Jesus. Another one of these? Every freaking day. (Promise it’s different)
I personally like mint and pop!os for new users, but for this user I want to try something windows like with more sex appeal. I don’t want to have to touch this computer again. Proprietary software is not an issue/consideration. User is techier than most. What has your experience been with kbuntu? Pros/cons? Other suggestions?
Get an immutable distro. You’ll never need to touch it again.
This may actually hinders new users because you can’t just change stuff on the system.
And no, not everything always work out of the box. Fedora & OpenSUSE codecs, I’m looking at you.
I think you overestimate the average persons need to configure their computers. Most people just use a web browser, email, and maybe some light gaming. No one new to Linux is going to be really upset that they can’t do complex system operations on the command line.
No, but they’d be upset if they cannot play their usual media files. H265 is known to be absent by default on a lot of these distros.
Atomic distros by Universal Blue build proprietary codecs into their images
I’ve never had a problem with any media playback. I don’t think this is an issue on Bazzite, the immutable distro I’ve been using for over a year.
Focus on the DE instead of the distro. There used to be one that has “windows look” as a goal.
I’m pretty sure that’s Zorin. I’ve never used it myself, but from what I’ve heard it might be a good choice for OP’s person.
Zorin is too walled off IMO. Too many features locked in Pro version.
There is nothing locked outside Pro version that you can’t get by installing it manually :)
The true Windows experience.
I wasn’t aware that there’s a paid version. Based on their website it does look like they have a lot of standard stuff locked behind Pro. Is it just like an additional repo or something? I’m also not too keen on the fact that the upgrade doesn’t carry over to the next major version.
Yeah the entire existence of any “pro” version of anything is cancer.
I disagree with you however I find it attrocious than when you upgrade (exemple from ZorinOS 16 to 17) if you own a Pro licence you have to buy a new licence (with a discount) and can’t “downgrade” to non-Pro (except from reinstalling it from scratch). I think the way the Pro is sold shouldn’t put upgrade behind a paywall.
Selling a (bloated) Pro version to bring cash isn’t necesseraly cancer it really depend on what you get and how you’re treated. And with ZorinOS I was somewhat disapointed…
It is can’t because this is how the door gets pushed open to making more and more paid versions of the operating system.
This invites more capitalistic practices into the “market”, and is what starts the downward trend.
I’m ok with selling software. But selling the OS at all just seems like a big step that should never be taken.
Selling a paid upgrade is kind of a gray area, but it should be an extra piece that gets installed separately, cross-compatible where possible, and shouldn’t affect your ability to upgrade versions for damn sure. I’ve never dealt with it directly, but if it’s like you said and you need to do a complete reinstall to upgrade versions but downgrade from pro to regular, then you’ve already detected the first tumor.
If you want a set it and forget it distro to never touch his computer again, then consider going a Ublue distro. Aurora (only KDE), or Bazzite (choose the KDE image) if he does gaming.
I want to try something windows like with more sex appeal.
Elaborate?
I don’t want to have to touch this computer again.
This person will undoubtedly need help and if they can’t help themselves you will be the one helping them. Mint is best-case for ease of use so your requirements are a bit contradictory.
Debian is always the forgotten choice. You can install kde at time of install. It’s stable and can be upgraded in the background automatically even between major versions. Doesn’t have snaps making hell for the user. For any apps they need the newest version of Flatpak is right there in Discover software center.
Sometimes I think “if debian had a flashy website and a few tweaks for user friendliness, then it would be just as attractive as linux mint or ubuntu for new users”, and other times I think “isn’t this exactly what most debian based distros are already?” Would there be a benefit if those projects worked under the debian name, something like debian workstation pure blend, or debian corporate pure blend? I don’t know.
Mint is da only way
You’re asking for a distro to best fit certain criteria; what’s better for you.
What you’re going to get is everyone waving the flag of their favourite distro and selling you on it as a solution; what’s better for them.
Best I can offer is Hannah Montana linux
I just switched to a ublue distro (bluefin) and think it’s great. These are designed from the ground up to be an “install it for a family member or friend and never have to touch it again” experience. They are based on Fedora. Bluefin has been the most trouble-free install of linux I’ve ever tried. I can’t say enough good things about it.
I would go with Aurora (essentially bluefin but with KDE instead of Gnome), unless they do a lot of gaming, in which case Bazzite-kde would probably work best (bazzite is more up-to-date which can mean more instability).
These are set up to use flatpak with a software center, so all gui apps can be installed from there and is similar to windows. It updates everything automatically in the background and only requires rebooting whenever you want to switch to the updated system. Also the immutable nature makes it hard to break, but if something does go wrong it makes it easy to roll back to the previous working install. There are also GTS versions of bluefin and aurora available, which are pinned to more stable releases so there’s even less chance of breakage.
Live USB installs aren’t stable yet so that might be an issue if you want to make sure hardware works before install, but you can install to a usb harddrive and boot off of that to check it out that way.
ChromeOS Flex. Very low maintenance.
Not really a Linux distro. Based on Gentoo but not really a Linux distro, just like Android.
ChromeOS Flex is designed as a desktop OS. Android is not.
Ubuntu Touch is still a Linux distro. I was referring to how Linux-like the experience is.
Well there are no operating systems that you can install and forget, unless they never plan to go online with the machine. They all need updating which can be set automatically. The only problem is if it requires manual intervention, sometimes updates don’t go as planned, then a roll-back might be necessary. They could try an immutable linux distribution if they are worried about screwing up their installs or something. Fedora kinoite may be their thing, or Bazzite which is based on that.
The embedded IoT crowd would like to refute your claim that there are no operating systems that you can install and forget.
The collective would like to stress that any operating system can be installed and forgotten. Please note, that usefulness and security may be impacted.
/s
Bluefin and Bazzite have been good to me so far.
I think you should cruise this guy’s channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg6gPGh8HU2U01vaFCAsvmQ
He’s very fair and uses all operating systems. I’m almost certain he’s had a video on this exact question.
Fedora KDE edition or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll. Otherwise could try Aurora.
I avoid Ubuntu base because it is slow to update packages, and the inclusion of Snap packages are a no from me.
Surprised I had to come this far to find tumbleweed. Its hard to kill and easy to fix. Love it.
I’m personally a fan of Debian. Default KDE isn’t bad looking from what I can remember (I personally don’t use it - I neither hate or love it just because I love XFCE). I’m personally a big XFCE fan, but you do have to do some work to get it working good, and there are still jank parts here and there.
While no distro is completely set and forget, I think Debian Stable is as close as you can get. Once you install it and get it working the way you want (depending on your setup, you might encounter minor issues as with any distro), it will pretty much stay that way until you upgrade to the next version, and you can go up to 5 years before upgrading.
I would recommend you use the KDE (or whatever DE you want) live installer, though, as the default installer is quite unintuitive. You can find it in the list of installers at https://www.debian.org/distrib/.
I’ve never used Kubuntu specifically, but I would personally avoid Ubuntu these days if just because of Snaps. Also, Ubuntu is heavily bloated - base Ubuntu is almost unusable in a VM now, while vanilla GNOME and PopOS run well in VMs on the same machine. Personally, when I need to test Ubuntu builds, I always prefer working with PopOS.
Overall, I’d say if you don’t end up using Debian (I don’t blame you - while I like it, you might not), just please don’t use anything Ubuntu-based that isn’t Mint or PopOS.
Maybe Aurora by Universal Blue?
It’s based off of Fedora Silverblue, so it’s atomic, rock solid and basically guaranteed to work (more secure by design as well). But uses KDEPlasma instead of Gnome and has a bunch of improvements here and there, including proprietary codecs and Nvidia drivers preinstalled (latter depending on the image you choose)
This is an excellent answer. Kinoite (basically the same thing as Aurora) is what enabled me to finally make the switch to full time linux a few months ago.
