flatbield

That was my reaction. Since I use Cinnamon and Gnome I use gnome-terminal.

The features I like are cut/paste and the open in terminal feature in the file manger. Nice that it looks good in your DE too. What else does one need?

If you want 2D drafting like solution, look at Librecad. It seems quite good. It is 2D only.

Freecad is 3D solid modeling but there is a 2D component.

FreeCAD is the most common solid FOSS modeler. I do not think any solid modeling system is that simple. They tend to need training and continuous use. That was my experience with SolidWorks and NX anyway.

Every system has its own processes. If you want Apple software and services use Apple. If you want Linux use Linux. Do not expect either to be like the other especilly at such a micro level.

As far as Linux and beginner friendly, buy a device with Linux preinstalled just like you do with Apple. As far as user setting and apps. Get a notebook and write them down, and avoid deep customizations. As far as backup get 3 USB drives and backup your home directory with rsync or one of the other solutions. As far as restore, have install media and just reinstall from scratch then layer in your configs and apps and then restore your home directory files. For file sync and app sync functions, Nextcloud is helpful and you can pay for a commercial host, set it up yourself, or use a product like Synology. You frankly could use Dropbox, Proton Drive, or one of the others also. But think carefully what is actually needed. Cloud stuff is heavily promoted by the big providers presumably for lockin reasons and to mine your data but it is not really needed for most things. Get to know your distros builtin emergency startup tools and have a live distro like the live install media available and know how to use them.

Linux is about options but for simple beginner like processes it is best to stick to the basics.

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Nice detailed log of the author’s experiance.

The one issue I have is the mind set. It seems to be from the point of view that Linux should be just like Windows and use the same software and hardware. If that is what you want run Windows.

On the otherhand if you want to use FOSS apps, use Linux and just dump Windows. My family has used Linux for over 20 years and yes it is fine. But you actually have to want that. And no, I do not use Windows, MS Apps, or Google Chrome at all these days and do not use dual boot.

Also, dual boot gets old pretty fast. Probably best to choose a primary OS and run the other in a VM. Yes, something like 27 years ago I started with dual boot but have not setup that for at least 20 years probably longer.

More usable. Better installer, better desktop configs, better eye candy, better upgrade tools, wider 3rd party support.

Upgrades. To do a major upgrade on Debian you go into the command line. You first adjust the appropriate files in /etc/apt. Then you run a bunch of apt commands.

Ubuntu you are asked if you want to upgrade to a new release and just say yes.

Because Canonical put a lot of effort into usability. Pretty much all of the popular recommended beginner distributions are Ubuntu based. Examples: Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Zorin, Elementary.

People will recommend other stuff, often that are loved by varioius enthusiasts but these may or may not be that suitable for beginners. Call me skeptical.

I use and recommend Ubuntu because it is easy to install, use, and just works. It is also widely supported and very popular. The one thing I do not like about it is the Snap focus. I would love to recommend Linux Mint but last time I used it major distribution upgrades from the GUI were not supported. Have no idea if they fixed that. Ubuntu upgrades are the click of a button. In my family there are nontechnical users and they have used it for almost 20 years just fine without much help from me.

On the other hand I use Debian if I intend to custom configure something and want a minimal install to start from. Major upgrades on Debian are not a click of a button. On the other hand Debian is not Snap based. My workstation and VPS are Debian for example.

Something listed in the top 10 or so on https://distrowatch.com/. Personally I like one of the Debian based distros.

Currently we use Ubuntu and Debian. Ubuntu would be the better of the two for beginners.

The distrowatch beginners list is: https://distrowatch.com/search-mobile.php?category=Beginners#simple

Ext4 on LVM can do both volume mirroring and snapshots. The is no COW support with ext4 though.

By the way I use BTRFS with LUKS on my workstation and have for 4 or 5 years. Primarily I like it for the snapshoting. I though I would like COW but frankly very mixed on that especially since there are cases you should not use COW and if you disable COW you loose snapshotting on that file. I have not used the raid capability. One thing I do not like about BTRFS is that I know of no way to track a bad block at the sector level to what file it is in if any. With Ext4 you can.

Another useful backup tool is restic.

This is the way. Use urandom though. Then after that you can just blkdiskard to wipe. I would add sync between the commands.

Seems like one loves vim or one does not. I learned vi back in the mid 80s, hated it then, probablty not going back. These days I thankfully use Geany or nano. Learning vim seems like a right of passage or something.

Library versioning is supported in Linux. Has been for decades. Linux and Unix too is kind of based on building from source. So am not all clear how binary builds interact with library versioning for example.

Actually I both do and do not understand why they exist. I use Debian based distros and do not use either well except when I am using Ubuntu which is forcing more and more snaps.

I do actually use exactly one appimage. I use to use the snap but found it was not that stable. One also generally has to have relatively new distro releases too as both flatpack and snap need to be fairly current which can be problem for near EOL Debian stable. Hence neither flatpack nor snap is that portable.

Where flatpacks and snaps look a lot better is smaller distros with smaller repos. Hence, not that interesting for Debian based distros.

By the way, in my view, Ubuntu using Snaps rather then native packages is a negative.

Yes I would disagree regarding immutable. Such a distribution cannot be secure for any lenght of time. Security updates are required. As soon as it customize in any way it is not immutable including adding flatpacks. So I do not see the attraction.

Keep in mind you choose basically uncommon niche distributions. Go to distrowatch and choose one of the top 5 or so and use the distro repos and security updates. No flatpack is not needed for a well supported distro. That is especially true for one of the common Debian based distros.

Just saying, not my experience. I have used linux for over 25 years and nontechnical users in my family have also for almost 20 years. By in large it has worked just fine.

The big issue is Linux is not the OS that is supplied when people go to the store and buy something (well except for Android and Chromebooks which are Linux and are popular). It is also not the system or have the apps their friends use. It also does not have the huge supply, support, and word of mouth ecosystem. Buying hardware especially addons is confusing. Getting support is hard unless you have friends that use. Buying Linux preinstalled often costs more. Change too is hard and there has to be some driver and for most people there is not.

Using LVM is advanced. No nontechnical user should consider.