this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
41 points (91.8% liked)
Linux
57387 readers
714 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Zorin or Mint.
Zorin is a bit more dumbed down, so there is no way for normal people to do anything wrong and a lot of things work just like they would expect them to. What really shocked me is when my dad downloaded some exe from the internet, double clicked it, installed and ran the software... No other distro supports that I think. On the other hand, when he had a specific wish, there was no way to change that, even though there are other distros/de's where I know you can. You mostly have to take it as it is given. Streamlined might be the appropriate word.
But mint is also very good for people that come from windows. No personal experience with it though.
Personally I prefer KDE over what my other two suggestions offer, but I've noticed that there is a lot of fiddling around involved when setting it up for specific personal preferences. If I do a fresh install, I have to go through all the kde apps and into their settings and change some behaviour here and there, which takes a whole weekend. I don't like the defaults, but at least everything can be configured to nearly perfectly suit me. But I would not want to do that for a relative, who is not tech-savy and patient enough to do it thenselves. Thats like a constant part-time tech support job.
I've got Zorin on an old laptop and it is definitely easy. I'm going to try that .exe thing!
if you haven't tried mint you should. I had similar opinions about kde neon that you seem to have about Zorin, but I've completely dropped recommending neon because mint is just insanely well curated.
wine is literally in every distro's repos.
Thats not the point.