VLC's file format support is amazing for a project that rolls its own codecs, etc, but it's missing some important features for me on the music front, primarily gapless playback and library management. I generally prefer to use software tailored to my DE. I've yet to find a better video player anywhere though; GNOME Videos and Kaffeine come closest and are a little easier to use, but are still far away from VLC's capabilities.
ipacialsection
startrek.website too. maybe it's just a kbin-lemmy federation bug
Debian can still work, but you'd have better chances with legacy LXDE, or starting with no DE and installing IceWM.
Q4OS Trinity, antiX, and Damn Small Linux are all Debian derivatives known for being able to run on very old systems, and they're among the most lightweight distros I know that are still functional for most purposes.
Not sure why, but a lot of other distros did something just like this in the past (see the comments about WUBI) and no longer do. Q4OS still has a .exe installer though.
I've had great experience with QKSMS on GrapheneOS. Thanks for directing me to the fork, I'm switching to it right away.
Elisa is just the latest (and most actively developed) addition to the long list of music players developed under the KDE umbrella.
Right now I'd say the best open-source DAW for Linux is LMMS if you want to do everything just on your laptop, or Ardour if you want to use external instruments.
LMMS has some shockingly versatile built in synths, including a port of ZynAddSubFX, supports LADSPA/LV2 plugins, and supports using Wine to run 32-bit Windows VSTs. I'm unsure of Ardour's VST support, but it at least supports LV2 plugins. Either of those, if you install them through your distro, will likely include Calf Studio Gear, an extensive collection of LV2 effects and a couple synths. As for ones that run natively on Linux, there's synthv1, samplv1, drumkv1, and padthv1, though I've had trouble getting them working myself.
I've found some good stuff on the Linux Audio Wiki but IDK how up to date most of it is.
Almost all distros can dual boot, so there's little reason to highlight one as being the best for it. Dual booting is a bit messy and risky no matter what you do, so back up your data first and, if you're new to Linux, look up instructions for dual booting Windows 11 and your chosen distro.
Only one I can think of that does anything special with dual boot, off the top of my head, is Q4OS, which offers a way to install it from within Windows using an app. (It also happens to be tailored towards people familiar with Windows XP or 7, so it should be a somewhat smooth transition for a first time Linux user.) I haven't tried this myself, but I imagine it just expedites the usual steps of dual booting: shrink the Windows partition, then install into the resulting free space (or to an unused disk).
If that doesn't sound appealing, just try any distro recommended as "beginner friendly", like Linux Mint. Tutorials should be easy to find.
- Create a source control repository containing all your code, and publish it to an online code forge. GitHub's docs might help with this: https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/start-your-journey
- Choose an open-source license and add it to the repository as a LICENSE file. If you want to require any projects that build upon yours to be open-source too, the GNU GPL is a good choice. If you want to allow proprietary programs to include your library without releasing any source code other than that which is directly based on yours, the GNU LGPL is good for that. If you want to allow people to do whatever they want, even use all your code as the basis of a proprietary program without credit, the Unlicense is a good choice. There are a lot of licenses with different degrees of "copyleft" and attribution requirements in between. Technically publishing with a license file is all you need to do, but there are more things you should do.
- Create a README text file describing what your program does, and instructing users on how to compile and run it. Consider including more detailed documentation on how to use it, as well.
- Clean up your code and file layout so that it's as easy as is feasible for other programmers to understand.
- Promote your project to whoever you think might find it useful!
There's Bodhi Linux, which is basically Ubuntu+Enlightenment.
Lighter, I think. About on par with LXQt or Trinity (KDE 3).
Any software that is in the Xubuntu repositories will also be available in other Ubuntu derivatives, and most likely Debian and all its derivatives as well. Only the official spins are likely to advertise Ubuntu Pro.
Mint XFCE is a good replacement, but I'm also partial to KDE Neon, which keeps preinstalled software to a minimum and is by far the most performant KDE distro I have tried. I myself use regular Debian, with KDE, though you can choose XFCE during the install.