3. Are there any distributions that come with the minimum pre-installed apps ? … I mean not even a video or music player

You would not believe the obsession the Linux community has with minimal distros. Yes, there are many variants of “nothing” pre-installed.

Problem is, that many of the minimal distributions are more difficult to use, because they might not have a GUI, for example. Or they don’t have handling for Bluetooth out of the box. Things like that.

For someone new to Linux, I would not recommend jumping straight to a minimal distro. The pre-installed apps are typically decent on Linux (like a recommendation by the folks who create the distro) and if you don’t know much of the ecosystem yet, it’s a good way to start learning about it.

If you do find, you really just don’t need any video or music player, you can also separately uninstall them. Which, again, is easier than installing missing things that you never heard of.

1. Conky widgets allow you to put some dynamic info on your desktop like hardware info, weather, RSS, etc. Also, Dash to Dock gives you a macOS like dock. Oh, and Gnome Tweaks allows you to customise your own Windows-like taskbar on the bottom, with application names and desktops.

2. Only problem I’ve experienced is that the fingerprint reader didn’t work on some laptops while it did on others. YMVM, just try a Live USB, I’d say.

3. In my opinion they’re not worth it, and you can uninstall anything you don’t like, anyway.

• Rooting in Android means you’re always logged in as root (admin), often without password. This is unsafe. In Linux tasks can get rooted individually. This is safe (just don’t give a bad task like a virus root-access) In a DE, like Gnome, some pop-up window will ask for your password if a task needs root. In a terminal, just add sudo in front of a command that needs root, and enter your password if the terminal asks.

4. Yes, you can uninstall any pre-installed app, just right-click it on the menu, Gnome will ask for your password so it can root that one uninstall task! Or type sudo apt remove followed by that app’s internal name, like sudo apt remove firefox!

5. Not at all, it’s the opposite! Since updates concern the whole system, system updates always require to run as root underwater!

6. This depends on your login screen, but assuming Debian or Ubuntu: Install the other DE, usually you just need to sudo apt install some things. Then on the login screen, there’s a button with an icon on the top-right of where you enter your password, just click that and choose the other DE. You can now switch DE anytime you log in!

7. Lazy answer: Wayland and Docker

1. Like someone else said, try MATE, it is more like windows and even though I’m not a windows user, I find it less confusing than gnome.
2. to some extent though maybe not as bad as before. Solution seems to be buy a Thinkpad since that’s what more devs tend to use. I’ve stayed with that plan and haven’t had much trouble, though at work I had an Acer laptop that also worked fine.
3. Yes, I generally run Debian, including on small servers where there is not even a window manager (because no screen), much less a browser, music player, or anything like that.
4. Generally stuff like that requires root, but root just means admin privs. It’s normally protected by a password that you yourself choose when you install the OS. That is, the idea is that you own your computer and can do what you want with it, so of course you have root and can use it when needed. Android is the weird exception that breaks that model, transferring ownership of your phone to app vendors and keeping you out of the application data.
5. No
6. DE=desktop environment? Ermmm… maybe not so easy. Simplest might be separate user accounts for different DE’s? Idk, I just use MATE though I’ve played with XMonad n the past.
7. Wayland = relatively new window system (API through which applications show stuff on the screen), intended to replace X (older system). Docker = container system for wrapping an application and its dependencies in one package, to prevent the Linux version of “DLL hell”. This is mostly used on servers as Linux’s packaging systems tend to be better than Windows’s and not get you into too much trouble, as long as you don’t try to mix approaches on a single machine.

1. Have you looked at Mate Desktop? It’s based off of an earlier version of Gnome but I find it much more familiar to the way things used to be managed on Windows.

2. That’s going to come down to the specific hardware. A lot of vendors build their devices to only work under Windows but there are a lot of smart Linux techs who have been able to reverse-engineer working drives. Your best bet is to find a hardware compatibility list and see how much support your particular laptop has.

3. If you look at Debian, you can get the “net-install” image. This doesn’t even install a desktop environment, it simply boots you to a command line and you can install whatever you want to use. Many other distributions probably have a similar installed available, it’s just a matter of deciphering what the names mean.

4. If you install something as root, or if it’s installed by the system during the initial installation, then yes you’ll need root, but more likely you will use “sudo” which gives your user account the temporary access needed (if it was set up with that access). Again, going back to something like Debian’s net-install, everything except the core OS would be installed by you anyway.

5. “Rooting” sounds like a term you brought from an Android phone. In desktop terms, think of the root user as being like the admin on Windows. You only use it when needed, like when you’re performing a system update, otherwise you do everything under your regular user account.

6. When you install a DE like Gnome, it also adds a login to your graphical interface. If you install a second DE, then on the login screen you are presented a choice as to which one you want to use this time. If you want to switch, you just log out and select another one from the login screen. You can have as many as you want, just remember that this loads a ton of extra stuff on your system. It’s ok to play with, but then I would suggest uninstalling the ones you don’t like.

7. Wayland is the core of the DE. The previous system was Xorg, but both are still in common use. Docker is a container system, so like if you wanted to install a web server then Docker would contain all of the modules for that software independently of anything else you have installed. This means that a system update is less likely to break something (although that’s already pretty unlikely), but it does require more storage space.

My answer for #2 is I have never personally had a problem with Linux on a laptop. Everything works as intended. The only funny thing was when I switched to Arch Linux took a little bit of work to get games to use my Nvidia GPU instead of the integrated one in my CPU. But that was maybe 30 minutes of googling and installing stuff off the AUR. When I ran pop_os it worked right out of the box. I believe pop has all of the Nvidia stuff installed and on Arch I just had to figure out what I needed. That problem was just from lack of experience.

My answer for #3 is I don’t know but I’ve had fun testing different software out to find something that suits me. I want to say way back in the day Ubuntu had a bunch of stuff pre installed. But that was probably 2007 when I last used Ubuntu. On Arch you can just use the discover store to find stuff. If you can’t find it there it’s in the AUR.

#4 rooting on Linux isn’t like rooting on Android. Android is built off Linux so to have “root” access is just like having administrator access or whatever on Windows. Android phones are more locked down so it’s usually a pain to root (the manufacturer don’t really want you to do it). On your own Linux computer you just use root access. For example on Arch in the terminal to do a full system update you have to use root access so you type “sudo pacman -Syu” in the terminal then it asks you for the sudo password or root password that you yourself setup on install. Sudo is the command that says hey I want to do this no questions asked.

#5 it’s Linux you can do whatever you want. You can go through and destroy the entire os if you want.

I’m coming on a year being full time on Linux so that’s about the best I can do answering your questions. I’m sure other people will explain stuff better. Good luck!