Best Linux for me? Best for OXT?

[OpenXTalkPaul]

I'm still searching for a "Daily Driver" Linux to work on OXT on, as well as possibly permanently become a more regular user of Linux on...
Main points of interest to me, beyond OXT on Linux:

• A desktop environment / basic apps bundle that is intuitive like macOS. I've been primarily a mac user for 34 years, I still have never found an OS as intuitive as macOS, I'm sure others have different opinions about that, but that's my opinion, and it's the main thing I'm looking for in an OS. This may be the hardest thing to get in a Linux because of the nature of Linux which seems to favor choices in "Looks" over any underlying "Feel" of intuitiveness and integration. What I mean by this is that I know I can fairly easily get a Linux Desktop to look like macOS with a Dock at the bottom and all that, but I can't find one that is as intuitively integrated with things like dragging and dropping various types of elements between apps. For example in macOS finder (file manager) I can drag a file icon into a terminal window, and the Terminal will insert the path to that file into the command line automatically, no typing! Is there anything, file manager, clipboard manager, or whatever, for Linux that can achieve this sort of thing?
• Multimedia creation (not just playback) capabilities, particularly Music & Sound capabilities including Linux Audio Plugins. Not too many distros fall into this category. Ubuntu Studio is one Distro that comes with a lot of this stuff preinstalled. I know I can install these things on most any Linux distro, but when use start messing around with system audio drivers and changing APIs for MIDI routing and such you can easily wind up breaking things, at least I have, so to have these sorts of thing already auto-configured during installation is very nice.
• Light/Medium weight Desktop, I'm about to try the newest Ubuntu Studio which is built on Kbuntu (KDE Plasma DE), while previous versions were built on Xubuntu (XFCE DE). I was surprised by this, but it turns out that newer versions KDE Plasma are actually now LESS resource consuming than XFCE, at least by default.

the specs for the computer I'm mainly going to be doing this on are: Core i7 7th Gen, Intel 530 Integrated Graphics, 8GB Ram (plan to upgrade to 16 GB soon), 32 GB partition already carved out for Linux system use (file storage on seperate FAT64 volume).

Any suggestions would be appreitiated. Thanks!

[richmond62]

Well; the idea of a LInux distro that is as monolithic as MacOS can be should you choose
to say with MacOS's in-built apps doesn't really make much sense.

Personally, whether on Macintosh or Linux I ALWAYS install the following programs:

LibreOffice
GIMP
Inkscape
VLC
Thunderbird
Audacity

which are all Open Source and freely available for Macintosh, Windows and Linux.

I am currently using the BRAVE browser on both Macintosh and Linux, but I not as rigid about
that as other programs.

This guarantees a high level of cross-platform interoperability.

On Linux installations I ALWAYS use XFCE as my windowing manager for the simple reason that it
closely resembles the MacOS GUI WIMP which I like.

I do NOT really like any pre-installed programs that Windows, Macintosh or any of the Linux distros I have
tried install, prefering to use the ones I mention above.

Re 'drivers': well, most peripherals seem to work "straight out of the box" with Xubuntu.

I always favour Hewlett-Packard printers, canners and so forth as the company provides
Linux drivers that they underwrite.

-----------------------

HOWEVER, that is my experience that serves my ends, and the "price" of Linux, as opposed to the
price of Maacintosh or Windows, is to set aside some time to experiment until one feels that one
has something one is comfortable with, so I would not "just copy Richmond" as that might be rather
foolish; far better for you to set aside 10-12 hours to "fiddle around" to find something right for you.

[richmond62]

Music & Sound capabilities including Linux Audio Plugins

As far as I know, you might be better to get a fairly basic system up and running and then
install extras such as this as and when you need them.

[richmond62]

I'm always dragging stuff into the Terminal emulator on Xubuntu.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Music & Sound capabilities including Linux Audio Plugins

As far as I know, you might be better to get a fairly basic system up and running and then
install extras such as this as and when you need them.

The problem is there's multiple Audio and MIDI systems available on Linux. In the past, when I've tried to switch between ALSA to Pulse Audio or vice versa, for example, things like Speaker or HDMI sound output and volume control utilities break. Which is why I'm about to try Ubuntu Studio today (with KDE Plasma) as that is already geared for multimedia production.

>> I'm always dragging stuff into the Terminal emulator on Xubuntu.
Good to know. But can you drag an image from web browser into an image editor? Drag text to the desktop to make a text file?
If I can get even just some of those sorts of things macOS has spoiled me with, I could live with it.

Nice think about Linux, If Ubuntu Studio with KDE Plasma Desktop doesn't suite me, there's also a build based on Xubuntu.
I'm giving KDE another shot because I've read that newer versions of KDE are actually less resource consuming than XFCE!

[richmond62]

macOS has spoiled me with

Um, well, "you pays your money, you takes your choice." and you also
don't need to pay the earth for the hardware to run Linux on.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

So I played around with Ubuntu Studio with KDE Plasma today and it's pretty OK.

The only problem, and it's one that I almost always seem to have with various Linux distros (usually with Nvidia graphics cards), proprietary drivers, on this hardware it's the MPCI Wifi Card which is a Broadcom chip, Sigh.

I had several generic USB wifi dongles lying around (Realtek chips), and this is why I kept them around, and then I forget to use them when the time comes, smdh!

I should be able to fix the internal card later with this info:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiD ... er/bcm43xx

[richmond62]

I use an incredibly moronic generic USB Wifi dongle (have about 5 of the things) that works on everything
except Macintoshes.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

I use an incredibly moronic generic USB Wifi dongle (have about 5 of the things) that works on everything
except Macintoshes.

For macOS you need to find and install the correct Realtek Driver (there's a few), most of these commonly available generic USB wifi things use Realtek chips (or maybe Ralink), I've used 4 of them over the years (incl. an overpriced Linksys version), almost exclusively in macOS. They sometimes show up in the network control panel labeled as Ethernet ports, they all use a Status Bar app for monitoring and connections, instead of the built-in macOS airport software. But they all work fine.

And they're super-cheap, paid $5 for this one, brand new at an outlet franchise here call "Five Bellow".
It didn't say it was Mac compatible, but it's just a mater of finding the correct driver for the chipset used.

[richmond62]

Well, as I run only, err, MacOS on Macintosh computers

(I did "go kinky" and try to run LXDE on a PPC Mac Mini once . . . daft as a brush)

my Wifi with those has always "just worked".

My experience with Linux, with the exception of a couple of ASUS laptops with in-built Wifi (which 'just worked')
has been largely confined to 'getting old crap working' as my ESL school does NOT need state-of-the-thing machines,
but of load of old Pentium 4s running Xubuntu; as they are "one trick ponies" delivering my LiveCode standalones for
ESL reinforecement.

Authoring with LiveCode has never seemed either easier or more difficult whether I have been
doing the work on Macintosh or Xubuntu.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

my Wifi with those has always "just worked".

My experience with Linux, with the exception of a couple of ASUS laptops with in-built Wifi (which 'just worked')
has been largely confined to 'getting old crap working' as my ESL school does NOT need state-of-the-thing machines,

This laptop is a Dell Latitude E7470 with a Broadcom card that I put in (that just works on macOS, tested on 10.12 & 10.14), but it didn't just work on Unbuntu Studio nor on MX Linux. It's a newer m2 slot Wifi / BT card, and apparently Broadcom drivers are closed source.

I've run Linux on a PPC Macs and PlayStaion 3 (Yellow Dog) back when.

[richmond62]

Screen Shot 2021-11-02 at 9.51.29 AM.png (92.94 KiB) Viewed 3387 times

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One of these bunged in a USB socket works every time with Xubuntu: no drivers, no nothing.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Screen Shot 2021-11-02 at 9.51.29 AM.png
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One of these bunged in a USB socket works every time with Xubuntu: no drivers, no nothing.

I used a generic one of those to get a Wifi connection, then installed found and installed the Broadcom drivers for the internal card in the package manager. I guess I forgot to mention that I resolved the problem.