Aging punk rocker, tech enthusiast, mechanic and anarco-communist crank.
This is a difficult topic. Here in Italy the mass migration of the past decade has caused cultural difficulties, as well as some economic fears and resentment. I am myself an immigrant, but not a refugee. I believe in a right to refuge, but also in a responsability to try to assimilate without losing your identity. There is racism here against newcomers, but I find most people are open and welcoming to those that try to be a positive part of the community.
I am a recovered addict of the ‘hopeless’ variety. It is a tough road to put down the substances, but it is possible. The first thing I did was treat the physical addiction which can be done only through abstinance. After that, I treated the mental side, which is my obsession with getting/being high, which I do through 12 step programs, and treating underlying mental illness with my doctor. I have had to reevaluate my life and make a lot of changes to how I live, but am overall much happier. Please let me know if I can be of help, you can send me a private message. Footnote: I am not a religious type and don’t cotton to the ‘cult’ side of 12 step programs.
There are always two sides to every story. Certainly Russia has legitimate greivances such as Ukraine’s proposed entry into NATO and changing economic ties to western Europe, as well as persecution of Russians inside of Ukraine. The war, however, appears to be Russian colonization without respecting recognized borders and the self-determination of a nation.
Many people just want to USE their computer, and need simpler interfaces or they get lost. I don’t mind using dnf or even building from source, hell, I use Vim to write emails, but my ex-wife likes Gnome Software, and GUIs, and relies on me to do any tweaking. I think it’s fine for people to stick to graphic interfaces if that works for them, it’s part of the reason why GNU/Linux desktop is getting more popular with regular non-techie users, which are the vast majority of potential users.
My vote would be for Fedora, it’s very up to date and extremely stable, though it gets a major upgrade about every 6 months (never a problem for me), and also daily minor updates. Fedora is very beginner friendly and just works. I have had lots of stability problems with Ubuntu, and there are also privacy concerns almost continually.
‘Desktop’ refers to the graphic interface, think about the difference between Windows XP, Windows 10, etc- they made many refinements to the graphical interface. With GNU/Linux you get an infinite choice. XFCE and KDE seem to be pretty intuitive for Windows users, but you can always change it and try different ones without changing the OS. One of the first things you’ll notice is the crazy amount of personalization possible with any GNU/Linux desktop, it can be overwhelming.
My recommendation is to try a few different distros and desktops in a virtual machine and find what works for you. No matter which distro you choose, the ‘normal’ software applications are fairly common for them all: word processors, spreadsheets, web browwsers, image viewers, media players, maybe the default applications are different, but you’ll find whatever you need or prefer in the package manager.
When you rely on a privately owned for-profit corporation for free services, you can’t expect much.