If she's coming from Windows, Mint is a much better choice with Cinnamon
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Has been using Ubuntu for a while but kept destroying it. I aim at a stable base with modern applications.
Then the distro doesn't matter that much. You shouk go for either Snaps or Flatpaks for applications as they won't break the system even if something catastrophic happens.
Personally I'd go for distros with great deal of support (Pop, Fedora and Mint) and put Flathub as the main source in the respective app stores. Smaller distros tend to have more issues that requires some troubleshooting at times.
Check how does she uses Ubuntu first though, if she's using the Canonical's additions to Gnome a lot, she'll have a horrible time with vanilla Gnome as it's pretty barebones, that'll rule out any distro with vanilla Gnome such as Fedora. Trust me, you don't want to be babysitting your partners computer.
I've had my girlfriend on Zorin for a couple years now. Just calling it out as another good one for Windows people, though agreed not as good as current Mint.
It does not require an internet connection to use!
It's messed up that that's a selling point.
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It’s worth a shot. Non-technical users are it’s target demographic.
I would pick something immutable like this. Non-technical users aren’t going to get under the hood and tinker, like many Linux users do.
Turns out she needs a bit of proprietary software (pixum for photo books) that I could not install on EndlessOS. So I had to change course and installed pop os. So far I am pleasantly suprised. Even though I thought I would not like it, their take on GNOME makes sense to me. Tiling is fun.
Pop is great, my only complaint is their posterized stylized default backgrounds. It is their look, but might be a turnoff for some wanting a more polished pro look like ElementaryOS default.
PopOS is currently developing their own spin on a immutable OS, but that's still a long way from shipping to users. I'm curious, if other distros broke, why would it be different with current PopOS?
Did not know this. Immutable Ubuntu plus flatpack sounds awesome. Not sure what to think about their plans to fork cosmic from GNOME.
I'm really looking forward to their implementation of tiling. If they manage to design a desktop which stays mostly out of the way while delivering 1st class tiling I'll give it a shot. Gnome does have extensions, but they just don't feel right to me (buggy etc), unlike what the likes of sway and hyprland deliver.
It would've been great if they contributed to Gnome instead, but there was some bad blood between them iirc. And it's open whether it'll be another Unity and how well other distros implement it.
I don't know anthing about EndlessOS, but Zorin tends to be a good Windows substitute.
Thanks, will look into it.