I personally can’t stand flatpaks, they’re too large to update its libs every few days. On a 4 MB/sec line that I’m, it’s not a good option.

Try OnlyOffice (the appimage). It’s more compatible than LibreOffice for MS formats. Alternatively, consider downloding the LibreOfficeFresh appimage, which is the latest version (Linux Mint’s is 2 years old). When you download an .AppImage file, you right click it, Properties, and you mark it as executable. Then, run it. Always download appimages from the developer’s source site, not from third parties.

I suggest Linux Mint, it just works. I have moved over 10 people to it in the last 2 years. Basically, giving life to their old laptops. Never heard a complaint! Here’s the latest one, my niece: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/117304062578785444

I disagree. As someone who is running both Debian-Testing and ubuntu-Mint, there is a difference between the two, especially in support of some hardware and some pre-configurations that come handy in some “difficult” machines. Ubuntu has special workarounds for a lot of things, you see. Debian does not. Debian doesn’t even boot on my DELL Xeon workstation, for example. Ubuntu does. And that’s my main issue with LMDE, being based on Debian. Also, LMDE doesn’t have the nvidia driver panel, to make it easier for people with nvidias. If Debian was to create these workarounds for various machines, then sure, why not. LMDE would be just fine.

KDE and XFce DEs are the most customizable to look like MacOS (nothing to do with distros, you can use any distro and then use these DEs to make them look like MacOS). Here’s my XFce: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/114653608461737248

Geary is as simple as they come.

I have tried it, I downloaded it. But while it kinda works now, you can’t untangle AI code in the future. It becomes too complicated and difficult to debug. Any project that uses mostly AI, doesn’t have a future. It only has a temporary present, while things are still simple.

I’m allergic to AI code. It’s worse than spaghetti. I wish it wasn’t AI-made, for the most part.

It’s mostly entertainment, but it has some good info sometimes.

Just install a distro that doesn’t fail like that by overwriting system files on a whim. You’re saying that you’re going from an arch based system (which are prone to get weird errors every few weeks), to NixOS, which has at the very least a steep learning curve. My assessment is that you are asking for trouble yourself. I know that Debian-stable sounds boring, but it never breaks like that. If you’re truly burnt out as you say, you would go with the safe, unglamorous solution. I used to tinker with Linux all the time (I started on slackware in 1998), now I just run Mint on laptops, and Debian on my PCs. I just don’t want bad surprises anymore, I’m at an age that the OS needs to work as expected.

You will have to reinstall the OS, and redo the partition table (256 MB boot partition (that’s enough for a single OS), 2 GB swap, and the rest / root partition). Then install Debian with XFce on the / partition. You use it normally as with any other Debian-based OS, that Zorin is also one of them, but you use the terminal to update the system. It’s very usable.

For 16 GB SSD with 4 GBs of RAM (which is what most Chromebooks used to be), you will need Debian with XFce, with 2 GB of swap partition. Nothing else will either fit, or work properly. I have given away 3 such laptops to friends with that setup (Arch might fit ok too, but because I was giving it to friends, Debian was easier to work with). After installing the v12 Bookworm Debian OS, with libreoffice, a couple of simple games (e.g. solitaire), Gimp, and that 2 gb swap partition, I was left with 5 GB free space. I had to occasionally do sudo apt autoremove to make sure the space wasn’t eaten away, but overall, it stayed steady (dh -h will give you that info). With Trixie, you might end up with 4 GBs of free space, as it’s bigger. Bookworm has updates until 2029.

If the issue is under X11, try their Wayland session. Otherwise, you will have to wait until December, when they go fully Wayland with their more stable version. If you’re already using Wayland, use X11. I don;'t think there’s much to do otherwise for such an issue.

Anything from Debian. I even run Debian-Testing, and it’s rock solid. Also, Linux mint, on my other partition.

Only thing bothering me on the cosmic desktop is really the fact that the app menu doesn’t have a shadow behind its window. So white menu on white window on the back, you can’t see where one window starts and where the other ends. A patch for that would be great, to be honest.

You are the only one with the answer closer to what I’m looking for, everyone else is thinking in terms of user accounts, where root can override. An encrypted volume can not be unlocked by root without having the password of the said volume.

No, it’s something else actually.

Yes, there is. If a folder or file is encrypted (with a different password), it is safe from root too. That’s what I’m after. Root can’t change the password of an encrypted volume.

Not if you have an encypted folder etc, with a different password than the user account. That way, is safe even from the root account. The problem here is that the app is a .deb, it doesn’t come as an appimage, and it needs constant updating too. So it’s the main system executable file that I want to make user-authenticating, with a different password than that of the user account.

I’m having trouble with wifi with two macbook airs from 2011 and 2013. Those broadcomm chipsets are simply not maintained anymore well on the linux kernel. The solution: a $5 usb wifi adapter. Works wonders (blacklist first the internal wifi).