elementary is a clean and simple looking OS, with smooth design and its own Mac OS feel.
Overall, it is based on Ubuntu, an open-source OS designed by Canonical which means that most tutorials for Ubuntu are compatible with elementary.
It has also, mirrored the ‘Settings’ menu correctly, just like in Mac OS.
The OS is designed for beginner Linux users, it is open-source and blocks snapd (more commonly known as snap) which is a closed-source piece of software for installing software, just like apt-get.
It contains all of the basic applications that you would need. The Photos App is similar to Preview, in Mac OS.
Some things that you might encounter in elementary, are:
- No ‘minimize’ button for apps
- No snapd
- The ‘AppCenter’ is a weird name for an app store, sounds like a Huawei ripoff of the ‘AppCenter’
- The icons are very simple and minimal
- Mac applications will not run. Elementary is based on Ubuntu, not on Mac OS.
Elementary even supports Macs!
You can install elementary OS by visiting this page: https://elementary.io
The download process is a little tricky, you have to click on the custom donations, then type 0, like this:
Then, you can download it. We recommend that you try it out on a VM, just to make sure that you like it.
In conclusion, elementary is a simple and clean OS for beginners, but for more experienced people, you can use Arch Linux which we will also do a review on.