You can use Winboat for running Word without dual booting. MS Office is Winboats ideal use-case.

Always start with Bazzite. If you decide you want more control, switch to Fedora KDE. When you want to explore whats out there, put everything that interests you on a Ventoy thumbdrive. I don’t recommend Mint for new users.

That project looks great. If they ever move their code out of Github I would contribute.

The real question is whether the Affinity installer works. Adobe can get lost.

Try Winboat. If your needs don’t require GPU acceleration, Winboat is flawless.

Dual booting with Windows and Linux on the same physical drive is risky as Windows has a reputation for breaking bootloaders. If you want to try things out safely, use Ventoy. It will also let you easily test drive multiple live images, if you want.

Give Fedora KDE a try. I wouldn’t recommend Ubuntu to anyone.

You don’t need luck. You chose wisely.

For gaming, start with Bazzite. It “just works” and is almost impossible to break.

If your friend wants more control, switch to Fedora KDE.

If your friend is very technically inclined — comfortable on a command line — and wants even more control, switch to CachyOS.

Whatever you choose, I strongly recommend using the KDE Plasma desktop environment.

I do not recommend Mint, even though it is very popular here, since it does not support the KDE Plasma desktop environment, the Cinnamon DTE is ugly and outdated garbage, and Mint has more hardware problems than other distros on newer gaming hardware.

Fortunately, switching Linux distros is fast and easy, unlike Windows. So you can quickly and easily try different things to see what you like. Consider putting Ventoy on a USB drive, since it lets you copy ISOs straight onto it and you can boot directly to whatever you want. It’s a handy way to test drive any distro you want that has a “Live” image.

If you absolutely must keep Windows around, install it to a separate physical drive to prevent it from destroying your bootloader. Then configure BIOS to boot to your Linux drive.

While this is purely anecdotal, Mint is the only distro I have ever consistently run into major hardware support problems. Others seem to confirm that experience, especially with newer hardware.

In addition to that, I absolutely loathe Cinnamon and Mint does not natively support KDE by design. It’s an awful recommendation for new users because it feels outdated and clanky and they are far more likely to run into compatibility problems than Fedora, which has always worked out of the box for everything I’ve tried, and I have tried it on quite a lot.

My opinions are opinions, but I strongly feel that steering new Linux users toward Mint sets a bad first impression.

Contrary to what others suggest, do not use Mint. You want a distro that offers the KDE Plasma desktop. I strongly recommend starting with Bazzite if you primarily play games or Fedora KDE if you want more personal control. You could always start with Bazzite and switch to Fedora KDE later if you decide Bazzite is too restrictive.

Framework has been financially supporting far-right neo-nazi developers. When they were asked for an explanation by the community they didn’t say “we condemn hate and will look into that” — instead this is what they said.

We deliberately create a big tent, because we want open source software to win. We don’t partner based on individuals’ or organizations’ beliefs, values, or political stances outside of their alignment with us on increasing the adoption of open source software.

https://community.frame.work/t/framework-supporting-far-right-racists/75986

The big tent has room for nazis and bigots, but scalpers is where they draw the line?

How wholesome! I also appreciate the move to Codeberg. Don’t forget that Codeberg runs on donations. Please help if you can.

https://donate.codeberg.org/

It’s now slated to leave beta on December 11. I plan on giving it another try at that point, because I loved the Cosmic beta but kept running into frustrating GUI bugs. I’m back on KDE Plasma for now, but keeping a close eye on Cosmic.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Pop-OS-24.04-In-December

CAD is going to be your achilles heel, unfortunately.

If Blender can do what you need, then you are fine, but if you need CAD for things like architecture, I’m afraid it’s one of the most painful gaps in Linux, currently.

Try Bazzite first. If you find you need more control, then switch to Fedora KDE.

Avoid POP_OS for now. Their new desktop environment is currently in beta and it still has some bugs. When it finally releases later this month and the remaining bugs have been fixed, it may be worth a try. The nice thing about Linux is that it’s very quick and easy to install, so you can try different distros quickly and easily.

I recommend getting yourself a dedicated thumb drive and put Ventoy on it. Ventoy lets you selectively boot to any iso you put on the thumb drive. It’s just wonderful.

I don’t hate FUTO. Personally, I like the idea of licenses that allow unrestricted private use and modification but forbid commercial exploitation. Those two situations are not equivalent. I realize this is an unpopular opinion in many FOSS circles, but we are already being exploited to death by the rich and powerful and they must not be entitled to the value of our collective free and voluntary labor. If we ever realize a society in which wealth and power is effectively capped for such entities, then I would change my tune. Until then, fuck them. Our collective software is for the collective, not for wealth hoarders and despots.

I love KDE and have it dialed in exactly how I like it. I was able to get 90% of the way there with the Cosmic beta, which is good enough. The way you can toggle between tiling and floating is incredible. If I hadn’t kept running into frustrating GUI bugs I would have stuck with it.

One other little thing that bothered me was the file manager GUI. KDE Dolphin is hard to beat, and Cosmic’s default is beyond bare-bones in comparison. If S76 keeps investing in Cosmic it could be the best DE by a mile within another year or two.

I tried the beta for a while after it dropped. I liked it, but kept running into frustrating UI bugs. My favorite feature was the way you can seamlessly switch between floating and tiling modes. I’ll give it another try when it reaches release, because I am very excited by the direction it’s heading. It just needs polish.

I am really excited for Cosmic’s future. I loved the toggling float-tiling functionality, but I was having too many issues with GUI apps, taskbar icons, and annoyances like those. Once it has some more polish I will be happily revisiting it. It may be the first DE in a decade with the potential to tempt me away from KDE.

For all intents and purposes it is Steam OS.