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?
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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I’ll let her use LibreOffice first and see how that goes.
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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.
It’s ok. I have 26 years of Linux under my belt. I’ve actually built a whole distro at some point early in my career. I’m pretty sure we’ll be ok.
I’d make sure to keep Win10 as dualboot. Office and the Microsoft account are big concerns and you didn’t verify on them.
Keeping Windows in a VM worked for mine. Provided 3D graphics aren’t required, even virt-mamager (QEMU/KVM) works fine. She used VMware for a decade. With shared home folder into VM’s Z: drive.
Here developing bigly applications with visual studio in vm. Works just fine.
That’s a very good point. I might take @avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 's route though with a VM.
Just make sure it’s well setup with shared home integration and all so it “just works.” Can also use snapshots to “reinstall it,” for when Windows shits the bed.
Haha! Great suggestions! :)
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.
There’s also SoftMaker Office
It’s not open source and it costs money, but it’s European (German) and it has really good MS office compatibility
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 :)
If the ms office apps don’t run on Linux you might be able to use them through a browser, just like Google docs.
I think older versions of office work under wine. I think the 2020 versions… I forget
Yeah, but she wants the desktop version. She has a license for it. Might run it through wine, yes. The problem will be printing. I haven’t figured out how to set up a printer in Wine yet.
You don’t set it up in WINE, it just goes through the Linux print manager.
If you happen to have a tutorial on this let me know. I tried installing my Canon photo printing software in Bottles but it could never find the printer spool.
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.
im an it person but have been for a long time and im past the point of wanting to deal with my system. I just want it to work and I have heard this before from other tech folks. So I think there are others besides new to linux folk that like them. I also think linux is escaping from only techy types know of it box who need simple systems they can just use.
Some people just want their OS to get out of their way. That’s what Zorin does.
That’s what I liked about Kubuntu. Install it and forget it. You barely have to do anything and you forget you’re running Linux at all while you get all your work and play done. I don’t have time to mess around with some configs to modify my atomic installation and what not. I just open the software center and install whatever the heck I need. And if the Flatpak doesn’t work, I can install from the deb instead.
But now that Snaps are becoming mandatory for core features, I’m going to go the Debian route.
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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.
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Nice, thank you !
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.
Exactly. She just wants it out of her way. And I think Zorin can deliver that with style.
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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.
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Ever heard of Void Linux?
It doesn’t have SystemD and still runs Wayland.
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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!
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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?
Linux fits Spyfree values nicely.
W11 Enterprise IoT LTSC is a very solid, no AI option if she wants to stick with Windows. Use StartAllBack on top of it, and it will remind you of a fresh W7 install.
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.
I have heard better comments from new Linux users recently that they prefer Fedora over Linux Mint, if that helps.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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! :)
