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From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

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Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#3
I wonder if there is a market for something that runs after first install, or via the Settings app, that "makes my install look like X", for X in (Win2k, MacOS, Win10) say.

The point being that this very short list of options is extremely thoroughly-worked-out, which is a level simply not available today in a stock Ubuntu distro and its themes. I can choose elementary, or Mint, bitbthat is essentially an OS distro level decision. I can download some themes, but its not interchangeable at will, and the depth of implementation of gnome or kde themes is very shallow.

I expect that to truly do this would require not just graphical styling but also switching lots of packages around (eg a file manager). Maybe the path there looks like a giant Nix config to capture all the dependencies?

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#4
post #2

I thought this was an interesting point. GNOME looks like macOS as KDE looks like Windows I'm not sure how much of this is true, has anyone run the 4 of them around the same recent period?

That's actually a fairly common discription of both DEs.

While it's been a couple years since I last used a Mac and I thankfully haven't had to use Windows 11 (only 10, sparsely), I've used all four platforms within the past 3/4-ish years and I'd say it's a pretty accurate blanket statement.

KDE is really intuitive to use as a previous windows-user, and gnome... well certainly feels like they're _trying_ to be MacOS, not sure how familiar it'd actually feel to a recent MacOS convert though.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#5
post #2

I thought this was an interesting point. GNOME looks like macOS as KDE looks like Windows I'm not sure how much of this is true, has anyone run the 4 of them around the same recent period?

KDE is the only desktop environment that I've used on Linux that successfully lets me mimic macOS, not in style, but in the top menu bar and app menu placement, the dock, window decorations/button placement, hot corners etc. The overview feature is also very macOS-esque.

I'm not using a macOS theme, but all of the buttons are in the same places and it works great with my macOS muscle memory. Same thing with key shortcuts, KDE has a customizable shortcut system for practically anything you'd want to do.

I tried doing the same in GNOME and it seems that they want you doing things the GNOME way, which is just different enough to be an annoying experience, personally.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#6
Fun read. Is mind blowing that I haven't had a Windows machine in over 2 decades at this point. I have had some MacBooks, but mainly because that is what companies would buy for me.

My personal machines have been Ubuntu or derivative for a long time now. To the point that I don't even know what I'm missing in alternatives, anymore. Used to be it was games, Steam has been a blessing there.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#7
post #2

I thought this was an interesting point. GNOME looks like macOS as KDE looks like Windows I'm not sure how much of this is true, has anyone run the 4 of them around the same recent period?

It's definitely true with KDE Plasma. If you squint at a KDE Plasma desktop, you see a Windows Start menu and System Tray.

The similarity is more vague with GNOME (3) and Mac OS, IMO.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#8
In uni, I ran Ubuntu 7.04 for a summer on a Thinkpad R21. Similar to the author, I was obsessed in customizing in and making it look like OS X but without any direct experience with using a Mac. I even had a ding sound for completed downloads in Transmission-GTK and some form of grass wallpaper (but not the REAL grass wallpaper).

I then had the realization that what I really wanted was a Mac. I was fortunate enough for my family to purchase me one which, with an AppleCare exchange for a unibody model, lasted me a whopping 11 years (Tiger to Mojave). I also still have that iPod nano from the back-to-school promo they used to have.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#9
post #6

Fun read. Is mind blowing that I haven't had a Windows machine in over 2 decades at this point. I have had some MacBooks, but mainly because that is what companies would buy for me. My personal machines have been Ubuntu or derivative for a long time now. To the point that I don't even know what I'm missing in alternatives, anymore. Used to be it was games, Steam has been a blessing there.

^ my exact history too.

I've had a couple dual boot windows and I couldn't even figure out how to code on it effectively. (web dev js stuff)

To this day I don't understand if I am meant to have git bash, command prompt or powershell, or all of them or what.

Mac's are reliable, but I personally find them clunky for standard development.

Ubuntu is my safe place, the UX/DX makes the most sense to me.

Re: From 14 years old till 29, my experience with desktop Linux

#10

I wonder if there is a market for something that runs after first install, or via the Settings app, that "makes my install look like X", for X in (Win2k, MacOS, Win10) say. The point being that this very short list of options is extremely thoroughly-worked-out, which is a level simply not available today in a stock Ubuntu distro and its themes. I can choose elementary, or Mint, bitbthat is essentially an OS distro le…

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