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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.

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Which Linux distro for beginners (with requirements) (programming.dev)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

24 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A friend of someone related doesn't have a laptop nowadays, but needs one. Now we have 2 old laptops at home, and we want to give her one so she can do some things on it. Since she isn't used to laptops and the old laptops wouldn't run a Windows 11 (I don't want to install a Win10 because of end of support and lacking security features), I guess installing a simple Linux is fine. Now comes the big question: Which Linux distro should I install? (see requirements below)

Laptops:

Acer Aspire ES 15, AMD dual-core E1-7010 @1.5 GHz, 4GB RAM, 1000 GB HDD
HP Pavilion 17-e030ez, Intel Pentium @2.4 GHz, 4GB RAM, 10000 GB HDD (I'd choose this)

Tasks:

Office Stuff (I thought about OnlyOffice)
Internet surfing
Banking via Web

Requirements:

needs to have full German support
needs an easy software installation center
should be easy to learn
optionally, her friends (which probably use Windows/ Mac) should be able to help her (since she never had a laptop before)
eventually German forum/ German Guides

I'm using Linux/ Manjaro for myself but don't have any experience with beginner-friendly distros. I used a KDE neon for some time and also have used Ubuntu, and to be honest, they seem beginner-friendly too.

Please let me know your opinions, thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Regarding Specs, I'd choose a lite DE.

Xubuntu
Linux Mint with Mate or Xfce

You can even use an LTS version for longer lasting editions.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Linux Mint with Mate +1

Linux in general has good language support.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Linux in general has good language support.

I've yet to find a distro with NZ English 😆. I'd love to just start a new dictionary and add words to it for all the spell checks, but I've never worked out how to do this. I'm not sure there's even system level spell check.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

a distro with NZ English

Not nit-picky at all...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Haha I get that I can't really expect better than "English", or maybe "US English" and "UK English", but having a system wide dictionary I can add words to by right clicking and choosing "add to dictionary" would be nice.

As I understand it, each program keeps their own.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm curious now, what's a NZ English word that's unique to NZ?

And yes, there is no system wide spell check, but I think windows/macos also don't have this.

The only system I know with system wide spell check are smartphones.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I can easily search up people talking about both the Windows and MacOS system wide spell checks. While for Linux you just find people talking about how dumb it is everything uses different implementations: https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/hu4ktg/does_systemwide_autocorrect_and_typo_flagging/

As for NZ English words, it would mostly be words that have come from the Māori language including place names and people's names.

In theory having multi-language spell check would solve most of the issues, but I've never seen Māori as a supported language on Linux.

For some examples of words, there are place names like Taranaki, Te Anau, Te Awamutu. People's names like Hone Harawera or Apirana Ngata. And common words and phrases that have made it into English like Kia ora (mostly used in English as a greeting) and Aotearoa (a name for New Zealand). There will also be company and product names as well.