Linux Mint I tried switching over to Linux for 15 years, dating back to 2003. Every distro I tried, dual-booted on my Windows machine ... always ran into some hinky bug or difficulty or limitation...
Linux Mint
I tried switching over to Linux for 15 years, dating back to 2003. Every distro I tried, dual-booted on my Windows machine ... always ran into some hinky bug or difficulty or limitation that forced me to go back to the Windows side.
Until Mint. That is the noob-friendly distro that finally got me to stick with Linux. I've been all-Linux all the time for 6 or 7 years now -- Pop_OS, Ubuntu, Debian, others, all are pretty good. But Mint had the easiest adjustment period for me.
In fairness, all Linux distros have gradually gotten more user-friendly over the years. Check out the "top 10" on Distrowatch for other ideas, skim-read the summaries of each to see which one sounds like your flavor.
(4) Libre Office is the default stand-alone Office Suite these days ... pretty good after a learning curve, although I still feel like the Spreadsheet app is clunky and unintuitive.
(6) What's the point? If you're interested in trying an OS for an hour or two, that's fine, but beyond that, unless you have extreme portability requirements, it's mostly just disadvantages.
(7) There are always good "the top 10 things to do right after installing BlanketyBlank Linux" blogs out there ... pick one for your distro and go with it.
(8) Stay away from the RedHat/Fedora/CentOS branch of Linux for now. Not certain, but it looks like the company RedHat is causing a user meltdown like Twitter and Reddit just recently did.
Also putting my vote in for Linux Mint. I'm running Mint 21.1 Cinnamon as my desktop right now and have been for years since transitioning away from Windows. We are now years past the point where...
Also putting my vote in for Linux Mint.
I'm running Mint 21.1 Cinnamon as my desktop right now and have been for years since transitioning away from Windows. We are now years past the point where we run into things we can't do in Linux. Personally for office I use Google Docs and the related tools, but Libre Office is fine. Games? Lutris is my go-to but there are other solutions as well.
Very good on the user-friendly aspect, easy transition from Windows, and a good support forum.
For #6: I advise against this for your main desktop/laptop. It will be slower and more subject to loss compared to installing on the internal HD/SSD. This is fine to do as a carry-around tech drive, but not (in my opinion) for your main computer environment.
For #7: I always install VLC, Vivaldi Browser, Lutris (Windows game manager), Deluge (my choice for torrent manager) and GIMP (image editing). There's a bunch of others but those are specific use case things. Then run updates from your update manager.
ditto for linux mint. I had to buy a pcie wifi card for my desktop to get internet on any flavor of linux but it was worth it to turn my win10-mint dualboot into a mint-win10 dualboot. My old...
ditto for linux mint.
I had to buy a pcie wifi card for my desktop to get internet on any flavor of linux but it was worth it to turn my win10-mint dualboot into a mint-win10 dualboot. My old linksys usb wifi adapter died and my new one refused to work with linux so I was stuck with windows for a while.
So much less bull to deal with, so much less bloat and modern "features".
it has nice gui tools for most things, like the software manager, but also doesn't prevent you from doing things on the commandline and most things applicable to ubuntu will br applicable to mint too.
The setup is pretty streamlined compared to most others.
Afterwards I tried openSuse tumbleweed, Manjaro, and Nobara but in the end I settled back with mint.
I will say that Ubuntu is very well supported and very user-friendly, on its own. However, Mint is based on Ubuntu, so it gets all the same support as Ubuntu, plus it is designed specifically to...
I will say that Ubuntu is very well supported and very user-friendly, on its own.
However, Mint is based on Ubuntu, so it gets all the same support as Ubuntu, plus it is designed specifically to be easy to get used to for Windows users. Ubuntu, I think, has a higher learning curve specifically if you're coming over from Windows.
Or at least, that was true back in the Windows 7 & 8 Era ... I'm not sure how well that still applies now, coming from 10 or 11.
As an Ubuntu user I have some really big issues with it. Expecting surrounding their snaps and app packages (to run some of them you have to do a "no sandbox" command from the command line)....
As an Ubuntu user I have some really big issues with it. Expecting surrounding their snaps and app packages (to run some of them you have to do a "no sandbox" command from the command line).
Pop!OS won me over with it because they provide real restore points and their UI is way more touch friendly. I'd probably go for it over Ubuntu nowadays. Especially because pop sells laptops and have some reasonable revenue source.
I'm sure ubuntu is fine, but I avoid main ubuntu because of the snap store/packages which are disabled on linux mint. Feels like they're taking small steps corporatizing it and soft-locking it...
I'm sure ubuntu is fine, but I avoid main ubuntu because of the snap store/packages which are disabled on linux mint.
Feels like they're taking small steps corporatizing it and soft-locking it down by pushing snap everything, trying to start up the next MacOS with their own proprietary app store.
Or maybe I'm just crazy, but ubuntu seems to be starting to resemble what I went to Linux from windows 10 to escape from.
I'm sure snap is nice for new users at least though.
You're not crazy. It seems like every company (or at least every corporation) that tries to build a business on top of FOSS software slowly goes down this track. Maybe it's nefarious, maybe it's...
You're not crazy. It seems like every company (or at least every corporation) that tries to build a business on top of FOSS software slowly goes down this track. Maybe it's nefarious, maybe it's just an inevitable conflict between the ... hmm ... business models? (I can't even think of an all-encompassing term; maybe that's the problem right there).
But regardless, companies start out with big plans and hopes of building a for-profit business on open source, contributing to and supporting the community that gives them the foundation on which to build their business, and gradually, they "forget" their roots.
This is exactly what is happening with RedHat now, just further down the path.
A few years back there were several competing projects to develop a universal package/installer system that would work on any distro (a bit like exe/msi installers on Windows). Canonical (the...
what is snap?
A few years back there were several competing projects to develop a universal package/installer system that would work on any distro (a bit like exe/msi installers on Windows). Canonical (the commercial company behind Ubuntu) created one such system named Snap, and used their market dominance to sideline other (some say better) alternatives like Flatpack and AppImage.
Also confused about the "corporatizing" and proprietary app store, isn't Linux supposed to be open source?
It's just a hypothetical for now, but some users worry Canonical might try to lock down Ubuntu at some point in the future.
PopOS also had their own app store if I'm not mistaken. Does that mean POP neither is traditional open source/ linux really?
Lots of distros have their own app stores. Most of them are open source, but theres no authority ensuring every piece of every distro is open source. Developers are free to distribute closed source applications with their distros, and many will give you this choice during the installation process (typically device drivers and media codecs).
Personally, Linux Mint (Cinnamon Edition) is my favorite easy-to-use, noob-friendly Linux distro. It has a great balance between simplicity and customizability. It also comes with a lot of their...
Exemplary
Personally, Linux Mint (Cinnamon Edition) is my favorite easy-to-use, noob-friendly Linux distro. It has a great balance between simplicity and customizability. It also comes with a lot of their own programs, which also have a great balance between simplicity and usability/power. The UX kind of remind me of Windows 7, which I mean in a very positive way. It's very different than W7, but it does remind me of it.
Alternatively, ZorinOS is a great OS for beginners. It looks more modern than Mint and has some nice features, like being able to easily switch between different interfaces from other OS'es (like a classic Windows interface, a modern one and a "Gnome" one that looks like what you used on PopOS). Another feature that I like about Zorin is that it suggest Linux alternatives when you try to open a Windows executable. My interested-but-not-that-into-Linux friend actually really liked ZorinOS when I installed it on his laptop last year.
Both Mint and Zorin are based on Ubuntu.
See #1
Without going into to much overwhelming technical details: Each distro indeed uses their own and/or another distro's dowloadservers for software, which we call a "repository" or "repo". Traditionally you would use these by typing commands into a "terminal" (like command prompt and Powershell on Windows) to install/update your software. People still do that, but most distro's nowadays also offer a graphical interface to do the same thing, comparable to the app store on your phone.
Some software that is available on one distro may not be available on another, but generally you will find everything you need over there. If it's not there, there are almost always alternative ways to install the software.
The "problem" of having different software available on each distro is also getting less of a problem nowadays, as universal systems are getting more popular (and are often built into the graphical store). Most notably, Flatpak has become very popular, can be used on any distro and is also used as the main way to install third party software on systems like Valve's Steam Deck.
LibreOffice is the most powerful (Free and Open Source) Office Suite available right now on Linux. It is a descendant of OpenOffice, as many OpenOffice developers left OpenOffice for a new organisation when Apache bought OpenOffice. It may look a bit old fashioned and you might need to get used to it, but once you do it is a very good office suite. It's not Microsoft Office and does not try to be that, so don't expect it to be the same. it has certain features that MS Office doesn't have and vice versa. It is also VERY customizable and has multiple interfaces build-in (including multiple interfaces that imitate the interface if MS Office)
However, if you don't need all that functionality and want a more familiar interface, OnlyOffice is also worth checking out. It is a bit more basic, but if that's all you need it is a very good option. I've installed both on my own systems.
Both are available on Windows as well, so if you want you can give them both a spin on your current system.
There are multiple "Desktop Environments" or "DE's" that support widgets like that. A Desktop Environment is a bundle of basic software like a file manager, a text editor and the interface of the system, plus some more techinal stuff that I won't bother you with right now. When you're comparing distro's as a beginner, you're probably mostly focused on the DE as that is what you see. And yes, you can almost always install a different DE on your system than what it came with. But for a beginner, I would recommend choosing a distro that comes with an DE/interface that you like and stick with it for a while.
Widgets are probably most widely available on KDE Plasma, which is a popular DE that comes with the KDE Neon distro, among others. KDE Neon is also a good distro to start out with.
Cinnamon, which is the default DE of Linux Mint, also has widget support. There are not the same widgets as KDE Plasma's widgets and there are not as many, but I think there is still more than enough to enjoy. KDE Plasma takes customizability eve further than Cinnamon, but Cinnamon is a bit more simple and easy on the eyes in my personal opinion (which is one of the reasons why I mentioned how balanced Mint Cinnamon is).
You can run pretty much any distro from a USB stick. The option that is shown during installation is so you can try the system out: So you can see if you like the UX and if all your hardware works as intended. It does not allow you to save anything to the system tho, so everything you've changed is gone after a reboot. There are certainly ways to actually install Linux on a USB stick, allowing you to use it regularly on any PC, but the option that is shown during most installation processes is just for the test drive.
If you would install your OS on a USB stick, consider that the storage is way slower than an internal SSD and that that many writes of log-files and virtual memory can wear out the USb stick rather quickly. If you want to use a solution like this, I would recommend using an external SSD instead.
Depends really on what you're using it for! Most distro's come with almost everything I need, but I also always install Steam, Spotify and Lutris (altough I might replace Lutris with Bottles, as Lutris can feel a bit clunky IMO)
Additionally, for gaming you might want to install ProtonUp-qt to easily install/update Proton GE and Feral gamemode. Proton is Valve compatibility layer to run Windows Games on Steam. It is build into Steam itself.
Proton GE is a customized, bleeding edge version of Proton. It often gaves better performance than regular Proton, but sometimes the performance is worse and it is not as stable as the official Proton.
If a game runs poorly on you system using the regular Proton version, Proton GE is worth a try.
Feral's Gamemode is a tool that improves performance on most games, basically by telling your system to focus on that game while spending less resources on unnecessary things. To use it, type "gamemoderun %command%" into the launch options of a Steam game. MangoHUD and GOverlay is what I would recommend if you want an overlay with statistics or frame caps in your games (like MSI Afterburner + Rivatuner). MangoHUD is the (excelent) tool that does that work, GOverlay gives you an easy to understand interface to configure MangoHUD).
It might sound obvious, but Linux is not Windows. Linux is also not MacOS. It's going to be different than what you're used to and it is going to take a while to get used to. That will probably also mean that some frustrations might occur, because you don't know how to do things were easy for you to do on Windows. Give it some time and don't give up to quickly. Try to understand the way Linux works and after a while it will start to have more and more sense.
Also, A lot of tutorials online will contian commands to type into a terminal. You might wonder why they do this, even on websites for beginners. This is done because the terminal is way more consistent over time and over different systems. Most commands that I used in 2010 on an Ubuntu system will probably still work on my 2023 Fedora system. The DE doesn't matter in a terminal.
You certainly don't have to learn the terminal, as you can do pretty much all daily tasks in a graphical interface nowadays. If you don't want to learn it, that's totally fine: there is a lot of new things to learn with a new OS which can be overwhelming or you might just not be interested in it.
However, if you do learn the basics of the terminal, it can certainly help a lot with understanding the system, in addition to other benefits like being able to write scripts that automate an otherwise manual task. If you want to learn about the terminal and the basics of Linux in general (and more), I highly recommend this website: https://linuxjourney.com/.
I hope I haven't overwhelmed you with all this information! If you have any questions left, feel free to ask!
I've been rolling dual boots on most of my systems for about a year. I have even converted two to straight linux and I found a lot of very helpful stuff in your comment. Many thanks
I've been rolling dual boots on most of my systems for about a year. I have even converted two to straight linux and I found a lot of very helpful stuff in your comment. Many thanks
I'm sorry, I phrased that in a weird way. I meant that OP should install gamemode and protonup-qt. ProtonUp-qt is just for managing Proton GE in this case. However, I think gamemode is in the...
I'm sorry, I phrased that in a weird way. I meant that OP should install gamemode and protonup-qt. ProtonUp-qt is just for managing Proton GE in this case.
However, I think gamemode is in the repo's of most distro's and doesn't need a lot of updating once it is installed. The code on Github hasn't had any major changes in a long time. I would recommend to try installing it through your package manager and if it's not there, follow the instructions on thwir Github page
Ubuntu is the most noob friendly I've used. You'll get plenty of recommendations here though! See above Basically, yes. There are some differences but they are fundamentally pretty much the same,...
Ubuntu is the most noob friendly I've used. You'll get plenty of recommendations here though!
See above
Basically, yes. There are some differences but they are fundamentally pretty much the same, especially from an end-user's point of view. At some point down the line you might wish to delve into the tech but it doesn't matter right now.
No clue, sorry. I use Google Drive for all my Officing. Past experience suggests you can import other doc formats though it does depends on how complex your use of MS Office has been as to how well that works.
At a guess you probably want KDE (which is a Desktop Environment, not a distro). Most major distros will have a KDE version. The other major DE is Gnome and they've been moving away from widgets and spaceships to clean and fast interface for a while now.
It's SLOW. Also USB sticks are usually not designed for that sort of heavy IO so they will fail much faster and more often than SSDs. But it is portable. I wouldn't do it unless I moved around a lot and wanted "my" OS on every computer I used.
Vim. But you don't need to use vim. Trust me. You don't.
I would say don't be afraid to try things. Make sure you have copies of everything that matters on a disk not connected to your PC and just go a bit wild. Try a new distro every day or every week. It's hard to terminally break your OS (although you can) and even harder to damage your hardware. "Move fast and break things" is nonsense most of the time but it's a good approach here I would say.
Oh you are an nvim fan then? Or are you saying you don't need vim, too bloated. vi is all a new linux user needs? :P I also fully support your idea of just trying out distros. It is remarkable how...
Vim. But you don't need to use vim. Trust me. You don't.
Oh you are an nvim fan then? Or are you saying you don't need vim, too bloated. vi is all a new linux user needs? :P
I also fully support your idea of just trying out distros. It is remarkable how easy it is to install linux these days. Thinking back to slackware torment, its like magic were you just press a few buttons and poof linux.
I wouldn't recommend a new one every day though or even every week, give one a try till you get the hang of it and have a feel for how things are done. Then maybe try out something else. Or not, if the first one you tried felt comfortable go for it.
You need to spend enough time to know why you like or dislike that distro.
By the way, even if you do break things, the Linux Mint community currently maintains a tool called Timeshift. You can use it to daily/weekly/monthly/regularly keep backups of your entire system...
By the way, even if you do break things, the Linux Mint community currently maintains a tool called Timeshift. You can use it to daily/weekly/monthly/regularly keep backups of your entire system and/or user files on another disk (or the same disk in some cases) and restore your system no matter what. It works on most distros, even though the Mint community maintains it.
Timeshift! I love Timeshift! Everyone should use Timeshift but especially those who can't help themselves from messing around with things (or run a rolling distro :-P ).
Timeshift! I love Timeshift! Everyone should use Timeshift but especially those who can't help themselves from messing around with things (or run a rolling distro :-P ).
Plain old Ubuntu. Yes, Ubuntu is based off Debian but even though Debian has got much easier to use in recent years and it's my distro of choice and daily-driver - it's still not the best for a...
Plain old Ubuntu. Yes, Ubuntu is based off Debian but even though Debian has got much easier to use in recent years and it's my distro of choice and daily-driver - it's still not the best for a first-timer. The Ubuntu derivatives come in all sorts of flavours and while they might be good there are so many I couldn't possibly recommend one. Ubuntu is a pretty safe bet, and there's a LOT of support out there for people without much experience. The Ubuntu project has spent a lot of time trying to make their distro as easy to use as possible and they've done a pretty good job of it.
Yeah, vim was a joke, sorry. It's a somewhat esoteric (albeit very powerful) text editor. Most new users can't even change a single letter, or exit the program, without looking up a cheat sheet. You don't need a command-line text editor and if you do, there are easier ones.
100% this. I see loads of threads on recommending a linux distribution to someone, and yes, the arch wiki is great, yes NixOS is superb, yes. you can get a spin on fedora that does practically...
Ubuntu is a pretty safe bet, and there's a LOT of support out there for people without much experience. The Ubuntu project has spent a lot of time trying to make their distro as easy to use as possible and they've done a pretty good job of it.
100% this. I see loads of threads on recommending a linux distribution to someone, and yes, the arch wiki is great, yes NixOS is superb, yes. you can get a spin on fedora that does practically everything, but there is so much stuff out there about ubuntu derivatives that I would always recommend someone who is relatively new to linux starts with a Ubuntu based OS.
With that in mind, I don't think you can go far wrong with Pop!_OS. The guys at system76 have worked hard on stuff like drivers, the UI is clean and simple, it performs well, and it's based on Ubuntu so if you do have issues, you should be able to find some info online to help you out. (*)
If you want to try multiple distributions to give you a "feel for how they work" can I suggest you download isos for loads of them and dump them on a USB stick using Ventoy?
fwiw I've used both PopOS and Ubuntu on my gaming PC and I currently use PopOS on it and Ubuntu on my work computer -- they are extremely similar and neither is much harder to learn than the other...
fwiw I've used both PopOS and Ubuntu on my gaming PC and I currently use PopOS on it and Ubuntu on my work computer -- they are extremely similar and neither is much harder to learn than the other at this point. This might change in the future but for now you can safely choose either. PopOS has better driver handling for gaming, but you don't have a dedicated GPU so that's probably a non-issue. I found snaps really frustrating to deal with updating personally, so I definitely also prefer PopOS for not using them by default, but as a noob honestly you probably don't need to care about that. Pick either.
I've heard the recommendations for Mint but tbh I think Cinnamon (its default DE) is super ugly so I never tried it.
Piggybacking on this comment, if you like the Windows 7/8.1/10 UI, try Kubuntu. It's the same underlying system as regular Ubuntu, but uses KDE. I've been using Linux on and off for the past 20 or...
Piggybacking on this comment, if you like the Windows 7/8.1/10 UI, try Kubuntu. It's the same underlying system as regular Ubuntu, but uses KDE. I've been using Linux on and off for the past 20 or so years, and it's a great time right now for Linux users. There are Linux versions of a lot of stuff, even things like Steam and MS Edge (which I actually like better than Chrome or Firefox, don't kill me!), and for the most part they just work. The only kind of iffy thing is Libre Office vs MS Office. Libre does everything I need for my personal office stuff, but if you need to there is always the web version of Office.
I'm a big fan of Elementary OS for beginners, but it's not for everyone. The OS is very opinionated, and it's not very customisable. I've just done a fresh install of it as there a couple of...
I'm a big fan of Elementary OS for beginners, but it's not for everyone. The OS is very opinionated, and it's not very customisable. I've just done a fresh install of it as there a couple of things I want to try out on it.
See above. It's very usable, and they do prioritise turning accessibility features into just... features.
Typically most software available for Linux will run on just about any distro, maybe with a bit of work :P The eOS store isn't the best, as it prioritises applications which are designed first foremost for the OS, but it is also Flathub compatible, so you can get things through there. There is also the terminal, if you wish to install things that way (though that's not typically very beginner friendly)
LibreOffice is king as far as I'm concerned, but I don't use a lot of office suite software these days. Most of what I do use is collaborative and done via Google Docs, but every now and again I need to edit something locally, and I find LO is a huge amount better at importing MS formatted files than it used to be
If you're after desktop customisation (AKA "ricing"), conky is a great place to start. It's available everywhere, as far as I'm aware, and is very customisable. There are other solutions, like eww but that is considerably harder to configure. KDE is probably your best option for making customisations to the look and feel, so maybe something like Kubuntu would be a good shout.
It's slow, and you lack permanence. Some live ISOs don't let you install extra packages, and most won't let you save files. You're best off doing a local install (dual booting is a thing) or spinning up a VM.
I too like Vim, but you couldn't be further from beginner-friendly with that editor. For me, it's usually installing stuff like Firefox, Steam, Reaper, syncthing; and getting rid of anything that I won't be using. First steps after a fresh install are usually just making sure all of my files and such are in the right places, and my workflows are going to work (eg. do I have quick access to the relevant applications?). I like to change the keyboard shortcuts a lot as well, as I have strong muscle memory for Super+Return launching a terminal, and that's not super common elsewhere.
Play around, break things. Try installing unsupported/closed source software. Google extensively. It's incredibly likely that someone has had the same problems before, and the Linux community is (IMHO) the best at actually reporting back on how to fix things. Some forums can be a bit overfacing, and there is definitely a RTFM attitude in some places. But generally, folks are happy to help, if you know how to properly phrase a query.
8.1 Learn to use the terminal. It's not scary, and it's actually really good. I live in terminals these days, and while I still have plenty of graphical software, all of my package and file management happens in a terminal now. I just find it makes more sense and is quicker. Make liberal use of backups, and be as trigger happy as you like with sudo. You will learn more about how to use your OS and computer through using the terminal than you ever will from a GUI situation.
8.1.1 If you're not sure how to use a $command, you have a few good options: $command --help will give you a brief overview of the options you can use with it. man $command gives you the actual documentation for the command, and you'll be able to read in more detail about what each option does. Get used to using the docs provided by your system before going to the Internet. 9 times out of 10 the answer you need is already on your machine.
Above all, have fun. I've been using Linux for almost 15 years, and I love it. It comes with a great community of people, and there is an endless rabbit hole of discussion and argument to get involved in. If you stick at it, before long you too will have picked a side in the KDE vs. GNOME wars. You too might have very strong opinions about Snap vs. Flatpak. You will be at the front lines of the X vs. Wayland battleground, waving the flag for your side (which should be Wayland, let's be honest). The thing I love about Linux is not just the OS, but the culture associated with it. That's why I've stuck with it for so long, and if you're interested in finding like-minded people (and membership on Tildes suggests you are), you can do a lot worse than a bunch of penguins.
Haha. I was going to say the same thing. Back in the old days I was a SunOS/Solaris sysadmin. When you ssh’d in to a server you never knew if vi was installed so you learned ed fast. I still have...
Haha. I was going to say the same thing. Back in the old days I was a SunOS/Solaris sysadmin. When you ssh’d in to a server you never knew if vi was installed so you learned ed fast.
Haha, that's a great story! I've only played with ed for curiosity's sake... Never had the (distinct? dubious?) pleasure of editing files in prod with it. I do respect it a lot for being what it...
Haha, that's a great story! I've only played with ed for curiosity's sake... Never had the (distinct? dubious?) pleasure of editing files in prod with it.
I do respect it a lot for being what it was at the time. But vi must have felt like the future. I'm not good at Vim, per se, but I use it every day. The expressivity of the "grammar" is something I love.
There was a rule in the team that you never used crontab -e, which I never understood until I ran it on a machine without vi installed… that was my introduction to ed and I successfully wiped out...
There was a rule in the team that you never used crontab -e, which I never understood until I ran it on a machine without vi installed… that was my introduction to ed and I successfully wiped out roots crontab while mashing keys and swearing loudly.
I still crontab -l >> /tmp/crontab.$date before editing crontabs now, and this was over 20 years ago!
I found it surprising that many of the recommendations on #5 seemed to miss out the possibility of ricing and avoided this rabbit hole. My guess is due to the question asking for beginner-friendly...
I found it surprising that many of the recommendations on #5 seemed to miss out the possibility of ricing and avoided this rabbit hole. My guess is due to the question asking for beginner-friendly options but my interpretation on the 'amazing screenshots' was that they probably were beyond what a typical DE offers.
My advice to @loxiran would be to avoid ricing in general. You could certainly learn to customize your computer all the way to the background in the boot screen but this is a lot easier when you already know the general idea of things in general. My only advice would be echoing what others have said and learn along the way but that depends on your interest as well.
I won't go into too anymore details on the other questions since everyone else did a great job going over these but I second giving conky a try if you're interested in further customizing. However, be ready to code a bunch and browse through dotfiles (configuration files/scripts from other users) in order to get those amazing looking desktops.
I'd be interested to see some of these screenshots so we get an idea of what kind of setups you were looking at.
ps: A bit off topic but maybe we should start a ricing/dotfiles discussion. That was one of the few places I went to reddit for. I didn't see a section in the subscriptions nor found any topics after a quick search.
Go nuts, have fun! There are both text and video how-to material out there, as well as complete themes you cna download and import. /r/unixporn used to feature Conky heavily, but it's gone...
Go nuts, have fun! There are both text and video how-to material out there, as well as complete themes you cna download and import.
/r/unixporn used to feature Conky heavily, but it's gone private. You can browse it on archive.org, but that's a bit of a hassle.
Aside from the Ubuntu recommendation, you could also try Mint (which is based on Ubuntu, but tweaked for ease-of-use) or PopOS (which is the one I use). Same here. The general difference is the...
Exemplary
Aside from the Ubuntu recommendation, you could also try Mint (which is based on Ubuntu, but tweaked for ease-of-use) or PopOS (which is the one I use).
Same here.
The general difference is the format of the package files themselves. The main two varieties are .deb files (which are used by Debian-based distros, including Ubuntu, Mint, PopOS) and .rpm files (used by RedHat based distros). Some distros, like OpenSUSE and Arch use their own format. The biggest difference as an end user is how much the distribution keeps its packages up-to-date. Some distros use a "rolling" model where updated packages are released as they come out, while others generally bundle large changes into a single release every few months.
Another approach to addressing this issue is to use a newer type of application called a Flatpak where the executable program and all of its dependencies are bundled together. This means you can update an application separately from the base distribution. They were a little wonky at first, but they've gotten really good. I use Flatpak installed apps almost exclusively.
Libreoffice. It should be compatible with your Excel formulas.
I would suspect most of the amazing screenshots are from a KDE desktop environment. Many distros default to Gnome, which isn't as flexible. Personally, I find all the excessive personalization options kind of pain, but if you want something to tweak, you'd want to use a KDE-based spin of Mint. (If you aren't familiar with the term, a "spin" is a different version of the same distribution that is modified for a particular purpose. A spin might have a different desktop environment, or certain applications automatically included for something like gaming, scientific computing, multimedia production, etc.)
Running from a USB stick is really only useful for either sampling a particular distro, or for a rescue system. I wouldn't do this just for regular usage.
Most distros come with the useful stuff pre-installed (such as Libreoffice, Firefox, etc.). Maybe the only one I can think of offhand that might not be installed by default is VLC (it is like the Swiss Army Knife of video playing software. If VLC can't open it, the file is probably corrupt.)
I will echo the advice from @mat on this: try everything. You can run most distros from a live USB boot device, so just tinker with several of them for a few days. This is especially good for trying out different desktop environments... There is Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, Mate, LXDE, XFCE, Budgie, Enlightenment, and many others.
I second KDE. My specific plug is Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. It is stable. During the install go with the “Minimal install” option. This will save space and you can choose to install the applications you...
I second KDE. My specific plug is Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. It is stable. During the install go with the “Minimal install” option. This will save space and you can choose to install the applications you want after the OS install. Once you have Ubuntu installed, install KDE Plasma. Plasma is the minimal desktop version of KDE in terms of software installed at boot. KDE is closer to a windows desktop environment so it is easy to navigate. It looks good out of the box, but there is are also loads of options to customize it.
There are plenty of online communities (and YouTube) with support on how to get things done in Linux. Good luck.
An option to get the best of both worlds is KDE Neon. Based on Ubuntu, with the latest KDE software. It has been my go to for 3 years and has kept up really well. I find KDE Plasma do be one of...
An option to get the best of both worlds is KDE Neon. Based on Ubuntu, with the latest KDE software.
It has been my go to for 3 years and has kept up really well. I find KDE Plasma do be one of the best Desktop Environments to try out when giving Linux a go. Familiar, but very flexible and customizable.
I tried Arch running Xcfe, but could not get the OS to recognize my WiFi adapter. I tried for two days to no avail and went back to what I’m running now.
I tried Arch running Xcfe, but could not get the OS to recognize my WiFi adapter. I tried for two days to no avail and went back to what I’m running now.
I suspect your Pop! OS experience was a fluke to your particular hardware at the time and I would recommend it over Ubuntu and Mint just because it is very similar, but has some tweaks and better...
I suspect your Pop! OS experience was a fluke to your particular hardware at the time and I would recommend it over Ubuntu and Mint just because it is very similar, but has some tweaks and better defaults for a new user IMO. That said, your machine isn't super new or niche, so I suspect any recent popular general public focused distro (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, Manjaro, Arch) will work fine. I have tried dozens of distros over the years and all the recent experiences either go perfectly smoothly or I hit some wall almost immediately like you did, so if you try one and it doesn't work well, try another and I bet it will go fine. As far as Linux goes, I am currently using Arch, Pop! OS, and Debian and I like each for their use for me. I'd probably not recommend Arch for your first serious try as while it will likely be fine installing it, it is probably not ideal for your main OS without a learning curve.
Manjaro devs have done (or failed to do) a handful of weird things over the last few years that really make me question their competence. Regarding multiple OS's, "dual boot" is the term you're...
Manjaro devs have done (or failed to do) a handful of weird things over the last few years that really make me question their competence.
Regarding multiple OS's, "dual boot" is the term you're looking for and its fairly easy to do. Either you partition the hard drive and install the distros to separate partitions OR install it on different media. You mentioned booting off of USB... an external SSD over USB 3 or better would be just fine.
Pop does have that because their "Cosmic" WM is just a slight fork of Gnome and that feature is a modern Gnome thing. You can definitely run 2 or more distros, its easier than dual booting Linux...
Pop does have that because their "Cosmic" WM is just a slight fork of Gnome and that feature is a modern Gnome thing. You can definitely run 2 or more distros, its easier than dual booting Linux and Windows IMO. That being said, it might be unnecessary of those are your reasons and you could just make a different user with a different setup. If you just want a reason to try two different distros though, go for it.
I see you got a lot of in-depth replies about distro's already so I just wanted to add something. Since you speak about booting from USB am I correct in that you want to try a bit before you...
I see you got a lot of in-depth replies about distro's already so I just wanted to add something. Since you speak about booting from USB am I correct in that you want to try a bit before you commit?
If so download Virtualbox for free and try there! Much quicker and easier to test things out. After that you can even look into multi-booting so that you can switch back to windows if needed. (multiplayer games, Adobe stuff for example)
I recommend that you use Debian. Nowadays, Debian is much easier to install (as non-free firmware is included out of the box, so you should have no problems with specific hardware). I'd go as far...
I recommend that you use Debian. Nowadays, Debian is much easier to install (as non-free firmware is included out of the box, so you should have no problems with specific hardware). I'd go as far as say that it should be no different from installing one of the most mainstream distros, such as Linux Mint or Ubuntu.
The main advantage of Debian is, of course, its stability: you can be sure that your system and the most important things related to its desktop environment will work and continue to work for two or so years to come. Of course, that comes with a disadvantage: these components will not be updated in this meantime.
In my experience, that is a good thing. Updates on desktop environments can present some instability during the first few days until some corrections come along. Furthermore, I don't think it is needed to have new features (or changes in previous features) in your environment each couple of months. Debain is made in a way that secures that all packages presented in a release are compatible with other and work in harmony.
However, you may have the need to use newer, updated software. That could be a problem if you only used packaged Debian software... Fortunately, you can use flatpak to download and update pretty much everything nowadays, and it is even integrated in some desktop environments app hubs as to present a graphic interface to newer users. I would recommend looking into it.
For desktop environments, I use KDE and recommend it. When you say "cockpit of spaceships", you would probably be referring to the heavily-customized riced environments. These types of interfaces often are made (or modified) by the user himself, and they are implemented on window managers, which are a kind of much simpler type of graphic interface when compared to a desktop environment. At some point it becomes like a user-made desktop environment, which he himself chooses (and implements) how his interface behaves. This comes at the cost of, of course, implementing pretty much every single function himself (e. g. having to program that when you close your laptop lid, the screen turns off). On the other hand, implementing all these features in desktop environments would mostly likely require the usage of third-party scripts, widgets or plugins, that would probably present instability or incompatibility at some point.
KDE can be a heavily-customizable interface, if you want it, or a pretty straightforward one to use, if you don't. The software curated by the KDE team tends to be pretty well integrated within a desktop, even more so when they are all on compatible versions (which a Debian install would guarantee). Here below is a screenshot of my KDE on Debian 12, that's pretty much non-customized:
Until Debian 12, which was just released to stable less than a month ago, I couldn't easily connect my laptop with its nvidia optimus gpu to an external display, and nonfree firmware was not in...
Until Debian 12, which was just released to stable less than a month ago, I couldn't easily connect my laptop with its nvidia optimus gpu to an external display, and nonfree firmware was not in the default download. Now that they've fixed those issues though, Debian is a fine choice I think. I think it might still be less user-friendly than some other options like Linux Mint or Pop!_OS, neither of which I've actually tried, but idk it's pretty user-friendly now I think. Definitely agree on KDE over GNOME or w/e. I personally use MATE, but KDE is much prettier. I'm considering switching at some point.
I personally love Ubuntu Budgie (https://ubuntubudgie.org/). It matches the simplicity of OS' like Windows or iOS while having that clean aesthetic. Since it runs Ubuntu under the hood it's...
I personally love Ubuntu Budgie (https://ubuntubudgie.org/). It matches the simplicity of OS' like Windows or iOS while having that clean aesthetic. Since it runs Ubuntu under the hood it's stable, beginner-friendly and has a ton of software available for it. Highly recommended.
As far as I know that doesn't seem to be out of the box. There is Conky (https://linuxconfig.org/ubuntu-20-04-system-monitoring-with-conky-widgets) that I came across which basically does...
I think the screenshot is more a way of showing what is possible with their OS although I agree it can be somewhat misleading and open to suggestion whether that it comes like that out of the box.
A vote for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It's a stable rolling release (so you stay up to date with the latest software,) creates disk snapshots so you can roll back if anything goes wrong (uses brtfs...
A vote for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It's a stable rolling release (so you stay up to date with the latest software,) creates disk snapshots so you can roll back if anything goes wrong (uses brtfs under the hood). I've been using it at work for close to 2 years now with no issues.
Linux greenhorn here. Just switched from Fedora to Tumbleweed within the last week. Hop was spurred on a bit by the source code news recently with RHEL/Red Hat/IBM, but mostly because I hadn't...
A vote for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
Linux greenhorn here. Just switched from Fedora to Tumbleweed within the last week.
Hop was spurred on a bit by the source code news recently with RHEL/Red Hat/IBM, but mostly because I hadn't been using Fedora that long yet anyway and thought things like Snapper out-of-the-box sounded gutt—to be clear, the news doesn't really affect Fedora because it's upstream of RHEL, but it's really the principle of the matter.
Anyway, for what it's worth, my start with Tumbleweed has been a little bumpier than I expected (although I'm enjoying it so far).
I've got a running list of notes (e.g., tasks and issues to be aware of if I need to reinstall) that already dwarfs a similar list I started making for Fedora. The points are all minor, and mostly specific to my uses, but there's some general ones in there:
Tumbleweed keeps the root user active and even defaults the password to match your initial (admin) user pass during install. Fedora disables it now by default if I'm not mistaken. Not an issue per se, but it's a rabbit hole of reading if you want to inform yourself about root.
Related to above, a superficial search makes upgrading seem easy—just sudo zypper dup! But again, a bit of digging and you might see mention of running it only in a TTY to be safe, and also at a certain target level, etc. I was just reading about this, in fact, because I'm trying to determine if it's necessary to run zypper dup with the login shell invoked if not running it as root?
Have some font issues out of the box. I think it's mostly emoji fonts. I think installing the package in YaST should be good enough, though some config file might also need to be created/modified?
More restrictive firewall settings out of the box. Most common consequence of this I've come across is trouble installing printers.
Something about allowing vendor change with the packman repo and an edge case where it can compete with the official repos? I couldn't find an analogous issue with Fedora and COPR.
Unlike other distros with Live images, recommendation is to use a separate install-specific .iso, and not the Live .iso.
I'm having fun with it, but I thought it was worth a mention given OP's first point and also the similarity of my situation to OP's.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not arguing against the Tumbleweed recommend at all—in fact, I second it. Consequently, I should probably add some pros:
Sounds like KDE is the DE OP would use based on point five. And OpenSUSE is always described as an awesome KDE distro.
Fresh Fedora KDE install felt snappy. Tumbleweed (w/ KDE) feels even snappier somehow.
YaST is gutt. And the YaST2 installer letting you customize the patterns before installing? Even down to removing openSUSE branding? Chef's kiss.
Haven't had to use it yet, but Snapper OOTB sounds like it could come in really handy.
Running from a USB stick or CD is usually reserved for troubleshooting or a test drive of the linux distro. This is the default when you "press any key to boot from media" option you get. Pros:...
are there any real advantages/ disadvantages of running your OS from a USB-stick instead of locally on your >machine? I think POP was giving me that option back then if I'm not mistaken.
Running from a USB stick or CD is usually reserved for troubleshooting or a test drive of the linux distro. This is the default when you "press any key to boot from media" option you get.
Pros:
Can see if a distro will work with your hardware
No need to do full install for a test drive
Can try many different flavors of Linux easily (Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, etc)
Cons:
Much slower to boot/run than actual install
Typically won't save work or changes
There are ways to install Linux on a USB stick and run from it like it is on an internal HD where you can save your files, download apps, etc but from my personal experience the pains far outweigh the gains. Mainly it was so. much. slower. The other thing was I was unlucky enough to have 2 newer USB sticks die while trying. It may not be related but I had never had a USB stick die before or after, so 2 dying so close to each other while doing the same thing was deemed as sorcery and the cause of creating superstitions in my house. Realistically, HDs are do dirt cheap right now (refurb 3TB drives with warranties are under $40 on Amazon) that I would suggest buying another HD if you want to dual boot.
I've never used POP!OS but my newest "go to" version of Linux is Mint. It just works. I dabble in finding uses for older systems and I've never had a driver issue on any old POS system I've tossed it on in probably the last 25+ installs. Before that my choice was Ubuntu but Canonical made some choices that seemed skeevy and controversial that I disagreed with/didn't want to support. It was purely a personal reason on my part so if you don't care about such things then they are (or were last I knew) a pretty solid choice as well if you want it to "just work."
One of the wonderful things about the open source and linux communities is it is like walking into a Baskin-Robbins with unlimited samples after only having chocolate and vanilla (Windows and MS OFiice) ice cream all your life. You can sample butterscotch, rocky road, mint chocolate chip, etc (Ubuntu, Mint, LibreOffice, AbiWord, etc). Some software choices may be like chocolate brownie ice cream vs triple fudge brownie ice cream where the differences are ultimately small (they forked from the same source code). Sometimes you find out that you're not a fan of salted caramel ice cream and that's ok. If you don't like AbiWord, for example, then at least you only "paid" in the time it took to download it and try it.
Linux reminds me of the "wild west" days before computers had hard drives in all the best ways. Back around 1988, most malls would have a kiosk where you could buy floppy disks of software (things like Print Shop 1.0, Quicken 1.0 and 1000 different 1 person coded programs like "Bob's Allsoft 8-in-1 Suite", 25 pacman clones on a single floppy, etc) Every time you tried a new .EXE file it was a wonderful crap shoot of "how god awful/gloriously awesome will this be??"
Be adventurous, try different things, find your flavor of ice cream.
Some slightly different advice: if you aren't married to the idea of running Linux on your main computer and if you can afford it, I'd recommend buying a cheap server computer (nothing fancy, you...
Some slightly different advice: if you aren't married to the idea of running Linux on your main computer and if you can afford it, I'd recommend buying a cheap server computer (nothing fancy, you can get old office/school computers for <$50 or a raspberry pi for just as cheap).
I have an old HP EliteDesk that I got for cheap and I use it as a Debian server. I run it with no desktop environment and just SSH from my Windows PC whenever I want to do something Linux-y. This has helped me learn a lot about Linux and I'm a lot more comfortable working with the Linux terminal now. It also takes a lot of the risk out of switching to Linux since if you mess anything up, you can always just wipe the server and start fresh. You don't need to worry about messing up the OS on your daily driver.
If you can't afford a new computer or don't want to go to the trouble, you could also try setting up a cloud server. I've had success using Debian on AWS Lightsail. I think a little Lightsail server using the distro of your choice could be a good playground to try things out. It's relatively cheap too, 1 month free and $3.50/month after that for the lowest tier.
When I still daily drove a linux system (I'm now a macbook user) I loved Solus. I never found another distro that got the same combination of performance, fast boot times, up to date packages (or...
When I still daily drove a linux system (I'm now a macbook user) I loved Solus. I never found another distro that got the same combination of performance, fast boot times, up to date packages (or at least up to date packages I care about) and stability. In years of running it, I never ran into an issue that I couldn't solve on my own or with a few minutes spent reading the documentation. No other desktop distribution managed to do this for me. Anything based on Ubuntu or Arch always fell apart at some point. Last I heard, there were some major changes happening over there though - potentially rebasing the distro onto something else. I still think it is worth looking into though.
I used the Budgie edition of Solus - it had a nice balance of looks, performance and not being gnome. Never had any real issues with it and I ran it on all sorts of hardware from decade old...
I used the Budgie edition of Solus - it had a nice balance of looks, performance and not being gnome. Never had any real issues with it and I ran it on all sorts of hardware from decade old macbooks to multi-CPU servers.
Opensuse tumbleweed was a pleasant surprise. It and fedora will just work. You can pick KDE, or gnome which are your two giants in terms of desktop environments. Both fedora and Opensuse have been...
something that works mostly out of the box and is fairly beginner friendly.
Opensuse tumbleweed was a pleasant surprise. It and fedora will just work. You can pick KDE, or gnome which are your two giants in terms of desktop environments. Both fedora and Opensuse have been around for forever, they do all the tweaking for you, they offer very user friendly features such as snapshots so you can undo a mistake fairly easily or undelete something you got rid of.
My recommendation is gnome. It is a very mature DE and it is very laptop friendly. It's ease of use is very good.
KDE is highly configurable to your needs but it's also buggy. They like adding features and pushing the envelope before making something rock solid.
I assume the software available overall is pretty much the same though and the differences between the different "app stores" are just minor?
Not really. Each distro has different policies on software and there's a rolling distro versus a static distro. Some distros, like arch, offer the user bleeding edge, github level of packages. You're at the forefront of the internet.
Opensuse tumbleweed and fedora offer you what they believe to be the safest version of bleeding edge and in Opensuse's case they give you the ability to go beyond their safety into arch levels of bleeding edge. Manjaro dialed back the levels arch takes you to for a more user friendly experience but give you the ability to go off the beaten path.
Ubuntu and Debian have a different mentality. They play it really safe as they go for stability and usability first. Their packages are versions behind the front line and for good reason. You'll have a hard time getting the latest and greatest because that mentality goes against their philosophy.
So it depends on what you need. Most distros have a package manager that both has a gui and a cli. Opensuse has YAST and two different cli. Arch has packman but there's also the aur. It depends on your needs. Mostly, popular packages are available across distros, but you will find there aren't packages for some software and you'll have to build it on your own.
in the context of office suits like libre, open office etc, which one is recommended nowadays?
WPS Office is pretty much a clone of office and good out of the box for like 90% of what you'll need. More advanced stuff and you'll still need office.
Libre isn't bad. The features are there. In both cases you will need Windows exclusive fonts and that's the major step people forget and get frustrated with. The reasons your documents open funny in official Microsoft apps is because you're missing Windows only fonts.
It's gotten better I think and distros like Opensuse, Ubuntu, fedora get around this for you, but some distros don't. (totally don't just copy the fonts folder from a windows installation into Linux. Super duper don't not totally do that.)
back then I saw screenshots of some pretty amazing desktop designs with some sort of widgets, with all kind of info on desktop and sometimes it felt like looking at a cockpit of a spaceship of some sort
Loaded question. You're talking about "ricing" and...that's a whole topic. Each DE can be "riced" (made to look cool) in different ways than other DEs and there's no one size fits all. Gnome for example is very limited. You have to install extensions and themes and then configure them but a gnome rice will look different than a KDE rice, than a tiling window manager rice, than an xfce rice and so on. There's just too much information to post in this reply. It's a rabbit hole. Many of us in Linux land can help you but start by sharing a link to a rice you think is cool and then we can tell you what's happening and how it may or may not work for you.
Usability is not the ricers goal, it's prettyness. Also, don't install a distro and then try to rice. Think of what you want and then install the distro that will accommodate that.
are there any real advantages/ disadvantages of running your OS from a USB-stick instead of locally on your machine
You mean a live disk? I guess you can. Can't save anything though and it will be slow. Don't do this unless there's a specialized reason.
which programms would you consider "mandatory" for a fresh linux install and what would be the first "steps" you should do after a fresh install?
Loaded question. Start by figuring out what your needs are. We can narrow it down from there. My must haves are not your must haves.
One of my favorite sources of privacy oriented software recommendations, Privacy Guides, has a page on Linux. https://www.privacyguides.org/en/os/linux-overview/...
One of my favorite sources of privacy oriented software recommendations, Privacy Guides, has a page on Linux.
desktop Linux distributions are great if you want to:
Avoid telemetry that often comes with proprietary operating systems
Maintain software freedom
Have privacy focused systems such as Whonix or Tails
Our website generally uses the term “Linux” to describe desktop Linux distributions. Other operating systems which also use the Linux kernel such as ChromeOS, Android, and Qubes OS are not discussed here.
Linux distributions are commonly recommended for privacy protection and software freedom. If you don't already use Linux, below are some distributions we suggest trying out, as well as some general privacy and security improvement tips that are applicable to many Linux distributions.
Traditional Distributions
Fedora Workstation
openSUSE Tumbleweed
Arch Linux
Immutable Distributions
Fedora Silverblue
NixOS
Anonymity-Focused Distributions
Whonix
Tails
Security-focused Distributions
Qubes OS
They state the criteria they use to recommend the above are:
Our recommended operating systems:
Must be open-source.
Must receive regular software and Linux kernel updates.
Linux distributions must support Wayland.
Must support full-disk encryption during installation.
Must not freeze regular releases for more than 1 year. We do not recommend "Long Term Support" or "stable" distro releases for desktop usage.
Must support a wide variety of hardware.
Lots of people are saying Mint, Ubuntu, or Elementary, but I’ll be a slight contrarian here and say either Fedora, Nobara (which is an extremely popular flavor of Fedora made for gaming), or...
Lots of people are saying Mint, Ubuntu, or Elementary, but I’ll be a slight contrarian here and say either Fedora, Nobara (which is an extremely popular flavor of Fedora made for gaming), or Endeavor (Arch based). The main benefit these provide are newer software and better support for newer hardware.
Many say that you should stick to something “stable”. But at the end of the day, most popular distros are pretty damn stable already and they’ll do what you need them to do. More importantly, when there’s some little bug or a feature missing that you’re waiting for, you’ll get it soon after it hits. You get to actually watch your Linux desktop improve month to month rather than once or twice a year.
For the other questions:
It’s way slower to run off a a USB stick, don’t unless you need to.
The screenshots you saw were probably of tiling window managers that are controlled mostly with the keyboard alone. I don’t use one. They’re sick looking but with a bit of a learning curve.
Linux Mint
I tried switching over to Linux for 15 years, dating back to 2003. Every distro I tried, dual-booted on my Windows machine ... always ran into some hinky bug or difficulty or limitation that forced me to go back to the Windows side.
Until Mint. That is the noob-friendly distro that finally got me to stick with Linux. I've been all-Linux all the time for 6 or 7 years now -- Pop_OS, Ubuntu, Debian, others, all are pretty good. But Mint had the easiest adjustment period for me.
In fairness, all Linux distros have gradually gotten more user-friendly over the years. Check out the "top 10" on Distrowatch for other ideas, skim-read the summaries of each to see which one sounds like your flavor.
(4) Libre Office is the default stand-alone Office Suite these days ... pretty good after a learning curve, although I still feel like the Spreadsheet app is clunky and unintuitive.
(6) What's the point? If you're interested in trying an OS for an hour or two, that's fine, but beyond that, unless you have extreme portability requirements, it's mostly just disadvantages.
(7) There are always good "the top 10 things to do right after installing BlanketyBlank Linux" blogs out there ... pick one for your distro and go with it.
(8) Stay away from the RedHat/Fedora/CentOS branch of Linux for now. Not certain, but it looks like the company RedHat is causing a user meltdown like Twitter and Reddit just recently did.
You're right, I overgeneralized. Anything RedHat or below is dicey right now, but yeah, Fedora is still good. My mistake.
Also putting my vote in for Linux Mint.
I'm running Mint 21.1 Cinnamon as my desktop right now and have been for years since transitioning away from Windows. We are now years past the point where we run into things we can't do in Linux. Personally for office I use Google Docs and the related tools, but Libre Office is fine. Games? Lutris is my go-to but there are other solutions as well.
Very good on the user-friendly aspect, easy transition from Windows, and a good support forum.
For #6: I advise against this for your main desktop/laptop. It will be slower and more subject to loss compared to installing on the internal HD/SSD. This is fine to do as a carry-around tech drive, but not (in my opinion) for your main computer environment.
For #7: I always install VLC, Vivaldi Browser, Lutris (Windows game manager), Deluge (my choice for torrent manager) and GIMP (image editing). There's a bunch of others but those are specific use case things. Then run updates from your update manager.
ditto for linux mint.
I had to buy a pcie wifi card for my desktop to get internet on any flavor of linux but it was worth it to turn my win10-mint dualboot into a mint-win10 dualboot. My old linksys usb wifi adapter died and my new one refused to work with linux so I was stuck with windows for a while.
So much less bull to deal with, so much less bloat and modern "features".
it has nice gui tools for most things, like the software manager, but also doesn't prevent you from doing things on the commandline and most things applicable to ubuntu will br applicable to mint too.
The setup is pretty streamlined compared to most others.
Afterwards I tried openSuse tumbleweed, Manjaro, and Nobara but in the end I settled back with mint.
I will say that Ubuntu is very well supported and very user-friendly, on its own.
However, Mint is based on Ubuntu, so it gets all the same support as Ubuntu, plus it is designed specifically to be easy to get used to for Windows users. Ubuntu, I think, has a higher learning curve specifically if you're coming over from Windows.
Or at least, that was true back in the Windows 7 & 8 Era ... I'm not sure how well that still applies now, coming from 10 or 11.
As an Ubuntu user I have some really big issues with it. Expecting surrounding their snaps and app packages (to run some of them you have to do a "no sandbox" command from the command line).
Pop!OS won me over with it because they provide real restore points and their UI is way more touch friendly. I'd probably go for it over Ubuntu nowadays. Especially because pop sells laptops and have some reasonable revenue source.
I'm sure ubuntu is fine, but I avoid main ubuntu because of the snap store/packages which are disabled on linux mint.
Feels like they're taking small steps corporatizing it and soft-locking it down by pushing snap everything, trying to start up the next MacOS with their own proprietary app store.
Or maybe I'm just crazy, but ubuntu seems to be starting to resemble what I went to Linux from windows 10 to escape from.
I'm sure snap is nice for new users at least though.
You're not crazy. It seems like every company (or at least every corporation) that tries to build a business on top of FOSS software slowly goes down this track. Maybe it's nefarious, maybe it's just an inevitable conflict between the ... hmm ... business models? (I can't even think of an all-encompassing term; maybe that's the problem right there).
But regardless, companies start out with big plans and hopes of building a for-profit business on open source, contributing to and supporting the community that gives them the foundation on which to build their business, and gradually, they "forget" their roots.
This is exactly what is happening with RedHat now, just further down the path.
A few years back there were several competing projects to develop a universal package/installer system that would work on any distro (a bit like exe/msi installers on Windows). Canonical (the commercial company behind Ubuntu) created one such system named Snap, and used their market dominance to sideline other (some say better) alternatives like Flatpack and AppImage.
It's just a hypothetical for now, but some users worry Canonical might try to lock down Ubuntu at some point in the future.
Lots of distros have their own app stores. Most of them are open source, but theres no authority ensuring every piece of every distro is open source. Developers are free to distribute closed source applications with their distros, and many will give you this choice during the installation process (typically device drivers and media codecs).
Personally, Linux Mint (Cinnamon Edition) is my favorite easy-to-use, noob-friendly Linux distro. It has a great balance between simplicity and customizability. It also comes with a lot of their own programs, which also have a great balance between simplicity and usability/power. The UX kind of remind me of Windows 7, which I mean in a very positive way. It's very different than W7, but it does remind me of it.
Alternatively, ZorinOS is a great OS for beginners. It looks more modern than Mint and has some nice features, like being able to easily switch between different interfaces from other OS'es (like a classic Windows interface, a modern one and a "Gnome" one that looks like what you used on PopOS). Another feature that I like about Zorin is that it suggest Linux alternatives when you try to open a Windows executable. My interested-but-not-that-into-Linux friend actually really liked ZorinOS when I installed it on his laptop last year.
Both Mint and Zorin are based on Ubuntu.
See #1
Without going into to much overwhelming technical details: Each distro indeed uses their own and/or another distro's dowloadservers for software, which we call a "repository" or "repo". Traditionally you would use these by typing commands into a "terminal" (like command prompt and Powershell on Windows) to install/update your software. People still do that, but most distro's nowadays also offer a graphical interface to do the same thing, comparable to the app store on your phone.
Some software that is available on one distro may not be available on another, but generally you will find everything you need over there. If it's not there, there are almost always alternative ways to install the software.
The "problem" of having different software available on each distro is also getting less of a problem nowadays, as universal systems are getting more popular (and are often built into the graphical store). Most notably, Flatpak has become very popular, can be used on any distro and is also used as the main way to install third party software on systems like Valve's Steam Deck.
LibreOffice is the most powerful (Free and Open Source) Office Suite available right now on Linux. It is a descendant of OpenOffice, as many OpenOffice developers left OpenOffice for a new organisation when Apache bought OpenOffice. It may look a bit old fashioned and you might need to get used to it, but once you do it is a very good office suite. It's not Microsoft Office and does not try to be that, so don't expect it to be the same. it has certain features that MS Office doesn't have and vice versa. It is also VERY customizable and has multiple interfaces build-in (including multiple interfaces that imitate the interface if MS Office)
However, if you don't need all that functionality and want a more familiar interface, OnlyOffice is also worth checking out. It is a bit more basic, but if that's all you need it is a very good option. I've installed both on my own systems.
Both are available on Windows as well, so if you want you can give them both a spin on your current system.
There are multiple "Desktop Environments" or "DE's" that support widgets like that. A Desktop Environment is a bundle of basic software like a file manager, a text editor and the interface of the system, plus some more techinal stuff that I won't bother you with right now. When you're comparing distro's as a beginner, you're probably mostly focused on the DE as that is what you see. And yes, you can almost always install a different DE on your system than what it came with. But for a beginner, I would recommend choosing a distro that comes with an DE/interface that you like and stick with it for a while.
Widgets are probably most widely available on KDE Plasma, which is a popular DE that comes with the KDE Neon distro, among others. KDE Neon is also a good distro to start out with.
Cinnamon, which is the default DE of Linux Mint, also has widget support. There are not the same widgets as KDE Plasma's widgets and there are not as many, but I think there is still more than enough to enjoy. KDE Plasma takes customizability eve further than Cinnamon, but Cinnamon is a bit more simple and easy on the eyes in my personal opinion (which is one of the reasons why I mentioned how balanced Mint Cinnamon is).
You can run pretty much any distro from a USB stick. The option that is shown during installation is so you can try the system out: So you can see if you like the UX and if all your hardware works as intended. It does not allow you to save anything to the system tho, so everything you've changed is gone after a reboot. There are certainly ways to actually install Linux on a USB stick, allowing you to use it regularly on any PC, but the option that is shown during most installation processes is just for the test drive.
If you would install your OS on a USB stick, consider that the storage is way slower than an internal SSD and that that many writes of log-files and virtual memory can wear out the USb stick rather quickly. If you want to use a solution like this, I would recommend using an external SSD instead.
Depends really on what you're using it for! Most distro's come with almost everything I need, but I also always install Steam, Spotify and Lutris (altough I might replace Lutris with Bottles, as Lutris can feel a bit clunky IMO)
Additionally, for gaming you might want to install ProtonUp-qt to easily install/update Proton GE and Feral gamemode. Proton is Valve compatibility layer to run Windows Games on Steam. It is build into Steam itself.
Proton GE is a customized, bleeding edge version of Proton. It often gaves better performance than regular Proton, but sometimes the performance is worse and it is not as stable as the official Proton.
If a game runs poorly on you system using the regular Proton version, Proton GE is worth a try.
Feral's Gamemode is a tool that improves performance on most games, basically by telling your system to focus on that game while spending less resources on unnecessary things. To use it, type "gamemoderun %command%" into the launch options of a Steam game.
MangoHUD and GOverlay is what I would recommend if you want an overlay with statistics or frame caps in your games (like MSI Afterburner + Rivatuner). MangoHUD is the (excelent) tool that does that work, GOverlay gives you an easy to understand interface to configure MangoHUD).
It might sound obvious, but Linux is not Windows. Linux is also not MacOS. It's going to be different than what you're used to and it is going to take a while to get used to. That will probably also mean that some frustrations might occur, because you don't know how to do things were easy for you to do on Windows. Give it some time and don't give up to quickly. Try to understand the way Linux works and after a while it will start to have more and more sense.
Also, A lot of tutorials online will contian commands to type into a terminal. You might wonder why they do this, even on websites for beginners. This is done because the terminal is way more consistent over time and over different systems. Most commands that I used in 2010 on an Ubuntu system will probably still work on my 2023 Fedora system. The DE doesn't matter in a terminal.
You certainly don't have to learn the terminal, as you can do pretty much all daily tasks in a graphical interface nowadays. If you don't want to learn it, that's totally fine: there is a lot of new things to learn with a new OS which can be overwhelming or you might just not be interested in it.
However, if you do learn the basics of the terminal, it can certainly help a lot with understanding the system, in addition to other benefits like being able to write scripts that automate an otherwise manual task. If you want to learn about the terminal and the basics of Linux in general (and more), I highly recommend this website: https://linuxjourney.com/.
I hope I haven't overwhelmed you with all this information! If you have any questions left, feel free to ask!
I've been rolling dual boots on most of my systems for about a year. I have even converted two to straight linux and I found a lot of very helpful stuff in your comment. Many thanks
No problem! I'm glad that it has been useful to some people (:
I use protonup qt but where do you see feral gamemode for it?
It'd be nice if I could manage it through it as well.
I'm sorry, I phrased that in a weird way. I meant that OP should install gamemode and protonup-qt. ProtonUp-qt is just for managing Proton GE in this case.
However, I think gamemode is in the repo's of most distro's and doesn't need a lot of updating once it is installed. The code on Github hasn't had any major changes in a long time. I would recommend to try installing it through your package manager and if it's not there, follow the instructions on thwir Github page
Yup, I checked and it was already installed.
Thanks.
Do report back and let us know how you get on!
Oh you are an nvim fan then? Or are you saying you don't need vim, too bloated. vi is all a new linux user needs? :P
I also fully support your idea of just trying out distros. It is remarkable how easy it is to install linux these days. Thinking back to slackware torment, its like magic were you just press a few buttons and poof linux.
I wouldn't recommend a new one every day though or even every week, give one a try till you get the hang of it and have a feel for how things are done. Then maybe try out something else. Or not, if the first one you tried felt comfortable go for it.
You need to spend enough time to know why you like or dislike that distro.
By the way, even if you do break things, the Linux Mint community currently maintains a tool called Timeshift. You can use it to daily/weekly/monthly/regularly keep backups of your entire system and/or user files on another disk (or the same disk in some cases) and restore your system no matter what. It works on most distros, even though the Mint community maintains it.
Timeshift! I love Timeshift! Everyone should use Timeshift but especially those who can't help themselves from messing around with things (or run a rolling distro :-P ).
Plain old Ubuntu. Yes, Ubuntu is based off Debian but even though Debian has got much easier to use in recent years and it's my distro of choice and daily-driver - it's still not the best for a first-timer. The Ubuntu derivatives come in all sorts of flavours and while they might be good there are so many I couldn't possibly recommend one. Ubuntu is a pretty safe bet, and there's a LOT of support out there for people without much experience. The Ubuntu project has spent a lot of time trying to make their distro as easy to use as possible and they've done a pretty good job of it.
Yeah, vim was a joke, sorry. It's a somewhat esoteric (albeit very powerful) text editor. Most new users can't even change a single letter, or exit the program, without looking up a cheat sheet. You don't need a command-line text editor and if you do, there are easier ones.
100% this. I see loads of threads on recommending a linux distribution to someone, and yes, the arch wiki is great, yes NixOS is superb, yes. you can get a spin on fedora that does practically everything, but there is so much stuff out there about ubuntu derivatives that I would always recommend someone who is relatively new to linux starts with a Ubuntu based OS.
With that in mind, I don't think you can go far wrong with Pop!_OS. The guys at system76 have worked hard on stuff like drivers, the UI is clean and simple, it performs well, and it's based on Ubuntu so if you do have issues, you should be able to find some info online to help you out. (*)
If you want to try multiple distributions to give you a "feel for how they work" can I suggest you download isos for loads of them and dump them on a USB stick using Ventoy?
https://github.com/ventoy
You can choose which ISO to boot from, and use the Live ISO for a bit to get a feel for each.
(*) says the distro hopper who is running Nobara currently, which is Fedora based, but with SEL kicked to the curb in favour of AppArmor
fwiw I've used both PopOS and Ubuntu on my gaming PC and I currently use PopOS on it and Ubuntu on my work computer -- they are extremely similar and neither is much harder to learn than the other at this point. This might change in the future but for now you can safely choose either. PopOS has better driver handling for gaming, but you don't have a dedicated GPU so that's probably a non-issue. I found snaps really frustrating to deal with updating personally, so I definitely also prefer PopOS for not using them by default, but as a noob honestly you probably don't need to care about that. Pick either.
I've heard the recommendations for Mint but tbh I think Cinnamon (its default DE) is super ugly so I never tried it.
Piggybacking on this comment, if you like the Windows 7/8.1/10 UI, try Kubuntu. It's the same underlying system as regular Ubuntu, but uses KDE. I've been using Linux on and off for the past 20 or so years, and it's a great time right now for Linux users. There are Linux versions of a lot of stuff, even things like Steam and MS Edge (which I actually like better than Chrome or Firefox, don't kill me!), and for the most part they just work. The only kind of iffy thing is Libre Office vs MS Office. Libre does everything I need for my personal office stuff, but if you need to there is always the web version of Office.
8.1 Learn to use the terminal. It's not scary, and it's actually really good. I live in terminals these days, and while I still have plenty of graphical software, all of my package and file management happens in a terminal now. I just find it makes more sense and is quicker. Make liberal use of backups, and be as trigger happy as you like with sudo. You will learn more about how to use your OS and computer through using the terminal than you ever will from a GUI situation.
8.1.1 If you're not sure how to use a $command, you have a few good options:
$command --helpwill give you a brief overview of the options you can use with it.man $commandgives you the actual documentation for the command, and you'll be able to read in more detail about what each option does. Get used to using the docs provided by your system before going to the Internet. 9 times out of 10 the answer you need is already on your machine.Above all, have fun. I've been using Linux for almost 15 years, and I love it. It comes with a great community of people, and there is an endless rabbit hole of discussion and argument to get involved in. If you stick at it, before long you too will have picked a side in the KDE vs. GNOME wars. You too might have very strong opinions about Snap vs. Flatpak. You will be at the front lines of the X vs. Wayland battleground, waving the flag for your side (which should be Wayland, let's be honest). The thing I love about Linux is not just the OS, but the culture associated with it. That's why I've stuck with it for so long, and if you're interested in finding like-minded people (and membership on Tildes suggests you are), you can do a lot worse than a bunch of penguins.
I raise you
ed.Disclaimer: big fan of Vim, so take my opinion with a grain of salt OP
Haha. I was going to say the same thing. Back in the old days I was a SunOS/Solaris sysadmin. When you ssh’d in to a server you never knew if vi was installed so you learned ed fast.
I still have flashbacks…
Haha, that's a great story! I've only played with
edfor curiosity's sake... Never had the (distinct? dubious?) pleasure of editing files in prod with it.I do respect it a lot for being what it was at the time. But
vimust have felt like the future. I'm not good at Vim, per se, but I use it every day. The expressivity of the "grammar" is something I love.Edit: a few commands in case anyone wants to learn more about
ed: http://wiki.c2.com/?EdIsTheStandardTextEditorThere was a rule in the team that you never used crontab -e, which I never understood until I ran it on a machine without vi installed… that was my introduction to ed and I successfully wiped out roots crontab while mashing keys and swearing loudly.
I still crontab -l >> /tmp/crontab.$date before editing crontabs now, and this was over 20 years ago!
I found it surprising that many of the recommendations on #5 seemed to miss out the possibility of ricing and avoided this rabbit hole. My guess is due to the question asking for beginner-friendly options but my interpretation on the 'amazing screenshots' was that they probably were beyond what a typical DE offers.
My advice to @loxiran would be to avoid ricing in general. You could certainly learn to customize your computer all the way to the background in the boot screen but this is a lot easier when you already know the general idea of things in general. My only advice would be echoing what others have said and learn along the way but that depends on your interest as well.
I won't go into too anymore details on the other questions since everyone else did a great job going over these but I second giving conky a try if you're interested in further customizing. However, be ready to code a bunch and browse through dotfiles (configuration files/scripts from other users) in order to get those amazing looking desktops.
I'd be interested to see some of these screenshots so we get an idea of what kind of setups you were looking at.
ps: A bit off topic but maybe we should start a ricing/dotfiles discussion. That was one of the few places I went to reddit for. I didn't see a section in the subscriptions nor found any topics after a quick search.
Go nuts, have fun! There are both text and video how-to material out there, as well as complete themes you cna download and import.
/r/unixporn used to feature Conky heavily, but it's gone private. You can browse it on archive.org, but that's a bit of a hassle.
Aside from the Ubuntu recommendation, you could also try Mint (which is based on Ubuntu, but tweaked for ease-of-use) or PopOS (which is the one I use).
Same here.
The general difference is the format of the package files themselves. The main two varieties are .deb files (which are used by Debian-based distros, including Ubuntu, Mint, PopOS) and .rpm files (used by RedHat based distros). Some distros, like OpenSUSE and Arch use their own format. The biggest difference as an end user is how much the distribution keeps its packages up-to-date. Some distros use a "rolling" model where updated packages are released as they come out, while others generally bundle large changes into a single release every few months.
Another approach to addressing this issue is to use a newer type of application called a Flatpak where the executable program and all of its dependencies are bundled together. This means you can update an application separately from the base distribution. They were a little wonky at first, but they've gotten really good. I use Flatpak installed apps almost exclusively.
Libreoffice. It should be compatible with your Excel formulas.
I would suspect most of the amazing screenshots are from a KDE desktop environment. Many distros default to Gnome, which isn't as flexible. Personally, I find all the excessive personalization options kind of pain, but if you want something to tweak, you'd want to use a KDE-based spin of Mint. (If you aren't familiar with the term, a "spin" is a different version of the same distribution that is modified for a particular purpose. A spin might have a different desktop environment, or certain applications automatically included for something like gaming, scientific computing, multimedia production, etc.)
Running from a USB stick is really only useful for either sampling a particular distro, or for a rescue system. I wouldn't do this just for regular usage.
Most distros come with the useful stuff pre-installed (such as Libreoffice, Firefox, etc.). Maybe the only one I can think of offhand that might not be installed by default is VLC (it is like the Swiss Army Knife of video playing software. If VLC can't open it, the file is probably corrupt.)
I will echo the advice from @mat on this: try everything. You can run most distros from a live USB boot device, so just tinker with several of them for a few days. This is especially good for trying out different desktop environments... There is Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, Mate, LXDE, XFCE, Budgie, Enlightenment, and many others.
For some context, it might be useful to refer to this timeline of Linux distros and their derivatives. You might need to zoom out!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/2023_Linux_Distributions_Timeline.svg
It also greatly influenced my choice in distro to use.
I second KDE. My specific plug is Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. It is stable. During the install go with the “Minimal install” option. This will save space and you can choose to install the applications you want after the OS install. Once you have Ubuntu installed, install KDE Plasma. Plasma is the minimal desktop version of KDE in terms of software installed at boot. KDE is closer to a windows desktop environment so it is easy to navigate. It looks good out of the box, but there is are also loads of options to customize it.
There are plenty of online communities (and YouTube) with support on how to get things done in Linux. Good luck.
An option to get the best of both worlds is KDE Neon. Based on Ubuntu, with the latest KDE software.
It has been my go to for 3 years and has kept up really well. I find KDE Plasma do be one of the best Desktop Environments to try out when giving Linux a go. Familiar, but very flexible and customizable.
I tried Arch running Xcfe, but could not get the OS to recognize my WiFi adapter. I tried for two days to no avail and went back to what I’m running now.
I suspect your Pop! OS experience was a fluke to your particular hardware at the time and I would recommend it over Ubuntu and Mint just because it is very similar, but has some tweaks and better defaults for a new user IMO. That said, your machine isn't super new or niche, so I suspect any recent popular general public focused distro (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, Manjaro, Arch) will work fine. I have tried dozens of distros over the years and all the recent experiences either go perfectly smoothly or I hit some wall almost immediately like you did, so if you try one and it doesn't work well, try another and I bet it will go fine. As far as Linux goes, I am currently using Arch, Pop! OS, and Debian and I like each for their use for me. I'd probably not recommend Arch for your first serious try as while it will likely be fine installing it, it is probably not ideal for your main OS without a learning curve.
Manjaro devs have done (or failed to do) a handful of weird things over the last few years that really make me question their competence.
Regarding multiple OS's, "dual boot" is the term you're looking for and its fairly easy to do. Either you partition the hard drive and install the distros to separate partitions OR install it on different media. You mentioned booting off of USB... an external SSD over USB 3 or better would be just fine.
Pop does have that because their "Cosmic" WM is just a slight fork of Gnome and that feature is a modern Gnome thing. You can definitely run 2 or more distros, its easier than dual booting Linux and Windows IMO. That being said, it might be unnecessary of those are your reasons and you could just make a different user with a different setup. If you just want a reason to try two different distros though, go for it.
I see you got a lot of in-depth replies about distro's already so I just wanted to add something. Since you speak about booting from USB am I correct in that you want to try a bit before you commit?
If so download Virtualbox for free and try there! Much quicker and easier to test things out. After that you can even look into multi-booting so that you can switch back to windows if needed. (multiplayer games, Adobe stuff for example)
I recommend that you use Debian. Nowadays, Debian is much easier to install (as non-free firmware is included out of the box, so you should have no problems with specific hardware). I'd go as far as say that it should be no different from installing one of the most mainstream distros, such as Linux Mint or Ubuntu.
The main advantage of Debian is, of course, its stability: you can be sure that your system and the most important things related to its desktop environment will work and continue to work for two or so years to come. Of course, that comes with a disadvantage: these components will not be updated in this meantime.
In my experience, that is a good thing. Updates on desktop environments can present some instability during the first few days until some corrections come along. Furthermore, I don't think it is needed to have new features (or changes in previous features) in your environment each couple of months. Debain is made in a way that secures that all packages presented in a release are compatible with other and work in harmony.
However, you may have the need to use newer, updated software. That could be a problem if you only used packaged Debian software... Fortunately, you can use flatpak to download and update pretty much everything nowadays, and it is even integrated in some desktop environments app hubs as to present a graphic interface to newer users. I would recommend looking into it.
For desktop environments, I use KDE and recommend it. When you say "cockpit of spaceships", you would probably be referring to the heavily-customized riced environments. These types of interfaces often are made (or modified) by the user himself, and they are implemented on window managers, which are a kind of much simpler type of graphic interface when compared to a desktop environment. At some point it becomes like a user-made desktop environment, which he himself chooses (and implements) how his interface behaves. This comes at the cost of, of course, implementing pretty much every single function himself (e. g. having to program that when you close your laptop lid, the screen turns off). On the other hand, implementing all these features in desktop environments would mostly likely require the usage of third-party scripts, widgets or plugins, that would probably present instability or incompatibility at some point.
KDE can be a heavily-customizable interface, if you want it, or a pretty straightforward one to use, if you don't. The software curated by the KDE team tends to be pretty well integrated within a desktop, even more so when they are all on compatible versions (which a Debian install would guarantee). Here below is a screenshot of my KDE on Debian 12, that's pretty much non-customized:
https://imgur.com/Gu5fGkT
these little bars in the panel below display disk, ram, and cpu usage.
Until Debian 12, which was just released to stable less than a month ago, I couldn't easily connect my laptop with its nvidia optimus gpu to an external display, and nonfree firmware was not in the default download. Now that they've fixed those issues though, Debian is a fine choice I think. I think it might still be less user-friendly than some other options like Linux Mint or Pop!_OS, neither of which I've actually tried, but idk it's pretty user-friendly now I think. Definitely agree on KDE over GNOME or w/e. I personally use MATE, but KDE is much prettier. I'm considering switching at some point.
I personally love Ubuntu Budgie (https://ubuntubudgie.org/). It matches the simplicity of OS' like Windows or iOS while having that clean aesthetic. Since it runs Ubuntu under the hood it's stable, beginner-friendly and has a ton of software available for it. Highly recommended.
As far as I know that doesn't seem to be out of the box. There is Conky (https://linuxconfig.org/ubuntu-20-04-system-monitoring-with-conky-widgets) that I came across which basically does something similar. You could tinker around to have that set up.
I think the screenshot is more a way of showing what is possible with their OS although I agree it can be somewhat misleading and open to suggestion whether that it comes like that out of the box.
A vote for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It's a stable rolling release (so you stay up to date with the latest software,) creates disk snapshots so you can roll back if anything goes wrong (uses brtfs under the hood). I've been using it at work for close to 2 years now with no issues.
Linux greenhorn here. Just switched from Fedora to Tumbleweed within the last week.
Hop was spurred on a bit by the source code news recently with RHEL/Red Hat/IBM, but mostly because I hadn't been using Fedora that long yet anyway and thought things like Snapper out-of-the-box sounded gutt—to be clear, the news doesn't really affect Fedora because it's upstream of RHEL, but it's really the principle of the matter.
Anyway, for what it's worth, my start with Tumbleweed has been a little bumpier than I expected (although I'm enjoying it so far).
I've got a running list of notes (e.g., tasks and issues to be aware of if I need to reinstall) that already dwarfs a similar list I started making for Fedora. The points are all minor, and mostly specific to my uses, but there's some general ones in there:
I'm having fun with it, but I thought it was worth a mention given OP's first point and also the similarity of my situation to OP's.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not arguing against the Tumbleweed recommend at all—in fact, I second it. Consequently, I should probably add some pros:
Running from a USB stick or CD is usually reserved for troubleshooting or a test drive of the linux distro. This is the default when you "press any key to boot from media" option you get.
Pros:
Can see if a distro will work with your hardware
No need to do full install for a test drive
Can try many different flavors of Linux easily (Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, etc)
Cons:
Much slower to boot/run than actual install
Typically won't save work or changes
There are ways to install Linux on a USB stick and run from it like it is on an internal HD where you can save your files, download apps, etc but from my personal experience the pains far outweigh the gains. Mainly it was so. much. slower. The other thing was I was unlucky enough to have 2 newer USB sticks die while trying. It may not be related but I had never had a USB stick die before or after, so 2 dying so close to each other while doing the same thing was deemed as sorcery and the cause of creating superstitions in my house. Realistically, HDs are do dirt cheap right now (refurb 3TB drives with warranties are under $40 on Amazon) that I would suggest buying another HD if you want to dual boot.
I've never used POP!OS but my newest "go to" version of Linux is Mint. It just works. I dabble in finding uses for older systems and I've never had a driver issue on any old POS system I've tossed it on in probably the last 25+ installs. Before that my choice was Ubuntu but Canonical made some choices that seemed skeevy and controversial that I disagreed with/didn't want to support. It was purely a personal reason on my part so if you don't care about such things then they are (or were last I knew) a pretty solid choice as well if you want it to "just work."
One of the wonderful things about the open source and linux communities is it is like walking into a Baskin-Robbins with unlimited samples after only having chocolate and vanilla (Windows and MS OFiice) ice cream all your life. You can sample butterscotch, rocky road, mint chocolate chip, etc (Ubuntu, Mint, LibreOffice, AbiWord, etc). Some software choices may be like chocolate brownie ice cream vs triple fudge brownie ice cream where the differences are ultimately small (they forked from the same source code). Sometimes you find out that you're not a fan of salted caramel ice cream and that's ok. If you don't like AbiWord, for example, then at least you only "paid" in the time it took to download it and try it.
Linux reminds me of the "wild west" days before computers had hard drives in all the best ways. Back around 1988, most malls would have a kiosk where you could buy floppy disks of software (things like Print Shop 1.0, Quicken 1.0 and 1000 different 1 person coded programs like "Bob's Allsoft 8-in-1 Suite", 25 pacman clones on a single floppy, etc) Every time you tried a new .EXE file it was a wonderful crap shoot of "how god awful/gloriously awesome will this be??"
Be adventurous, try different things, find your flavor of ice cream.
Some slightly different advice: if you aren't married to the idea of running Linux on your main computer and if you can afford it, I'd recommend buying a cheap server computer (nothing fancy, you can get old office/school computers for <$50 or a raspberry pi for just as cheap).
I have an old HP EliteDesk that I got for cheap and I use it as a Debian server. I run it with no desktop environment and just SSH from my Windows PC whenever I want to do something Linux-y. This has helped me learn a lot about Linux and I'm a lot more comfortable working with the Linux terminal now. It also takes a lot of the risk out of switching to Linux since if you mess anything up, you can always just wipe the server and start fresh. You don't need to worry about messing up the OS on your daily driver.
If you can't afford a new computer or don't want to go to the trouble, you could also try setting up a cloud server. I've had success using Debian on AWS Lightsail. I think a little Lightsail server using the distro of your choice could be a good playground to try things out. It's relatively cheap too, 1 month free and $3.50/month after that for the lowest tier.
When I still daily drove a linux system (I'm now a macbook user) I loved Solus. I never found another distro that got the same combination of performance, fast boot times, up to date packages (or at least up to date packages I care about) and stability. In years of running it, I never ran into an issue that I couldn't solve on my own or with a few minutes spent reading the documentation. No other desktop distribution managed to do this for me. Anything based on Ubuntu or Arch always fell apart at some point. Last I heard, there were some major changes happening over there though - potentially rebasing the distro onto something else. I still think it is worth looking into though.
I used the Budgie edition of Solus - it had a nice balance of looks, performance and not being gnome. Never had any real issues with it and I ran it on all sorts of hardware from decade old macbooks to multi-CPU servers.
Opensuse tumbleweed was a pleasant surprise. It and fedora will just work. You can pick KDE, or gnome which are your two giants in terms of desktop environments. Both fedora and Opensuse have been around for forever, they do all the tweaking for you, they offer very user friendly features such as snapshots so you can undo a mistake fairly easily or undelete something you got rid of.
My recommendation is gnome. It is a very mature DE and it is very laptop friendly. It's ease of use is very good.
KDE is highly configurable to your needs but it's also buggy. They like adding features and pushing the envelope before making something rock solid.
Not really. Each distro has different policies on software and there's a rolling distro versus a static distro. Some distros, like arch, offer the user bleeding edge, github level of packages. You're at the forefront of the internet.
Opensuse tumbleweed and fedora offer you what they believe to be the safest version of bleeding edge and in Opensuse's case they give you the ability to go beyond their safety into arch levels of bleeding edge. Manjaro dialed back the levels arch takes you to for a more user friendly experience but give you the ability to go off the beaten path.
Ubuntu and Debian have a different mentality. They play it really safe as they go for stability and usability first. Their packages are versions behind the front line and for good reason. You'll have a hard time getting the latest and greatest because that mentality goes against their philosophy.
So it depends on what you need. Most distros have a package manager that both has a gui and a cli. Opensuse has YAST and two different cli. Arch has packman but there's also the aur. It depends on your needs. Mostly, popular packages are available across distros, but you will find there aren't packages for some software and you'll have to build it on your own.
WPS Office is pretty much a clone of office and good out of the box for like 90% of what you'll need. More advanced stuff and you'll still need office.
Libre isn't bad. The features are there. In both cases you will need Windows exclusive fonts and that's the major step people forget and get frustrated with. The reasons your documents open funny in official Microsoft apps is because you're missing Windows only fonts.
It's gotten better I think and distros like Opensuse, Ubuntu, fedora get around this for you, but some distros don't. (totally don't just copy the fonts folder from a windows installation into Linux. Super duper don't not totally do that.)
Loaded question. You're talking about "ricing" and...that's a whole topic. Each DE can be "riced" (made to look cool) in different ways than other DEs and there's no one size fits all. Gnome for example is very limited. You have to install extensions and themes and then configure them but a gnome rice will look different than a KDE rice, than a tiling window manager rice, than an xfce rice and so on. There's just too much information to post in this reply. It's a rabbit hole. Many of us in Linux land can help you but start by sharing a link to a rice you think is cool and then we can tell you what's happening and how it may or may not work for you.
Usability is not the ricers goal, it's prettyness. Also, don't install a distro and then try to rice. Think of what you want and then install the distro that will accommodate that.
You mean a live disk? I guess you can. Can't save anything though and it will be slow. Don't do this unless there's a specialized reason.
Loaded question. Start by figuring out what your needs are. We can narrow it down from there. My must haves are not your must haves.
One of my favorite sources of privacy oriented software recommendations, Privacy Guides, has a page on Linux.
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/os/linux-overview/
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop/
They state the criteria they use to recommend the above are:
Lots of people are saying Mint, Ubuntu, or Elementary, but I’ll be a slight contrarian here and say either Fedora, Nobara (which is an extremely popular flavor of Fedora made for gaming), or Endeavor (Arch based). The main benefit these provide are newer software and better support for newer hardware.
Many say that you should stick to something “stable”. But at the end of the day, most popular distros are pretty damn stable already and they’ll do what you need them to do. More importantly, when there’s some little bug or a feature missing that you’re waiting for, you’ll get it soon after it hits. You get to actually watch your Linux desktop improve month to month rather than once or twice a year.
For the other questions:
It’s way slower to run off a a USB stick, don’t unless you need to.
The screenshots you saw were probably of tiling window managers that are controlled mostly with the keyboard alone. I don’t use one. They’re sick looking but with a bit of a learning curve.
I recommend KDE for a desktop environment.