Suggesting Ubuntu as a starter distro for Windows users is a horrible thing to do. The least people could have done would be to suggest Kubuntu or Xubuntu instead. Here you go, have this new alien desktop environment. rolls eyes
I'm very glad that when I started using Linux in 2006 you didn't have alien DE like Unity and Gnome 3 being pushed on users coming from Windows.
I would rather suggest Linux Mint. I would have used it myself, but I really dislike non rolling release distros. Go for the Cinnamon edition. Cinnamon DE looks very much like Windows DE, and feels much like it as well.
If you're feeling a bit daring you can try Manjaro KDE edition, which is a rolling release distro, but still very stable (even more so than Ubuntu I'd say). Also, Arch and Arch derivatives have much more software available than most distros out there.
A good practice for learning to use the terminal and not hate it is to use some daily commands instead of using the gui, like when copying or moving files you use the terminal instead (cp and mv), open txt files with nano and so on.
When messing in stuff take notes of the changes, open a Gedit files type or copy paste the name of the and the changes. You might not notice a problem until next reboot.
Only mess with stuff when you have the time and patience, to look for what you want find and expect that thing might be written in a different way than expected.
Sometimes you have to use several parts of different programs to reach what you want
Gnome Shell Extension (https://extensions.gnome.org/#) is the best, and easiest way of customizing, and tweaking, Ubuntu Gnome 16.04.1. I have:
Applications Menu, installed with the OS.
Drop Down Terminal.
Hide Top Bar, "Hides the top bar, except in overview..."
Simple Dock, allowed to move the favorite bar, from left to bottom.
TaskBar, "TaskBar displays icons of running applications on the top panel or alternatively on a new bottom panel. Activate, minimize or close tasks with a simple click." And can add a minimize all windows button.
Several times tutorials found online don't work has said, some are outdated, others seem that just don't work for me/you.
You will use Terminal whether you like or not, and you'll like it, or not.
M.otherfucking P.erfect V.ideo is pretty good too, and there are plenty of optical flow based framedoublers/smoothers for linux. try butterflow or GMIC's WARP-video if you want a permanent transcoder
Ive hoped distros just to get ride of video tearing....Fedora 25 and an AMD video card RX480. AMDGPU right in the kernel 4.9+ and wayland. Ive Ubuntued 14.04-16.10, Antergos, Elementry, Solus. Now a wayland tear free deskop with video, I did it, I wish you well on your journey.
GMIC looks cool, and I see a plugin for GIMP. Installing ZArt to do real time video processing is gonna be a bit of a chore, but I'll tinker with it.
Butterflow looks cool too.
I know it's 'typical' of Linux to be this way, but an RPM version of these would be preferred. It's looking like I'll have to first get the programs working, then figure out how to pass video through them for my intended purpose.
The idea is real-time processing though. I'd rather not have to process the video then watch it. We'll see though.
I've got SMPlayer installed along with mpv. I then installed SVP and configured SMPlayer accordingly (i.e. using the mpv binary and using the option --input-ipc-server=/tmp/mpvsocket).
Now the issue for me is that mpv opens in it's own window when I hit play on SMPlayer. So, the GUI works in part where it controls the playback, but if I use fullscreen on the GUI, it fullscreens the GUI and not mpv itself (which is a separate window).
The keyboard controls don't work for mpv when using it like this either. So I can't just hit f.
I may try antergos later. A bit too busy to reinstall.
