Hacker News Reader

Comment by usr1106 | Hacker News Reader

I am still searching for a replacement of Ubuntu. snap store not being open source made was enough for me after nearly 10 years.

Well, not so much for myself. I can handle Arch and whatnot. I am a distro hopper, although a somewhat slow one. Used i3 for years and should probably go back (or to sway). But for family members and relatives whose machines I install and support. Is Pop OS a reasonable candidate for that? The main problem with Ubuntu these days is that I have to tell them sorry no Chromium. If a school's e-learning system does not work with Firefox (or the teacher believes so) that's a problem.

View on HN

I have started installing Fedora on computers I set up for my family, and it has been great! Everything works out of the box and every app is avaliable in the app store thanks to Flatpaks. Skype is just a click away, which used to require adding extra repos from Microsoft.

My father, who barely knows how to operate a computer, has been using it for years without the need for support. No forced updates/reboots. I only run a system upgrade every year or so, which also is a one button operation whitout any problems. It is a super stable experience for him as a user and me as an admin.

I tried PopOS for my SO, but it was to nerdy and the GNOME experience was to tweaked. I then went for Fedora and she likes it much better, comming from mac-land.

> My father, who barely knows how to operate a computer, has been using it for years without the need for support.

How's this working with regard to discoverability? Asking out of general curiosity; I haven't supported anybody else with a Linux desktop in years, and I'm fine with Gnome for my own workflow and habits, but I've always wondered if the lack of always-visible app launchers or an obvious menu in stock Gnome wouldn't be an issue for those who don't already know what and where to look.

> No forced updates/reboots. I only run a system upgrade every year or so, which also is a one button operation whitout any problems.

If these are the only updates run on that computer, wouldn't that leave e.g. browsers unpatched for quite long periods of time?

> How's this working with regard to discoverability?

He quickly learned to use the super key or the upper left corner to go to the overview. He mainly uses the browser and the email app anyway so he does not multitask that much.

> If these are the only updates run on that computer, wouldn't that leave e.g. browsers unpatched for quite long periods of time?

Fedora has an option to auto-update apps on reboot (not sure if it is default or not). He does not reboot often, but it happens often enough that it stays reasonably up to date. The updates are seamless and not forced, so he never experience any interuptions.

Linux mint might be a good candidate. The distro also took a stand against snap(-store), and chrome/chromium works fine afaik.

Linux Mint is another great user friendly distro. I mostly see older people using it, presumably due to the traditional UX concept.

I originally considered it outdated, but after having a closer look I concluded it’s really not.

The first thing I do on a fresh Ubuntu is to purge away everything related to snap.

I tried PopOS at one point, to see what it was about. And, I honestly don't understand what it adds to the table. It felt like many minor things were changed to be different, but overall it had the same things I wanted. After being annoyed for a couple of days, I installed Ubuntu, removed snap, and everything is pleasant again.

What were you annoyed by?

I honestly don't remember any longer. I think one of the things was the windows-key behavior. I used to be able to just hit that, fuzzy search the app and hit enter. I might be entirely mistaken that this was one of the things though. Apologies for my lousy memory.

That was never a thing on any GNOME distro by default. That has always been an extension

chromium can be installed through flathub (which is setup by pop os by default)

However, one thing that speaks against it for me as a replacement for Windows users, is that is uses Gnome. I personally love gnome, but I think it is not a good Windows replacement. But If your peers are fine with Gnome I think Pop_OS is a good candidate.

I've found that people who are the least advanced users tend to adapt faster - "Click here to open $BROWSER and here for $OFFICE" is generally all they need.

For people who somewhat know their OS it can be harder, but for all of vanilla GNOME's flaws, Pop's extentions make it excellent, and quite easy to use.

My wife uses fedora frequently and barely notices the difference between her Mac these days, most stuff is through chrome anyway.

I use arch on my workstation / laptops for various reasons. For homelab boxes and the htpc I use fedora, easy to install and everything just works.

If you just want Ubuntu without Snap, Pop is your perfect candidate.

Mint

Reply on news.ycombinator.com