[Update] Re: [OT] Granny-friendly Linux Distros?

[lagfra]

On 05/26 08:35, Yatheendra via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Saturday, 25 May 2019 at 17:33:42 UTC, lagfra wrote:
> > On 05/25 12:10, Yatheendra via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> > > On Saturday, 25 May 2019 at 07:16:59 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)
> > > wrote:
> > > > Thanks for the input, all.
> > > > > If you don't already know me by know, I'll warn you: There's > a
> > > lot of ranty-ness the further this gets. But I *do* have a >
> > > (tentative) plan...
> > > > > [...]
> > > 
> > > Have you looked at
> > >         https://elementary.io/
> > > You have to pay for it, but it is a pretty good Linux option (for
> > > you too,
> > > if I may guess at from your comments).
> > 
> > You don't have to pay for it, it's sufficient to put 0$ under the
> > "Custom" menu and you can download it for free. Donations are just
> > encouraged, I guess.
> 
> I didn't know that (but I feel one should still pay for libre software
> maintainence).
> 

Yes, I totally agree.

> > IMHO the easiest and most complete DE for a beginner is Cinnamon with
> > Linux Mint, but if your laptop / PC is constrained on resources I
> > strongly advise setting up Devuan with XFCE:
> 
> Is it a proper DE, with auto-mounting of USB sticks, controls for WiFi, etc.
> I thought only GNOME and KDE did that.
> 

XFCE is one of the most lightweight and consistent DEs in my opinion, of course
if one requires everything to work out of the box the choice is restricted to
the heaviest ones. XFCE surely needs to put some effort into configuration, yet
it is very flexible and everything can be customized through GUIs.
Cinnamon supports all the features you list out of the box (at least on Mint).

> > https://devuan.org/
> > 
> > It is apt-based, lightweight and doesn't use systemd, which makes it a
> > lot easier to reason about and straightforward if you need to debug some
> > system errors.
> 
> After moving to Gentoo Linux, I realized how crippled most pre-compiled
> software is on other Linux distributions. For example, IceWM looks so much
> better with proper font support compiled in, which most distributions don't
> compile it with.

I'm a Gentoo user too, and while it is true that pre-compiled software is
crippled sometimes, I wouldn't recommend Gentoo to a novice or to someone who
doesn't use his machine for development. Gentoo is great for programming and it
can be configured to be stable as hell, but it takes practice at the beginning.