[olug] advice picking distro for Mac users

Tony Gies tony.gies at gruppe86.net
Wed Nov 13 18:30:14 UTC 2013


Debian or Ubuntu would probably be a good fit, with the caveat that the
Unity window manager in the newer releases is kind of annoying as Ben
suggested above. I don't know whether someone habituated to OS X might like
it better. I believe Ubuntu 12.04 didn't have the Unity stuff at all and
it's LTS so it will be getting updates for a few years yet.

There are lots of little fringe distros that claim to provide an experience
more similar to OS X but personally I find that having a few customizations
pre-configured for you is not worth the hassle of dealing with a
non-mainstream distro.
On Nov 13, 2013 11:37 AM, "Tim Larson" <larson at towncommons.com> wrote:

> I'm setting up a 2nd computer in the house now that the kids are getting
> old enough to be using a computer more. I've been out of the desktop scene
> for awhile, but I still want to go Linux to save myself the admin headache
> of dealing with Windows. There's only one Win-specific app they'd need, and
> I've already confirmed that will run fine in an XP VM. (BTW, if you've got
> an old copy to sell, contact me off-list.)
>
> Seems *buntu is still the pick for the casual Linux desktop user to get up
> and going easily, and fairly hassle-free to keep updated. Everyone is
> familiar with Mac OS to some extent, so a version that feels somewhat
> similar to that would be great. Some reviews say Unity is a good fit for
> Mac users. Some reviews say the Xfce desktop is Mac-like. Maybe there are
> others. I'm soliciting more opinions and comments to help me make my
> decision. Apart from an annual upgrade I won't be using the computer at all
> unless there are problems, so a major goal is to set it up such that the
> non-tech-savvy will not create nor encounter many problems.
>
> Thanks,
> Tim
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