I’m over tinkering with my OS. So I’m looking for a distro that “just works” out of the box for my laptop. Also I want to test an “easy” distro I can install for my grandpa.
I don’t care for immutability, declarative config, being fully FOSS or having the newest stuff. I don’t want snaps, or a software center that relies on them. So no Ubuntu.

What I do want (ideally out of the box):
Important:

  • as few annoying visible bugs and crashes as possible (looking at you, Ubuntu)
  • Wayland support
  • good package selection, so no independent fringe distro
  • fluid YouTube videos, streaming, pre-installed codecs

Less important:

  • ideally with Gnome
  • encrypting the hard drive from within the GUI installer
  • nice font rendering (used to be a problem, but I guess not anymore)
  • installing Steam with a button press
  • pre-installed sane-airprint and sane-airscan (automatic setup of my networked printer-scanner-combo)

You get the idea. The usual stuff (low-end gaming, browsing, streaming, printing, scanning) should just work. I don’t have any hardware that poses a problem.
From what I’ve read, Mint doesn’t yet support Wayland and doesn’t ship with video codecs anymore. (Or am I wrong?)
What are the other options? Is Zorin king of the block now? Is Manjaro good now?

Thanks for any and all input.

  • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
    16·
    1 year ago

    Debian ticks all of these boxes.

    Stable release

    Wayland or X Server

    It’s Debian, so literally everything is built for it, except maybe some obscure arch packages

    Has options for any DE you want

    Steam can be installed via Flatpak

    Only thing I’m not sure about is your air print stuff. I’m sure there is a package that a quick apt install would get, though.

  • Mike@lemmy.ca
    5·
    1 year ago

    I’ve had a pretty good experience with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, with a pretty similar use case / criteria.

    I’ve done my share of tinkering, and while I learned a lot, and enjoyed Gentoo, Arch, Debian, NixOS, and others (Mandrake, Ubuntu), I sometimes I just want get my work done…

    With Tumbleweed, there are a few packages that you’d need to install for codecs, but that’s easily done via the CLI zypper package manager with a single command.

    I’d definitely recommend checking it out - its been a solid daily driver for almost 3-years now with very few issues, and lets me focus on getting stuff done. I wonder if this is due to their QA build process (OBS)?

    Anyway, good luck & have fun whatever you choose!

    • KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      When I tried it a year ago, printer setup failed with a permission error until I disabled the firewall, and I had to install a community repo by a random person and manually edit a text file to get airprint and airscan working. Half the YaST modules didn’t seem to do anything or work correctly, or duplicated KDE settings. That’s what I consider to be “annoying visible bugs”.
      I also find their software selection to be limited (without said random community repos), and you can only update Tumbleweed from the command line. It felt like an unfinished mod of their flagship LEAP distro.

  • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
    4·
    1 year ago

    I got my start with Ubuntu and feel its still quite solid. Many say that Mint is a better Ubuntu than Ubuntu these days. Personally running popOS as I have their hardware.

  • urska@lemmy.ca
    3·
    1 year ago

    Dont go for Mint, Zorin or Manjaro. Old stuff. Keep it to Fedora, Opensuse, Ubuntu or Endeavour.

  • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.mlBanned
    3·
    1 year ago

    Debian Testing, if you want some of the new shiny packages. Stable if you want… hardcore stability, like me.

    Former Ubuntu LTS user, switched to Debian Stable after 6 years. It has been almost 1 year with Debian, love it, but sometimes I prefer the ease of Ubuntu (based on Debian Unstable branch). Also a big fan of GNOME and its stability and reliability. No DE comes close.

    Ubuntu LTS or Debian stable/testing branch. Pick your choice.

    I left behind Ubuntu for Debian as I became a better Linux user, and was able to leave behind the convenience and little bit annoyance of Snaps. Snap arguments are mostly overblown, cultist and garbage, so do not pay much heed to them. They are just as bad at performance as the beloved Flatpak system (which means fairly good).

  • gerdesj@lemmy.mlEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    I usually do Arch myself these days and spent many years with Gentoo. So I’m not too terrified of breakage!

    I am putting together a Linux distro strategy for my company. I am the MD of a very small IT company in the SW of England. I already have my office manager asking me to liberate her from Windows! I recently had a techie asking me to help his transition! This is organic stuff and not pushed down by me. The techie is a dyed in the wool Azure lover.

    I am used to being patient. It took me roughly five years to get a helicopter company that I worked for back in the day (late 1990s) to use DHCP properly - ie let them “roam free” and let DDNS pin them down. Sounds a bit ridiculous until you encounter “enterprise” grade nonsense.

    I have set up laptops with most of the usual suspects and tried them out. However, I have to comply with Cyber Essentials Plus which is a UK standard. It is fine but rather Windows n that 'centric. That means I need full disc encryption and anti virus (AV) and Secure Boot. I got away with ClamAV in the past but ideally I get cross platform and that means ESET for AV/web etc. I use the usual Linux FDE.

    I also need to join an Active Directory until I have got rid of AD! Oh and there is Exchange.

    https://cid-doc.github.io/ - AD and Evolution with the EWS addon for Exchange.

    So I dive in with Kubuntu after trying Rawhide and all sorts. Ubuntu is flexible enough whilst being stable enough for me. For example, Kerberos is screwed for the Firefox snap. I need Kerb for auth to my corp websites such as our wiki. Mozilla does a PPA - I dump the built in FF snap and use the Mozilla blessed PPA. All documented and all controllable in an enterprise sense.

    Closed In Directory (CID) is a configuration for Linux boxes joining into the MS world. Its a super piece of work, getting Samba, krb etc all working together well, and with a GUI. You can run scripts from your DC for that GPO feel with it.

    My needs are a bit more corp than your gaming shenanigans but my notes might help you decide what you want, what you really (really) want (zigazig … ahhhh!)

    Ubuntu PPAs are a bit like the AUR for Arch … well you have to decide what you really want. You could start from scratch: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

      • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I’ve run Manjaro for various relatives with zero issues for about 5 years now. Most of them just hit the Update button in the notification tray when it shows up, or if I’m visiting I’ll update it, but it might go months without updates and just keeps working. But if you ingrain in your dad to just hit the button when he sees it, it’ll be fine.

        I quite like Manjaro overall. Lots of usability tweaks and low maintenance because it’s curated and not completely cutting edge on the latest packages. It works.