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I personally love linux and have used many distros for quite a while. I think one of my favorites for just all around anything would have been CrunchBang... Anyways, the wife and kids aren't (yet) into being trained on how to use linux, so I was thinking of trying one of the flavors that most mimics Windows.

I found: LinuxFx. Has anyone used this?

The other option was likely something like Mint with the Mate shell- there are a few Windows 10 themes that make it closer.

INB4: yes, they will eventually be learned in linux of some sort, meaning they'll understand the UI differences.

EDIT: I went with Mint 20 - XFCE. We've used Mint before, they know it fairly well and it is easy enough to troubleshoot.

I personally love linux and have used many distros for quite a while. I think one of my favorites for just all around anything would have been CrunchBang... Anyways, the wife and kids aren't (yet) into being trained on how to use linux, so I was thinking of trying one of the flavors that most mimics Windows. I found: LinuxFx. Has anyone used this? The other option was likely something like Mint with the Mate shell- there are a few Windows 10 themes that make it closer. INB4: yes, they will eventually be learned in linux of some sort, meaning they'll understand the UI differences. EDIT: I went with Mint 20 - XFCE. We've used Mint before, they know it fairly well and it is easy enough to troubleshoot.

(post is archived)

[–] • 2 pts (edited )

Not trying to be weird but I've never really gotten the whole make the UI identical to windows so people not trained in linux can use it.

All the parts of linux that non-linux users and non-technical users can't use aren't really UI issues. If the state of the non-technical user is such that clicking a different location to get to a browser is too complicated then there is no hope. That or there is increadable hope considering Windows managed to get people to click the right places because that was the only option. But there is nothing better about Windows' places to click, and so if you give linux as the environment that people are handed they will learn that level of computer use just as easily.

Personally I think there is the classic engineering trade off. A distro that prioritizes same UI is going to sacrifice othr things to do so. Either time making sure it is compatible with all the software in its repository on all hardware. Insuring updates go smoothly. Making sure its configs play nice with other tweaks you might want to do. Inevitably some aspect of it breaks down and users end up seeing the harder part of linux like finding you are having trouble installing one software and having to cope with a more difficult to use one. Then people will genuinely think linux is harder and for more reasons than UI.

Personally I think XFCE is the most straight forward and un-weird UI. That's what you want. To avoid throwing something weird at them that they don't know what to do with. That's a luxury Windows can afford because people have to learn it.

Also, you should go with something that's easy for you to manage the more technical parts on to help maintain the system as something they want to use. For that reason I have no problem Artix if you like OpenRC or Manjaro if you like SystemD. That's what I find easy to manage, and find has the most zero effort to install software thanks to the AUR.

In fact I would say that picking a distro for the UI instead of a distro for your maintenance workflow preference and then installing the UI you want would be a mistake. You are guarenteeing maintenance issues and the life cycle of that distro is going to be shorter.

[–] • 0 pt

Oh I am totally in agreement - the idea is to introduce an alternative without also too much friction.

It's more like contextual UI actions: right-click, drag and drop, etc.. functions that MS has as their sort of UI ingrained, while linux can vary throughout flavors.

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

Yep. XFCE doesn't do anything too weird there. It's more of a project to provide people's expectations rather than a design project to do something unique. It's very very boring and does things in an MS way.

It can be a feature short here or there (not much), but 98% of it is there, and that 98% that is there is organized the way you would expect it.

When you install XFCE directly it comes under configured. If you use Artix or Manjaro you are going to get an arch system with everything pre-installed, including the XFCE configured correctly out of the box. So really the first question is if you like debian or arch for yourself. If debian I would go with Mint. It's also a sane desktop. If arch then you ask if you personally like OpenRC or SystemD. If openRC then Artix, systemD->Manjaro.

[–] • 1 pt

SalientOS. Its an arch based distro.

Most everything one would want for gaming and streaming is pre installed in the distro. Things like steam, lutris, and OBS studio are just waiting for you to run and config them for first use.

Its been pretty rock solid stable since I've been running it for about a year now.

So many things just work.

As for the theme, well pretty much any distro can be made to look like Win 10. The real question is which do you want them to learn first.

[–] • 1 pt

I've set several non-technical people up on Linux and when it's has worked it's only because they used their computers for a few simple things: browsing the web and email, for example. Anyone who a week later called up to ask me to install <some Windows program they just heard about> inevitably did not stick with Linux.

I maintain Linux servers for a living but my main PC at home is Windows because I game. It broke my fucking heart to shell out the $140 or whatever it was to MS for a Win10 license the last time I upgraded my hardware but it was cheap compared to trying to get AAA games to run on Linux. And don't even start on VR headsets.

Arch based distros are my choice for home however. My current go-to is Manjaro, but it's been a few years since I last did any distro hopping.

Ubuntu LTS for servers though.

[–] • 1 pt

I'd stay away from that LinuxFX distro. Looks like they enable the execution of .exe and .msi files with wine, which not only would open these new Linux Users to malicious code, but they'll probably get very frustrated when they do what we inevitably know they will do, and try to download a program from a website and install it and find that it doesn't work.

Better to get them something that just looks similar, without trying to mimic everything. They'll learn faster that way and you'll have an easier maintenance overhead.