BananaTrifleViolin

From what I’ve seen there has been some confusion over the state Lutris as the last version was seemingly 0.5.18 in Dec 2024 and “nothing since”. However version 0.5.19 is available as a tag within the github repository from Feb 2025, and they’re working on 0.5.20. It sounds like there is some issue with the 0.5.19 git, and development overall has slowed down as the lead dev is working full time.

I think a lot of this shows how open source software is so dependent on a small number of active people keeping projects going and there isn’t money flowing into otherwise very important and popular projects.

I like Lutris but I think Heroic is probably more fully featured than Faugus at present.

Faugus is an UMU-Launcher. UMU Launcher is essentially a open implementation of the Steam Runtime Tools and Steam Linux Runtime, which can run independently of Steam itself - it essentially aims to be Proton as you get in steam, without needing steam running. It aims to be a single shared implementation to simplify Proton fixes and implementations which are otherwise fragmented and duplicated - each game gets fixes applied individually by each of the existing games launchers in their own projects. It’s a laudable aim, but it’s not clear whether it can achieve it’s aims as Lutris, Heroic, Bottles etc are still doing their own things. So at the moment it’s another launcher?

Did you set your Mint to autologin to desktop? If so then your Keyring is then locked and you get prompts to unlock it when you want to use anything that needs it - websites, software like email etc. The keyring holds your passwords and credentials to pass to on as needed and keeps your system secure. If you set your desktop to not autologin - i.e. have a login screen - your keyring is unlocked automatically as you log on to the PC and you don’t keep getting prompts to unlock the keyring. You can disable the keyring entirely or give it a blank password, but it’s better to use the login screen to keep your device secure, and let the keyring do it’s thing in the background even though “login automatically” is so easy to tick and use. The wallet is the same concept on KDE desktops.

Otherwise the only password prompts you should get are similar to windows - when you want to make system level changes.

I’d recommend OpenSuSE Leap with KDE. User friendly, stable, with a good GUI for making all system changes. Fedora KDE is also a good popular distro; I’m not sure how good it’s GUI is but I’d be surprised if you need to use the terminal. People often recommend the terminal (because it IS quicker - often one step instead of “go here, click here, click here”) but there is usually a GUI way of doing everything.

The text here on the fediverse is the prologue; bit confusing but click through the link and it makes sense.

Interesting read, thank you. Also I recognise this type of procrastination: sit down to do one thing, end up installing a whole different OS :D

KDE is genuinely incredibly flexible - you can make it into pretty much any GUI that exists. The default windows like set up is fine, but there are so many easy tweaks and changes you can make to get it however you want. I have a floating dock-like set up instead of a window-like taskbar, with application launcher, icon-only view, system tray, clock and power button.

For simple tweaks yoy can right click on most component of your KDE panels and select “Show alternatives…” to see different official versions of the same component. For example, the Application Launcher offers an alternative Application Menu with cascading menus like an old-school windows start menu, or a full screen gnome-like Application Dashboard. And there are also loads more user made tools if you right click and select “Add or Manage widgets”. Every component of the desktop is a widget and can be moved, swapped out, duplicated or replaced.

It’s really not that difficult with a Global Theme; anyone can do it. There are step by step tutorials on line (such as this one from howtogeek) for people who want to do it manually. The benefit of manual is if there is a major KDE update it is more likely to be completely unaffected; very rarely Global Themes can break and need their own updates.

The Mac ones are the 2nd most popular in the Global Theme store and well maintained though.

Yeah KDE is incredibly flexible. You can get most of the way there downloading a Global Theme from KDE’s settings menu (such as MacOS Big Sur) - that lays out all the panels, including the top bar context menu, power menu, dock, left sided window buttons. There are then some extra visual themes such as cursors, icons that people can get separately if they really want to completely mimic a Mac.

No one is born knowing this stuff; everyone learns it somewhere. But omg it’s still frustrating after you spend days taking the difficult route and someone says “oh you could have just done this in 2 mins”. My sympathy to you! :D But GG on getting your parents onto Linux and saving them from wasting money on a new laptop!

So interesting rabbit hole: Aldi was originally 1 company but split between two brothers into Aldi Nord and Aldi Sud (Aldi North and Aldi South) in the 1960s in Germany. The two companies share the same Aldi name, and work somewhat together but are separate and have their own territories. They are owned by the families of the original owners, and they do not compete directly against each other.

Aldi Sud covers southern Germany, eastern and southern Europe, the UK, Ireland, Australia and the USA. In the UK Aldi has got a reputation as a good employer, a discount supermarket that offers quality, and is the fastest growing supermarket. All the competitors now do “price matches” to Aldi to try and keep up. Aldi in the USA, Ireland and Australia are seemingly run very similar to the Aldi in the UK and of course in it’s base in Germany.

Meanwhile, Aldi Nord covers northern Germany, the Benelux countries, France, Spain and Portugal amongst others. It seems Aldi does not have as good a reputation in some of these countries? I can see stuff about aldi being dirty, with poor products and poor customer service. Not sure how true that is, but that is definitely not Aldi’s reputation in the UK where I live. Clean, good quality and happy staff is my experience.

So when you see Aldi in the anglosphere part of the internet, it’s all about Aldi Sud. Also total random aside but the 2 companies do compete in the US: Aldi Sud runs Aldi, while Aldi Nord sort-of-owns Trader Joe’s (it’s a “sister company” owned by the owners of Aldi Nord).

EDIT: Also in the UK, Aldi and Lidl are very similar in quality and style. Although Lidl does more fresh baked goods, and I personally prefer it but Aldi is nearer for me so I shop there.

I’d go with Fedora. If you will be their source of help, then it makes sense you know it. It’s also a widely known, stable distro with good and reliable packaging.

Mint is a good distro but there is a huge load of outdated advice out there, and I think it’s getting risky as a result. Like I still keep seeing tips to add 3rd party repos to install software, rather than pointing to things like Flatpak. However it remains very userfriendly and there is loads of support out there, so it’s still a great choice.

Another consideration is Fedora offers a better selection of DEs to use “officially”. Personally I like KDE, but also having Gnome available as a default option is good. Mint is somewhat limited in that respect by focusing on Cinnamon, Mate and XFCE as the official spins. They’re all decent but I feel like people coming into Linux should be introduced to the big 2. When I mained Mint a few years ago, I moved to KDE and it was actually a little frustrating how bloated it got to have lots of unneeded Cinnamon tools left behind, and some essential to the system.

I’d avoid Ubuntu. It’s big but it’s increasingly compromised by Cannonical’s behaviour, and personally I object to Snap. Snap as a technology is fine but the Snap store is closed source and controlled by Cannonical. And in Ubuntu so many apps are forced onto users as Snaps now - for example web browsers which are slow to start up. This is not a good experience for users.