I can’t figure out how to setup flatpak. Everything seems to be working fine until I enter the last line in the terminal:

Assuming you’ve installed flatpak correctly (sudo apt install flatpak gnome-software-plugin-flatpak)

in a terminal, type flatpak remotes. If it lists flathub, you’re good.

Try installing a random app like flatpak install flathub de.haeckerfelix.Shortwave

It shoud work. If it doesn’t, post your logs.

I have to type a password in the terminal every time I want to use sudo

This is the intended behavior and should not be changed, it’s a basic security feature. Once you’ve finished setting up you system, you shouldn’t need sudo everyday anyway, except for updating/upgrading the system.

I’m used to a desktop interface with a toolbar/start menu that I can pin frequently-used programs to, but with Debian it seems like I need to click “Activities” to do anything. Is there a way to set up the interface so it’s more like Windows in that regard?

Assuming you’re using Gnome, this is easy to solve using Extensions. First if it’s not installed already on Firefox, install Gnome Shell Integration. It’ll let you manage Gnome Extensions directly from https://extensions.gnome.org/

Then, install dash-to-panel for a “windows-style” experience, or dash-to-dock for a “macos-style” experience.

After that, you can go wild on the extensions you want to use ;)

If I need to do a clean install, I’m thinking of switching to Ubuntu, since I’m more familiar with the interface.

Don’t. Ubuntu will teach you nothing but the Ubuntu way. Debian is as Standard Linux as conceivable. If your only concern is the Ubuntu-style interface, configuring dash to panel to appear on the left side is all you need.

I pondered a lot including a bit about rpmfusion in Fedora’s paragraph, but I elected not to because there is already too much stuff here :D

As a 20-years Debian user who switched to Fedora a couple years ago on my main laptop, I would say confidently that Debian is the distro I’m the most comfortable with. I love Debian. But, there are a couple things that prevent me from recommending it as a very first distro:

• The base system is very barebones and you’re required to manually install vital things like proprietary drivers (I think it’s a bit more painless now with the nonfree installer but I haven’t installed a fresh Debian in a few years). For me, having a fully functional Debian laptop is not hard work but requires a bit of knowledge beforehand.
• A lot of people want the latest and shiniest, and with Debian might be tempted to switch to Testing or Sid which is a very bad idea for a daily driver.

Good call about Kalpa, I’m removing it

This is REAL Linux, done by REAL Linuxians.

“Hello I would like sudo pacman -Syyu apples please”

They have played us for absolute fools.

Installing Fedora. I had almost nothing to configure, it worked out of the box. How frustrating! I had the whole day planned and now what? Enjoy my free time like a pleb !?!

(/s just in case anyone was wondering)

May I ask why you, as a beginner, specifically chose one of those distros instead of more “mainstream” ones?

Puppy Linux’s main use-case is to be a live ISO, that doesn’t need to be installed to run. It doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea to install it, but I think if you want to use an Ubuntu derivative, there are better options for a beginner like Pop or Mint that would let you install a lightweight desktop environment like XFCE, LXDE, LXQt and so on.

Alpine Linux is specifically designed to avoid all the core system tools that are pretty much universal on most other distros like glibc, systemd or GNU tools and libraries, which will make your life hell as a beginner if you need to troubleshoot anything as most “universal” documentation like the Arch wiki would be at best partially relevant, at worst useless.

No chance. Amazon has a long history of using a ton of FOSS code on AWS and contributing fuck-all.

On my previous laptop, the trackpad had a bug that made it spam interrupts after waking up from sleep. It ruined battery life and basically kept one core at 100% permanently.

So I duct-taped a systemd script that unbound and bound the trackpad after each wake up.

#!/bin/sh
case "$1" in
        post)
                echo -n "i2c_designware.0" > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/i2c_designware/unbind
                echo -n "i2c_designware.0" > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/i2c_designware/bind
        ;;
esac

From “too many damn Linux memes” to “look at my heavily modified desktop” in 72h, I’m proud of you my friend :D

Edit: removed racist term unknowingly used.

It’s like buying an electric sports car and immediately converting it to diesel.

Tuxedo, Framework, Slimbook, System76, Starlabs are Linux-first vendors with an excellent track record.