cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/550905
Basically, which linux distro is the best for a non-power user? Someone who wants to be able to get up and running without having to learn how to manage the OS using the cli.
Quick example: When I install a new OS, the first thing I want to do is install Brave. That should be as easy as “click on this thing, type in brave, select Brave, install.”
You must log in or # to comment.
Offtopic, but I’d steer clear of brave. They feel scammy, have crypto built in and replace ads with their own. Since it’s built on chromium it just adds to the market share of chromium and towards a Google controlled internet.
And their CEO is a bigot.
Link proof when you make accusations or shut the fuck up.
Alas, we have reached a point where lots of web stuff already just does not work in non chromium browsers. My father could not use Netflix on Firefox on Linux mint, we called Netflix customer support and they said to install Google chrome. And it then worked. I use opera and it worked for me too. So a chromium browser is needed, for streaming stuff at least. And non googled chromium probably does not have the commercial addons needed.
What would be the least bad chromium family browser then ?
I’m unaware of any streaming services that work in chrome but not Firefox.
You may be unaware, and it may be that it would have been possible to configure something or install something obscure and not noob friendly, but i can tell that in 2022 that situation happened, i tried to re-install firefox, did a quick google search on possible fixes, tried a handful, the netflix error continued, and then I gave up and called netflix, and installed google chrome.
I’ve been watching Netflix in Firefox for years now. Never had any issue whatsoever. The handful of times some page didn’t work as expected was when I accidentally blocked too much content through addons. Not saying I don’t believe you, it’s just weird that I never seem to have those issues.
now that you mention, i have plenty of addons on all browsers i use. Maybe i could have made it work by testing one by one, though the chromium browsers all worked out-of-the-box even with largely the same addons. I just do not have the patience for it now, and settled on using Vivaldi for chromium stuff when really needed, which should not be often.
Privacy Badger often borks streaming sites for me. They have been catching on to the blocklists used by stuff like uBlock Origin and AdGuard as well
I deleted my comment because it was a bit trolly and unhelpful. What I should have said is that I believe under normal circumstances, Netflix works in Firefox out of the box. I believe you had an issue, but I wanted to let you and others know, that that isn’t the norm.
No idea if any one is less bad from a FOSS, ethical or ideological perspective, but personally I like Vivaldi. I switched back to Firefox for ideological reasons though.
Title and body don’t match.
I think opinionated is different from being for a non-power-user.
Click ‘brave’ is not opinionated, because I could click chromium instead. “There is a web browser (and it is Firefox)” is more opinionated, and easier at first, then harder if you happen to need a chromium-based browser.
I am a non-power and non-technical user, and after trying Linux Mint (liked it) i tried a relatively obscure distro that i ended up loving: BigLinux
-
see their site here → https://www.biglinux.com.br , there is a translation button on bottom right
-
It is a brazilian distro semi-famous here, continuously developed by more or less a small team since 20 years, but with support for 29 languages including english.
-
they use a base of Manjaro Linux KDE, which is based on Arch. They install via Calamares, and you select the desktop configuration (windows-like, macoss-like, etc of 6 options).
-
The motto for the distro is : “In search of the perfect system”, and their goal is more or less to make a linux distro the MOST complete and beginner-friendly possible, sort of going in a Maximalist, anti-gnome philosophy. For this, they have:
-
Pre-packaged lots and lots of programs out-of-the-box (like rustdesk, both brave and firefox, steam, lutris, jdownloader, corestats, a printscreen program, image sound video converters, etc and 2 whole sections of Webbapps (including all of google stuff - docs, slides, maps - , almost all social media sites, microsoft office, all music streaming and television streaming sites → and you can disable them on the webbapp hub).
-
The only linux distro i found that out-of-the-box installs ALL packaging methods (i.e. ALL OF THEM). They natively have BigLinux and Manjaro repositories, AUR, Flatpak and Snap (snap is activated by the user clicking in a button, so you can have it or not). They have integration for .appimage, automatic converter for .deb and .rpm installation, java installed and ready to run .jar programs, and Waydroid (for android apps). I know it is possible to do this on mostly any distro, but trying doing that as a noob was unsuccesful for me, i did not know the names of all little programs (or that they existed) , and is a lot of time and pain, this way it really just works.
-
The software store is great (Big Store), it is completely visual interface, you just type the name of the program, click a button, write the password, and it instals, and again, it has BigLinux and Manjaro repositories, AUR, Flatpak and Snap to search. You can just search on the internet for the other packages, download the .deb .rpm .appimage .apk file, and just click, and it converts and instals them. I never have to worry about linux apps not being compatible for instalation on my distro, ever.
All in all, a truly graphical user interface, out-of-the-box functionality and beginner friendly distro. With the security of manjaro, and the bleedging edge of Arch. Negative point is that it both uses KDE and has a ton of programs pre-installed , so it leans heavy. I could not install it on a 2006 toshiba laptop even the light version, but a 2011 Macbook with ssd runs great. I use it on a Sony vaio 8gb ram 2013 all in one and have no complaints.
-
Linux Mint
I second LinuxMint. When I first got in to linux I was (shamefully 😅) looking for something that was as close as possible to Windows and a turn key experience with both installation and app compatibility. Linux mint was what I settled on personally.
Thirded. I send everyone that asks over to Mint until they want to try something different.
deleted by creator
Been using Ubuntu for quite a while now, trying to move to somewhere else because Ubuntu moves to a strange direction with snaps and other stuff.
Better to go for derivatives due to ubuntu forcing you to use snap, which sucks.
Linux Mint Cinnamon.
It tries to make things similar to Windows (which most people are accustomed to due to school), and also has its own set of apps that try to make things as simple as possible by having simple names so people know what to expect.
Elementary OS
Good ‘nuff.
I was probably saltier than I needed to be but I hate it when people just say shit, and it becomes a n unquestioned truth.
Fedora
As others have said, Ubuntu is great for non-technical users. The only issue I could forsee is drivers. Apt loves to brick itself after 1 mistake. Since apt lags behind it may not support new hardware, forcing you to download drivers elsewhere, which is a recipe for disaster.
