Linux for end-users?

[robkelk]

My father's ASUS laptop just got updated-and-bricked by Windows. Again. He's getting fed up.

What's the best Linux for end-users who are used to Windows nowadays?

[classicdrogn]

Probably Ubuntu or Manjaro for the base, with my favor leaning to Manjaro after switching myself. What will make it look like Windows or not is the desktop manager, and if you put the taskbar at the bottom and dock at the top (this is the default for Manjaro) it's pretty much the standard user experience. I only tried KDE Plasma version for about a day but it didn't feel significantly different so I went with Gnome XFCE on the basis of having a premade list of utilities and dock apps to install from my previous system. Manjaro has newbie-freindly Manjaro Hello and Manjaro User Guide apps in the totally-not-a-Start-menu, as well, and you're never too experienced to RTFM, 'cause when you RTFM your life as a user will find new meaning. In that vein, I recommend checking out a "things to do after installing (linux distro)" list or two, the only item I specifically remember but I wouldn't even have known to ask about being to make sure the TRIM daemon is running if the system has an SSD, for... um... reasons. I forget what it does, just that it's important. That's why the lists are there

Help me, Googleman!

The TRIM command is an operation that allows the operating system to propagate information down to the SSD about which blocks of data are no longer in use. This allows the SSD's internal systems to better manage wear leveling and prepare the device for future writes.

Right. That. Along with things like installing common but not default software like WINEtricks, VLC, a not-Chromium web browser, Calibre, Steam and/or Lutris so most of your 'doze games will still work (probably... and many that don't need high-specs graphics will be fine with just default WINE), etc.

But the real treat, the thing that will just make you say wow right off the bat, is when you turn the machine on and it takes less time to boot completely than it does for MS Doze to go from the login lockscreen to the desktop. By a factor of about five with the systems installed on their own identical SSDs, in my experience. With 'doze having been left in Airplane Mode so it's not messing around trying to get updates or whatever crap M$ has decided they want to infest you with off the internet.

That is something I strongly recommend, by the way - adding a new drive, and specifically an SSD, to install Linux to instead of messing with the existing 'doze partions and so on - being on a different physical drive means you can set that as the default in BIOS and not have to mess around mashing DEL or F11 or whatever to get the bootloader and choose, because Micro$loth has never played nice with dual boot set ups and I don't expect them to start anytime soon. This also has the benefit of leaving your (supposedly?) functional system right there to boot up instead if you do somehow bork something, or in the event of a SSD failure for your daily driver OS. If you do want to dual boot from a single drive, install 'doze first, then use the disk utility there to shrink its partition and make a new one for Linux, as unless it's changed since I last messed with it a few years ago the Linux utilities can only create, delete, or expand and existing partition, not shrink it.

Let's see... the only other thing I can specifically think of is to make sure you set the swap partition size to double the installed RAM instead of just matching it, both for the sake of SSD lifespan and so Sleep will keep working if you upgrade the RAM later. This is true for both 'doze and 'nix.

[robkelk]

Thanks.

... 'cause when you RTFM your life as a user will find new meaning. ...

As somebody who writes TFM, I wish more people thought that way.

[classicdrogn]

Well, you know. The first three steps in troubleshooting are "Check the cables," "Did you check the cables?" and "Check them one more time to make sure," but if the answer to those is yes and it still doesn't work, step four is to seek further information, such as from a document detailing how the device is intended to operate and how it can fail, almost as if it were designed for the purpose of instructing operators in the use and service of the unit. It's like a wizard looked into the future and saw you there, peering at mysterious gubbins and/or error reports!

[classicdrogn]

... and naturally, no sooner do I post all of that than I get a mysterious error for no apparent reason, with the XFCE window manager failing to launch on a restart so there's no window buttons and no way to switch focus from the last-launched application. Fortunately, I RTFM before so I know the keyboard command to bring up a terminal (CTL+ALT+t) and after finding a similar forum thread I could tell it to start manually by just entering xfwm4, and now it's back to normal with no more explanation than I had to begin with. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯