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I'm currently on some pirated LTSC Windows 10 but I'll probably move back to Linux next. It just bothers me how much more effort simple tasks take on Linux, and how a lot of the options emulate the inferior Mac look. Whenever I see the red yellow green buttons on a window it makes me gag thinking about all the money that terrible company has scammed people for.
Why worry about the fact that there's lots of options that emulate the Mac look, when there are many options that don't? My favourite Desktop Environment currently is KDE Plasma, which I use on Manjaro. It's more like the Windows design but in my opinion way better, and of course ridiculously customisable (which is what KDE Plasma is known for, especially compared to Windows 10/11). Also the exit, minimize, and maximize buttons I for some reason absolutely love so much better than anything else I've seen (no, they look nothing like Mac). My other favourites are Budgie, Cinnamon, and Mate which are all great options. Budgie's great for the minimalistic design while still looking very modern and clean. And besides, which DE's are you talking about when you say they are emulating Mac? Most, if not all of them allow you change the "Red, Yellow, Green" buttons to the more traditional Windows look, and move them to the right side of the Window from the left.
Well that's nice but I was just voicing my personal gripes with the Mac interfaces which are on some of the mainstream Linux versions. I didn't say they were all bad, it just takes me personally more time to pick the correct ones. I'd hate to select an ultra specific customized version that gets abandoned by the maintainers in a year or two, I generally run machines for about 8 years.
I’d hate to select an ultra specific customized version that gets abandoned by the maintainers in a year or two, I generally run machines for about 8 years.
TLDR (Apologies for the crazy long comment): Basically, I say that if you want peace of mind the project isn't going to be abandoned; choose one of the most popular distro's and one of the most popular DE's. And I reccomend a bunch of options for Distro's and DE's you might like to use.
That makes sense. If you want the peace of mind that the distro or Desktop Environment isn't going to be abandoned in a couple of years; that's why you go with one of the popular ones; they aren't going away any time soon or the foreseeable future. The distro developers usually customise the included Desktop Environment a bit to cater to their specific audience. Choose a popular distro, and choose one of the officially maintained flavours they make available, rather then a community maintained one, which is much more likely to be abandoned after a couple years. Here's an example of the popular desktop environments:
KDE Plasma has been around since 1998 & developed since 1996, and is regularly developed, improved, and updated.
Cinnamon has been around since 2011 and is developed by the Linux Mint distro developers; Linux Mint being one of the top 3 most popular Linux distributions; not going away anytime soon. It's also regularly updated too. And since Linux Mint are the devs; It's the main, most supported flavour available for Linux Mint.
GNOME I'm not a fan of it personally. It's been around since 1999, developed since 1997; GNOME is associated with Ubuntu and is one of, if not the most popular desktop environments available; of course this is also regularly updated too, and not going away anytime soon.
Mate (pronounced mah-tay) has been around since 2011; it was forked from an old version of GNOME due to the backlash GNOME was getting at the time for drastic changes they were making to their own DE; and made for people who preferred the GNOME 2 design. Again: regularly worked on and updated
Budgie released in 2014 and is developed by Solus distro developers. In my opinion, it's absolutely beautiful with it's minimalistic yet modern visual design, but I can see why it wouldn't be for everyone; still worth it to check out.
Why don't you setup a Linux virtual machine on your Windows PC, install a bunch of different flavours of different distro's, and try the different Desktop Environment's out for yourself? You might surprise yourself and find one that you adore the look of. I know from experience that using the environments themselves is way different to simply looking at screenshots or watching video's.
The best options for distro's to try out imo are:
Linux Mint (Debian based; probably the best beginner friendly distro out there, just about everything is doable without the terminal)
Manjaro (Arch based; made to be an arch-like distro that's a beginner-to-linux but familiar-with-computers, and average-user friendly distro. A common misconception is that it's very unstable and prone to breakage: this is not true anymore and was more an issue in it's early days)
Pop!_OS (Debian based; brilliant for gamers and average computer users; they use GNOME, but System76 (the devs) are working on their own Desktop Environment written from scratch to replace GNOME; last I checked, there haven't been any screenshots revealed of it.
Those are my top picks but I know my small list is missing many others of the great and popular distro's. Making sure you can have a system that's supported for years to come is easy if you pick one of the popular distro's. If you don't want to update the system for years at a time; don't choose a distro with a rolling-release update system (like Arch, Manjaro, Garuda, EndeavourOS etc. which is basically anything Arch-based) If that's how you use your system; Linux Mint with the Cinnamon, Mate, or XFCE flavour is a perfect choice. And if you want to, you ARE able to install any other DE on Linux Mint even if it's not officially supported, and you can have as many DE's installed at once as you want; though that will all require the terminal.
It just bothers me how much more effort simple tasks take on Linux
Such as? I've never had this problem.
It depends of what distribution and overall understanding the mentality being the how to install thing stuff. Most people don't know what's a package manager for example, how to manage multiple disks on the computer etc... While some linux distros are streamlined and made simple, they can feel quite different to windows.
You don't just download an installer, go to the folder, click an icon with some associated details, and have warnings about the sort of modifications the program might make when installed. No, you have to learn the command line for this task and sometimes you need to know what parameters to set, and in the case of dependencies you should probably keep track of what all it comes with and what they do because when it comes time to remove a program it'll be even more tedious. If it takes time then it is work, and Linux is more work.
I think most distros have a command to remove orphaned packages. If you just don't want to use the command line but want a more App store like experience, then there are some distros that do have a GUI based app store. I think you should try dual booting with something like Pop_!OS when you want to try it. Absolutely do not install it in place of windows the first time, because you might not like it, and dual boot gives you an option to remove it and go back to windows like nothing happened. Then ofc if you don't want to try it then don't.
Oh god no, App stores are cancer. I just want files in folders. Easily identified formats like executables or media. I'm sure theres one right for me, but it's not like it cost me anything to use the Windows LTSC.
Well, linux executables and 3rd party installers exist, but they are not the recommended way to install software, and linux uses the same formats as windows for almost everything(mp4, txt, rtf, etc...). But you should probably stick with windows if you want that UX.
So you not only think Microsoft is not a shitty company, but their UI is better? Lololol
Lololol their UI is 100% absolutely better, and they are much much much less restrictive than Apple. Still a shit company, but if I had an extra 400 or 500 USD I'd pay them for the LTSC.
Yikes
I hate many things about apple but Jesus MS UIs are trashy af