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I think project bluefin has a similarish philosophy of being a "cloud first os", would definitely recommend checking it out: https://projectbluefin.io/ https://

I think project bluefin has a similarish philosophy of being a "cloud first os", would definitely recommend checking it out: https://projectbluefin.io/ https://projectbluefin.io/ In all honesty though, there's a tonne of easy to recommend distros which don't need set up if you are a "normie" just wanting to get online: - Elementary - Mint - Ubuntu I think the real "secret sauce" for ChomeOS' success is basically big coorporate backing and being from-a-store-buyable. I think the truth is that nobody other tham techies is likely to want to install an OS themselves.

esperent 1y ago
I recently (two weeks ago) decided to finally switch from Windows to plain Ubuntu as a daily desktop. I'm well experienced with it from managing servers and have used it occasionally at a desktop in the past. I've had - and continue to have, a ton of minor and a few large problems. First, wifi. Apparently there's often problems with Intel killer 6e laptop cards, which required me to enter loads of console commands that I didn't understand to fix. I did finally fix it, but I'm not sure exactly what did it. A couple of hours work over a few days to fix this. I work from an external monitor plugged into my laptops HDMI port with the lid closed, and it seems Ubuntu is massively confused by this. I'm constantly having to open the laptop to get a login screen to show, then logging in and closing it, then opening it again because now the desktop doesn't show. My laptop screen resets to minimum brightness every restart. I did a driver update and suddenly my external monitor wasn't recognized at all so I had to roll back. And at least several hours more on other issues. Oh yes, if I suspend then try to wake, I get a black screen or occasionally the Ubuntu startup screen but can never get back to the login screen until I do a hard reset. The Bluetooth audio was set to headset quality (mono) and the only way to fix this, following 20 minutes research, was to install a different audio settings app. All of these things, I can fix. I don't want to, but as a technically savvy user I can do it, with enough hours put in. But there's no way I'd suggest anyone else in my family or friends to use it unless they clearly tell me that they would enjoy tinkering with their operating system.
- benrutter 1y ago
  Ooof! That sounds rough and also makes me realise a huge oversight in my original comment. I've been using linux on desktop for about 12 years and will always pick a laptop that's known to have good compatibility otherwise the endless hardware issues are a big timesuck. Some distros are better than others for hardware support but I think it'd be disingenious to make out like any solve the problem. If you have a laptop with good support, or even better, a linux specific one, it really is an experience that can work out of the box. Maybe that's a big part the appeal of being buy-in-a-shoppable. Somebody has figured out for you what works, and you don't have to be your own guinea pig.
  - esperent 1y ago
    > Some distros are better than others for hardware support I did some reading around the and consensus seemed to be that Ubuntu should be one of these. Do you have any suggestions that are likely to have better hardware support than Ubuntu?
    - Karrot_Kream 1y ago
      No, it's not a distro problem. You need to use a laptop that has good Linux support, one that has hardware well supported by the mainline kernel or through well-maintained easily installable modules. System76 makes such laptops, for example. I ran Linux on the desktop and then laptop for 8 years ish when I was younger. It was a huge timesink. It taught me a lot about how systems actually work (what is a kernel, what is a kernel driver, why does crashing kernel code hurt worse than crashing user code, what is pid 1, why do daemons double fork, etc etc) but now as an adult with a busy life I don't see myself using Linux like this again. I can probably debug issues much faster than I could when I was younger but the last thing I want to do with my free time is figure out why runit couldn't spawn the log service to tail my logs for the service that I tried to run.
    - benrutter 1y ago
      maybe pop os in that I think they ship some additional drivers in top of Ubuntu's, but I doubt it'd make a difference. Ubuntu was a great choice for driver support, but like you found, that sadly doesn't mean everything will work on every machine.

esperent 1y ago

I recently (two weeks ago) decided to finally switch from Windows to plain Ubuntu as a daily desktop. I'm well experienced with it from managing servers and have used it occasionally at a desktop in the past. I've had - and continue to have, a ton of minor and a few large problems. First, wifi. Apparently there's often problems with Intel killer 6e laptop cards, which required me to enter loads of console commands that I didn't understand to fix. I did finally fix it, but I'm not sure exactly what did it. A couple of hours work over a few days to fix this. I work from an external monitor plugged into my laptops HDMI port with the lid closed, and it seems Ubuntu is massively confused by this. I'm constantly having to open the laptop to get a login screen to show, then logging in and closing it, then opening it again because now the desktop doesn't show. My laptop screen resets to minimum brightness every restart. I did a driver update and suddenly my external monitor wasn't recognized at all so I had to roll back. And at least several hours more on other issues. Oh yes, if I suspend then try to wake, I get a black screen or occasionally the Ubuntu startup screen but can never get back to the login screen until I do a hard reset. The Bluetooth audio was set to headset quality (mono) and the only way to fix this, following 20 minutes research, was to install a different audio settings app. All of these things, I can fix. I don't want to, but as a technically savvy user I can do it, with enough hours put in. But there's no way I'd suggest anyone else in my family or friends to use it unless they clearly tell me that they would enjoy tinkering with their operating system.

benrutter 1y ago
Ooof! That sounds rough and also makes me realise a huge oversight in my original comment. I've been using linux on desktop for about 12 years and will always pick a laptop that's known to have good compatibility otherwise the endless hardware issues are a big timesuck. Some distros are better than others for hardware support but I think it'd be disingenious to make out like any solve the problem. If you have a laptop with good support, or even better, a linux specific one, it really is an experience that can work out of the box. Maybe that's a big part the appeal of being buy-in-a-shoppable. Somebody has figured out for you what works, and you don't have to be your own guinea pig.
- esperent 1y ago
  > Some distros are better than others for hardware support I did some reading around the and consensus seemed to be that Ubuntu should be one of these. Do you have any suggestions that are likely to have better hardware support than Ubuntu?
  - Karrot_Kream 1y ago
    No, it's not a distro problem. You need to use a laptop that has good Linux support, one that has hardware well supported by the mainline kernel or through well-maintained easily installable modules. System76 makes such laptops, for example. I ran Linux on the desktop and then laptop for 8 years ish when I was younger. It was a huge timesink. It taught me a lot about how systems actually work (what is a kernel, what is a kernel driver, why does crashing kernel code hurt worse than crashing user code, what is pid 1, why do daemons double fork, etc etc) but now as an adult with a busy life I don't see myself using Linux like this again. I can probably debug issues much faster than I could when I was younger but the last thing I want to do with my free time is figure out why runit couldn't spawn the log service to tail my logs for the service that I tried to run.
  - benrutter 1y ago
    maybe pop os in that I think they ship some additional drivers in top of Ubuntu's, but I doubt it'd make a difference. Ubuntu was a great choice for driver support, but like you found, that sadly doesn't mean everything will work on every machine.