• Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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    4 months ago

    These thumbnails are also the reason why people stay away from Linux. How is the little girl relevant to your question?

    • extremeboredom@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Couldn’t possibly agree more. One of the biggest barriers to sharing my enthusiasm for Linux with my friends is filtering out all of the cringey anime weeb shit that somehow gets posted along with it. Why does open source software need to be associated with creepy drawings of little girls? Absolutely the worst vibes.

      • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        It’s understandable when it comes from niche programs with solo devs. You are likely to be a degen when you spend your whole day in front of your computer. So you likely also have degen habits like the one here. But if it’s from group of devs then yeah that’s straight up irritating.

        Also you in the sense not you. English not my main language.

        • hitwright@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Hur durr… You have different interests… Therefore degenerate…

          Do you even realize how incredibly stupid the whole concept of tribalism is?

          • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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            4 months ago

            My understanding of degeneracy is well defined.

            degenerate behavior, especially behavior considered sexually deviant

            Fortunately I do not have any interest on little kids so yes it is deviating from my/societal interest therefore a degen.

            • hitwright@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              That’s where you’re wrong kiddo. The downvotes are because you are jumping to conclusion about lolis and other sexualization.

              The fascination with child personas for most anime fans are just that. It’s cute. The same ways dogs are cute, and cats are cute. I really doubt they have a fetish on children, although there are some that do. I really don’t think it’s right to mash them all together.

              • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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                4 months ago

                Idk where you are from. But someone making it their hobby to watch cute little girls is considered quite creepy in my place.

                Ik that’s also a reason and i stand by my views which also happens to be the views of the general society.

                • hitwright@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Hobby is anime which includes much more than “watching little girls”. With phrasing like yours it seems that you push all people like that like some creeps that just look at children.

                  The idea that I’m trying to convey, is that personification of a technology with art into something cute, cool or whatever doesn’t automatically mean sexual deviation or anything along the lines.

                  Also stereotyping is not exactly something you should defend with “general society”

            • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              Not sure why you’re getting downvoted for correctly using the term and calling out the degenerates who self-insert as little girls everywhere.

              • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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                4 months ago

                Maybe because i worded it a bit like im attacking linux hobbyists. I am one myself. And maybe I also fit in a different definition of the term degen. But yeah I don’t agree with the one dude that thinks cosplaying little girls is a hobby lol.

                In a sense we all spend so much time virtually, sometimes it feels dystopian to me. Not saying it’s wrong but it’s fascinating for sure.

    • setVeryLoud(true);@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      The average person finds these creepy, and so you’ll keep the average person away.

      I personally don’t get it either, it does look like a 6 year old girl to me and it seems completely off-topic, but I don’t question it so long as it’s not sexual in nature.

      • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        I would have to disagree. What you are saying is toxic communities that reply RTFM to every question like arch or gentoo. Those aren’t beginner friendly distros. Mint, ubuntu, pop, fedora all have wonderful communities and quick support.

        Windows is more documented. Not better but more. So when someone migrates to linux they panic because they can’t find resources like they used to do. How to fix this? Just give it time. More windows enshittification, more migration, more questions in support, more answers. No more gstekeeping like feeling.

        • Titou@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          What you are saying is toxic communities that reply RTFM to every question like arch or gentoo.

          Im active on arch communities and i’ve never seen this kind of message, most of the time they give you a hyperlink to a specific chapter of the manual so you know exactly how to fix your issue, not just copy pasta.

          Windows is more documented. Not better but more.

          Not at all but ok.

          • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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            4 months ago

            For your first paragraph, try arch discord and for the second ever used a search engine or just youtube? Windows is way more documented. Not necessarily by Microsoft but by the absolute waste community.

            • Titou@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              Windows is way more documented. Not necessarily by Microsoft but by the absolute waste community.

              Kinda hard to provide a full documentation of a os as a particular when you have absolutely no control on it. Also there’s plenty of “windows tutorial” that are either wrong or out of date, while in Arch or most closely Linux there’s things that still remain the same years later.

            • BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Windows is way more documented. Not necessarily by Microsoft but by the absolute waste community.

              If I had a nickle for every BSOD error code I researched only to find “have you tried running sfc /scannow? What about a refresh? You tried both and nothing worked? Just reinstall!”

              More documented my ass. Linux at least tells me what’s wrong. “No space left on device” or “missing dependency” is way better than “Error code 0x0000007e”

              • uis@lemm.ee
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                4 months ago

                have you tried running sfc /scannow?

                To be fair this is kinda “did you try to reboot?” kind of answer. Stupid, but effective.

                Just reinstall!

                IT’S TIME TO REINSTALL ШINDOWS! This is why I love Linux community, especially Gentoo. Reinstalling system is rarely considered to be valid answer.

              • tuhriel@discuss.tchncs.de
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                4 months ago

                Jup, Im having an NTP issue on my win10 machine If you search for it you find the same 5 “solutions” from dozens of content farms.

              • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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                4 months ago

                I repair computers on the side and this exact issue happens so frequently I know some of the error codes that I dont bother trying to fix now. The sheer amount of Windows reinstalls I have to do… honestly its often faster than trying to fix the problem.

        • featherfurl@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          The gatekeeping I was referring to is giving people shit for being weebs, furries, etc. etc. Feels skeezy and moralistic. One of my favourite things about the Linux community is how openly eccentric so many people are. Even if it isn’t my aesthetic it’s way less contrived than the bland wastelands that corporate culture generates.

          It wasn’t really relevant to your question, but you do you, weeb OP.

          • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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            4 months ago

            Gatekeeping (communication) Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication.

            • featherfurl@lemmy.ml
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              4 months ago

              That is certainly one use of the word gatekeeping. Another common use of the word is:

              “when someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity”.

              • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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                4 months ago

                You got it mixed up. I am not restricting one to let others in. Being a creep is not normal and it isn’t gatekeeping to say cosplaying little girls is not normal.

                And all the down votes prove how much this is normalized in linux communuty which gets us all bad rep.

            • uis@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              Linking to upstream source instead of copying answer that will be outdated is neither gatekeeping nor “RTFM toxicity”

              • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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                4 months ago

                I never said rtfm is toxic but it is well known how toxic arch community used to be. Im very much referring to that.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Anime fans, despite counterintuitiveness, have greater average IQ that not anime fans.

  • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Because for most use cases, Mint works flawlessly. It changes little from time to time. It has all the drivers to get started with a wide range of common hardware. It has all the codecs to play common media formats.

    Of course if the package update is too slow, it’s not for you, but then unlike you, most people don’t need the latest and greatest. They just need something that works from the get-go with predictable behavior.

    • trolololol@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The software I use doesn’t get significant updates often. Kennel, vi, grep, find? They’ve been around for decades.

      I’m genuinely curious what kind of things people can’t do because of lag on package updates.

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        It usually has something to do with programming. Again, most cases, the versions in the packages included in your garden variety stable distros should cover most use cases.

        However, once in a while one would encounter the need of using the cutting edge features on certain compiler or interpreter. Rust comes to mind. I know Python introduced some features that could drastically alter workflow (e.g. switch statement). NodeJS is another one known to be lagging behind from time to time.

        In other cases, hardware support might be taken to consideration, especially for newer machines. However, with Mint including the optional newer kernel, it shouldn’t be a problem.

      • neidu2@feddit.nl
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        The only major issue I ever had with mint running relatively old packages was when I got my current laptop. Nvidia 4060 required a really new nvidia driver, which in turn required a really new kernel. I sorted it out by adding a few unofficial repos, and it worked like a charm afterwards.

        Whenever old versions are giving you grief, they can usually be sorted out in a similar manner.

      • Cornelius@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        Modem hardware.

        The default kernel Mint has installed isn’t new enough to support cards like the 7900 XT. Though this can be fixed by updating the kernel using Mint’s kernel version utility

      • Benaaasaaas@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Hmm vim is the reason I dropped all debian based distros. Cause I wanted v8 when it was released but sorry you have to wait 2-4 years. Wasn’t in the mood for compiling it myself so just went with arch based distro and haven’t looked back since.

  • Taleya@aussie.zone
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    4 months ago

    Because you’re dealing with lifelong windows users who want a reassuringly familiar looking OS not fucking linux techs

    Jesus christ learn to tailor to the user

    • ReveredOxygen@sh.itjust.works
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      Fedora does have a Cinnamon spin. The advantage of Mint is that all the Ubuntu tutorials work on it

      Edit: plus Fedora’s philosophy about non-free software makes it less than ideal for people who don’t care

      • holgersson@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Even if Fedora has a spin with the same DE, from my experience, Mint/Ubuntu still has a higher chance just work on a given system.

        I love Fedora and use it pretty much exclusively, but the out of the box experience of Mint and Ubuntu is still a bit better for the average user imho.

  • gerdesj@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    Mint has managed to become a meme and that’s no bad thing, per se, but it can look a bit odd to the cognoscenti. Anyone doing research by search engine looking to escape MS towards Linux will find Mint as the outstanding suggestion.

    That’s just the way it is at the moment: Mint is the gateway to Linux. Embrace that fact and you are on the way to enlightenment.

    I am the MD of a small IT company in the UK. I’ve run Gentoo and then Arch on my daily drivers for around 25 years. The rest of my company insist on Windows or Apples. Obviously, I was never going to entice anyone over with Gentoo or even Arch, although my wife rocks Arch on her laptop but I manage that and she doesn’t care what I call Facebook and email.

    We are now at an inflection point - MS are shuffling everyone over to Azure with increasing desperation: Outlook/Exchange and MS Office will be severely off prem. by around 2026. So if you are going to move towards the light, now is a good time to get your arse in gear.

    I now have Kubuntu on my work desktop and laptop. You get secure boot out of the box, along with full disc encryption and you can also run a full endpoint suite (ESET for us). That scores a series of ticks on the Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation and that is required in my world.

    AD etc: CID - https://cid-doc.github.io/ pretty nifty. I’ve defined the equivalent of Windows drive letters as mounts under home, eg: ~/H: - that works really well.

    Email - Gnome Evolution with EWS. Just works. Used it for years.

    Office - Libre Office. I used to teach people how to use spreadsheets, word processors, databases and so on. LO is fine. Anyone attempting to tell me that LO can’t deal with … something … often gets … educated. All software has bugs - fine, we can deal with that. I recently showed someone how decimal alignment works. I also had to explain that it is standard and not a feature of LO.

    For my company the year of Linux on the desktop has to be 2025 (with options on 2026). I have two employees who insist on it now and I have to cobble together something that will do the trick. I get one attempt at it and I’ve been doing application integration and systems and all that stuff for quite a while.

    Linux has so much to give as an ecosystem but we do need to tick some boxes to go properly mainstream on the desktop and that needs to happen sooner rather than later.

    • plumbercraic@lemmy.sdf.org
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      I’ve been a lifelong ms admin, and always stuck to their desktop environments because they “just worked”. Often use Linux on containers, devices (handhelds, rpi etc) and webapp servers.

      That win11 recall stuff though is a step too far. So I looked at which distro was likely to be easiest to use and just as you say - mint is the overwhelming consensus. And now it’s my daily driver. I needed to learn a few new tricks, but the mint forums are filled with windows refugees so finding forum posts is easy (e.g. I thought had a problem with my “task bar” not my “panel” but since others called it the same thing I found what I was looking for).

      My biggest reason for staying on windows was that I could search for something and almost always find an answer - that’s become worse over the years IMO (often get these useless forums posts when they’re basically advising the user to reinstall with five paragraphs of pasted/generated text). The mint forums are genuinely friendly and helpful, and searching them is as useful as searching for win stuff used to be.

      I don’t know if “this is the year” but I can’t imagine I’m the only one who has had enough of the MS ecosystem. My experience has been great so far, and I hope there are others who give it a go.

      • gerdesj@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        Good for you.

        I learned a really strange (yet rather obvious in hindsight) lesson a week or so ago. I recently deployed Apache Guacamole at work for webby access to an RDP box with MFA. We are dumping MS’s RDG because it is not very flexible and is really complicated. One of my younger members of staff uses it whilst in the office and are almost pathetically grateful for me setting up the Guacamole thing 8) (WTF).

        She’s an Apple aficionado. She can now use her Apple thingie as St Jobs intended and also connect to work stuff, which is largely Windows and Linux based but the Linux stuff is abstracted away to the browser.

        The key point is that she considers herself as an Apple person for want of a better word and can be an Apple whilst using our corp MS and Linux gear and it appears to her that it is all integrated.

        I’m 53 years old and have been doing IT for around 30 years. We really have to get to grips with how people think and work.

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Anybody that already has had a computer for 2 years and is coming from Windows will have almost no problems with Mint. Stability is top priority for first time Linux users and you need some visual guide with screenshots. Mint also has a great default look and setup for people coming from Windows. Mint is probably the best distro to put on your mom’s old laptop that is “getting slow” because of viruses.

    I’d recommend KDE Neon or Ubuntu also depending on the situation but if I don’t know anything about the person and computer I’d say Mint.

    • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      This is a bold statement considering how many daily Windows users don’t understand how to use Windows.

      • shinratdr@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        It never ceases to amaze me how out of touch tech enthusiasts are. How much does your average person know about their car? That’s how little they know about their computer.

        They might not know what an OS even is, or how to identify where “Windows” ends and applications begin. They do what they bought it for, and if that doesn’t work, they take it to someone who knows how to get it working again. They know how to charge it, and to plug in a headset or USB key or something. If that functionality doesn’t work automatically or they encounter any issue, it might as well have exploded in their hands.

        There are people who have been using Windows for 30 years that know literally nothing about it. Putting a “years of experience” metric on it is hilarious. It’s like assuming that if someone has been driving for 50 years that they know anything about cars besides how to drive it and where to put the gas.

        • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Exactly. I know plenty of people who have driven a car for over 3 decades, and do not know what a timing belt or a spark plug does. I don’t look down on those people, but it certainly makes sense as to why they don’t know. They don’t really need to!

          • shinratdr@lemmy.ca
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            4 months ago

            Most people get their oil changed at a shop, and drive through a car wash. I wouldn’t really consider those additional skills.

      • ian@feddit.uk
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        4 months ago

        Windows users have a variety of different skills and experience. I guess the most likely ones to try Linux first are not going to be the PC-fearing ultra-causal users, who probably follow what their friends do. But the more adventurous and curious ones, or IT workers.

        • Caveman@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yeah, exactly. If a person asks for a recommendation they don’t trust their own skills enough to make their own decision or distrohop.

          I feel like a website is needed to recommend a distro to people based on a very varied set of criteria that doesn’t just ask “Do you like stability over all? Debian”

          • ian@feddit.uk
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            4 months ago

            Definitely a help website that focuses on user level questions and not IT pro solutions is desperately needed. Today new users are immediately given misinformation by hard core Linux techies with no clue about usability or user level solutions.

  • Default_Defect@midwest.social
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    4 months ago

    Linux users can’t even agree on what distro is actually beginner friendly, so how am I supposed to pick one with any confidence?

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      4 months ago
      1. Find a distro, run into problems
      2. Ask for help
      3. Get asked why the fuck you chose that distro when it’s obviously for super brains
      4. Repeat
    • Muehe@lemmy.ml
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      Linux users can’t even agree […] so how am I supposed to pick one with any confidence?

      Easy. You make a post like the OP, count the positive mentions of distros in the comments, and bam, you have your distro of choice. It’s called the Linux newbie roulette and works kind of like the magic hat in Harry Potter that sorts you into your house.

    • Default_Defect@midwest.social
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      I know its one of the strengths of Linux, but I can’t help but laugh that the response to “you can’t agree on one, how can I?” is for several people to suggest several distros.

      • oo1@lemmings.world
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        what do you think about:. “you don’t need to choose one” and “you don’t need other people to choose for you” and “distro isn’t that important in many cases”

        I can agree 100% on what distros I use for what types of computer. And I can agree 100% on what I’d have used now, if i were a beginner again.

        But all i can recommend to a stranger is, backup all your stuff properly,

        try a few out (v.m. or liveCD/Ventoy) and be prepared to change.
        make sure to check application versions in the base software repository - for any programs where that matters to you. and ease of updating - if that matters to you. and check out some flatpak if you think that might be a useful way to get extra applications or in some cases up to date.

        if in doubt, choose gentoo /s

    • jack@monero.town
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      4 months ago

      The solution is to not be cconfident and remain open minded. You can switch any time

      • Default_Defect@midwest.social
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        4 months ago

        The thing is, I don’t care to distrohop and experiment with this or that. I just want to use my computer. Until I see a distro that can convince me that switching will be actually painless (not ‘long time linux user painless’, but ‘casual new user that does more than just web browse’ painless) I’ll just use windows.

          • Default_Defect@midwest.social
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            4 months ago

            Specifically? I don’t know. It would likely help if the conversation around new user distros was a bit less of an argument or if the number of suggested distros was a bit less. It would help with the decision paralysis aspect of it at least. I see enough threads of experienced users troubleshooting more than I really want to deal with, I stopped maintaining my modded skyrim installation because I was fixing when I could be playing and I don’t like the idea of my whole computer being like that because I chose the wrong hardware (I have nvidia)

            • No1@aussie.zone
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              The simple way is to dual boot or even simpler, set up a Linux distro in a Windows VM.

              Let’s you play/see if the distro works for you.

              TBH, I’ve got 1 machine where Windows is more problematic than the Ubuntu that is setup to dual boot… Can’t bring myself to do a fresh install of Windows lol…

            • poki@discuss.online
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              Thank you for the reply!

              It would likely help if the conversation around new user distros was a bit less of an argument

              Fair. Though, I suppose we shouldn’t ignore that the promoted distros are mostly the distros people use for themselves. And, while some have been on a distrohopping spree to arrive at their home. Others, instead, just got a recommendation, tried it and have been using it ever since. Yet others knew what they sought and/or needed. Hence, in their case, it was more a search to find a distro that satisfied their specific needs. Finally, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that the popular distros mentioned in these discussions are overall good picks.

              if the number of suggested distros was a bit less.

              Absolutely fair. Unfortunately, we’ve got over 300 distros that are currently maintained and 50 would argue they’re newbie friendly 😅. It’s a hard one for sure. But, I believe you can definitely narrow down the list if you know what you want. For example, in my case, there’s literally only one distro that answers my needs. So, I just use that one 😅.

              It would help with the decision paralysis aspect of it at least.

              Brings back memories. This process took me about two weeks.

              I see enough threads of experienced users troubleshooting more than I really want to deal with

              On the other hand, people that don’t ever experience any issues, don’t feel the need to post about that 😅. But, I can understand why it could make you anxious. Thankfully, distro choice does play an important factor in this. So, it makes sense for you to use a distro that’s designed to (somehow) avoid this and thus limits the amounts of troubleshooting you’d have to resort to.

              I don’t like the idea of my whole computer being like that because I chose the wrong hardware (I have nvidia)

              Absolutely fair. Nvidia on Linux can definitely be a mess. The more popular and modern models should work on most distros. However, if your specific model is more obscure, then this can definitely cause more trouble than it’s worth.

    • Moreless@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Linux is a niche. Picking any distro that isn’t the most popular is going one step deeper into a niche. A niche, within a niche.

      Just use the most popular distro… Ubuntu

      Problem solved.

      • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Ubuntu isn’t the most popular and hasn’t been for a while. It actually has a lot of issues new users are likely to run into, including lots of spurious error messages. Apparently the top 5 according to distro watch is: MX Linux, Mint, EndeavorOS, Debian, and Manjaro.

        So essentially debian, arch and ubuntu derivatives.

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          4 months ago

          I’m sorry, I can’t believe that MX Linux and EndeavorOS are popular or recommended. I’ve never heard of those or seen any recommendations for that.

          I’ve seen Mint recommended.

          People pushing arch on newbies? Wtf?

          • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            If you haven’t heard of EndeavorOS that’s because you are out of the loop. Entirely your issue. It’s a much better alternative to Manjaro essentially.

            Also that’s general popularity according to page hits, nothing to do with newbies. Newbies aren’t the majority of Linux users.

            Not that there is anything wrong with recommending EndeavorOS to Newbies. The whole point of arch derivatives like that is to make installing arch simpler and easier for the user. Arch is actually a better base distro imo than say Ubuntu for this. It has packages for pretty much anything in the AUR, no digging up PPAs for everything. Likewise it’s all up-to-date too.

            I don’t remember MX Linux ever being that popular before, but maybe I am out of the loop.

  • Billegh@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Because Fedora is open source only to the point of it being pathological. If there isn’t am open source driver most time you’re just boned. Someone new is going to have a tough time with it, and the community is on average a very “lol rtfm” bunch. Not as bad as Arch, but that’s not saying much.

    Meanwhile, despite the problems around Ubuntu, Debian communities are much more understanding and helpful. Mint even with old packages is going to be an easier time for a newbie. Certainly a newbie unfamiliar with the way entirely too much of the FOSS community is.

    • ruse8145@lemmy.sdf.org
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      To be fair arch has amazing docs, and even a rube like me can follow it decently well. I found endeavor to be the easiest distro to use. But agreed the attitude isn’t great.

      • Billegh@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Arch is absolutely divine with its documentation. There is a bit of a “you must be this tall to ride” with them though. Like the tiny [AUR] link. That’s not really well explained, and is even more opaque if you follow the link.

    • techarmy@lemmy.world
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      It’s my favourite distro because of three reasons.

      1. Arch worth lightweight with minimal QOL improvement
      2. best user community 3 ) who doesn’t like space theme distro?? lol

      I just setup on my T480 with BTRFS and BTRFS-Assistant and snapper last night. It’s working well

      • confuser@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        I refuse to use anything that isnt arch based unless its a niche linux distribution for something specific because the arch user repository basically solves the biggest issue for newbies which is getting a grasp of packages for software. it has any of the common software and if you do need to build something from a github repo, that is ofc easy enough on any distro. I’m not the most technically inclined with linux and I use a chatgpt got thingy called code copilot in their search thing and I can use it to solve even really niche problems I have like a USB DAC not being recognized because it doesn’t have the correct read/write permissions. most of the time I just ask basic things like how to get whatever github repo working and it helps me troubleshoot if I run into weird issues. I even got it to help me set up neo-matrix to run in alacrity terminal on bootup, it was a nice introduction to scripting and autostart and stuff when it helped me, so now I have a little bit better grasp on how that all works out.

  • Mereo@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Which is why I ask people one simple question: do they plan to game. If they plan to game, I don’t recommend them Mint. If they aren’t, I recommend them Mint.

      • flubba86@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Nobara is a good choice, it’s based on Fedora, and is maintained by Glorious Eggroll himself, it has out of the box features like proprietary driver installation, game mode, gamescope, etc. That’s what I run on my gaming PC and my HTPC, where my work laptop runs Kubuntu.

  • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Mint works. Most alternatives don’t. I can install Mint on a total newbie’s system, and not have to worry about something breaking two weeks later. Hell, most newbies can install Mint if you give them the USB.

    On a deeper level, I think Mint devs are one of the few teams that understand the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ philosophy.

      • tabular@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        What features were lacking from mesa or Cinnamon generally?

        I have 4k 1440, 1080 monitor (120hz or higher) on Mint edge, what would I gain from switch to somethibg else?

        • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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          Cinnamons compositor doesn’t turn off for games (it’s supposed to but has been bugged for years) which costs you fps.

          Playing Alan Wake 2 at launch was only possible with the latest Mesa drivers compiled from the AUR due to some graphics features that it required.

          • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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            4 months ago

            It doesn’t just cost FPS. It straight up breaks some games that run fine on other distros.

            Does it still have that feature that kills and restarts cinnamon when memory leaks start getting to be too much? I honestly had to laugh at that when that was introduced.

            • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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              4 months ago

              No clue. Haven’t used it in years. I was done when I went looking for a fix for the compositor thing and found a years-old open bug report.

          • tabular@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            I assume compiling Mesa is rather difficult to set up? For reference I’ve not bothered to try and compile Lutris or Wine.

            • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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              4 months ago

              With AUR it’s as easy as installing any other package, actually.

              You just install the git version from AUR.

              • tabular@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                Installing Arch appears to be more complex than Mint’s Click Yes x4 GUI. Should I expect almost everything to just work after install?

                • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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                  4 months ago

                  Not even close, if you actually install barebones arch, then barebones arch is exactly that, barebones. You wont even have a DE.

                  Endeavour is what you want. It’s just straight up arch, but with all the stuff you’d want to set up anyway done for you.

                  And if you want an “app-store” style app to browse packages with, and not fiddle with the command line to manage packages, install pamac. It can be expanded with AUR and flatpak support.

  • Grangle1@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Older packages, but not too old, generally provide better stability. Problems can also come from packages being too new and not having all the standout issues worked out of them.

    • Magnolia_@lemmy.caOP
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      4 months ago

      around 1 year and a half, thats way too long, considering the Pipewire, OBS, Kernel, Gaming and other drivers updates. Not even mentioning all the updates KDE and Gnome just got in the last 3 months.

      • NaN@lemmy.sdf.org
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        Newer kernels are available, they even have a gui for it. Why would a Cinnamon user care about KDE or GNOME updates? (Some of which are broken on Fedora, like rdp login)

        Mint Debian can run 6.7 right now.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      Older packages, but not too old, generally provide better stability.

      And worse compatibility. Old packages are a no go for upstream supported hardware like Intel’s and AMD’s.

  • Frostbeard@lemmy.world
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    I installed Mint (no idea mint was old tbh) looked into Gentoo and tried the live boot USB option. 'This looks nice, no how do I install" The install option opened a web page (gentoo wiki) with several options for guides based on various permutations. All options send you in a ring without actually telling me how to install.

    I went back to Mint as it does the few things I need a PC to do these days:

    Some kind of office suite with spreadsheet and word processor, Steam, Netflix and Prime, Firefox

    Added bonus is that it runs MegaMek natively AND i don’t need to read pages of documentation, just click install.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      Added bonus is that it runs MegaMek natively

      This is always a fun thing to read in the wild. Keep on stompin’, MechWarrior! O7 (salute)

      Gentoo might have been quite a leap! :p I wanna try it some day as a challenge but it’s def intimidating.

      I run Tumbleweed on my main rig and love how crazy stable it is for being cutting edge. Endeavour OS is also cool for this. Both great communities too.

      But agree with you on Mint. It’s just a really nice smooth experience. So far it’s on my “little media laptop I won’t update much, need to be reliable, and will probably hand to family on occasion”, and I can trust it’s just gonna work.

    • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
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      Why the fuck would you try Gentoo as a Linux noob? I am guessing no one told you it was for advanced Linux users only. Fedora and OpenSUSE are nowhere near as difficult to install as Gentoo, as they are made for normal users.

      • Evrala@lemmy.world
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        Gentoo was my second linux Distro ever some time in 2003 or 2004.

        Installed it by printing out the full install doc, which was like 30 or 40 pages, and starting up a stage one install. I got through the entire install by following the instructions because the documentation was that good.

        I remember having a problem and hopping on an irc chat to ask for help and people there being baffled about the basic level questions I was asking while having a working Gentoo install.

        • TheRedSpade@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, even the “difficult” distributions tend to just be a matter of following instructions to get a working installation. Gentoo was a massive PITA to maintain though. Chances are I was missing some knowledge that would’ve simplified things, but I spent way too much time on maintenance for the system to actually be useful. Arch has been much kinder.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          and starting up a stage one install.

          Dear Faust.

          Difficulty:

          • Easy
          • Medium
          • Hard
          • Nightmare
          • > Novichok

          I thought you went with minimalcd, opened handbook in links(browser) and installed stage3.

          I remember having a problem and hopping on an irc chat to ask for help and people there being baffled about the basic level questions I was asking while having a working Gentoo install.

          Self-perpetuating circle of “Gentoo is not for noobs” stereotype.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      All options send you in a ring without actually telling me how to install.

      Don’t know. I was installing Gentoo in 6th grade of school with poorly-translated gentoo handbook.

      EDIT: had wrong quote

      • menemen@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        If it doesn’t provide a benefit for them, why should they bother? I understand why a teenager would, I would have as a teenager. But as an adult? Who got time for this?