I use GNOME and I enjoy it a lot. If you decide to go with GNOME, imho try to install as few extensions as possible so that you can experience the desktop environment the way it’s intended by the developers. Of course, if it’s not for you, then with the help of extensions you can adapt it to your liking.

Pros:

• Beautiful to look at and gets out of the way. GNOME scored great productivity gains for me.
• Fast, responsive and very stable (I’m on Fedora 40).
• Great experience with flatpaks.
• The best touchpad gestures in the world. Any DE, any OS.

Cons:

• Even though it is very stable, sometimes it crashes. Last time the crash was caused by Thunderbird; then I switched Thunderbird to flatpak too, so that if it crashes again it will not bring down the whole DE (applause to flatpak for delivering the tech 👏). Disclaimer: prior to the crash, I haven’t shut down / restart my laptop for 20 days… it might not be Thunderbird alone that caused the problem.

🚧⚠️ That said, there’s currently a really annoying bug in GNOME that causes HUGE (or even - INSANE!) disk I/O! I don’t know when it is going to be fixed, but for the first time in two years this made me consider trying other desktop environments.

Here are my “two cents” on the topic.

1. Do your best to try as much FOSS alternatives to your software stack while you’re still on Windows. If you do this, then you will know what to expect on Linux in terms of workflow. Linux is much faster than Windows; also it’s free from advertising and data-mining… your computer will fly in terms of performance. However, this will be useless if you cannot accomplish your work.

• 1.1. If there is software that you cannot find an alternative for, consider running under Linux a Virtual Machine with Windows; check your computer’s hardware - if it’s on the higher end, then you will not have any problems with that.

2. Pick a distribution that matches your computing preferences. Some Linux distributions are on the bleeding edge (like Arch), others are on the leading edge (like Fedora and Ubuntu non-LTS), and then you got those on the dinosaur-edge (like Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu LTS, openSUSE Leap) who are ment for enterprise deployment and feature ultimate stability with older software packages in their repositories. Personally, I like to be on the leading edge, but with a decent level of stability. I achieve this with Fedora by staying on the previous release and upgrading to the next one 1-2 months before mine reaches end of life. Why? I simply don’t have time for bullsh#t, i.e. dealing with bugs, tinkering my system and so on. When I need the latest version of a program, I get it from Flathub.
3. Pick a desktop environment. In my opinion, GNOME and KDE are the best, and you can discard all the other options. That said, XFCE scores great when you run some big data workloads or similar processes, where every bit of RAM matters. Apart from such use cases, idk why anybody would use anything else than GNOME or KDE.
4. Always keep in mind that nothing in this world is perfect, y inclus Linux. When there’s something wrong with Linux, don’t judge it harshly and remember what this system gives you in terms of efficiency and freedom. Always keep a backup of your important files. Data storage is dirt cheap nowadays.
5. Don’t mind salty people and haters inside the Linux community. As in every community, there are those no-life people who are so obsessed with something that they are actively fighting for it and insulting others for whatever they think it’s important. No matter what whoever says, your system is yours and you should use it the way it suits your needs.

Well… GenZ doesn’t like gaslight as well 😉

I use it because I love how the Gecko engine renders web pages. For some reason, Gecko renders fonts way better than the Chromium engine, that is literally bashing my eyes. There’s something terribly wrong with the Chromium rendering… and I don’t know what it is 😅

That’s awesome! I wish more OS-es follow, especially Debian. Having support for an OS that can cover the whole perceived lifecycle of the hardware is something that was once (in the 2000s) the standard. This is something crucial for businesses, but it’s also great for home users.

Thank you very much for your reply ❤️

What I expect it to do is to run great out of the box and to be reliable enough. I don’t mind some post-install configuration, but for me “tweaking” usually ends on the day of the installation and down the road I simply want to do my daily tasks on the PC without even thinking about the system. What I need is Firefox, LibreOffice, Onlyoffice, Thunderbird, plus running a VirtualBox with Windows 10 there. Playing Steam games is also something I would like, but it’s not mandatory for me. When I have time, I usually play some classic titles, that probably don’t require latest versions of VGA drivers.

Basically I need something stable and predictable, with optimal font rendering since my work is tied to texts. I’m stressing on this, because back in 2018 when I first tried openSUSE Leap, it had the worst font rendering of Cyrillic fonts across different OS-es (both Linux ones and non-Linux ones) that I have seen in my entire life. Probably it’s already fixed, since five years have passed from then… but yeah, back then openSUSE was a real pain for the eyes. The OS I picked up was Linux Mint and I am still using it. For my next install though I want to try something new. I decided to try KDE… never used it before, but hearing a lot of good words about it. I decided to switch away from the Ubuntu base too, so that I add some learning curve to the whole experiment. And after some research, I figured out that I might probably make a choice between Debian and openSUSE.

BTW, if you have the time, can you please share your views on openSUSE (Leap) vs Debian? I’m divided between these two for my next Linux install.

Actually… this is the only internet privacy company that I trust. I just hope that they start to deliver new products and apps faster… especially on Android, so that we can de-Google our lives as much as possible.

I recommend Brave when you need a Chromium-based browser. In the Chromium world you will not find anything better than Brave.

Of course, I do not recommend to use Brave as a primary browser… just for these cases when something doesn’t work in hardened Firefox ESR. I stress on hardened, because regular out of the box Firefox is simply not enough. And I stress on the ESR version of Firefox, since it’s an enterprise-grade browser which (once hardened) will serve you well for at least 9 months.

TBH, I am sad that Brave didn’t go without its own controversies and bloat. Still, it remains the only Chromium-based browser that de-Googles soooooo much cr#p in the Chromium code so that you can browse with peace of mind.

Vivaldi is definitely a no-go for me, since it’s not open source. Period. Whatever their marketing department says, being closed source is a red flag. Why? Because they can inject shady stuff even in the UI! “We are not fully open source because someone will steal our work”… hilarious. I bet that’s exactly the same reason why Chome is not open source! Somebody is going to steal Google’s work (irony & laughter).

Probably indeed Vivaldi is safe to use with some settings disabled, but if such a critical piece of software like a browser is not open source, then nobody can verify if some UI elements (like settings) really do anything or not. This problem is especially true for Android (iPhone is waaaay worse) where Google Firebase is lurking everywhere, even when you “disable” some settings in a given app. The only way to be safe there is to use something like Proton VPN or some DNS-based blocklists (they carry their own privacy risk with them tho…) to nuke Firebase on a device level.

Ublock Origin Dark Reader Proton Pass Zotero Betterfox UserJS

Here’s a great and beginner-friendly article on the topic of secure (and private) messaging and why Matrix currently doesn’t fit there: https://proton.me/blog/whatsapp-alternatives

The problem comes from federation. You never know where your messages are synced to + what will happen if instances are defederated. Matrix might become something really cool, if it spends 1-2 years solely on security. Otherwise… it’s just nothing more than an epic (and misleading) name + some IRC legacy vibes.

Vivaldi (or Mozart… whatever) is a joke regarding privacy. IMHO it’s not as bad as Opera, Chrome, Edge, but still not good enough. For some privacy, you should always use a VPN service + Hardened Firefox / Brave / LibreWolf.

🎯💯

Can you share what’s coming soon from Nightly 👀❓

And why not Brave 👀 Way better than Mozart, or whatever 😅

Matrix is a security nightmare. Everyone should stay clear from it till possible solutions are found for the ongoing concerns.

I had the same dilemma and I’ve made the switch for one particular reason - my eyes! Chromium font rendering adds some awful blur around each letter and this literally burns my eyes. There might be a way to turn the blur off… IDK.

That said, Brave is an awesome browser. From the Chromium world this is the only thing you can use with peace of mind. Don’t feel guilty or ashamed, or whatever, if you stick with Brave.

I’m eagerly waiting for the newer Jerboa versions, since my current one is a bit rough around the edges 😅 That said… it’s stable and perfectly usable.