I stand corrected

The Linux support of Snapdragon SOCs for desktops and laptops is unfortunately severely lacking. Qualcomm pledged to provide upstream divers, but then the Windows drivers turned out to be a mess and the Linux version had to wait. It is nowhere near production ready. Most of the hardware enablement work is currently as far as I can tell being done by German OEM Tuxedo Computers because they are working on a Snapdragon powered laptop that ships with Linux. But even their work was impacted by Qualcomm stalling (the linked blog article lists Christmas 2024 as their target release date and that didn’t happen).

There used to be a Kodi/XMBC skin for that but development on that seems to have been abandoned years ago.

Depending on your use case Kodi might be a better fit for your HTPC as it tightly integrates with Jellyfin and also has a Spotify plugin. And some skins work generally the way the xmb used to work - they just look very different

Linux is the third option. As far as many normies are concerned the second option is macOS

One thing to make your girlfriend’s transition easier: you can reconfigure the UI to be more similar to more recent versions of MS office. The first time you open it, there will be a popup that brings you directly to the relevant settings menu. It’s not one to one but the major options are going to be in similar places after you changed the UI.

Bazzite:

• Fedora based, so newer libraries
• Atomic updates, therefore doesn’t break on updates
• Steam and Lutris are preinstalled

Since you are already familiar with the Steam Deck, I would go with a distro (that’s Linux-speak for version) that uses KDE Plasma, as that’s the desktop environment used by Steam OS. My recommendation therefore is Bazzite or Aurora. Both OSs are developed by the same team using the same core technology. Bazzite is more “gamer focused” (a.k.a. they are pre-installing steam) while Aurora targets more of a developer audience. But I would argue that the differences are, at the end of the day, mainly cosmetic. Aurora is still pretty noob friendly and you could still develop on Bazzite.

Both systems are “Atomic” which basically means that a system update can’t screw up your system. And if you screw something up, then you can “rebase” the system which reinstalls the OS but keeps all your data and installed apps*. It uses flatpak with flathub as its appstore so you have the same apps available as on the Steam Deck.

Now for the downsides: Some apps are a bit harder to install. Mainly apps that need deeper system access such as vpn apps can take a couple more steps to install here than on other distros. There is also no live system. Many distros have a “live mode” where you can test the system before installing. This allows you to check if your hardware is supported. Aurora and bazzite don’t have that.

Lastly the userbase is growing, but other disros such as Mint are still more popular. You therefore might find less specific documentation and tutorials on the internet for it than with other options.

*Technically it’s more complicated than that, there are edgecases of apps that don’t survive a rebase, but don’t worry about that.

GNOME has too. There it’s called nightlight

Budgie might ship with an applet, that enables the functionality as well (not sure, it’s been a while, since I last used this DE)

No Plasma Mobile is not just a mobile mode for Plasma, but it’s own thing(even if it shares a lot of tech with Plasma). You therefore need to choose a distro that explicitly supports it.

Here is a list: https://plasma-mobile.org/get/

The closest you are going to get to Mint is Debian

Looks to me like you are trying to update via fwupd. While this should work via GNOME Software, you can also use the the terminal to do this.

The command is fwupdmgr update

Mobian has an amd64 image available. If you are looking for a “tablet” tablet experience rather than just desktop gnome with an on screen keyboard then that is going to be your best bet.

In terms of DE I would stay with GTK enviroments because GNOME circle has created a pretty extensive environment of apps that feel native there. Both PHOSH and GNOME mobile offer basically the sane experience so you should try them both and see, which you like more in the details

https://mobian-project.org/

Edit: here is the install guide: https://wiki.debian.org/Mobian/x86

If you’re on Android then you can use Termux (via F-droid) to get ssh capabilities. I think there is also a different iOS app, but I’m no expert on that OS, so I can’t tell you its name. If you have a smart phone then you might have a ssh capable system after all

It’s actually not. It’s open core (a.k.a. 80% open source with its AGPL licenced community edition and proprietary with the enterprise edition that adds a bunch of stuff on top)

I never had a problem with LibreOffice. But I also never encountered a situation at school where “advanced” MS office features where required. So, pure luck, I guess.

That being said, LO is not the only the only office suite for Linux. All of these have better MS Office support than LO:

• OnlyOffice: for the most part web based, but there is also a desktop app that wraps the web app into a local container. Free & open source, integrates with nextcloud.
• SoftMaker Office: Proprietary, paid solution, that advertises with having the best MS compatibility on the market. Based in Germany. Usually €99, currently €70 (or a €30 annual subscription)
• FreeOffice: Free but proprietary. Feature reduced version of SoftMaker Office (Comparison)
• WPS Office: Free but proprietary. Chinese, I had some problems with it when I last tried it to install years ago. Maybe they fixed them since, IDK

The best part of the blogpost: They are going to invest even more next year.

Last week, the budget committee of the Bundestag decided to increase the Sovereign Tech Fund’s allocation by €4 million for next year. We’re honored and thankful for the German Parliament’s recognition of the importance of open source technologies, and for their continued trust in our work.

I would probably go with bluefin. KDE is great, I myself use aurora on one of my devices, but it can also be kinda fiddley with all of it’s options.

The user has never even used a PC and therefore won’t profit from the familiarity that KDE’s default desktop layout provides. Gnome on the other hand offers a more simplified experience with few options and big icons. All of that might be an asset here. You can use menulibre to hide menu entries from the menu and use the official documentation to remove command line access: https://help.gnome.org/admin/system-admin-guide/stable/lockdown-single-app-mode.html.en

Plus it’s still atomic which I actually think is helpful here. For once all the important system stuff is read only. Secondly if one manages to screw something up you can just rebase.

I considered that. Unfortunately silverblue doesn’t do live systems and aurora therefore doesn’t either. So a VM is the only way of trying it out. OP stated that they have someone to help with the actual installation so I left the whole create install medium for bare metal install out intentionally since I assume this person will be capable of helping with that.

Also small Markdown help: If you use dashes lemmy will automatically format bulletpoints correctly. You can’t use •s for it. Doesn’t take anything away from your comment, etcher is still the best tool to create a bootable usb drive, but for the future consider using dashes.

You can try Linux out without installing it to get a feel for it before you make the jump. Set a weekend aside (or at least a couple of hours) to test drive a Linux distro and check if it is your cup of tea.

This is one way of doing this:

• Install Virtual Box on your (Widows) PC
• head over to https://getaurora.dev/ and download the latest iso
• In virtualbox create a new VM
  • set the OS Type to fedora (64 bit)
  • after that you can keep all the standard settings, just be aware that performance is not going to be representative of an actual install
• Then select the newly created VM and open the settings panel
  • here you go to “Storage” and click on the slot under “Controler: IDE” labeled “empty”
  • click on the CD symbol on the right side of the window, in line with “optical drive” and select “choose a disk file”
  • pick the iso file you downloaded in step 2
• close the settings window and start the VM
• go through the installation wizard to install Aurora OS in your Virtual Machine
• Profit

I know that these instructions can seem daunting but it is easier than it reads, I promise.

Why Aurora OS

Aurora OS is based on Fedora Silverblue meaning that it is what is known as a immutable distro. That in turn means that it’s harder to mess stuff up and break your install. It also means that some things are harder to achieve. But I also think that you are probably not interested in the hard stuff anyway.

Aurora uses the KDE Plasma Desktop, the same desktop used by Valve on the Steamdeck. It has a familiar Windows like layout by default but also allows you to customise it like crazy to fit your particular need (whatever that may be).

Aurora flatpak as it’s app format. To see what kind of software is available for this distro you can check flathub.org . It’s not going to be as much software as Linux Mint for example (Mint uses flatpak and deb), but everything the average user needs should be there.

Here is the quote I paraphrased in my comment (I’m sure I got something wrong):

The immutable file system from Fedora Silverblue will be very helpful in implementing our anti cheat system but it is not our anti cheat system. We are planning to generate signatures for each version of our OS (easy with Silverblue) as well as all the DLLs we install dynamically. Basically using our SDK, a game developer will be able to obtain a signature of the current config on the device then call our backend to verify that this is a genuine Playtron version.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/19/24106356/playtron-explains-how-immutable-file-systems-are-not-but-could-help-with-linux-anti-cheat

Then please, enlighten us!

What is a game that brands itself as a web3 game (not a game that just uses blockchain tech but specifically calls itself web3) that isn’t also play to earn.