• garbage_world@lemmy.world
    4·
    24 minutes ago

    There’re only 3 types of people:

    • Those who use NixOS
    • Those who have skill issues with NixOS
    • Those who don’t know NixOS yet
    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
      1·
      12 minutes ago

      Genuinely curious, I haven’t followed AI generated comic strips. Is there a tell or are you trolling?

    • root@lemmy.world
      3·
      40 minutes ago

      Really wanted to try the Debian version of mint, but unfortunately it’s systemd based

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
        3·
        24 minutes ago

        Me either. I have tried it multiple times over the years and I did not have great luck with things “just working” as everyone claims. Plus I hate the windows style DE UIs so it seems like a weird choice that so many people will recommend it and tout it without even asking follow up questions.

        • pivot_root@lemmy.world
          2·
          7 minutes ago

          I have tried it multiple times over the years and I did not have great luck with things “just working” as everyone claims.

          This is why I don’t like recommending LTS distros for anything other than servers. The Linux kernel and desktop software moves fast these days, and running 2 year old kernel and DE means missing out on the fixes and improvements that the “it just works” people are talking about.

      • whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        1·
        11 minutes ago

        It was easy to move relatives to from windows without much effort, have done it multiple times and it ran fine for years with the only issue I had to support was cleaning up a boot partition that filled up after several years of automated updates.

    • rtxn@lemmy.worldM
      9·
      2 hours ago

      It’s the objectively correct choice, but it might draw the ire of Fedora stans.

      • RoyaltyInTraining@lemmy.world
        16·
        2 hours ago

        The only reason I dislike mint is because the developers kept postponing the Wayland transition so insanely long. Once it does HDR, variable refresh rate, and fractional scaling on heterogeneous displays correctly, I’ll start recommending it again.

        • GaMEChld@lemmy.world
          1·
          5 minutes ago

          HDR is like the only reason I’m on Windows 11. Already switched my entire home lab over to proxmox.

          What would you recommend today if I wanted good HDR support and gaming with a Radeon GPU?

          Or should I just wait for Mint to get those features?

        • rtxn@lemmy.worldM
          10·
          1 hour ago

          It’s better to delay it and release an immediately usable product than to break the desktop when an unexpected bug is encountered and make the computer unusable. I’ve never transitioned a desktop environment and framework to an entirely different display system, but I don’t imagine it’s as simple as flipping a switch.

          Mint is not a bleeding edge distro. Reliability should come first, always.

        • Pat_Riot@lemmy.today
          4·
          1 hour ago

          Enough posts about Wayland are complaints I don’t care if it ever happens. Mint works fucking great just like it is.

        • redsand@infosec.pub
          1·
          42 minutes ago

          I’m old and remember the string of hacks early on. I think the ISO server hack was made public for those interested.

      • tyler@programming.dev
        3·
        1 hour ago

        For me it was the objectively incorrect choice. Sound issues, display issues, slow. Whatever is up with mint, it absolutely doesn’t work with my hardware.

        • Ftumch@lemmy.today
          1·
          23 minutes ago

          It’s possible to install a newer kernel in Mint using the Update Manager. This might have solved your hardware issues. Admittedly, though, this option is not very easy to find if you’re not aware of it.

          • tyler@programming.dev
            1·
            4 minutes ago

            It’s also kinda antithetical to what people are saying, which is that mint is great out of the box.

      • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 hour ago

        Mint noobs : Haha entry level distro go brr
        Fedora wearers : Noooo milady you have to use a version of an OS based off corporate bs

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
          7·
          49 minutes ago

          RHEL is downstream from Fedora. They’re both forks of Red Hat, but Red Hat ≠ RHEL

          Edit: also, since you wanna fuckin go there, Linux Mint is downstream from Ubuntu, which is corporate BS. So you’re making accusations in a mirror.

          • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
            4·
            1 hour ago

            Me: At least my neighbors aren’t those inbred hicks over there
            You : Actually, those people have only practiced cousin marriage, which has been socially acceptable for various centuries
            Me : Yeah, the point is more that they are hicks.

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
              5·
              51 minutes ago

              What the fuck? Not sure whether that’s more strawman or red herring, but either way it’s a really cheap deflection that provides a window into your mind, not mine.

              Is that how you respond to everyone who points out why you’re wrong?

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
      5·
      2 hours ago

      Yeah, if you hit a snag you can pursue other options but best just to dive into something easy to get started on.

  • dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    7·
    56 minutes ago

    Debian with LXDE is great on computers with older hardware.

    tbh I’m boring and just use Ubuntu (with whatever DE they default to, used to be Gnome then they switched to Unity, and now it’s Gnome again, lol) - it makes it easier to find solutions to things because so many other people also use Ubuntu, I want the easiest experience.

    • N0t_5ure@lemmy.world
      1·
      41 minutes ago

      I’m with you. I ran Qubes for a while for security reasons, and it was just too much of a pain in the ass. Ubuntu is easy.

  • spirinolas@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 minute ago

    Just start with Mint. It’s easy enough. Later you’ll be more informed to try something else.

    In my case I started with Mint, then Arch/KDE and finally Debian/KDE.

  • DaGeek247@fedia.io
    37·
    2 hours ago

    Linux mint cinnamon will be the easiest possible change to make. It’s the most bland, least interesting choice out of them, and I love it for that. You can always switch later if you don’t like it or want something more adventurous.

      • chippydingo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        59 minutes ago

        This is the exact same reason I ultimately gave up on Linux Mint and switched to Fedora. I could not get rid of tearing and I fragged X11 (and made my OS un-bootable) on multiple occasions trying to fix it using recommended tweaks to config files. It was looking like a Wayland based solution was what I needed so I chose to move on.

        GNOME haters can put just away their knives since I am no fan boy; I just wanted to completely escape anything resembling a MicroSlop experience and Workstation gave me a clean DE, more current package releases, HDR, Variable refresh rate , and solid gaming performance with a minimal amount of fuss. CachyOS was next on my list if Fedora didn’t work and I am still considering trying it out someday. That said, there is no question that making the switch to Linux as a new user can be daunting and I would still suggest Mint for older hardware with less of a gaming focus.

        • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
          1·
          22 minutes ago

          GNOME is fucking great. Anyone can complain about it in a valid way, but to me it’s light-years above KDE and it’s kinda between KDE and GNOME if you want to maximize compatibility with a huge number of apps.

  • Nycifer@piefed.socialEnglish
    5·
    1 hour ago

    My key advice was always ‘avoid the fuck out of Arch’.

    Arch is when you really want to hate Linux and not understand what to do, as a beginner.

  • RustyNova@lemmy.world
    38·
    3 hours ago

    Choose the DE, not the distro.

    … Well also don’t take advanced distro either. Train on easy distros, then switch if you want

    • rozodru@piefed.worldEnglish
      10·
      2 hours ago

      yeah the DE is honestly more important. I started on Mint, stayed on it for two weeks, then switched to CachyOS. Now I’m on NixOS and I just distrobox all the other major distros.

    • thisbenzingring@lemmy.todayEnglish
      7·
      2 hours ago

      so true

      so I was tinkering the other day and I found a great example of what arch doesn’t do that makes it difficult for new users. it doesn’t make default configuration files, even when you have it up and running just fine.

      so I’m like why isn’t this working as I expected, reading some Ubuntu documents showing that someone edited their config and that fixes it. i go to the directory and it’s only got a .example file. i copy it so it’s a .config and remove the # from the line that is supposed to correct the behavior and what do you know, it’s working now!

      that wouldn’t be something for a new user to resolve and gave me a fresh understanding of the difference in approach and why arch shouldn’t be a newbie system

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
        4·
        2 hours ago

        I noped out of arch during setup. It expected me to partition the drive for swap/os/usr. It’s not 1996, I’m not doing that today.

        • thisbenzingring@lemmy.todayEnglish
          1·
          19 minutes ago

          archinstall has an automatic set-up, it’s fine but if you’re concerned about hardening you want to create /tmp and /var and /home on separate partitions. Bonus of /home on its own partition is for if you want to distro hop

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
          1·
          1 hour ago

          Swap is only necessary if you have low RAM or use most of your RAM in memory-heavy processes or multitasking.

          If you’ve got more RAM than you’ll ever need, you don’t need swap. Although, these days maybe that means swap will become more necessary again.

          Also, you don’t need a swap partition, you can make a swapfile that works just as well.

          I don’t know what the point of separate partitions for OS and userspace is, but whatevs…

          • orlyowl@piefed.caEnglish
            1·
            34 minutes ago

            I don’t know what the point of separate partitions for OS and userspace is, but whatevs…

            Some folks like to be able to reinstall the OS while preserving /home. That’s the only reason I’ve seen for doing separate partitions. (I’m not someone who does that, but it’s the explanation I’ve seen)

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
              1·
              21 minutes ago

              That makes sense. I would personally just back up /home and then recover it after reinstalling, but if I were doing all that anyway then I guess I would partition the OS separately in case I need to do it again…

  • stenAanden@feddit.dk
    9·
    2 hours ago

    Honestly, Linux Mint was a complete no brainer that EVERYONE pointed me towards. Same with Cinnamon.

    • Successful_Try543@feddit.org
      3·
      38 minutes ago

      Exactly. If, after a while, you note that you don’t like some aspects of the distribution or of the desktop environment, you can switch to another distro / DE that suits your needs better.

    • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      1 hour ago

      I don’t like either of those things, but I think it may be the best answer, simply due to the huge install base. Just about every step by step tutorial and help article for anything a basic user is going to do has Ubuntu based commands included.

  • waigl@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 hour ago

    I used to say, if you are not a “computer person” at all, just pick Ubuntu. If you are a bit more demanding and don’t mentally freeze up in front of computers, yet still want a fairly normal and hassle-free experience, choose Fedora.

    These days, I’m not so sure about Ubuntu anymore. They have been disappointing in the recent past.

    Maybe I should give Linux Mint a try one of these days.

    • aloofPenguin@piefed.worldEnglish
      1·
      8 minutes ago

      I think (I may be wrong here) that Debian wild be good enough for beginners. Their stable branch is, well… stable, and i didn’t run into that many issues (I think it would only be when you want to run stuff that isn’t either a flatpak or in the repos, like i tried to do with howdy). Testing would also be good ,but expect a few issues.

    • Omgpwnies@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      18 minutes ago

      I’ve always preferred KDE, I tried mint and pop at one point, but wasn’t a fan of either cinnamon or cosmic. After that I ran through a bunch of KDE based distros and landed on Fedora as the one that had plasma 6, wayland, and worked well with my hardware. It’s been about 6 months now and aside from small hiccups it has worked well for me.

      Kubuntu was an absolute disappointment, I agree that Canonical has lost the plot.

        • Rhaedas@fedia.io
          1·
          22 minutes ago

          As the comic says, it depends. I was going to do DE or MATE for my old hardware, but figured out Cinnamon would run fine. But I knew better than to try Ubuntu. I use it on my main PC that can handle it, but older stuff, no way, it’s got too much going on.

    • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      1 hour ago

      99% agree, but Bazzite is also great for desktop/laptop if the main goal is gaming. Setting up gaming on fedora yourself has many pitfalls