My mother has never daily driven a laptop more recent than a nearly decade old macbook running macOS Sierra. (except, briefly, a quite nice work-provided windows laptop that she hated using.)
She is, however, about to buy a 2025 Lenovo Yoga 7 14", and wants to use linux on it.
As the designated “techy person” in my family, I have been tasked with choosing which distro to put on it. I chose fedora it supports modern hardware nicely, and it’s what I use, which would make tech support easier.
What I’m not sure about is what desktop environment she should use. I’m currently split between GNOME and KDE, since they’re the two that are the most polished and work the best on the kind of hardware she’ll be using.
She seems to prefer a more traditional desktop paradigm (dislikes overly flattened ui’s and autohiding ui elements like scrollbars), but given she’s not very techy and currently uses an iphone and ipad quite a bit, so gnome might feel more friendly with how simple it is, and be a bit more touch-friendly.
I asked her and she’s not sure either, so I’m asking here which one is might be better given the hardware and the preferences she’s expressed.
It’s simple: GNOME. But not the Ubuntu one.
yeah, I saw that video, kind of a bad look for canonical ngl
KDE has good tablet mode support, and I strongly suggest using Xournal++ if she intends to use a stylus and take hand written notes.
You can make gnome more or less like mac with a few extensions, which works well in my experience. Extensions like apps menu, places indicator and dash to dock (or dash to panel) are useful.
You can make kde more or less like mac by sorting through a very comprehensive configuration gui, which is great for people who want it but not necessarily new users.
GNOME all the way
Gnome is more touch friendly and simpler.
I’d say go KDE.
GNOME looks like it will be good for portable devices, but it’s kinda not.
First, in my experience, Fedora on GNOME completely ignores battery limits (which are also set by jumping through so many hoops you can’t even imagine). It just drains this thing to 0, which is not great for longevity. KDE, on its end, has it all in the GUI and it works flawlessly on all distros I tested.
Second, KDE has made plenty of great optimizations for touchscreens. A while ago, it was not great, but now it’s just the best at handling them, especially if you theme it respectively and do not rely on defaults.
Third, customizations are so much better in KDE. You can make her laptop look and feel like a MacBook in no time, and edit everything to be touch-friendly.
One thing GNOME does well though for the use case you describe, though, is app theming, namely Adwaita. Luckily, Adwaita-themed apps and style editors for the rest are freely available on KDE, and you can even change their look as you like.
So, yeah, go KDE.
Why not let her try in a live booted environment first?
If I understood correctly the laptop is not there yet, but surely there is another device available which can boot from a USB stick?
I’m a KDE user, but I’m also going to add a vote for gnome.
It’s just going to be more “familiar” to tablet logic.
Fedora Silverblue would be my distro pick. For the immutability.
+1 for this recommendation. Gnome is going to feel more familiar to a MacOS user and Silverblue is very resilient.
Assuming she hasn’t bought it yet, please research that Yoga first. It might work fine, but it could also end up being a miserable experience.
You can check https://linux-hardware.org/ for the model or a similar one.
I have bought it, and I did check online (fun fact, some “normal” tech reviewers now mention linux support in their videos!), and it should work fine.
I would crawl across broken glass naked to avoid using Gnome, but it is way better for tablets. You can try KDE, maybe you can get it to work somewhat, but unfortunately Gnome has been way ahead on touchscreen usability.
Consequently, I only use Android tablets.
Sad, but true. I have Linux on a surface pro 6. I got to know the new gnome after not using it since 2012. It’s pretty awful.
Seconded. I really dislike Gnome and use KDE or Cinnamon for myself and family, but for a user who has been on Macs and using it on a tablet…
Use Gnome.
Install Mint Cinnamon then install the KDE environment.
https://linuxiac.com/how-to-install-kde-plasma-on-linux-mint-22/
Cinnamon might be good enough for her, but she might like the KDE visual aesthetic better. Options are good.
Yeah. Don’t do that.
It sounds great in theory but you’ll run into issues. I put a lot of people on mint but use arch+kde for myself.
I’ve done KDE on Mint in VMs 3 times now and every time something goes wrong.
I’m no fan of ubuntu but just run up kubuntu or fedora kde. KDE neon might be a bit cutting edge. Endeavour is arch on easy mode and comes in KDE. First two for beginners, second two for those with some tech experience.
Mint out of the box rocks for new linux users, never a problem. Once you start putting it in unsupported configs you’re ditching the primary reason to recommend it (stability in the reliability sense)
Install both, let her try them out and decide for herself.
I guess just try gnome and then mint cinnamon if that doesn’t work out. Both are simple, but different kinds of simple.
Edit: yea I didn’t read the post perfectly the first time. Might still be a good idea, at least I’d try gnome first.
I know a lot of folks hate GNOME but I’m running it (with Bluefin and formerly Bazzite) on a gen 3 Yoga X1 and it’s been easier to use the touchscreen than other DEs.
If it were me, I’d set up my mom with GNOME because I feel like KDE might provide too many footguns or may look/feel overwhelming due to the many available customization options.
IDK though. I’ve used GNOME for years and have only briefly used KDE for experimentation. I’m guessing there’s some way to customize KDE to make it more simple? I imagine GNOME would be nice on a tablet because it tends to have nice big button targets, but I haven’t tried it.
