I see a lot of people talking about the UI experience. I've found liftoff to be pretty enjoyable.
I chase friends and family down (I have non to semi technical 5 people who use Linux for years now).
Unfortunately... They don't have to dive into the rabbit hole .I do.. to make their flows seamless.
They've been stable for a long time though.
Linux is perfectly fine for GUI users. It's really great for most common use cases. You might have issues with games (or so do I've heard), but I'm not a gamer and don't know much about this... Steam has helped make games on Linux a lot better. I just play supertux or supertuxcart or mahjong once in a blue moon and am happy.
Most things work perfectly - stick to Ubuntu or Fedora or opensuse. Once you get the hang of things, things actually feel better on the Linux desktop:
- much faster than Windows
- no tracking
- highly customizable
- if you ever get into it, you can script your setup to be easily replicable across machines
Things that you'll have to fight
- fingerprint scanners - only a small subset work. My Dell latitude scanner works perfectly though.
- some printers might need manual driver download/install
- some software is only built for Windows (less and less of those these days, unless you're doing something specialized)
Nah, I think if you used a distro like mint on most hardware your experience is completely reasonable.
I started playing around with Nixos (seasoned Linux user).. That's a real hole though. Not hard. Just different. And weird. Very cool, but still quite a bit rough around the edges.
Edit: removed my own Linux background after realizing I didn't know how to use the app, and responses were to top comment.
Ubuntu is a great suggestion for beginners- that's what I install for friends and family as of now (I'm considering alternatives). I'm thinking about getting new folks on opensuse tumbleweed, but let's see.
Complete agree: always mainstream distribution for new users - Fedora, opensuse tumbleweed, Ubuntu are all great choices.
Edit: I realized everyone was responding to top comment, removed long winded rambling about my personal Linux journey.
I 100% second note taking - my personal favorite is ObsidianMD.
I used Joplin for many months, with WebDAV (koofr)/e2e setup for sync, till I discovered ObsidianMD.
Now: all my notes are in markdown/plantuml/mermaid/Obsidian canvas/drawio, managed primarily by ObsidianMD, but occasionally on vscode for special use cases (plantuml diagram editing.. vscode flow is better). I use obsidian git to sync to my git repo across my machines. Still love Joplin in a pinch (mobile app on occasion) though.
I've been sharing links to the fediverse - interesting discussions, memes, you name it.... Whenever I get a chance.
That's how I got my friends on Reddit over the years. Keep sharing links every chance you get, and share investing content you run across elsewhere here every chance you get.
Exposure drives engagement.
I've been using liftoff - much better than Jerboa, which crashed frequently and was nowhere as smooth.