Linux which Distro?

[Draeconis]

What exactly did you mean with boot helpers to the EFI? did you get the disk inside the startup disk under system preferences or something like that?

I've found previously with OSes based on Ubuntu that I'd have to install rEFInd, and manually install a custom partition structure.

Installing Fedora picks up you're on a mac, installs a partition structure natively that works on older macs, and allows you to select that to boot from in the EFI Boot Picker.

 

[bensharma]

Running Manjaro Budgie on a 2013 Air, it's really nice. (And Arch with a bunch of DEs on a 2015 Chromebook Pixel.)

Have been trying to get Arch or Manjaro installed on a 2019 Air and it is like pulling teeth, primarily because it doesn't work out of the box and I have to try to troubleshoot it.

Agree with the people who think that Pop!_OS or Mint are good introductions to Linux, but really any distro that you can get working with a nice-looking desktop environment -- as long as it's being kept up regularly -- is good.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

I have just installed the latest download of Elementary OS (Nov 2021).
I am so disappointed that I have completely changed my mind about its usefulness to novice users.

It comes with very little software installed.
There is no word processing system.
The Mail app will not connect to a gmail account unless you turn off security in your Google account.
I could not get the video app to display videos, all I got was black screen.

The App Store has been gutted, there is almost no useful software in it.

To get any reasonable range of software, you have to install Synaptic, Snap or Flatpak. However, to get those up and running you need to use the terminal, which is beyond many novices.

The major problem I see with many distros is that there is no User Acceptability Testing done. They are set up by programmers and Linux mavens who have little concept of what it means to be a novice user.

If you are going to aim your new distro at novice users, then

• TEST IT WITH NOVICE USERS before you release it. Don't assume what a novice user will do. Find out.
• Make sure your email app will actually connect to all of the main email suppliers.
• Make sure your other apps actually work.
• Provide an intuitive and simple way to identify and install other software. Currently, with Elementary OS 6 you have to know what the software is before you can download it. You can't just search for "Word Processor" in the App Store, find which one you want and install it.

 

[bensharma]

The major problem I see with many distros is that there is no User Acceptability Testing done. They are set up by programmers and Linux mavens who have little concept of what it means to be a novice user.

If you are going to aim your new distro at novice users, then

• TEST IT WITH NOVICE USERS before you release it. Don't assume what a novice user will do. Find out.
• Make sure your email app will actually connect to all of the main email suppliers.
• Make sure your other apps actually work.
• Provide an intuitive and simple way to identify and install other software. Currently, with Elementary OS 6 you have to know what the software is before you can download it. You can't just search for "Word Processor" in the App Store, find which one you want and install it.

Try Pop!_OS, perhaps? They go for a fuller experience like what you say Elementary lacks, including an app store with a GUI. (Manjaro has one too, but they're a bit more bleeding-edge and I wouldn't recommend an Arch-based distro for newbies.)

But yeah, given that Elementary OS claims to be aiming at MacOS transplants, doesn't sound like they've hit their mark.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

Try Pop!_OS, perhaps? They go for a fuller experience like what you say Elementary lacks, including an app store with a GUI. (Manjaro has one too, but they're a bit more bleeding-edge and I wouldn't recommend an Arch-based distro for newbies.)

But yeah, given that Elementary OS claims to be aiming at MacOS transplants, doesn't sound like they've hit their mark.

I did just that. It has an ugly and unadjustable dock.

This is my current Linux setup for me.

• Ubuntu Mate
• Move the bottom panel to the left and install Plank.

This is my current setup for my wife

• Linux Mint. As is.

Maybe I will re-evaluate Ubuntu Budgie as and alternate for novices.

 

[Snowlover]

Mx Linux is a very good distro for Mac compatibility .It was the only one I found that had Broadcom drivers for my late 2008 mbp already installed. I have the version with kde desktop environment and really like it.
It is also beginner friendly ,
easy to use and add programs etc.
Rated best distro of 2021.

MX Linux 21 Is The Best Linux Distribution Of 2021

We choose MX Linux 21 to be the best desktop Linux distribution of 2021, come see why and a full review for the featured distribution!

fosspost.org

 

[rampancy]

I'm a huge lover of Zorin OS, especially Zorin OS Lite with its tuned XFCE implementation; all of the software compatibility benefits of Ubuntu, with none of the sluggishness of Unity or Gnome. Running it on my Core Duo MacBook 1,1 has made it feel like a brand new machine.

 

[ahurst]

I'm a big fan of Linux Mint for LiveUSBs and VMs, Cinnamon is by far my favourite Linux desktop environment (though it's been a while since I spend much time with KDE or XFCE). It looks slick and aligns well enough with conventional desktop paradigms that you don't have to think too much when switching over from macOS for whatever odd task you need it for.

For lower-spec hardware, I'm a big fan of the Debian-based Crunchbang++. It's super minimalist, but is perfectly usable without wrangling with config files for hours and has really nice defaults to start from. It even runs well even on old 32-bit Core Duo hardware!

 

[rampancy]

I'm a big fan of Linux Mint for LiveUSBs and VMs, Cinnamon is by far my favourite Linux desktop environment (though it's been a while since I spend much time with KDE or XFCE). It looks slick and aligns well enough with conventional desktop paradigms that you don't have to think too much when switching over from macOS for whatever odd task you need it for.

For lower-spec hardware, I'm a big fan of the Debian-based Crunchbang++. It's super minimalist, but is perfectly usable without wrangling with config files for hours and has really nice defaults to start from. It even runs well even on old 32-bit Core Duo hardware!

Do the Crunchbang++ .ISOs boot 32-bit Core Duo Macs out of the box? I haven't tried Matt Gadient's hacked ISOs yet, but the only disk image I've found that can do that so far is the DVD ISO for Issue 279 of Linux Format (which featured a live CD environment for Zorin 15.3 Lite.)

 

[Snowlover]

Mx linux still maintains a 32 bit version with xfce or fluxbox de.
Should work on core duo Mac.

Download Links – MX Linux

mxlinux.org

 

[MacBH928]

I have just installed the latest download of Elementary OS (Nov 2021).
I am so disappointed that I have completely changed my mind about its usefulness to novice users.

It comes with very little software installed.
There is no word processing system.
The Mail app will not connect to a gmail account unless you turn off security in your Google account.
I could not get the video app to display videos, all I got was black screen.

The App Store has been gutted, there is almost no useful software in it.

To get any reasonable range of software, you have to install Synaptic, Snap or Flatpak. However, to get those up and running you need to use the terminal, which is beyond many novices.

The major problem I see with many distros is that there is no User Acceptability Testing done. They are set up by programmers and Linux mavens who have little concept of what it means to be a novice user.

If you are going to aim your new distro at novice users, then

• TEST IT WITH NOVICE USERS before you release it. Don't assume what a novice user will do. Find out.
• Make sure your email app will actually connect to all of the main email suppliers.
• Make sure your other apps actually work.
• Provide an intuitive and simple way to identify and install other software. Currently, with Elementary OS 6 you have to know what the software is before you can download it. You can't just search for "Word Processor" in the App Store, find which one you want and install it.

Linux is a poor man's OS. There is no testing what so ever. No guarantees. Do not be fooled by people claiming they have their own "distro" , most of these are just backed up by small number of developers like 5 or 10 working remotely over the internet. They do not have any research or testing budget if they have any budget at all. Its "donation" work. Some of them are relying on 1 man like Slackware where one man runs the whole show.

Do not get me wrong, I appreciate what everyone in the FOSS community is doing but we have to remember there is no professional testing or studying here. Take it as is.

The only professionally made distros are the ones by Red Hat, Ubuntu, and OpenSuse and those are professionally made for the enterprise not the desktop user.

I'm a big fan of Linux Mint for LiveUSBs and VMs, Cinnamon is by far my favourite Linux desktop environment (though it's been a while since I spend much time with KDE or XFCE). It looks slick and aligns well enough with conventional desktop paradigms that you don't have to think too much when switching over from macOS for whatever odd task you need it for.

For lower-spec hardware, I'm a big fan of the Debian-based Crunchbang++. It's super minimalist, but is perfectly usable without wrangling with config files for hours and has really nice defaults to start from. It even runs well even on old 32-bit Core Duo hardware!

Cinnamon might work well but its very bland looks wise. just visit https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ to see how much better linux can look.

 

[MacBH928]

I'm a huge lover of Zorin OS, especially Zorin OS Lite with its tuned XFCE implementation; all of the software compatibility benefits of Ubuntu, with none of the sluggishness of Unity or Gnome. Running it on my Core Duo MacBook 1,1 has made it feel like a brand new machine.

Can you elaborate on why XFCE is better? I have been researching this and it seems all of GNOME, KDE, and XFCE and can be modified to look however you want so why would I pick one over the other?

I heard XFCE is lower on resources but that is ok for a 10 year old computer, but what about modern computers that play 4K videos no issues why would I want xfce?

 

[ahurst]

Do the Crunchbang++ .ISOs boot 32-bit Core Duo Macs out of the box? I haven't tried Matt Gadient's hacked ISOs yet, but the only disk image I've found that can do that so far is the DVD ISO for Issue 279 of Linux Format (which featured a live CD environment for Zorin 15.3 Lite.)

No clue, I’ve only tried it on an old Dell D420 with an early Core Duo chip (where it runs really well)! A quick search doesn’t turn anything up but it’s based on Debian Stable, so if that works then so should CB++.

Cinnamon might work well but its very bland looks wise. just visit https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ to see how much better linux can look.

Well familiar with the subreddit/subculture, and honestly I’d take Mint-style Cinnamon over pretty much any of those any day. If you only use a Linux VM for a few hours every month, spending hours configuring a tiling window manager to your tastes and trying to remember all the relevant key commands is way more hassle than it’s worth.

Also, no matter how much you try to spruce up the Linux UI you’re going to have an awful time trying to get your GTK app theme to look like your Qt app theme or your wxWidgets app theme, so you might as well stick with a distro/WM that’s already done the work of attempting some form of cross-toolkit consistency. Personally I think the flat green-pastel aesthetic of Mint is pretty nice.

 

[rampancy]

Can you elaborate on why XFCE is better? I have been researching this and it seems all of GNOME, KDE, and XFCE and can be modified to look however you want so why would I pick one over the other?

I heard XFCE is lower on resources but that is ok for a 10 year old computer, but what about modern computers that play 4K videos no issues why would I want xfce?

In general XFCE -- like other lightweight DEs such as LXQT, Enlightenment or MATE -- is not only more efficient with system resources, it also just has a lot less of the visual bells and whistles. And while this may be less relevant if someone has a computer like a 16-core Mac Pro, it's entirely reasonable for them to prefer a lightweight DE like XFCE with their Linux distro if they want something more efficient, or more minimalist than GNOME or KDE. That doesn't mean that XFCE is necessarily better -- it's just a different option.

 

[Snowlover]

Linux is a poor man's OS. There is no testing what so ever. No guarantees. Do not be fooled by people claiming they have their own "distro" , most of these are just backed up by small number of developers like 5 or 10 working remotely over the internet. They do not have any research or testing budget if they have any budget at all. Its "donation" work. Some of them are relying on 1 man like Slackware where one man runs the whole show.

And yet Apple and Microsoft regularly release OSes and updates with many bugs and problems even with all their "professional" testing.

 

[MacBH928]

And yet Apple and Microsoft regularly release OSes and updates with many bugs and problems even with all their "professional" testing.

yes, so you could imagine things are much worse on the side of linux where its not professionally maintained and fragmented into tens of distro with each having their own library of apps

 

[Snowlover]

yes, so you could imagine things are much worse on the side of linux where its not professionally maintained and defragmented into tens of distro with each having their own library of apps

Just out of curiosity, is this your experience with linux, or are you just imagining it.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Can you elaborate on why XFCE is better? I have been researching this and it seems all of GNOME, KDE, and XFCE and can be modified to look however you want so why would I pick one over the other?

I heard XFCE is lower on resources but that is ok for a 10 year old computer, but what about modern computers that play 4K videos no issues why would I want xfce?

You absolutely can't make modern Gnome look like XFCE...

You pick a desktop environment based on the bundled applications and the out of the box look and feel. Why would I spend 300 hours to make KDE look like Gnome when I could just use Gnome?

yes, so you could imagine things are much worse on the side of linux where its not professionally maintained and defragmented into tens of distro with each having their own library of apps

Where do you get this stuff? Also "defragmented" means the opposite of fragmented. Choice is good.

 

[rampancy]

Mx linux still maintains a 32 bit version with xfce or fluxbox de.
Should work on core duo Mac.

Download Links – MX Linux

mxlinux.org

Thanks for the tip. I'm downloading it now and will maybe give it a whirl. I mainly ask because I've discovered that while a given distro may have a 32-bit/i386 option, it still won't necessarily like Apple's 32-bit EFI implementation on Core Duo Macs. Matt Gadient's isomacprog utility might help in some cases, but it's not a guarantee.

I'm also looking forward to trying out Crunchbang++ too. I have an old Core Duo MacBook 1,1 with a faulty memory slot limiting it to 1 GB RAM, for which I'd love to find a good modern memory-efficient Linux distro.

 

[MacBH928]

Just out of curiosity, is this your experience with linux, or are you just imagining it.

If you are wondering if I have used Linux as my daily driver the answer is no but I am not imagining it. After researching the software for a long time most linux software is made by free contributors and nearly none of them are as polished as the commercial counter parts. Here is some examples:-

LibreOffice vs Microsoft Office
GIMP vs Photoshop
ShotCut/Kdenlive vs Final Cut Pro/Avid
InkScape vs illustrator

There is no way free made software by contributors is going to outperform software backed by multi-billion dollar corporations in budget. Its just logic.

You absolutely can't make modern Gnome look like XFCE...

You pick a desktop environment based on the bundled applications and the out of the box look and feel. Why would I spend 300 hours to make KDE look like Gnome when I could just use Gnome?


Where do you get this stuff? Also "defragmented" means the opposite of fragmented. Choice is good.

1-Yes I meant fragmented thanks

2-I have seen KDE turned into MacOS Big Sur and Zoring has multiple layouts one which looks similar to XFCE and one looks like Windows 11 and I believe Zorin is using GNOME (or modified GNOME). All DEs can be made to look like each other it confuses me to look at a screenshot and tell which one it is.

3-I do not understand the bundled applications part, you can download any applications you want no matter what Distro you are using so its not a big deal.

4-Well yes if you want Gnome looks you just get Gnome but sometimes you want Windows 10 look or MacOS look, so how would you do that? Sometimes the DE is heavy like Gnome but you want it for an older computer so you run a light weight DE like Xfce and making it look like Gnome or KDE.

5-Choice is good but that choice has to be fully featured, polished, and sustainable(like firefox). Its no use to have apps that are made by 2-3 people in their free time that has 10 other competitors made by another 2-3 people in their free time. When it comes to the OS, we have 1 Android and 1 iOS meanwhile we are fighting between Calyx , LineageOS, and Graphene on the FOSS side of things. Another example is Steam Proton is officially supported on Ubuntu I believe which means even if you get it working, they will not bother to make sure it works on OpenSUSE, Fedora, Slackware, or Arch. Now imagine the rest of the apps out there.

Thanks for the tip. I'm downloading it now and will maybe give it a whirl. I mainly ask because I've discovered that while a given distro may have a 32-bit/i386 option, it still won't necessarily like Apple's 32-bit EFI implementation on Core Duo Macs. Matt Gadient's isomacprog utility might help in some cases, but it's not a guarantee.

I'm also looking forward to trying out Crunchbang++ too. I have an old Core Duo MacBook 1,1 with a faulty memory slot limiting it to 1 GB RAM, for which I'd love to find a good modern memory-efficient Linux distro.

There is a huge selection of minimal linux distros, just search for it on any search engine . Some of them are puppy linux and peppermint.

more options:-

 

[salamanderjuice]

There is no way free made software by contributors is going to outperform software backed by multi-billion dollar corporations in budget. Its just logic.

And yet the most popular server OS is Linux. Not the server OSs backed by multi-billion dollar corporations like Microsoft and Apple. Plenty of fantastic FOSS software out there too, just little to no marketing budgets. Great stuff you've probably heard of and use like VLC, Blender, 7zip.

Linux is literally free to try. I think if you gave it a spin you might understand a little bit better. You don't even have to install it and can run it straight off a USB stick.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

...

There is no way free made software by contributors is going to outperform software backed by multi-billion dollar corporations in budget. Its just logic.


...

This is not so.

Compare LibreOffice to MS Office --

• Opening and editing a large document (i.e. The Bible) is much faster in LO than MSO.
• Creating, modifying and applying styles is much easier in LO than MSO.
• It is relatively easy to create and edit multi-file (Master) documents in LO than MSO.
• LO will let you autosave your documents no matter where you save them - local drive, shared drive, cloud drive. MsO will only let you autosave your documents if you use MS OpenDrive
• If you save your multi-file (Master) on MS OpenDrive it will destroy it. This doesn't happen with LO.
• The complete documentation for all modules of LO is freely downloadable, as either LO documents or as PDF. You can't do this with MSO.

Consider TeX/LaTeX. This has been free software for some 40 years now. It still is the best, most flexible and accurate software for laying out text on a page. It is better than QuarkXpress, Adobe InDesign and much, much better than MS Word. It is also simpler and easier to use well than MS Office.

Consider Joplin as a note-taking package. It is much better than MS OneNote, and works across multiple platforms, and can synchronise across them. It also has more, and more useful export options, and many, many more formatting options.

Afterthought.
Open source and freeware software is made by people for the love of it. Generally they do the best they can.

Commercial software is made by organisations that want to make money. They will have it created as cheaply as possible, with major parts of the software outsourced to $5/hour off-shore programmers. This cannot and will not produce quality software.

 

[Snowlover]

If you are wondering if I have used Linux as my daily driver the answer is no but I am not imagining it. After researching the software for a long time

Has your research involved using the software, or are you just parroting the opinion of others who have a negative opinion of linux and Foss?
If you tried it and it doesn't work for you fine. Use what does, but no need to bash these fine alternatives to your precious professional programs.

 

[bogdanw]

Just released Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) https://releases.ubuntu.com/22.04/

 

[phillytim]

If iTunes was available for Linux, especially for iPhone/iPad backups, I would switch FULL TIME!

There really is no reason why iTunes should not be readily available for Linux, considering its macOS heritage. 🤔