In general, ANY desktop enviroment on any distro can be customised to look like windows. You can have the taskbar on the bottom, the app menu on the left and the tray on the right and almost anything else anywhere you wish, e.g. a weather thingy right next to the clock and a temperature reading right next to the start menu. If you are looking for a desktop enviroment that has this setup from the very beginning, then check kde or cinnamon (from the popular ones) or budgie (from the lesser known).
Zorin OS or Pop! OS will do. I installed Pop! and playing windows games very fast. Some games run better under linux than in windows LOL!
Hi Michel I'm also seriously considering installing this OS from what I saw on the web POP OS works fine I already have this iso too...
I've been liking Arch based Manjaro (Xfce) w/systemd and/or Debian based MX Linux (Xfce) no/systemd. Manjaro is a rolling release and may be less stable or even brick itself now and then but will have the newest software versions. MX Linux is rock solid, comes with more stuff already baked in but somehow takes up 1-4 gigabytes less space on the disk. The new MX Linux 21 release based on the fairly new Debian Bullseye is due out any day now so that should be really close to newest software versions for a while, until it ages and falls behind. I am waiting on MX 21 myself. Linux Mint has been getting more and more buggy and bloated in my experience. I really liked it at 17.2, but all versions since have been very shoddy for me, getting worse with each and every new version. That goes for all ubuntu based stuff. Everything I've heard about POP-OS has been good, but I hate Gnome and it is Ubuntu based + systemd, so I won't use that.
With or without systemd, this debate is going on for over 10 years by now. I don't care, i use pop os with systemd-bootloader and it's working fine. It's booting much faster compared to grub, so why people all dislike systemd i don't know. As for rolling release and may be less stable or even brick, good to know that when you have everything setup you have not access to your OS and need to do a reinstall. I tried manjaro, the icon's in gnome where very tiny. When asking about it on the forum i did not get any good replies, they all blame gnome (even with the translation) while in Pop! OS and Zorin OS the translation was much better and icons had the correct size and using the same gnome thing as in manjaro.
Yeah, I don't really have a problem with systemd, and I imagine it will be unavoidable eventually anyway, but just mentioned it in case it was important to whoever reads it. I guess the main "problem" people have with it, is that it just takes control of way too much. Things it really should not be messing with interfering with some software, or creating extra dependencies. IE: It behaves too much like a Microsoft product. I don't mind rolling releases either. I just make sure I have a good backup image made before doing any major updates. I don't know anything about icon sizes in Gnome, but in Xfce, they are really easy to change.
I am on a rolling release too 21.04, very stable and i love the upgrade function Pop! OS has. So i can upgrade without reinstalling everything.
I'm waiting for LMDE 5 [Linux Mint Debian Edition] it will be out soon, early in the New Year probably. The problem with Mint is the Ubuntu base, the Mint team do a great job. MX is also worth a try, it looks a bit dated but it works very well, very stable.
I'd suggest any rolling release distribution, so you don't have to have "big" update cycles. I started with ubuntu, then went to mint, then to arch linux - today I prefer configurability and choice, tomorrow I might prefer stability and less hassle (debian). Also, I want to stress there are many Desktop Environments you can choose from - often regardless of your distro!
Quite frankly, I don't really care, so long as it works - as I am about to give it away, as a gift, to a refugee family... I really need it to work, rather than be overly "ideological" about it...
I got everything working with this one and I tried various OS's, even Winblows... I have no idea who will get this laptop from me, how much they will know, so I can't take a gamble (yet again start all over and pray it will all work)... Too much time spent on it already, doing it from scratch, until it was all working... Including drivers for all the bits and pieces of HW (backlit keyboard, webcam I bought, USBtoLAN adapter I had and WiFi, too...), then A-V chat SW (including Skype, Signal, Google chat, Zoom etc.) and so on and on... Tons of stuff I installed and carefully set up... It's not a quick thing, this, by any means... Btw, given I am giving it away, to who knows whom, probably to help kids with home schooling and similar tasks (homework etc.), I wanted something that will be simple and easy to use, hence Elementary OS, which is good in that regard... Easy to find SW you want quickly etc. And it is a good intro to Linux - if it all works, if you know what I mean... Illegitimate? Mint, too? P.S. Elementary OS used with Winblows, as in dual boot, is no good, as it can mess up everything for some reason, so it incapacitates Winblows and becomes slow and unresponsive itself and one has to start all over again, as I found out, to my cost... Hence I avoided recommending that one in dual boot OS setup.