The “phone-native” theoretical new user may become more of a real thing in the future too. When GNOME and Pantheon started developing in that direction I thought they were chasing ghosts, but now it turns out they may have just been a decade ahead of their time.

I don’t think the snap argument is without merit, I just think it’s an argument only had by a very technical subset of users. I think your comment illustrates that.

I don’t agree that anybody would be left “orphaned” on Ubuntu. LXD vs Podman is again a very technical question for a specific subset of users.

I also don’t agree that SteamOS is the goal for compatibility and support. Compatibility is best with Ubuntu, it’s the most widely deployed and used desktop distribution by far. Most other desktop distros are a rounding error when compared to Ubuntu user-wise.

I’ve also personally had a buggy experience with SteamOS. I wouldn’t use it as a desktop in its current state, but I’m aware some folks do just that.

For someone new to Linux who just needs to get on with their desktop work, Ubuntu is the best distro there is (flawed as it may be). Mint is also a good choice for the same reasons.

That sounds like another good solution!

Re: Discord

You can edit a text file to get it to stop checking for updates. IDK if this is viable on Debian but on Fedora it was never more than 1 update behind so I never had an issue in years

I think it’s on the Archwiki, but it applies to any Linux

Hardware support is also two-sided.

For example: game controllers.

On Linux, any first-party Switch, Playstation, or Xbox controller works out of the box. Most 3rd party controllers also work out of the box. Even Wii remotes work once paired over bluetooth (and the pointing works but takes some setup).

On windows, xbox controllers work out of the box, except for very old ones which require a driver. 3rd party pc controllers will tend to work out of the box (or sometimes with a driver), but wired Switch and Playstation controllers need hacky workarounds to work or to get full functionality. Wireless controllers can often be paired with bluetooth, but I’ve had hit and miss luck with windows and first party Sony/Nintendo controllers

Don’t use an immutable distro like endless or silverblue. It’s a whole new paradigm to learn (in addition to learning Linux basics). You should get your feet wet with something more user-friendly first.

My big recommendation is Ubuntu. Normal ubuntu. Not one of the flavors or derivatives. It’s got everything you need, plus very easy to troubleshoot if something goes wrong. Try to avoid using the command line when following guides online, there is nothing on Ubuntu you actually need it for and the graphical tools are very good.

Don’t listen to the complaining about snaps. You won’t notice them, they won’t affect you negatively, they are designed to just set and forget. The complaints come from a highly particular and technical subset of the Linux community.

If you really don’t like the look of Ubuntu, then I’d second all the recommendations for Mint. Those two distros have the most number of non-technical users in their communities because they are both very user-friendly and well-tested. I’d recommend against trying anything else until you’ve gotten comfortable with Ubuntu or Mint.

When I commented it was a link to a random github comment that had nothing to do with the subject. I guess they fixed it and removed the second link between my comment and yours

There are quite a few niche window managers and desktop environments that it’d be a shame to loose. I’m quite fond of Windowmaker (and curious about Afterstep), Trinity DE, and NSCDE for example, and I’m not aware of Wayland plans for any of them.

Looking Glass is apparently broken on GNOME + Wayland in this exact way.

Ideally there would be a bare minimum server side decoration for Wayland apps (like Looking Glass) that don’t provide any CSD. Hopefully that’s on the horizon if it’s not what’s being discussed here.

That first link doesn’t have anything like what you describe

Edit: they changed the link, the new one is at least relevant. The old link was just some random comment.

Couldn’t finish it: too much whining, not enough substance.

I haven’t tried hyprland yet but if this is the guy developing it than maybe I’m good.

Cosmic seems promising. Best of luck to system76, happy to see an alternative opinionated desktop getting some momentum.

Thanks for the tip!

I don’t know what those are, but I’ll look them up.

The linux dependency thing was “Freedom Planet” , an indie retro sonic clone. Trying to use the linux version through GOG, it took me several minutes to figure out and manually install dependencies (which will remain if I remove the game) and even then I couldn’t get sound working.

I shoved the windows binary into steam/proton and it worked like a charm

Sure does, though I hope it keeps improving steadily. I’ve been donating to their patreon almost as long as it’s existed.

For me, Lutris works about 50% of the time with no hassle. The other 50% of the time I get an error during installation that I can’t figure out, and I end up using steam or giving up.

Recently it was Diablo 1 that I couldn’t get working on Lutris, but got working pretty quickly with steam

Works with windows games but not linux native binaries.

So yes, that’s exactly what I do for games that I own on GOG but not steam. I actually try lutris first, then steam if it doesn’t work.

I’ve given up on GOG. No linux client means the whole process of installing/launching games is rather tedious. Also linux game dependencies can be annoying to resolve

Steam on the other hand just handles everything. If it doesn’t work at first, it probably will with proton.

I’d love to support an anti-DRM store, but it’s tough when there is so much friction when actually playing the games

I had no issues with compatibility, just made sure to save documents to older microsoft office formats in the hopes of avoiding issues.

I never had to use an exam browser or anything like that, I’d imagine you’d want to have a polite conversation with the instructor if that were to occur, perhaps they can make an exception or allow you to do it on a library computer

Collaboration was always over google docs, so there were never any problems working with others. My CS classes were all expected to be done in Linux VMs so that was sort of ideal. Other science/humanities classes were totally software-agnostic.

RAID 5/6 aren’t yet recommended for general use on BTRFS by the developers.

Other than that I agree it should be suitable for anything, and an improvement over ext4 in some situations.

If you don’t know what RAID 5/6 is you are good.

One of the best apps on any platform

I remember a showstopper a while back being that you can’t resize the title bar while shaded. That’s already the current behavior on x11, so I would be fine with that caveat continuing if it meant wayland support.