. Also, my own NVIDIA GPU has always worked OOB (even without installing its proprietary drivers, it just works better after installing them) and still is, but it’s also considered old being a 970.

Imho, a simpler advice would be along the line of what you mentioned already. Something like: don’t rush for the latest/greatest hardware. Often, new stuff will lack support.

2. no theming. no icons, no fonts, no plymouth screens, nada. as few extensions/plugins as you can, run it as close to stock as possible.

I agree with the idea of not wasting time but configuring the theme/look (which is part of the OOB experience, on Mint and Debian at least) can be essential to work in decent conditions.

As a matter of fact, theming is one of the technical reasons why I switched to Linux from Mac. The ability to have the text as large as I wanted it to be: getting older, one slowly realizes that small thin light-greyish designer cherished fonts lose a lot of their appeal in favor of those non-fancy but larger and bolder dark fonts that are more easy to read :p

So, I would object that theming can be a very legit, like 100% legit part of the process of turning a Linux machine into a usable working machine one will be able to work on for hours (like tweaking the keyboard layout would be for anyone, like me, writing in more than one language). And that is not even mentioning people with disabilities.

3. don’t dual/triple/whatever boot.

Unless one has too, sure. Try running any recent edition of Photoshop in Wine and do real paid work…

My own solution was to keep a dedicated machine for anything like that: Photoshop and video. Note that for video one may decide to let go of FCP or Premiere and switch to DaVinci Resolve, instead.

6. separate your system stuff from your applications as much as possible. purge all user-facing apps, like firefox and media players and such from the system’s package manager (apt or dnf) and reinstall them from flatpak

Why would that be a good idea?

I mean, I do my best to avoid all those third-party installer (like Flatpak) because they are not as well integrated to the system as the native installer is (in my case it is ‘apt’), and because they also waste much more disk space for the reason that, like you said:

the apps include everything they need to work,

Which, sometimes/often, means a real lot of extra stuff.

the setup is easy to maintain and recreate

That’s the exact reason why I use the native installer and not those third-party ones. That and the faultless integration with the system (menus, themes and stuff like that).

And in the odd case I would have to reinstall Linux (an even stranger need on a work machine, since that machine I would not tweak it beyond what I deem necessary for me to be able to, well, work on it and therefore it would be rock stable), even in that case I would need to reinstall it, I find it so quick to reinstall all my apps by typing a single line: “sudo apt install app1 app2 app3 app9999”, no matter how many apps.

I am keeping such a list in a text file, I update every time I start using a new app, just in case one of those days I truly am forced to reinstall my system. So, I know it would only be a matter to copy-paste said command line in a new shell. Not pretty but real easy and quick ;)

Flatpak (…) upgrades are better (no reboots necessary)

Once again, I’m not a Fedora user but does Fedora really need to reboot after updating a bunch of apps? I have hard time imagining that.

Sorry if my comments sounds critical, it’s not my intention. But while I was reading your post I was very surprised how affirmative you were on certain decisions/choices and how much my own personal experience was different.

greybeards dunking on you because you’re not a “real” linuxer?

And if you’re wondering, nope, I am not one of those ‘real user’ either even though my beard would be grey, if not plain white now… if I had one. I come from 35+ years (happily) using Apple hardware and software for work and for personal stuff ;)

Edit: clarifications.

To use it as your daily driver and (learn to) deal with whatever issues and question you may face? That’s how I did it ;)

Took my first steps last night, I flashed a USB stick with Mint Cinnamon and gave it a spin.

Happily using Mint myself, welcome onboard ;)

+1 to replace TM with BTW (and to remove the version numbers, too) :p

The rest of that blog post summaries with a lot more technical knowledge than I will probably ever have the reason why I chose not to go with Tuxedo when I switched to a Linux laptop, after 35 years being an Apple user.

Back then, I had no idea about upstream, sharing of source code or those tech stuff mentioned in the blog post. I’m no dev, I am barely interested in my computer as a 50+ user that was looking for a laptop I could fix/upgrade (I decided I was done with Apple the day I realized all their machines were no more fixable/upgrdable), a machine I would truly and fully own.

Since I was interested in two of Tuxedo’s machines but not at all in their own version of Linux, I started digging around their website to find more info about using their laptops and drivers/apps with any other distro and I ended up with more confusion and questions than I had to begin with. Once again, that’s coming from a non-expert user, no doubt someone else would have had better results, but still not the best experience.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure Tuxedo makes a nice OS that does its job well, it’s just that I did not care about it. I already knew which distro I wanted to use and it was not theirs.

So, since I could not understand enough I gave up on their laptop altogether and simply purchased a used PC laptop I knew would be working fine with Linux and installed my distro of choice on it. So far, I have zero regrets even though I would have liked to buy one of those Tuxedo machines with their great/bright screen ;)

I’ve seen lmde mentioned on Mint website but if I recall correctly they also presented it like a somewhat experimental version?

• Debian + Xfce on the desktop, because it (mostly, see below) just works, it’s snappy, reliable, and I don’t need my apps being constantly updated (I have very simple needs and use cases)
• Mint + Cinnamon on the laptop, because it’s still debian-based and because unlike Debian, Mint was able to connect my AirPods out of the box and I use them a lot when on the laptop… I also quickly learned to appreciate Cinnamon, I must say.

edit: typos

Imho, the best way to help a beginner should have happened many years before they put their hands on any Linux distro. It should have happened when they were still a small child, at school. In the way they were taught how to… learn and how to get better… aka, by expecting difficulties and by expecting to fail, often.

Failing should be expected as a beginner learning anything new. Like, say, we all learned to walk as toddlers. It was not by being told we walked perfectly but by falling on our diapered butt. Failing at outing one foot in front of the other and falling, over and over again.

That sounds obvious but, to my old eyes at the very least, it also sounds almost like an heresy when compared to what I see kids being taught nowadays. That things should be frictionless and that nobody should fail at anything, ever. That’s such a poor choice that doesn’t prepare them much. Well, imho.

When I switched (from 35+ years being an Apple user) to Linux, it was frustrating.

Even when where things went smooth, it could still be frustrating and it often was. If only, because it required me to change 35 years old habits. And when it wasn’t going smooth, even when I was using the best docs and guides, at times it could be incredibly and utterly frustrating, when not completely maddening. Either nothing on my machine was ever exactly like described in the doc, or the app version was different and some setting had changed, or my issue was a somewhat different, or the solution simply did not work, or I missed a tiny detail or a word somewhere in the guide. Whatever. Frustration was a constant.

That’s what people should be taught to expect and to be fine with. And not just with Linux, btw ;)