Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by cosmic_cheese 426 days ago
I would second the recommendation for Mint, or really any distribution that includes Cinnamon as its default DE (as long as it’s not a bleeding edge distro like Arch). Cinnamon is probably the closest out of the box approximation to a traditional Windows desktop out there, leaning more towards Windows 7 than 8 and beyond.

I’m sure there’s a KDE fan writing up a reply right now, and while it’s also Windows-like, it’s considerably more indiosyncratic than Cinnamon is and has a bunch of bells and whistles that while great for power users have a decent chance of tripping up novices. Cinnamon doesn’t rock the boat at all which is exactly what makes it appealing here.
1 comments
Joel_Mckay 426 days ago
Agreed, the Cinnamon desktop is the most unsurprising interface.

The dual ssd boot option for OS is also nice, as some games/applications in Win11 are inescapable.

However, for 99.8% of most day to day OS needs the Ubuntu repo desktop works fine (if you purchased a printer/webcam knowing it is fully supported etc.) =3

link
Terr_ 426 days ago
> The dual ssd boot option for OS is also nice, as some games/applications in Win11 are inescapable.

Similar situation, I'm thinking I'll have a two bootable drives and then a third data-only drive so that I can share some stuff between them. (Hey, I got a desktop for a reason, let's use that space!) AFAICT this should be safe-enough provided I avoid a special case where Windows has hibernated without unmounting an NTFS drive cleanly and I try to mount it on the Linux side.

Not sure how much work I want to put into the different flavors of TPM/secure-boot-y things. Less worried about evil-maid attacks as opposed to preventing a burglar rifle through my digital life.

link
Joel_Mckay 426 days ago
sshfs works on both windows (winfsp, sshfs-win, sshfs-win-manager) and linux...

Or in Win shell try:

winget install -h -e --id "WinFsp.WinFsp" && winget install -h -e --id "SSHFS-Win.SSHFS-Win"

A backup ssh server running F2FS on disk-encrypt for /home is good practice. =3

link
Terr_ 426 days ago
In this case sshd won't be running, because it's just one machine shutting down the Linux environment entirely to dual-boot to Windows.
link
Joel_Mckay 426 days ago
Could always run Termux/Termux:Boot + pyamsoft/tetherfi on a $10 old phone if you have no other sshd server options.

There is always a better way, but integrated backups are important. =3

link
neilv 426 days ago
Yeah, I was recently deciding which desktop option to use for a Debian Live variant that needs to be straightforward for anyone who boots it. I tried each option (in VMs), and decided to go with Cinnamon.

So, if someone wants a Linux to start with, installing Debian Stable, and selecting the Cinnamon desktop in the installer, is one great first option.

(The Debian default desktop is based on Gnome3, which does a few weird and annoying things. Fortunately, Gnome3 inspired alternatives, like Cinnamon.)

link