Ian McLean @mastodon.au From rural #australia.
Working in: #finance, #it, #ndis, #disability, #agedcare, #notforprofit.
Interested in: #foss, #selfimprovement, #heavymetal, #literature, #philosophy, #digitalminimalism and #family. Interested in politics plenty, discussing it on the internet not so much.
In my band: #vocals, #guitar, #production, #engineering, #songwriting, using #linuxaudio.
#Elementary has a very opinionated design and includes some defaults that would be desireable for pretty much absolutely nobody - the most prominent of them being that it only lists apps from its own store, which is almost empty, and then gives warnings to users to try and discourage them from going to a place like FlatHub for the software that they will no doubt need. There is a tone about the OS in its design and especially its language in dialogs that may make people feel like they are the ones who are "wrong" if they do not wish to stick with these defaults - I think that's what really rubs so many people the wrong way, and a brand-new user that doesn't know much about Linux would just be completely lost.
It also has no direct upgrade paths for major new versions, and they do their own apps and DE which is great, but they are also under-resourced and so the experience can be a bit glitchy sometimes.
You mention being a mid-level user though, so I think you'd be fine with it, if you like the look of it. In terms of privacy, usability and respect for the FOSS spirit, I think Elementary and its Pantheon desktop environment is fantastic, and I believe it's actually worth trying to adapt to its way of doing things. I use it and love it.
For someone brand new to Linux that just wants to get up and running quickly and get work done, I'd highly recommend #ZorinOS instead. It's very much a counter-point in philosophy to Elementary OS and gives a vibe of: "You do things however you're used to, I just want to make it as easy for you as possible."
@HistoPol @Linux4Everyone @linux I have that laptop and Ubuntu runs well on it. Make sure you are running the latest Nvidia graphics driver. It's an Optimus laptop which game me problems running a second screen on it, but I work around it by setting it up to use the DGPU all the time (sudo prime-select nvidia from the terminal). Probably not smart for battery life to do that, but everything is gravy for me after doing that.