Brickfrog

When I first started using GNOME the top bar was a bit off-putting but I got used to it TBH. It’s not something I think about much nowadays.

However, you actually can move it to the side or to the bottom, and/or change it in other ways, with the dash-to-panel extension so definitely check that out if the top bar is bugging you https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/

Windows To Go was discontinued back in 2019 so it’s not really something that has been maintained or updated for a long time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_To_Go#Discontinuation

Apps like Rufus (Windows only) are still able to create that sort of boot USB but it’s sort of a non supported feature, wouldn’t be surprised if it just stops working one day.

On Linux Ventoy is often used for this - it does have a persistence plugin but not for Windows https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html

I haven’t tested this idea, but maybe you can run a Windows VM within Linux, enable USB in it, download Rufus in it, then you can create your non-official Windows To Go boot disk that way? Could be something to try if you never find another solution.

Like some of the other comments, if you really need a DE then maybe give XFCE or LXQt a try. The distro itself won’t matter too much in your scenario.

I do have an old laptop that has run Debian/Ubuntu + Gnome fine, not at all fast but usable for my needs. Mines has 4 GB RAM, get the feeling that going under 4 GB may be a bit much.

Otherwise Linux is perfectly usable without a DE if you’re willing to stick to the terminal for all your usage.

I still use Virtualbox, configuration is way easier with the GUI

To be fair you can pair KVM/qemu with any GUI manager and have a similar interface to VirtualBox/Hyper-V/VMWare/etc. virt-manager (https://virt-manager.org/) is a popular one for example, I just started using it and it seems to work well for what I need.

Normally I’ve been using VirtualBox but for whatever reason it asks me to recompile the kernel on Debian 13 just to launch. Meanwhile qemu just works.

My Sony Trinitron served me well back in the day - But no, I don’t miss the CRT era. Just too huge and heavy. And honestly I don’t remember the generic non-Trinitron CRTs being anything special, they were kind of shitty.

Anyways I thought the CRT thing is just collectors/old school gamers looking to display older media on a proper CRT? Obviously people with a lot of space, garages, basements, etc… people in tiny rooms and apartments need not apply LOL.

This whole article seems a bit off.

Yikes! Yeah if the SSD storage isn’t easily accessible then it’s not worth the disassembly headache.

If that is the case then OP’s only option is to try writing the bootable ISO onto a second partition on the current drive while in Windows and boot off that partition… assuming getting the USB port repaired is a no-go.

Does the Surface Go have a SSD in it? And/or can you install a SSD into it? The specs do imply that it supports SSD so you should at least have a port in there for that. If so, as long as you have a spare machine you can install the Surface’s SSD into another system, then install Linux Mint normally there, then re-install the SSD back into the Surface Go.

I’ve never done that but it’s been mentioned a few times in the Linux Mint forums so apparently that is a roundabout way of installing on a machine without working USB ports. e.g.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=388243

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=361542

Not sure how well Mint works specifically on Surface Go but it’s worth a try, most likely you’d use the same steps to install other distros on there.

EDIT: Without a spare system you might be able to download then write the Mint ISO onto a second partition inside Windows and boot from the Mint installer partition afterwards. Not sure how well that would work but someone else in the forums mentioned it https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=369154

Not sure if this answers your question, on my fresh install of Debian 13 it seems to default to using

/etc/apt/sources.list

For example, I had to go in there to enable non-free and it worked fine.

There is a newer/recommended format of sources files ending in .sources in the same folder. The newer format is supported as of Debian 13 but for whatever reason Debian 13 doesn’t actually default to installing the newer version on fresh installs. I’m a bit confused by that but Debian’s own docs do discuss it.

https://wiki.debian.org/SourcesList

On my fresh install the /etc/apt/sources.list.d still exists, it looks like other software still create their own sources .list files in there when adding their own repos. Debian 13 itself does not seem to generate any files there.

My suggestion is to install Ubuntu with whatever desktop environment works for her. Since you’re using Ubuntu too, and you’re essentially going to be her tech support, it’ll just be easier all around to stay on the same distro at least for now.

More importantly, how Windows-centric is she? Some people may prefer Gnome since using it is just a bit less complicated to use without needing to set a bunch of different settings. But if she’s expecting the Windows style start menus and such then maybe she’ll prefer KDE. Or there’s always installing Linux Mint’s Cinnamon on Ubuntu, Cinnamon would be easier than KDE for a ex-Windows user I suspect (https://ubuntucinnamon.org/ also exists apparently).

Not automatic (I think) and a bit clunky but the Strawberry music player does have a transcode feature so you could select music files and transcode them a certain way output to another folder. It’s not something I ever do but I did a quick test to a USB drive and it seems to work okay. It’s an option if you opt to use a gui to click through.

OTOH if you’re happy using the terminal and/or scripting then ffmpeg would be a better bet.

PS - Strawberry does have a panel where it lists “Devices” and maybe your phone could show up there and the transcoding would work a bit more automatically, wasn’t able to test that here.

To be fair Ubuntu is still okay especially starting out, it’s one of the more polished distros with a ton of online documentation when you need to search around and figure out how to do things. And no one says you have to stay with a distro, once you’re comfortable with Linux it’s easy enough to check out other distros.

That aside a lot of people have been recommending Mint for new users so that’s definitely one you can check out if you want to try branching out now rather than later.

PS - Nvidia has a less than stellar reputation for their Linux drivers, you may want to consider reading up on that for whichever distro you choose. I have an Nvidia GPU (old non-Quadro class) running on Debian, works fine now but I did have a few false starts getting it going properly at first.

Slightly concerned about remote desktopping though. What do I replace xrdp with?

Xrdp works on Wayland, you can keep using it if you like. There’s also Gnome’s built-in Gnome Remote Desktop as well as KDE’s Krdp, both are also Wayland compatible (though I get the feeling Krdp is still in its early stages).

According to https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/shell-keyboard-shortcuts.html.en you should be able to use Shift + Super + Page Up/Down to move application windows between workspaces, seems to work for me.

So for your example start Terminal, then maximize it (Super + Up Key), then move the application window to another workspace (Shift + Super + Page Up/Down).

Perhaps just uninstalling Nouveau and falling back to the Intel driver, if it’s already installed, is sufficient? Or if that doesn’t work, worst case OP could blacklist Nouveau and and update initramfs? I’m just guessing as long as the Nvidia driver is never actually active perhaps that’s enough to avoid excess power consumption.

OTOH there isn’t much harm in OP keeping Nouveau enabled and seeing how things go though I’m in agreement with you, on an older laptop there’s not much advantage to be gained with the older Nvidia hardware.

Agree with you, SO is great for finding info. There are solutions on there for niche problems that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere, the type of thing where someone actually took the time to type out a step-by-step answer and it’s now there and searchable on SO. It’s a bummer that so many people seem to hate on the site nowadays.

And lets not forget the whole reason SO came out in the first place, back then web results were littered with question/answer links to sites like Experts-Exchange. I hated trying to figure out if an answer was on there, most of the time you ended up with a link to a question that you think has an answer but oh no you need to subscribe to view an answer that may or may not exist.

Was going to comment the same, this issue has existed for some time for other apps. LibreTorrent ran into the same issue and now the F-Droid version is their full-featured app while the Google Play version is restricted due to Google.

Interesting that Nextcloud managed to last this long on Google Play without running into the same limitations (until now that is).

To be fair that would help out a ton for the less technical users that aren’t too familiar with needing to browse and click through a ton of different menus just to get to something they can watch for free. This kind of stuff gets challenging for the older non-computing crowd.

And honestly if these remotes are going to have a default “Netflix”, etc. button they may as well have a button for the default Google free channels.

FYI Dorsey left Bluesky

https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/5/24149543/jack-dorsey-gone-bluesky-board

Currently Jay Graber is the CEO and has the largest ownership in Bluesky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky#Corporate_structure

What’s going on in Quebec?

The federal government is following the same strategy as some provinces. British Columbia has recently banned Tesla products from its EV charger rebate. Nova Scotia just announced that it has excluded Tesla from its $2,000 rebate at the purchase of a new EV.

Quebec just relaunched its own EV incentive program today. It will come into effect next week, and so far, Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y vehicles are still included in the list of eligible vehicles.

Yeah I was just about to comment the same, that app has already been replaced in the Apple App Store at least for iPads and auto nuked the old configurations. Created a ton of confusion when people lost all their old remote settings and/or couldn’t even find the app on the work iPads.

Just searching for it gets a bit silly since that new app is literally called Windows App. I’d be searching for “remote” something but nope, that’s not what it’s called anymore.