Hej people.

[y0kai@defcon.social]

@Pepijn If I were you, I"d look into CachyOS, Pop_OS, Mint, or Fedora. These are all good choices for beginners. (I'm sure you'll hear some other suggestions or contradictions from others lol. These are all relatively easy to start with, though)

Regardless of operating system, you'll probably want to install the KDE Desktop Environment, as it is closest to XP / Win10 out of the box. Pop_OS comes with a different DE called Cosmic, which is also easy to use, but will require a learning curve, as it is not as similar to windows.

As for software recommendations:

- Firefox will be available on all of these. I personally use Librewolf, which is just Firefox with some privacy enhancements.

- Freecad/Audacity should just work, provided you download them through your OS's provided software store, package manager, or via a flatpak. (you can google how to do these things if you're not sure. There will be plenty of easy examples.)

- For word/office replacement, I prefer LibreOffice. There are a lot of options here and most hold up well.

- I'm not well versed on photoshop, but i know GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a common and capable replacement

- With KDE or Cosmic (or any common Desktop Environment, really) network access /file browsing, etc should be as simple as with windows or mac

- Unfortunately, I am not familiar with vocaster. Hopefully someone else can chime in here.

Good luck and welcome to the linux community!

Edit: Fixed a few grammar things

[src_esther@mastodon.online]

@Pepijn
Kijk hier: https://linux.vooreenbeginner.nl/

Qua Word/Spreadsheet raad ik LibreOffice aan, ook op Windows en Mac trouwens.

Photoshop alternatief zou Gimp kunnen zijn, overigens ook niet enkel voor Linux beschikbaar.

[lionelb@expressional.social]

@Pepijn

I use Zorin. There is a mode which is 'looks like Windows' and it comes with a decent amount of stuff pre-installed.

Pro version comes at a small payment but it is right to support development.

[pepijn@mastodon.online]

@src_esther Dankje!

Laatste keer dat ik Gimp op Linux probeerde was een jaar of 20 geleden.. Het viel toen tegen (ook op Windows trouwens). Ik had het idee dat er wel een ander alternatief zou zijn.

[slothrop@chaos.social]

@Pepijn Based on what you're saying, I'd go with Ubuntu. That'll give you the standard Gnome desktop. You can install KDE instead, which looks more like Windows. But both are perfectly fine.

- Browser: Firefox
- Freecad / Audacity should just work
- Word / spreadsheet: LibreOffice
- Photoshop -> Gimp
- Easy local network access / file browsing -> standard file manager
- basic photo management: lots of apps in the repos
- Vocaster Two software? officially no, still works anyway, apparently

[slothrop@chaos.social]

@Pepijn In closing:

besides general settling in, and some fiddling with stuff to get the Vocaster Two software going, your biggest problem is likely to be the galaxy of new rabbit holes opening up right in front of you, and not going down too many of them at the same time.

Have fun, and whistle if you have any questions!

[wlm@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@Pepijn Our old laptop is running Mint now. Very similar to Windows with button placement and shortcuts etc. Easy file management, Firefox and LibreOffice (Word, Excel, Powerpoint replacement) come preinstalled. But I think that’s the case for most distros :).
KUbuntu is fine too, also Windowsy, but Mint felt more hassle free.
Typically you can test the whole thing from a USB stick before committing.

[slothrop@chaos.social]

@Pepijn Oh, and I suggest picking an LTS release. For Ubuntu, that's currently 2024.04.3, front and center on their download page. That way, you can go for a couple of years without needing to update.

(Ironically, this is one of those rare moments where Debian Stable has fresher software than Ubuntu LTS 🤪)

I can't be the only one here who assumed, based on your general posting, that you were already running Linux.

[pepijn@mastodon.online]

>I can't be the only one here who assumed, based on your general posting, that you were already running Linux.

You're the second person making that comment! Honestly, after playing a bit with it around 2001 I just didn't get around to installing Linux as a desktop OS the last 20+ years..

@slothrop

[anport@mastodon.social]

@Pepijn
I’m mega happy with Linux Mint (shifted from Win10 in April last year. My very first time with a Linux system).

Music = Audacity + Ardour + VLC player.
Word = LibreOffice.
Browser = Firefox + LibreWolf.
Photoshop = GIMP.
Video editing = FlowBlade.

Linux Mint comes with a super nice software manager btw. Easy peasy.