I hate Microsoft and Windows, I want to choose better AND more importantly, see what all this fuss about Linux being awesomest is about
I hate Microsoft and Windows, I want to choose better AND more importantly, see what all this fuss about Linux being awesomest is about
So what distro is Mac without a concussion? I dont want windows
Ubuntu?
Probably the closest to “Mac without a concussion” would probably be ElementaryOS with the Pantheon desktop, but I don’t really recommend it.
Linux is modular in ways you’re probably not used to. Windows looks like WIndows and that’s it, you can’t just uninstall the taskbar and install someone else’s taskbar. In Linux you can do pretty much exactly that. The GUI is a separate system that sits on top of the OS like Windows ran on top of DOS back in the 90’s and at airports today. There are several Desktop Environments (DEs) you can choose from.
For example, if you go to Linux Mint’s website, you will find it offered in three main flavors: Cinnamon, MATE and xfce.
The vast majority of DEs you’ll find in Linux are set up out of the box the way Windows is, in terms of basic UI elements. Most have a panel at the bottom with the application menu on the left, a window list next to that or centered, and system tasks and the clock on the right. A window has the minimize, maximize and close button at the top right, etc. Stuff you have muscle memory of using.
Gnome deliberately does things like that differently I think out of a sense of grudge. I used to hear Linux newcomers say things like “I tried Linux for a few hours and found you can’t even rename a file. Like it’s impossible to rename a file. Linux is completely useless.” And I didn’t understand how it was they could come to such a bafflingly dumb conclusion until I tried using Gnome and caught myself saying the same things.
Gnome also deliberately doesn’t implement a lot of features because they expect you to use the terminal for them. Other DEs like Cinnamon and KDE are actually finished.
Gnome is actually very solid. Its a great desktop environment, it just works in a specific way that takes some getting used to. A good out of the box gnome experience would be fedora.
People will not recommend it though, since desktop environments that mimick windows are easier to get used to for new users, like linux mint with cinnamon, or any KDE default distro.
The previous comment sais it’s like Mac is with a concussion. It is an apt comparison because like MacOS gnome is very clean and minimal, but its still very different in its workflow. Giving macOS switchers quite a headache.
Distros don’t define the UI.
That’s the desktop environment’s work. Many distros will look and feel exactly alike, because they use the same DE.
These are:
GNOME is their own thing, with very opinionated and authoritarian devs. They are not very flexible in their design and development philosophy. That said, Gnome is a very good and quality DE that does have customization, but is also very different to everything else UX wise.
KDE Plasma is very Windows like, because their thing is to be extremely flexible and customizable. But, with sane defaults that look like Windows as closely as possible. So it is very familiar out of the box, though it can be made to look and work into very unique ways. It is also very good and quite polished, aiming to have virtually everything into a GUI or menu, minimizing the need for terminal commands.
Cinnamon is Linux Mint’s continuation of what Gnome used to be like. Which means that it is very similar to pre-Windows 10 but with modern quality of life upgrades and functionality.
Most distros will use one of the first two, and Mint champions it’s own Cinnamon. Other DE’s are for more specialty or niche distributions.
Very few DE’s capture the macOS experience. Mostly because there’s little interest on it from the crowds that use Linux, so they get abandoned quickly. The closest thing currently is Budgie, which had died for a while, but is now revived by a different group of developers.