Gnome, even with Pop's perinstalled extensions, is not the most familiar DE for those coming from Windowd. KDE, MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE are much closer and at least a few of those you can make to look like Windows (if you for whatever reason want to)

[+] Zetta@mander.xyz -21 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Familiar is bad imo, just switch to something different. It is different, embrace it. I use Fedora gnome btw

[–] aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is an odd take. There is no inherent advantage to using an unfamiliar ui on linux, there is nothing under the hood that “works better” for any specific desktop environment

[–] nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I wouldn't agree either, but I think there's some kind of logic: At a certain point familiarity can be a detriment to learning if it leads to you adding invalid assumptions to your mental model because everything else is so familiar. If everything is unfamiliar however you're less likely to start making assumptions.

As for how true of effective this is, I don't know. Anecdotally however I had less problems learning entirely different keyboard layouts for example as opposed to layouts that are just slightly different.

[–] riquisimo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 months ago

I disagree. I think that at least looking slightly familiar can help with the transition to something new. It helps you feel comfortable in a new space.