it is more about arch’s philosy being your system may not boot next update

Yeah … no thanks. I’ll be okay with slightly outdated versions of various packages, as long as they still work.

ubuntu: pacman -S name is not harder than apt install name.

Eh, it’s a teensy bit harder, since you have to remember what -S means, rather than the easy to remember and plain English ‘install’. But, yeah, not much of a difference.

And try to install something on ubuntu if it’s not in the official package repos.

1: Go to that something’s website.

2: look for their download/install instructions page, scroll to Linux instructions if necessary.

3: Install instructions for Debian/Ubuntu are usually the first one listed, and typically just consist of a few commands you can copy and paste over without modifying.

It isn’t particularly difficult in most cases.

Honestly, I think Kubuntu is slept on as a beginner’s distro.

Yes, Ubuntu has its issues … but those sorts of issues are really not going to affect a newbie much. And it’s stable, easy to use, KDE defaults will be pretty familiar-feeling for Windows refugees, and it should be relatively easy to find help – 90% of the time, if you just type “how do I _____ in Linux?” into Google Duck Duck Go, the results you find will be perfectly applicable to Ubuntu. Want to install 3rd party software that’s not in their repos? In pretty much any software that offers a Linux version, the Ubuntu-compatible install method is the first one they list.

(Oh, and the installer is literally one click if you just let it do everything in automatic mode. No keyboard needed. The install image boots into a full GUI installer with mouse support, and if you want, all you have to do is click ‘automatic install’ and wait. Once it’s done and reboots, you’re in your new OS.)

Once you become an advanced enough user that you get annoyed by Snap packages or feel like you need more cutting-edge package updates … well, then you should also be advanced enough to do your own distro-hopping.

Infected torrents have been found there

*laughs in Linux*

At this point, I have to assume they’re doing it on purpose.

Eh, list has its place, and I’ll still use it sometimes.

List shows you more files on one screen, and it can show details of the files like filesize and last modified date without having to click on each file to get that.

Everybody else with these giant folders is fucking crazy.

Hey, man. Sometimes I’m dealing with images a lot, and it helps to have image thumbnails big enough to see clearly.

(And even the mini-thumbnails inside a folder’s thumbnail are visible enough to be helpful, giving me a quick sense of what’s in that folder.)

“we just copied all of your private keys and documents into our cloud and hid them”

And then deleted the originals on your computer so that your only copy is in our cloud.

Oops! Your cloud storage is full! Now pay us $25/mo or you will not be able to access your cloud storage.

How so? I want KDE to remember that certain programs should only open on certain screens

KDE has been able to do this for a long time.

System Settings --> Window Management --> Window Rules

Or, right click on the title bar of the window --> more options --> configure special window settings

From there, you can create a rule that forces a certain program to open its window at a certain location. And you can specify that location to be on the screen you want it to be on. Specifically set a rule for “Position”, enter the screen coordinates where you want it to go, and select “Apply Initially”.

(If the application isn’t behaving under that rule, try adding the “Ignore requested geometry” rule as well.)

But I would hate it with passion if my landlord would place his stuff into my flat.

Well, that depends… How valuable is his stuff?

Gnome is easily the least customizable DE in the entire Linux ecosystem.

And I’m sure their devs are hard at work coming up with ways to make it even less customizable in the future.

Moreover, people who give Linux a trial, they wish for something different.

Says who? I think most people who give Linux a trial, they wish for Windows, but without the all the bullshit.

What I’m afraid of is newbies who get Gnome as the default without knowing any better, without even knowing what a DE is or that there’s more than one. And when they find it weird and difficult to learn, they’re not going to think, “Gnome is weird and difficult to learn, I should try a different DE.” – they’re going to think, “Linux is weird and difficult to learn, I should go back to Windows.”

What would be a better starter DE then?

Literally any other DE. Throw a dart at a bunch of DE logos pasted to the wall, and you’ll hit one that’s better for newbies than Gnome.

(And no, Gnome is not intuitive. You said yourself that using Gnome requires you “just learn to do things differently”. If it was intuitive, you wouldn’t need to learn it, and it wouldn’t feel ‘different’.)

Since all your examples of how intuitive Gnome is involve the same settings menu in the top right corner … is that settings menu in the top right corner labeled at all? Or is intuition the ONLY way to know it’s the settings menu? You know, maybe I’m starting to understand the disconnect here. When I say something is intuitive, I mean it’s where you’d naturally expect it and does what you expect it to do. But when Gnome people call something “intuitive”, I’m starting to suspect they say that because using intuition is the only way to figure out the interface. You just have to guess what that vague icon does…

Just because it has a different workflow that big players implanted in people, Linux needs to match that?

For newbies? Yes. SO MUCH YES.

I don’t care if you want to use Gnome on a distro for people who want weird and different. But for any mainstream distro targeted toward newbies, Gnome should not be the default DE. Precisely because it requires a lot of additional learning to use the DE, in addition to learning to use Linux.

Well, for me, each virtual desktop is dedicated to a different ongoing project. When I want to switch from one project to another, I just switch virtual desktops. Each project can have all kinds of windows open on multiple monitors, and none of them are relevant to the other projects.

Set a window rule to have those particular windows be on all desktops. Then the others can switch while those stay the same.

it is innovative

Nah, it’s just weird. And doing a lot of things to be different for the sake of being different. Which steepens the learning curve for newbies. (And, worse, may make newbies think all Linux is weird and difficult to learn.)

Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s better.

newby friendly (Windows and Mac are both more complex)

‘Simplicity’ does not necessarily mean it’s user friendly. Especially when you’re telling them to go download and install more things just so their desktop can do things that EVERY other desktop in the entire world does. I really really wish this paradigm of “removing options = user friendly” would just die already.

(It’s not really user friendly, it’s developer-friendly. Because there’s less for them to build and maintain.)

It has efficient keyboard navigation by default

Every DE does this. Name a single Linux DE that doesn’t have efficient keyboard navigation.

And it has pleasant, modern UI by default.

It has a blobby, plastic-looking, overstyled UI by default. But that’s just a matter of taste.

(And if you don’t like their default UI … well, you’re screwed, because they really don’t want you to change it.)

I’ll make a deal:

You stop including Gnome as the default DE on mainstream, newbie-friendly distros, and I’ll stop talking shit about it.

Which features are unnecessary?

Well, depends how you’re using it. In my case, for example, I don’t have a printer, so I could turn off the entire print manager system/service and save a bit of unnecessary RAM. And if you’re trying to be economical about RAM usage, things like fancy window decorations, window animations, and other purely aesthetic stuff like that can of course go. But, really, what features are necessary versus unnecessary will depend on you and what you’re using your computer for.

Or did you just mean what features does KDE have?

In that case, the answer is basically, all the features. Like, KDE is the quintessential ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ desktop. You name it, they have it … or it can quickly and easily be added. Any feature you can think of from any other OS or desktop, chances are KDE already has it or at least can do it with just a little tweaking.

For an example, I think my favorite feature would be the ability to set custom window rules for each application or even each sub-window within an application. Setting rules that dictate the size and placement of that app’s windows, their transparency, which virtual desktop they open in, whether they show up in the taskbar or not, whether other windows can cover them up or not, etc. I use those rules extensively in my workflow to make sure each app always goes exactly where I want it on my multiple monitors, stays there, and behaves just how I want it to. (For example, I want my system monitor to be 80% translucent in a certain corner of the screen. I want my timer app to always stay on top, and in a particular location on a particular screen, I want my time tracking spreadsheet open on all desktops, but always in the background so it never covers any other window, and not cluttering up the taskbar. I want the terminal to always open maximized on my left monitor, and for it to be 100% visible when active, but 80% translucent when not active. With window rules, I can make all of that happen.)

Why? Just… why?

Any time you ask the Gnome devs this, you can expect the answer to be “elegance”. And then they block you.