This could well be an advanced video editor or an office suite if they take full advantage of the portals API without losing any functionality. Well, they can have the network permission, it would still be safe anyway.
Mandrake was pretty cool. The original user-friendly distro. I’ve never used it (was too deep down the rabbit hole running Red Hat to try something “friendly”) but I remember there was a bit of hype going back in the day about it.
A lot of people who work in those call centres are uneducated and don’t know shit about tech, they’re only parroting off a script. In those call centres they use windows 7 still and don’t even know about the existence of linux. Also piracy is big in India so they don’t care if linux is free. And most of all their victims/“customers”(old people) don’t use linux so they have no reason to either. It’s just the fellow Indian nerds using Linux.
I saw one where a guy used linux mint and the scammer used the usual tree command but other than that he knew fuck all what he was doing. He was tryna look for notepad. It was hilarious
Statcounter works by collecting and processing user agent strings from browsers accessing sites that use their analytics. Unknows OSes are probably the ones who don’t give that info.
Mint is always my recommendation for a Linux beginner. It’s the most “it just works” distro I’ve ever messed with, and has plenty of documentation for anything you’d need.
As for advice: I know you want to avoid the CLI, but try to poke around in there and learn it some. Once you get used to it, you can accomplish a lot of things even faster than through GUI applications.
I think your best bet is Framework laptops. If not, ThinkPads have superior Linux support.
Otherwise, pick your favorite model and read online. Also see if you can find your preferred model on Arch Wiki (laptop page).
Myself some time ago I’ve purchased Asus laptop. Spent quite some time (hobby) to get everything working (e.g. fan control) and documented everything in Arch Wiki.
Then I’ve got Asus Zenbook. Also had to participate in kernel bug report and test, because there were no audio. Eventually it got fixed in upstream and started to work.
Then I’ve got MSI gaming laptop. Had to participate in Intel DRM code issue, because 2K 240Hz panel was limited to 2K60Hz mode and eventually it got fixed too in upstream. Few workarounds are there and there, but eventually got it to work almost 100%, but audio is a bit…broken. Works fine, just first few secs after silence are silent.
Basically what I am trying to tell - manufacturers might introduce software-controlled hardware features that might work only in Windows. It requires experience and extensive knowledge to make everything manageable on Linux. :)
A warning about Framework, they’re on the bleeding edge of modular laptop design (not hardware). So while they may shift laptop design entirely, the bleeding edge always cuts. I don’t know anyone with a Framework laptop and if you’re the first person you know IRL to have one be prepared for unexpected issues. I really hope the idea takes off but I don’t envy the first adopters.
I prefer them. There’s trade-offs (like disk usage and occasional theme issues) but it’s worth it to me for the sandboxing and ability to easily run a newer version of an application than your distro has packaged up in their repos. It’s better for developers since they don’t have to support deb, rpm, etc. etc. And long term, it’ll allow immutable systems to become the default and that’ll be good for security and stability.
Between Snap, Flatpak, and AppImage, I default to Flatpak. It seems like the best supported even if they all have their strengths and weaknesses. AppImage is great for old versions of software you don’t want updated/integrated into menus. Snaps are basically the same and I happily use them if there’s no Flatpak but it’s so tied to Ubuntu/Canonical that some people have opinions about using it. I don’t know of any developer stubbornly refusing to support Flatpak on ideological grounds.
In general I would recommend any Debian derivate for beginners that just don’t care about how their computer is operating. So if this is really just a question regarding eight Fedora or Linux Mint then I would say Linux Mint because it’s a Debian derivative.
That’s simply because chances are high stat you will at least find a Deb package for any proprietary software you might want to use. Making it “easier” for the user.
If you install the system for your friend you’re free to change the Desctop environment to everything you want.
That’s simply because chances are high stat you will at least find a Deb package for any proprietary software you might want to use. Making it “easier” for the user.
Fedora ships unfiltered Flathub outof the box since quite some time. If easy access to proprietary software is a deciding factor, Fedora is among the easiest options.
anything that works on the latest Ubuntu LTS works on the latest regular Mint
Addon repositories can cause incompatibilities. Random individually downloaded deb package here, some random PPA there, spice it up with the Mint add-on repo to Ubuntu, and you can end up with a broken system (let’s say I learned the hard way a good amount of years ago only to combine a few handpicked repos).
I’ve had a framework for 2 years now. It’s run fedora, manjaro (arch based) and Debian with no major issues. Manjaro had some problems with KDE and the high DPI screen. Sometimes the scaling was inconsistent between apps. Fedora just works.
Only hardware issue is the battery life is just not that great. And the trackpad doesn’t always work property, but I think that was a first generation issue that’s been resolved since.
I’m going to add my +1 for framework, I got the batch 5 original framework 13 with pop os on it and a windows 10 copy on a 250gb expansion card. Its been my main work and play laptop and I enen replaced the main chassis after it got smashed (long story) involving the sidewalk. Anyway I love what framework is doing and the decision has arguably already paid off within these last two years.
Don’t know if you plan to use another Arch-based distro on this laptop in the future but I came across this page which has some tips to adjust the Framework 13 including one that may be related to what you mention. They recommend to use 1,5 scaling factor. More details can be found here.
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