PlzGivHugsWhat would you say is the most, "it just works" distro?
Cătă 🇷🇴🇺🇦🇲🇩🇪🇺@PlzGivHugs not quite "just works" entirely, but I've grown more accustomed with MX Linux. Everything is pretty much just one click away tucked into the MX Tools app and you don't need lots of skills to use it. Some of the said apps might open inside a terminal, but their options are pretty well explained.
ProdigalFrogEhhh, I’d recommend against MX if only because they don’t ship with a more approachable app-store like Linux mint does.
MX’s app installer tool is more similar to Aptitude, which is to say, completely functional, but entirely text based (no screenshots, reviews of apps, etc) which isn’t to say it’s wrong or bad, but I’d wager it’d be offputting to the average person compared to the more image-heavy and user-friendly design of app-store that Mint or Gnome-based distros have.
@ProdigalFrog isn't discover also available in the KDE version? I don't remember
Hm, that could be, I haven’t tried their KDE version. Though I can’t say I’d recommend that to a newbie either, as KDE in particular isn’t a good option for Debian based systems since it uses a pretty old and (at least in my case) buggy version that won’t receive any bug fixes or security updates until the next major Debian release (it’s bad enough that the KDE devs themselves recommend avoiding KDE on Debian)
The older version of discover that comes with Debian is also pretty bad for newbies, IMHO. It is cluttered with non-relevant library files and system themes when searching for apps (I believe this was fixed in newer versions), and has no way to filter out potentially dangerous unverified flatpaks when flathub is enabled, which a newbie wouldn’t know to look for. Mint’s and Gnome’s appstore don’t show unverified flatpaks by default.
#302 The Future Of KDE Plasma Is Wayland | Xaver Hugl
With the criteria flathub uses for verification, everything in debians own repos is unverified. We’re trusting the maintainer either way.
To become a debian maintainer, you need to have already built up a rapport with Debian by being a sponsored maintainer, which lets you submit packages, but they must be approved by your sponsor. Only after establishing and proving yourself can you become a full Debian package maintainer, which also requires a trusted Debian team member advocates for you to become one based on your previous work in detail. While not impervious to bad actors, this structure creates a pretty solid level of trust in the Debian repos.
In contrast, anyone can create and submit a Flatpak to Flathub, only needing to pass a volunteer review process. Critically, after an app passes the first volunteer review process, the submitter can then push updates to the flatpak without review, meaning they could initially upload a clean version of an app, then push a version with malware in an update. Personally I don’t think that security model is as effective at preventing malware compared to the Debian model of slowly building trust before being given the keys.
Verified flatpaks, on the other hand, require the submitter to verify they are part of the dev team for that application to the Flathub team, which makes them pretty much as trustable as any Debian repo package, which make them a good, safe default to show for an appstore (IMO).