DetachablePianist

Sorry if this is a newb question; I'm coming in cold. I've had HAOS running on an RPi4 for months, but I haven't invested in any smart devices to connect yet.

I'd like to start with some (ideally open source) smart gauges just to check the temp out front and back. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

I purchased a Pixel 7 for my wife specifically to install Lineage OS 21, replacing a Samsung Galaxy which hasn't received updates for years. She hates changing phones, but I sold her on a Pixel + Lineage so she can keep the phone as long as possible, still receiving OS updates.

I'm super happy with the outcome, finding Lineage to be a huge win. However, my wife is extremely particular about customizing her interface, and finds Lineage (or maybe it's just the newer Android 14?) lacking the customization options she wants. She's coming from a much older Android version, possibly relying on a few Samsung-specific options.

In particular, Lineage's Trebuchet launcher doesn't seem to let her group apps as folders in the app drawer (tray?) - only on the primary Home screen. When she swipes up, she gets an overload of apps all at once, and she wants to group those into folders the same way the Home screen allows. The Home screen itself she prefers to keep super clean. The config she likes was easy to setup her older Samsung running vendor-ROM Android, and she's super frustrated that she can't seem to get that under Lineage.

Also, she absolutely hates the default app icons and font choices. I'm hoping to get a recommendation for a replacement Launcher, and/or add-on apps that allow her to customize these specific settings. F-Droid apps would be ideal, though paid GApps (ugh!) would still do in a pinch. I just want her to love her new phone, and without these options she never will.

Thanks so much!

I just inherited a handful of Samsung Series 7 Slate PCs that I'd like to rebuild to be as "tablet-like" as possible for a few non-technical friends and family. They power up but arrived with non-functional Windows 7 installs. They're Intel Core i5s with 4G RAM and 128G SSDs, so they should run pretty well under any popular Linux distro. I'm personally comfortable in the command line and don't want to sacrifice the fact that these are "real computers with a real OS" on them, but I'd still like them to behave somewhat similar to Android tablets for less techie users.

If these were laptops with keyboards and trackpads I'd probably just install kubuntu or Mint on them and call it a day, but I'm not sure if KDE Plasma behaves well on a touchscreen tablet interface with (hopefully) an on-screen keyboard and so forth. Ubuntu Touch sounds somewhat promising, but I haven't really played with it. I don't want to waste hours trying to get device drivers to work for the touchscreen and other built-in hardware, so I'm hoping for a novice-friendly distro that usually just works out of the box on most hardware.

Does anyone have an obvious choice they'd like to recommend? Thanks so much!

Edit - Update:

Zorin OS (Edu) for the win, with Pop! OS essentially a tie. Both distros do a fantastic job out of the box offering tablet options like on screen keyboards that automatically pop up when needed. I'm giving Zorin the win only because it just happened to be the last distro I installed and haven't had a reason to replace it yet.

Distros I tested for use on these tablets:

Bliss OS - Honestly, I really wanted to like this, in spite of it being an Android clone instead of a proper Linux DE. It sports an obviously tablet-friendly UI that almost won me over... except there were horrible issues just typing in basic settings like wifi password. The keyboard kept disappearing mid-password, making me start over repeatedly. I finally had to grab a real keyboard to join wifi, and it still misbehaved. Not an experience I want my less geeky family members to share.

kubuntu - I run this on a personal laptop and was biased toward it from the start. It isn't really a great tablet experience though, even with xvkbd installed. Works great while docked of course, since it's a Linux DE I already use.

ubuntu-unity - Another good DE, but just not very tablet friendly. I guess I hoped this would be more like Ubuntu Touch, which I was really excited about as a new phone possibility awhile ago, but just never really went anywhere. Instead it's just Ubuntu with the Unity DE and no automatic on-screen kb.

Pop! OS - I really like this, and might start playing with it more as a laptop OS as well. I truly love KDE Plasma, but I also find Pop!'s DE really intuitive.

Zorin OS (Edu) Loved this, left it installed. Their built-in Windows App compatibility (wine + PlayOnLinux) comes pre-configured to provide a surprisingly refreshing user experience. On a fluke, I wanted to see if I could run my mixer app on the tablet, and starting with nothing more than downloading the installer .exe file from Mackie's website, Zorin prompted me all the way through to a working app. Friendliest wine experience I've ever had, by miles.

Anyone have anything else they'd like to recommend? I'm always interested. Did I not give a popular distro a fair enough shot? I admittedly didn't invest a huge amount of time stress-testing each distro beyond initial setup and config from within the tablet-specific interface. I was mainly testing for out-of-box tablet experience, especially in regards to basic setup like joining wifi and attempting to browse the web, which shouldn't require a hard kb connected IMO.

Edit 2: Fixed copy/paste edit issue, no new info)

(crossposted from c/Cloudflare on lemmy.ml) The Cloudflare community doesn't appear to be active yet, so I was hoping some fellow self-hosters might have a good suggestion. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions!

https://lemmy.ml/post/3723540