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?
The other building blocks are like the two you know. In Linux there's usually at least two ways to do everything, so a distro's maintainers pick the ones that match their preferences. This guy might like a fast file system, so he picks one without journaling. That guy might like the fact that journaled file systems can often recover corrupted files on their own, so he picks one with. This guy wants software updates available the moment they're released so he goes with a rolling release schedule. That guy prefers updates to be thoroughly tested before he installs them so he goes with Long Term Support.
I think Distrowatch is useful for comparing options. Pick a distro and it'll tell you what goes into it.
I use Mint and I like the out of the box experience, so the only thing I've added is a desktop widget that shows me how much space I have left on my SSD. I've just gotten into gaming on my Linux partition using Proton, so I need to be aware of that. The widget comes with Mint and just needs to be enabled.
If you google "10 things to do after installing [distro]", you'll find everything you need. I decreased the swappiness of my SSD to reduce wear and enabled a firewall, but I don't know if you still need to do those things.
You don't really need to be concerned. Just realise that as you use Linux you too will develop Strong Opinions about the Right Way to do things. ;)
Those are all good choices. They'll all give you a good experience without needing to dig into the technical details. You should try all three out using live USB and pick the one you find most comfortable.