I’m over tinkering with my OS. So I’m looking for a distro that “just works” out of the box for my laptop. Also I want to test an “easy” distro I can install for my grandpa.
I don’t care for immutability, declarative config, being fully FOSS or having the newest stuff. I don’t want snaps, or a software center that relies on them. So no Ubuntu.

What I do want (ideally out of the box):
Important:

  • as few annoying visible bugs and crashes as possible (looking at you, Ubuntu)
  • Wayland support
  • good package selection, so no independent fringe distro
  • fluid YouTube videos, streaming, pre-installed codecs

Less important:

  • ideally with Gnome
  • encrypting the hard drive from within the GUI installer
  • nice font rendering (used to be a problem, but I guess not anymore)
  • installing Steam with a button press
  • pre-installed sane-airprint and sane-airscan (automatic setup of my networked printer-scanner-combo)

You get the idea. The usual stuff (low-end gaming, browsing, streaming, printing, scanning) should just work. I don’t have any hardware that poses a problem.
From what I’ve read, Mint doesn’t yet support Wayland and doesn’t ship with video codecs anymore. (Or am I wrong?)
What are the other options? Is Zorin king of the block now? Is Manjaro good now?

Thanks for any and all input.

  • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
    0·
    5 months ago

    I got my start with Ubuntu and feel its still quite solid. Many say that Mint is a better Ubuntu than Ubuntu these days. Personally running popOS as I have their hardware.

      • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        I’ve run Manjaro for various relatives with zero issues for about 5 years now. Most of them just hit the Update button in the notification tray when it shows up, or if I’m visiting I’ll update it, but it might go months without updates and just keeps working. But if you ingrain in your dad to just hit the button when he sees it, it’ll be fine.

        I quite like Manjaro overall. Lots of usability tweaks and low maintenance because it’s curated and not completely cutting edge on the latest packages. It works.

  • Pekka@feddit.nl
    0·
    5 months ago

    Fedora might be a good option, but it might require more setup with an Nvidea GPU. They use Wayland now, are a Gnome based distro, support full disk encryption. For me the package mangar has been fine, and they do support flatpak. It is a very large distro with backing from RedHat. So it should generally be stable.

    Pop_OS! Seems to be the great distro if you just want to game and watch videos without any issues arround setting up the drivers. It has been a quite stable distro for me and it is quite similar to Ubuntu. Unfortunately this distro doesn’t have Wayland yet.

    Manjaro is an Arch based distro, but it had some issues with using packages from the AUR. They do run Gnome on Wayland by default.

  • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
    0·
    5 months ago

    Debian ticks all of these boxes.

    Stable release

    Wayland or X Server

    It’s Debian, so literally everything is built for it, except maybe some obscure arch packages

    Has options for any DE you want

    Steam can be installed via Flatpak

    Only thing I’m not sure about is your air print stuff. I’m sure there is a package that a quick apt install would get, though.

  • gerdesj@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I usually do Arch myself these days and spent many years with Gentoo. So I’m not too terrified of breakage!

    I am putting together a Linux distro strategy for my company. I am the MD of a very small IT company in the SW of England. I already have my office manager asking me to liberate her from Windows! I recently had a techie asking me to help his transition! This is organic stuff and not pushed down by me. The techie is a dyed in the wool Azure lover.

    I am used to being patient. It took me roughly five years to get a helicopter company that I worked for back in the day (late 1990s) to use DHCP properly - ie let them “roam free” and let DDNS pin them down. Sounds a bit ridiculous until you encounter “enterprise” grade nonsense.

    I have set up laptops with most of the usual suspects and tried them out. However, I have to comply with Cyber Essentials Plus which is a UK standard. It is fine but rather Windows n that 'centric. That means I need full disc encryption and anti virus (AV) and Secure Boot. I got away with ClamAV in the past but ideally I get cross platform and that means ESET for AV/web etc. I use the usual Linux FDE.

    I also need to join an Active Directory until I have got rid of AD! Oh and there is Exchange.

    https://cid-doc.github.io/ - AD and Evolution with the EWS addon for Exchange.

    So I dive in with Kubuntu after trying Rawhide and all sorts. Ubuntu is flexible enough whilst being stable enough for me. For example, Kerberos is screwed for the Firefox snap. I need Kerb for auth to my corp websites such as our wiki. Mozilla does a PPA - I dump the built in FF snap and use the Mozilla blessed PPA. All documented and all controllable in an enterprise sense.

    Closed In Directory (CID) is a configuration for Linux boxes joining into the MS world. Its a super piece of work, getting Samba, krb etc all working together well, and with a GUI. You can run scripts from your DC for that GPO feel with it.

    My needs are a bit more corp than your gaming shenanigans but my notes might help you decide what you want, what you really (really) want (zigazig … ahhhh!)

    Ubuntu PPAs are a bit like the AUR for Arch … well you have to decide what you really want. You could start from scratch: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/