Like the title says, my partner’s laptop was still running Windows 10 and they got infected with a backdoor malware. We’ll need to reset her computer. It’s an Asus Tuf Gaming A15.
She’s been using Windows 10 for as long as she could but support is running out. At her work the computers are on Windows 11 and she hates it. Plus she’s fervently anti-AI and wants none of that forced Copilot bullshit and privacy eroding features of Windows 11. She’s seen me use it for over a year now and I also installed it on our old OG 1st gen MS Surface Pro table and she sees how well it’s going. So now she wants Linux on her laptop.
After careful consideration and comparisons, I’ve decided to go with Zorin OS. I thought of Linux Mint, but it just looks so dated. There are inconistencies in the looks and I feel it lacks some features that I found that Zorin OS has. (It’s essentially Gnome with QoL extras.) My only concern is that Zorin has Snaps out of the box but I don’t think that’s a concern for her. I’ll install it on a BTRFS partition with automatic snapshots and grub-btrfs to recover from snapshots. And I’ll schedule monthly backups of her files through rsync, or whatever the built-in backup tool does, onto an external drive.
I’ve tried Zorin on a VM and it was already outstanding. On the live USB session it was able to detect her NVidia card and recommend either the nouveau or NVidia proprietary driver. Everything worked out of the box. So I’m fairly confident everything will work well. One concern I have is she uses her personal laptop for work, and needs to connect to her work’s Microsoft account. I see there’s an accounts section in the settings where this can be set up, but I’ve never used it, so that’ll be a first. Her work also requires Cisco AnyConnect VPN client. There is a Linux client, but you need a Cisco account to download it, and her work IT department does not support Linux, so I don’t know if she’ll be able to get it. One of the IT people has Linux on his machine and was able to set it up so maybe we’ll rely on him for that part. She’ll also need MS Office which uses a work license. I wonder how that will work on Bottles. We can try with Libre Office but I know the spacing and fonts get all wonky when you open a MS Word document or a Powerpoint presentation. Every other app she uses is open source apps like Gimp, Inkscape, Audacity, etc. And she doesn’t game much, but I know this will work just fine. And the Gnome-Network-Displays will allow her to cast her screen onto our NVidia Shield device for watching movies.
Is there anything else I should be concerned about? Maybe hardware wise? Or anything to so with Snaps that could cause issues?
Sorry, got nothing to add to your question. Good luck with the switch to Linux.
To everyone else: if you are still wondering why in 2026 it is still difficult for the average person to just “switch from Windows to Linux”, just read all the comments here. I mean, I guess mostly the ones that are not deleted yet.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Honestly, for newcomers the options should be Mint or Zorin, any buntu variant except Ubuntu itself, Debian and Fedora. Desktops should be limited to KDE or Gnome, maybe Cinnamon or XFCE for older hardware.
But I’m partial on Fedora. It’s known for being a little cutting edge and having some problems. That and proprietary codecs aren’t installed apparently with the installer. Instead I’d go with OpenSUSE. Same packaging system, but with extra quality of life features and more stability.
lol ! I can’t even write a comment without contradicting myself hahahahahaha
I have heard better comments from new Linux users recently that they prefer Fedora over Linux Mint, if that helps.
If she absolutely needs desktop microsoft office, you can always consider trying winapps. It runs a full windows VM but makes the applications show up on the linux desktop like they were native applications. https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
I think Bottles will do the job just fine. But I will look into your solution just in case.
I didn’t know about this. That’s really cool. Thank you! :)
Im less anti ai with local models using something like hermes, i like the idea of chat with your computer to get it to do stuff when not sitting at it, not that ive actually used it that way or thought of a usecase yet lol, I used it to make a web page using threejs and launch it, all I could think was damn, in the time I spent waiting I could’ve actually learned what I’m doing. I was just curious if it could, lowkey made something more decent than I probably would in a few days, demotivating af, forgot how much worse it is when the AI actually suceeds. At least when it fails you don’t lose the motivation to learn.
LOL!!! Yeah, it’s probably not nearly as fast as online services for sure. But you’re not wrecking the environment while doing it.
I prefer to ask questions like “how do I …?” than to ask it to do the task for me. This way I learn along the way.
“How do I declare an array in X language?”
"How do I write a foreach loop?
I don’t give it much context so it gives me some generic example then I try to apply it to my problem.
Just switched my wife and kids from windows to zorin. Most people don’t super care about their os. They just don’t want to be annoyed. A few months into it and I haven’t heard any complaints.
Linux fits Spyfree values nicely.
Which OS do you use?
I agree re: mint being dated
Ubuntu is getting into ai, so that means all of its babies are too
fedora toyed with the idea of ai but user push back stopped them (last I heard), but it is still something that interested them.
One of the arch distros is the way to go imo, I have been using manjaro kde (manjaro xfce prior to that) for a few years, I have distrohopped a couple of times out of interest, and never found anything as logical and user friendly as it. I currently also have debian, garuda kde lite, artix, and endeavour installed… but never switch to them.
Debian is weird but interesting, pain in the arse if you have nvidia. It also has weird password restrictions (not really a big deal, and can be modified with some effort)
I used Kubuntu. But I’m switching soon. Might go with a simple Debian stable with KDE. Nothing fancy.
PIika OS piqued my curiosity though. I might try it out. Though I’m not keen on being on Debian testing as a base.
Btw: what do you mean going into AI?
Also Zorin OS is Ubuntu based, but it’s not an Ubuntu baby in the same sense that Mint isn’t one either.
Ubuntu now uses ai, your best bet if you are genuinely anti ai is to search for it https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?q=ubuntu+ai&ia=web
I would assume that means anything ubuntu based will include ai at some stage, or at least become complicated by its inclusion in ubuntu. I guess it depends how removed from ubuntu they now are.
Ah ok I see now.
It looks to me like they’re adding AI tools that you run locally. That doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. And their LLMs are going to be open source. That’s not bad at all.
People think AI = bad. But it’s not inherently bad. It’s the companies behind it that are bad.
There’s nothing wrong with using AI to solve complex problems. It’s when the companies exploits copyrighted material to train their AI or use sloppy data like reddit or block certain topics or introduce a political bias that’s problematic.
ubuntu going down the ai toilet, and fedora trying to, makes me happy that I chose arch. ubuntu and fedora corporate ties are one of the reasons why I made that decision, and are also why they are making the wrong decisions, and are likely to get worse.
ai could have been good, but take a look around you, humanity cannot be trusted.
I understand you completely. But I’m gong to wait and see. Reading from their announcement, sure they are enabling AI, but as I said, AI is not all bad.
Let’s just say Canonical is providing the hammer, but how it’s used depends on the user itself. It could be used for building great stuff, or used to destroy things.
Your partner is “fervently anti-AI”, but you are not.
Is your partner engaging in/reading this thread, and making up their own mind, or are they allowing you to make a decision that doesn’t necessarily reflect, or respect their choices?
Using a different base does not complicate things as much as you might expect, and may also be logical considering you are anti-snap
Zorin’s not gonna have AI tools. This is Ubuntu specific. Zorin is BASED on Ubuntu, much like Mint is. But their software distribution is independent. So I think you’re worried for nothing.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if the Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie might not even have AI tools in there either. They’re not Canonical projects. Their respective teams have control over their distributions. Not Canonical.
As somebody who converted to Linux about a yearish ago, I would like to provide some feedback.
Right now, your best options are: Mint (latest version of Cinnamon looks pretty modern in my opinion, if you haven’t looked at it for too long), Fedora (Workstation for GNOME, KDE for Plasma), and maybe one of the -buntus depending on how recent the hardware is. For a first-timer, I would avoid the atomic distros like Bazzite, as they will work fine until there’s a weird issue that is annoying to troubleshoot. It’s very good if you already have Linux installed and are e.g. installing it on a handheld or HTPC but not for a first-timer.
I would let her try in a LiveUSB with GNOME, Cinnamon, and KDE Plasma to see what interface she likes best (screenshots aren’t enough, the interfaces are different enough between them). Use VenToy for this I think, between Mint, Fedora Workstation, and Fedora KDE. Once that is decided, go with one of them.
Tip as somebody who first installed Fedora: make sure to enable proprietary drivers on first boot if you want access to Nvidia drivers + Steam! It’s very important, as otherwise you need to manuakky configure those repositories. I don’t believe this is an issue on Mint though, it’s mostly a Fedora thing.
As for Office, I mostly get around with LibreOffice, but if that doesn’t work, you can try OnlyOffice (but the company is Russian and a little shady, licensing issues, look into it), the web version of MS Office (ew, horrible), Windows in a VM, or dual-booting Windows (quite difficult to set up since MS does not play nice).
Yeah it was either Mint or Zorin and maybe Kubuntu, but the Snaps are a concern in 26.04. (Though Zorin has them too so… But they’re not as rooted into the OS as with *buntus)
I’m not considering fedora though. I rather stick with a Debian-based distro. I’m just more used to it and it’ll be easier for me to troubleshoot if trouble comes.
Fair enough, but I wouldn’t immediately overlook Fedora. It’s still a relatively easy to use distro!
I like Fedora anyway, but the reason I stuck with it was that every IT job I’ve ever had has exclusively used servers with OS’ in that ecosystem. Also, though I’ve let it expire, I used to be an RHCE.
As such, I figured using Fedora for personal pursuits would keep me familiar with the skills and environments that kept me paid.
Linux Mint with kde-standard is my go to.
You get the stability of Mint, no snaps, and the customisability of KDE.
Ooooh interesting.
Oh but I looked it up as I was typing this and the latest Mint is still on KDE Plasma 5 when the latest is 6. Even Debian 26.04 has KDE Plasma 6 now. Mint 23 is coming out in December.
I’ll need to update before then as 25.10 will hit end of life this month.
In any case, I’ll keep that in mind.
Also I just noticed the VPN statement and wanted to put a plug in for this: https://github.com/yuezk/GlobalProtect-openconnect
It’s what I use for work since the Linux app was gated and it works great (I paid the licence for the GUI and have no regrets; the dev is quite responsive)
I used Zorin for several years and love it, I always recommend it to newcomers. Everything Just WorksTM
Wouldn’t go with Zorin - the Snaps will be frustrating.
Choose something with KDE which is still very Windows-like + either a Debian build or Fedora build. Both can support Flatpaks easily.
PikaOS if you want a Debian based distro with KDE that’s game ready, or Nobara for a Fedora based distro that’s game ready. Nobaracones with a good deal of Wine presets that should make running certain Windows software easier too.
Thanks. I understand the concern. I don’t think the Snaps are going to be a big deal for her. As long as she understands not to install Snap apps unless strictly necessary. (And she won’t need to from the list of software she uses.)
I thought about getting her Debian with KDE. That’s probably what I’m going to do with my own PC as I want to avoid Kubuntu 26.04 and their forced snaps. (They’re a concern for me though lol)
I looked at Pika and Nobara. She doesn’t want a gaming focused OS. They’re also pretty niche and might not last long, relatively speaking. I mean Nobara is one guy (Glorious Eggroll) and PikaOS is very new and is also based on Sid (testing, unstable) which can potentially come with it’s loads of problems.
She’s new to Linux. It was either Mint or Zorin. I went with Zorin for the desktop experience that’s loads more polished with great features. Mint seems a bit old in comparison and I find the look isn’t really consistent throughout. It lacks some customization features as well.
EDIT: On second thought, maybe this Pika OS is right for me though. I’m a power user and I use my PC for gaming a lot, and I’m used to Debian. And Sid, honestly, is still far more stable that Arch while still being a rolling release with somewhat recent packages. Set up with BTRFS snapshots in case something breasks… This might be the right thing for me.
I understand the concerns on how long some of these might last, like Nobara, but now that it’s been a couple of years and some of GEs work is being used by Steam/Valve, I think it’s safe enough to recommend.
Normally I would have instead recommended Bazzite, as others here have, since she doesn’t seem like a power user. But because of those other uses she might need, it’s a bit riskier to have to work in a more locked down system in case you yourself have to rig something up for her for work, hence I didn’t recommend an immutable distro.
PikaOS I understand is more niche though, but it is still Debian based and Debian is pretty stable, even Sid is. It’s more of you preferred a Debian option.
The reason I mentioned the gaming focused OS’ isn’t because they’re gaming focused, but because they likely have good driver support for her laptop out of the box, and controller etc support as well. I wouldn’t say either really has a heavy “gamerz” aesthetic to them (Pika if anything is just cute Neytirix vibes), and they come with KDE options which can be customized however you like. I think you’ll like it as a power user, and their updater is handy too. Also they set up Discovery to already have access to Flathub as well.
Now for the main reason I’d recommend against Zorin.
The issue is they’re update model + how they have things set up. Gnome + extensions can be prone to messing up with updates, and Zorin doesn’t usually do the longest of updates unless you go with the paid editions. It’s also heavier on system resource use. It’s not the worst option, but it’s not the best either, especially since she has someone who understands Linux decently with her too. But most of all, if you really want something to look like Windows, you can get a better result on a cleaner distro with KDE than you can with Gnome and extensions. Here’s some links - from Windows XP to Windows 10.
https://store.kde.org/p/2136378
https://store.kde.org/p/1407086
https://github.com/AlexcomX/Windows-8-Dark-Theme-for-KDE-Plasma
https://github.com/yeyushengfan258/Win10OS-kde
If you really want to make it feel like a seamless transition for her, that last one might be it, though there’s other variations of it too. It’s much more Windows-like than Zorin, all while making it easy to avoid snaps entirely and Ubuntu dependency.
It’s your choice though, and if you do end up going with Zorin, well, that’s still kilometers better than Windows 11. Just want to make sure you know all the options out there for switching someone away from Windows. I’ve done Fedora KDE + Windows 10 theme in the past for an older family member that wasn’t too tech savvy that couldn’t update to 11. Just told them it was a new update and they thought it was still windows, though they really liked how the new “update” really sped up their computer a lot.
I appreciate your feedback. But here are my counter arguments 😉
Nobara and Bazzite are very niche.
Nobara is a personal project that’s provided to the greater public that gained in popularity. But what happens if G.E. decides to stop working on it? If he suddenly becomes disabled or dies? Maybe someone else will pick it up, maybe not.
Bazzite is even worse because it is heavily gaming focused. I tried it and it had way too much gaming stuff that I didn’t really need or asked for out of the box. And I really hate the idea of an atomic distro. I’ve tried it and hated it. I’d recommend it for anyone wanting to use a gaming device like the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally X, Lenovo Legion GO or something similar. But for a PC as a desktop workstation I think it’s a bad idea. I don’t want to have to go mess around config files only to install software or system components that doesn’t come as a flatpak. And that would be a terrible suggestion for a first time Linux user for personal and working laptop used mainly for editing documents, browsing the web, streaming movies, doing video conference calls and the occasional game.
Now I’m not shitting on these distros. I think they’re amazing at what they do. I’d heavily consider Bazzite if I bought a gaming device or Nobara for a gaming box. But they’re not adapted for a standard desktop PC where you’re only trying to find a Windows alternative that gets out of your way.
Zorin has great hardware support out of the box. Our PCs are already a few years old now and we don’t have fancy gaming hardware. Heck all my gaming devices were recognized and worked right away with Kubuntu 24.04. I never had issues with Nvidia either. All my games worked great also. And with Zorin being Ubuntu based, I doubt there will be any issue there. And about your concerns regarding the updates breaking the extensions and stuff in Gnome, the extensions provided with Zorin are developed and maintained by the Zorin dev team. So I’m expecting them to ensure they work from one version to the next. Much like Canonical have been doing with their customizations in their default Ubuntu desktop.
I agree KDE is more Windows-like. Kubuntu was my 3rd choice actually. It’s what I’ve been using for ages. Snaps won’t be an issue for her. I think I can pretty much disable snaps without causing too much harm to the system. But I want to give Zorin a shot. KDE might have too much customization and it might end up being a turn off. Zorin might be just right in that regard.
Anyway, we’ll see. And thanks again for your feedback and recommendations! :)
No problem! But um, I think you meant the Bazzite part for someone else - I also said I didn’t recommend it in this case because of the reasons you listed with it being too restrictive (or any atomic distro for that matter), especially since there’s a chance she might need some more obscure software than what a Flatpak can provide, or might need something that doesn’t come as a Flatpak. It’s usually good for lightweight users, but this wasn’t the case so I was also against the idea of atomic distros like Bazzite that others were recommending.
What I mean to clarify was my final recommendation per the last comment was Fedora/Debian + KDE + a Windows skin.
You make a good point with Nobara, in that it’s not run by an organization though, even if it has had years of stability. That could be problematic in the long run.
As for KDE customization - it has many options, but they’re completely optional - you’d have to go into the settings to mess with that. I’d say it’s about on par as Gnome extensions, only more popular because it’s easier for people to make new customizations for it compared to Gnome (you don’t really need to know much about coding is why).
And as I stated, Zorin is still an improvement over Windows anyway, so either way can’t go wrong. From my past personal experience with Zorin however, it did use more system resources and did have issues with the extensions after certain updates, but that was a few (3?4?) years ago in fairness, when I was replacing Windows 11 for my wife too when she was getting sick of Microsoft’s antics. My logic was similar to yours then. In the end, she’s ended up happy with Fedora KDE, even though I use mostly Debian myself. She even figured out customizations on her own even though she’s not too tech savvy, but then she is also an artist so maybe it comes naturally to her. And since then I usually go that route for others in my family switching as well.
Hopefully it all works out for you though and the transition goes smoothly! At least we can both agree Mint was not the best choice here XD (just a mention since so many usually recommend it for beginners but I think Mint is riding on legacy - its UI feels a bit dated and driver support doesn’t seem as good as other distros these days).
That’s cool my dude! :)
Yeah the bazzite part I must got confused with another comment.
I used it. Its a nice out of box distro that is windows like in gui setup and lets you just install and go. That being said I eventually wanted better windows type snapping behavior and installed kde. I went to bazzite just to have something out of the box ready for gaming and I like the whole right only image thing. Anything debian based is nice to because many websites with windows downloads offer a .deb option. I use app image for most of my software though much like on windows I used portable apps as it makes moving to a new machine easier.
Yeah, Debian is my OS of choice honestly. Rock solid and very stable and secure thanks to the thorough testing the packages go through. Yeah the software is older, but it’s worth it in terms of time saved.
And like you said, there’s TONS of 3rd party support for it.
This was my exact journey, though I eventually landed on immutable Fedora with KDE. Zorin is a great OS but it’s in a weird space because it’s probably already too simple for anyone who knows what Linux is.
Zorin is a solid choice. Ubuntu-based without digital ID, Irish-made (not subject to the American digital ID laws), and designed with digital freedom in mind, despite snap format being enabled by default.
That’s the ONLY thing preventing me from installing it on my own PC honestly. I absolutely love how they customized Gnome and the many QoL features they added.
I’m currently using Kubuntu 25.10 on my own PC and need to switch because I don’t want Ubuntu’s 26.04 with forced Snaps for core features of the OS. I think that’s bullshit. I love KDE and how close to Windows the experience is and how much you can customize it. But I miss the GNOME simplicity sometimes. Gnome 2 was perfect. Switched to MATE when Ubuntu started shipping with Gnome 3 and that held for a while. Then I moved to KDE Plasma once it evolved from the bug-riddled, resource-heavy mess KDE Plasma 4 was when it came out. And I’ve stuck with that since.
Honestly now I’m considering just installing Debian Trixie with KDE and call it a day. I’m used to it now and I don’t want to spend weeks customizing my Gnome shell with a million extensions that might break at the next update.
Well… anything with Ubuntu backing it is going to do digital ID. Probably your best bet would be Vendefoul Wolf with SonicDE or similar for Plasma, but without Wayland, as Wayland will require systemd, and that means you’ll be doing digital ID through the field used for this purpose.
If you do want to do KDE, I know Artix Linux (the distribution I use) has a Plasma ISO, but I think Plasma will force systemd as a hard dependency soon. GNOME is already that way. However, I’d highly recommend taking a look at Cinnamon if you want a GNOME 3 base.
At this point, I’d just ditch everyday Wayland, and use it for specific purposes should that be needed.
Ever heard of Void Linux?
It doesn’t have SystemD and still runs Wayland.
Yes, I know of Void. However, despite running with runit right now, the Vendefoul Wolf Twitter account had basically talked about how systemd is being a dependency for Wayland, despite it not being a hard one right now. Some features of Wayland, from what I understand of it (I’ll need to do some more research on it) will require systemd as a hard dependency in the future.
The post I speak of is here: https://xcancel.com/vanviic/status/2035474242607706536#m
Ah ok. I see what you mean.
This is stupid. That’s not how Linux is supposed to work. That’s not the Unix way of doing things. This needs to stop unless we end up with another Windows. Then I’ll switch to BSD dammit!
That isn’t a Linux thing. Rather, it’s IBM trying to control Linux through Wayland and systemd, since they’ve been linked for some time now.
It definitely is s Linux thing. That I have no doubt in my mind.
And isn’t systemD a RedHat thing? Are they owned by IBM?
The issue with snaps is that they are proprietary, and are less space efficient and probably a bit slower. If that doesn’t bother her than it’s fine. You could also choose to use flatpak (also containerized like snaps) or just use apt (from the terminal or a gui)
Also OnlyOffice might be a better option for MS compatibility. You could also just run a VM if you need to.
Yeah. I’m aware of all of this.
Snaps is not an issue with her. It’s an issue with me though lol! I’ll be sure to tell her about the options and which ones to pick.
Thanks :)
One concern I have is she uses her personal laptop for work.
I will never agree to use my personal laptop for work. When I finish work, I hide my work laptop under the sofa so that I don’t think about it. I need to physically separate work and my personal life.
If, for any reason, she cannot get a work laptop, I would not recommend installing a Linux distro because her livelihood depends on it.
absolutely. my 30+ years experience says work and personal should be separate devices with no exceptions. and the ‘work’ one should be what they want on it, how they want it. if you then get malware, it’s on them–not you. if you want something different, ask and get permission first.
She’s mostly editing excel sheets, word documents, powerpoint presentations, using outlook, and maybe Zoom and Teams for chat & meetings. It’s not worth it.
It also means more techno junk that’ll end up in landfills, too.
She doesn’t mind honestly.
So, basically, Microsoft products. I know you can access the web versions of these products, but I don’t recommend relying solely on them because the document formatting often doesn’t appear correctly in the web versions. I usually have to open them on the desktop version.
In that case, I recommend not going forward.
She’d prefer to use Linux than Windows 11.
Microsoft products aren’t an issue anymore in Linux.
You do you. You’ve been advised.
so mainly microsoft software…
I’ll let her use LibreOffice first and see how that goes.
I found it very easy to switch to linux on my own pc, surprisingly easy. Work will be more complicated, hopefully it goes well. I have no issue with libreoffice, it works well for my needs.
My work tried to make me use my personal GrapheneOS phone for work. Unfortunately some things did not work. When they tried to fix it I said “look, your stuff doesn’t work on my phone, if you want me to have a specific phone with specific software, you can send me one, but this one is mine” and so they did.
Although in this day and age I think it’s plausible to say “I don’t own a computer”.
My work wanted me to use my phone (which, like yours, is Graphene) to login to the messenger they use. I briefly tried; it worked, but mandated enabling MDM. I did consider it, but while researching how much control it would grant if constrained to a work profile, I discovered it’s not currently supported in Graphene. So I just deleted the login and work profile and didn’t try to login any further.
I have an old, unused phone that’s still Android, so if they ever insist (and won’t provide me with a device), I’ll probably just set it up on that phone and use my actual phone as a hotspot … But that seems pretty ridiculous and I’d definitely have some objections.
Similarly, any bureaucratic actions require a 2FA app. I couldn’t really avoid that since I need to file my timesheets, but for reasons I’ve never ascertained, the app works on my tablet (which is also Graphene) but not my phone. I pretty much only ever turn my tablet on for that purpose and it’s on an SSID with guest isolation, so I don’t mind that as much.
LOL!
I had 2 smartphones for one job and I hated it. Had to carry 2 devices everywhere. What a pain in the butt that was. Now you can have a separate work profile that you can shut off at a press of a button which is great.
I don’t carry 2 devices because I don’t take it home with me. And I don’t have to have corporate spyware on my personal device. No need to cycle profiles.
Why would you need a cell phone if the only place is ever used or located is the office? Is it just a device to login for 2FA?
To run the company software?
Wouldn’t that run on your computer? Sorry, I’m unfamiliar with this kind of workflow.
Not for me, no. Don’t ask me why. It’s pretty awful having to work from a phone. I have to upload photos regularly so maybe it has something to do with that.
Agreed, if they want you to have a device, they need to supply it.
