My objective is to ditch windows & utilize my triple monitor desktop as a cockpit style dashboard for my homeserver & lan devices along with always open widgets like music, calculator, etc.
There was another post yesterday about this and the community recommended Mint & Pop OS the most. However, I am not looking for windows-like. I want a new & fresh experience like using a smartphone for the first time or switching from ios to android.
Distrochooser.de recommended kubuntu to me.
So I have some questions:
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What are the building blocks of a distro? Things that separate distros from each other. Like I know 2 - Desktop Env & Package Managers. Are there others, what are they or where do I find a list? I would like to compare these blocks and make it a shopping experience and then pick the distro that matches my list. Is this approach even valid?
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How do I find and compare whats missing from which distro? For eg. if I install mint, what would I be potentially missing out that may be a feature on another distro? How do I go about finding these things?
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What are some programs/ widgets/ others that are must haves for you? For eg. some particular task manager
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What are the first steps after installing linux? For eg. In Windows, its drivers, then debloat and then install programs like vlc, rar, etc.
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I read on some post, a user was saying that they want to avoid installing qt libraries. Why would someone potentially want that? I have never thought of my computer in such terms. I have always installed whatever whenever. The comment stuck with me. Is this something I should be concerned about?
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Should I not worry about all of the above and just pick from mint, pop and kubuntu?
You are correct that the Desktop Environment and Package Manager are the most important part of any distro. Of those, the Desktop Environment is the most important. Switching between Ubuntu with KDE Plasma and Arch with KDE Plasma is less visible of a change than switching from KDE Plasma to Gnome in any distro.
Most distros include all the major Desktop Environments: Mate, Gnome, KDE Plasma, and probably several more.
The biggest missing feature between Mint/Ubuntu/Debian is Container-based package management. This is an additional installation method, for "application"-like programs, usually proprietary. Debian has the infrastructure to run these, but you have to find or make the containers yourself. Mint has more support, in the form of a graphical package manager installed by default.
There's really not much difference in the feature set of distros. Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint have a lot more in common than they have differences.
Desktop environments usually include a full set of these. I just use whichever comes with it.
Linux usually has the drivers already set up right away on first boot. You shouldn't need to install any drivers. There's very little bloat. Any superfluous packages are likely consuming no CPU time, just drive space. Every default installation comes with a media player and file archiver, but you can install VLC or RAR if you like them better.
They probably had a bad experience with one or more qt-based programs, or got a negative response when they filed a bug report to a qt program or library. Or, they were using some weird mix of old and new software, and ended up in a weird dependency loop that blocked a large set of packages on their system.
Probably. The most common distros will have the most community support.
Spend most of your effort choosing a Desktop Environment. Fortunately, this can be changed after installation.