methodicalaspect

…which, in and of itself, is sad as hell because one of the course requirements (at least when I was working on my CS degree) was Operating System Concepts & Design.

…and a lot of them hate the end-user, too. Why must we involve people in the whole computer thing? Isn’t an abacus and a box of crayons enough?

HeliumOS, Kubuntu, Linux Mint (standard and Debian Edition), Pop!_OS, Ubuntu, VanillaOS, and Zorin OS here. Helium and Vanilla are not necessarily beginner-friendly but I use them in specific places.

May you run into a nerd with a Ventoy USB full of beginner-friendly distros in their back pocket to help you along your journey.

There are at least two of us out there, I’m sure of it.

Proxmox 9 dropped too, their major releases coincide with Debian’s. Upgrade process on a single standalone box was completely uneventful; I’ll be trying a 9-node cluster on Monday.

I pulled all the Windows keys off my keyboards for a reason, I just can’t seem to remember it. Must have been bad enough to make me suppress that memory.

Exactly the correct approach. Similar thing happened to one of my friends a couple years back with Nord. This sort of “leak” could happen with any other VPN provider; not binding the interface is just rolling the dice.

My son, 14, is on Bazzite now after using Pop!_OS for 5 years. He specifically requested it after using it at my office and seeing how well the Logitech steering wheel he uses works in Forza Horizon 5. He’s decent with tech, to the point that his teachers called on him to help with their problems during middle school, so maybe not the best example.

My daughter, 11, is on Pop!_OS. She’s currently at the tech level you describe, though sometimes she forgets to turn the power strip on, making me think she may be slightly below that. Her PC has been on that distro for a good 2 years, though she really only plays Minecraft, watches YouTube videos, and does her homework with OnlyOffice. Zero tech-related complaints from her, once she’s logged in she’s able to do what she needs with little to no assistance.

After stints in EndeavourOS and AlmaLinux I’ve settled on Kubuntu 24.04 LTS. I needed something stable with zfs in its official repo, so I don’t risk losing access to the big volume that contains all my raw video footage after a kernel update. The experience has been about as unremarkable as possible, which is exactly what I was looking for.

All three of us are using nvidia GPUs, and have had no trouble with drivers in the slightest. I use mine for gaming and video editing using DaVinci Resolve Studio, and while I was looking for as unremarkable an experience as possible, I’ve been using Linux since around 1996, so my tech experience doesn’t align with what you’re looking for; however, if this means anything, I’d switch my 85-year-old father with dementia to Linux Mint without worrying that he wouldn’t know his way around.