I am using Puppy now and I am not happy with it. I find it difficult to work with. I previously used Windows where I could work about 6 times faster than I can now.

I just tried Mint, and it was a big disappointment. As far as I could see, settings are nearly nonexistent. There is very little to choose from in the standard menus, and none of my portable apps worked.

Serious suggestions only please.

Thanks!

I've been happy with Enlightenment 7 for awhile. But what do you mean by settings? If you want something you can control every possible thing from a menu then KDE is likely the best choice. If you want something that doesn't give you to many options to screw with and just lets you focus on what you are doing then something with Gnome, Pantheon, or even XFCE (has more easily adjusted settings than the others) are good options. Depending on your work and required stability Debian would be my suggestion. An Ubuntu variant is also a good choice.

1 members found this post helpful.

No idea what suggestions you'd like, serious or otherwise, since you provide nothing for details. What "portable apps" are you talking about?? What settings?? You can install a variety of desktop environments like KDE (most Windows-Like) to Gnome, Enlightenment, XFCE, and a host of others. All are going to have different 'settings'. You can customize EVERYTHING in Linux.

Biggest thing to keep in mind is that Linux isn't Windows. Just like you learned where things were in Windows, you're going to have to do it for Linux now, same as you would if you started using a Mac. If you don't like Linux and can work '6 times faster' in Windows, then you probably should use Windows. Why are you using/loading Linux, is the question I'd ask.

1 members found this post helpful.

I actually find that “most of them are.” Simply set up “VirtualBox” on your host machine. (It’s a full -featured virtual machine system that runs on everything and costs nothing.) Then, just start fooling around with it and trying to do things. Freely ask questions right here: “the only dumb question is the one you didn’t ask.” Since Linux is running in a window on your host, you can’t harm your host no matter what you do. And, Linux performance will be excellent.

Feel free to set up multiple virtual machines with different distros in each one.

“Jump on in. The water’s fine.” Your journey begins when you jump into the water. (It’s okay: you’re in the shallow end.)

The key thing that you’ll discover about Linux is that “you have endless options.” If you’re coming from a world where a single software manufacturer fully controls your experience and gives you “only one way to do it,” this takes a little getting used to. But then you find it to be profoundly liberating. Linux also uses an architecturally noticeably-better strategy (XWindows/XOrg) for providing a GUI, which works far better with remote systems than does Microsoft’s necessarily-clumsy “Remote Desktop.” (Which is also fully supported by Linux.)

Take a look at AntiX, MX Linux, or Devuan Live.....

All 3 come with loads of programs ready & waiting for you to try out, & they all have good 'settings' programs.

1 members found this post helpful.

The Cinnamon desktop that comes with Linux Mint isn't focused on configurability, so if you want that it likely isn't the best choice.

Putting Ventoy (//www.ventoy.net) on a USB drive will allow you to easily try a few Live distros to get a feel for the different desktops - maybe try the Xfce edition of MX Linux and the KDE Plasma edition of OpenSUSE - both popular distros and desktop choices.

If they're not what you're after, focus on describing what you liked and disliked and then people can give more tailored advice, either on how to configure/avoid the downsides with what you have, or on alternative distros/desktops that hopefully don't have them.

(And to be clear, I do not use the above - I'm suggesting them because a lot of other people do. Suggestions that say "I use XYZ so you should too" are meaningless unless someone happens to know exactly what you're like.)

1 members found this post helpful.

Could you name the settings you need to adjust please
Could you list which apps you'd like to see in Mint

Personally I find I can do all the things I did in Windows - but of course that won't help you.

Here is my serious suggestion: give us more information about what you really want to do and what these "portable apps" are. Without knowing what it is you want to set and what you want to run your question is inadequate to generate worthwhile answers.

Please go back to Windows.
Linux is not for you.
And you know that.

NOTE:
Linux Questions is a place where folks should be able to get quality answers to honest questions. Please try to avoid non technical replies to technical questions.

Since you are using puppy I'd think there is a real good reason for it based on your hardware. Is that correct?

2 members found this post helpful.

I did not find the ventoy download. I looked here:
https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html
When I clicked on "ventoy-1.0.95-linux.tar.gz" I went to a release page, but I did not find the download.
Thanks!

Before I chose fosapup, I looked briefly at:
Blackarch, Heads, Kodachi, Mint, Nitrux, Parrot, Peppermint, Qubes, Solus, SuperX, Tails, Xubuntu, Zorin, Alpine, Antix, Arch, Artix, Calculate, Carbs, Devuan, Dragora, Garuda, GNU Guix System, Knoppix,
Manjaro, PcLinuxOS, Puppy (various versions), Redcore.

Either I was not able to get them to work at all, or they had a terrible GUI interface and/or few included programs, or few configuration possibilities. I don't want commercialized distros or systemd.

Thanks!

How long did it take to check them? did you really install all of them?
Ubuntu and Mint (for example) have a few different GUIs, a huge amount of apps and a lot of configuration possibilities. I'm sure you weren't thorough enough.
Windows is not linux and linux is not windows.

As it was suggested already probably better to use windows, because you are already familiar with it. Or spend more time getting to know the linux world better.

1 members found this post helpful.

Probably a GitHub bug - there's some unnecessary JavaScript which (if it works) loads //github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/releases/expanded_assets/v1.0.95 and on that page, there's the actual ventoy-1.0.95-linux.tar.gz link (19 MB).

1 members found this post helpful.

For many Linux distos, the pre-installed software is mostly only what is included by the chosen pre-made desktop environment (Cinnamon,Gnome,KDE Plasma,Xfce,etc), which is generally only the basics - but that's the same as when one installs a fresh Windows install (unless things have changed in the years since I last did that), and there's nothing stopping one from installing more.

A Live distro may add some more pre-installed software, but even then none of them claim to be everything anyone would want installed.


If you prefer the Windows interface, there are themes to imitate that, but they still wont make things the same as using Windows.

Configuration possibilities are always there - sometimes via Control Panel style software, and other times it's necessary to edit files in /etc/ or maybe even replace or recompile the relevant piece of software - UNIX/Linux-based OSes are more modular than Windows, and it is expected that people will swap out bits they dislike for other bits they do, to get the OS which suits them.

1 members found this post helpful.