A beginner doesn’t care about Flatpak or Snap or Zapp or other, but I won’t be able to support them if they use a different one from me.

I still depend on so many Bash scripts.

I agree that using JavaScript increases the chance of participation. I released a few versions of Thai word breakers in different programming languages. One on node.js is the most popular. 8 people contributed to the JS-based project compared to 2-3 people in other programming languages. However, JS has a downside too. In 2017, @iporsut and I made an experiment to compare Thai word breakers that we created. JS version running time is 15X of the Rust version. Even by comparing with another dynamic language, the Julia version is faster than the one in JS.

I created a website using node.js in 2014, and it is still running. The performance is good. However, I have a few regrets.

• We had a very hard time by install this project on other team members who use Windows 10 because we didn’t know how to build a Bcrypt library.
• Recently, I have to fix the project without adding any new feature because Express.js was changed, MongoDB was changed, and some packages that I used were abandoned.
• It was a small project so I wanted to keep the session storage in RAM, but I can’t since I ran 4 node.js processes. Now the project requires Redis as session storage, which causes more troubles for team members, who don’t familiar with GNU/Linux, Docker, or WSL.

I tried so many things on Lenovo Miix 300 with a touchscreen. Only Ubuntu works. Even Ubuntu works partially. Some apps don’t work with an on-screen keyboard. And, yes, Ubuntu with GNOME is very slow and consumes almost all the RAM in my computer. I can’t work using it. So, in short, as far as I know, a distro, which you are looking for, doesn’t exist.

Until 1999, Qt was proprietary software. GNOME was started as a free/open/libre alternative. In 1995-1997, we had Fvwm and LessTif, but IMO they looked from the 80s.

If GTK wasn’t released in 1998, perhaps Qt would still be proprietary software. If corporates and people abandon GTK, perhaps Qt will become fully proprietary software again.

So I suppose having one DE is too risk for the whole eco-system. Unlike Microsoft or Apple, we are not one company.

Zorin looks very interesting in YouTube vidoes. I wonder why only a few people mention it.

Chromium OS or Fedora Silverblue.

If they are a tech, you might wanna go with a flavor of Ubuntu.

If they are willing to become proficient and experienced with GNU/Linux as a distro as a tech, maybe something like Arch

I guess they are going to use Facebook, Google Meet, LINE, a word processor, and a spreadsheet.

Which apps does she use on macOS? I hope she doesn’t use OmniGraffle.

What does she use on her home computer?

Is she using anything besides a web browser?

The last OS that I used without an Internet connection was Slackware.

I saw Ubuntu in Spanish TV programs from Netflix. Now many schools and universities use Google products, which may be worse than before. So many teachers switched to Google Sheet, etc. They can switch to any OS if it runs Chrome.

I’m using GNU Emacs, which is, from my experience, great for open source software and decentralized development. Last year, I found an issue in a package/extension, I could make an experiment by modifying and running its code on the fly. I didn’t even need to reload the whole package/extension. So I figured the solution out and submitted a pull request quickly.

What was the motivation?

Wow, I love Flatpak. I’ve already used OBS from Flatpak for a while.

AFAIK an average person uses MS Word and MS Excel at work. So GNU/Linux desktop may need to wait until people switch to Google Docs, which can be worse lock-in, but at least, it works on a GNU/Linux desktop.

Running my own server is dangerous while I still live in Thailand, otherwise censorship will be very strict.