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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 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

23 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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[+] woelkchen -9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Internet surfing

Forget web browsing with 4GB RAM. You can completely disregard the comments recommending a "lite DE" when merely opening a modern web site will put the whole PC into crawling. The 150 MB more or less for different desktops are completely irrelevant then.

The best "newbie friendly" distribution is just plain Fedora Workstation but with only 4GB RAM it will be a pain to use no matter what.

Edit: If you're a KDE user yourself, you're best equipped to answer KDE-related questions.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

I think 4GB is plenty for web browsing if there are not many tabs opened. Though the laptop will still be slow because of the specs.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

Forget web browsing with 4GB RAM.

...if you don't install an ad-blocker and open many tabs at the same time...

[–] Ziglin 1 points 2 months ago

I have a laptop with 4GB of RAM and it works fine, my fedora i3 installation. It's nothing compared to a proper computer but it's not like I ever run out of RAM either. (Generally I open two Firefox windows, discord and vscode)

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

There are several browsers that can operate with low memory requirements, but you have to be willing to live without JavScript & the front-end needs to have been built with accessibility & progressive enhancement in mind. …Which most front-end developers don’t do & the industry doesn’t normally pay them enough to care or get better results (& following YouTube tutorials always tells you to use the latest bloated framework which is overkill for your project).

Also Fedora doesn’t ship with LTS kernels which makes me question their package management strategy.