Yeah I installed that one you’re thinking of.

    • Ooops@feddit.org
      1·
      6 days ago

      rolling release (for gaming)

      Seriously… after all these years without some pesky version upgrade screwing things up I couldn’t bring myself to install a non-rolling distro on any device I actively use.

  • rodneylives@lemmy.world
    11·
    6 days ago

    If you’re new to Linux: Mint. Use Mint, with Cinnamon. Or MATE, if you’re hardware is older. It works just how you’d expect.

    There’s many other distros for other purposes. Bazzite has a lot of people who like it for games. If you really want to control EVERYTHING about your machine there’s Arch. If you want bleeding edge software and don’t mind/can fix the occasional problem caused by rolling releases then I suggest Manjaro.

    But most Windows refugees will be looking for something familiar that works and stays out of their face, and for that the simple answer is Mint.

      • reddit_sux@lemmy.world
        3·
        6 days ago

        The hardest thing to installing linux is booting from usb. Windows makes you jump through hoops just to boot from usb. Rest is just clicking few buttons and waiting for few minutes.

      • aloofPenguin@lemmy.world
        3·
        6 days ago

        From experience (this was a few years ago, but still holds up even today), yes. The GUI installer is very easy to use (there’s lots of visual stuff to). The one thing that the installer does better that the Debian installer, in my opinion, is partitioning (there’s more visual aids (a slider you can move around, I believe) (a disclaimer: this is basedoff of materials that i read online, not any personal experience)).

        If you want images and stuff, you can always look up ‘Calamares installer’ (which I believe is the installer Mint uses)

        Wish you the best of luck on your linux journey!

        E: disclaimer

  • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
    9·
    6 days ago

    Shout out to the CachyOS crew. Their Discord is helpful. (Booooo, Discord, I know, I know.) They’re friendly and helpful.

    • nonius@lemmy.zip
      4·
      6 days ago

      Can’t agree more. I posted about some strange performance issues last summer and Peter talked with me about it privately for a few hours until it was resolved. Ended up needing some kernel patches for my setup that went on to help with the next release

  • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    11·
    7 days ago

    TL;DR: Ubuntu + KDE Plasma (=Kubuntu) + X11 (Wayland fucks with my Firefox)

    First thing to acknowledge about Linux is that you have 2 choices in front of you about how you want to configure your operating system:

    Distro, and desktop environment.

    A distro or distribution for short is the part of the operating system that runs programs, updates them, etc. A distro like Ubuntu will incorporate different code syntactically than another distro like Fedora, but will largely perform the same actions. For instance, to update all of your apps/programs in Ubuntu, you would run sudo apt-get update. To do the same thing in Fedora, you would run sudo dnf update. Other than that, different distros might be optimized for some things over others. Bazzite and SteamOS are distros that optimize for gaming, while Debian is optimized for long-term stability for things like servers.

    Desktop environment (DE) on the other hand is all about what you see on your screen. It’s the visual portion of your operating system. In my opinion, the choice of DE for you comes down to what’s comfortable to use and/or what you grew up with previously. So if you grew up using Windows computers, then DEs like KDE Plasma or Cinnamon would work for you. If you grew up on Mac computers instead, Gnome would be your best choice.

    For me, I got exposed to Linux with my Steam Deck, so I wanted to mirror the Deck’s Desktop Mode on my laptop. The Steam Deck uses Fedora Arch as the distro and KDE Plasma as the DE. I changed the distro for my new Framework laptop to Ubuntu because I’m more familiar with that, having used Ubuntu computers in middle and high school and dabbling with Ubuntu virtual machines on Windows in the past. KDE Plasma is chill because it reminds me of Windows the most.

    And of course, distro and DE aren’t the only choices you have on Linux… You have your display server engine like X11 or Wayland, and the seemingly limitless assortment of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives to your favorite apps/programs on Windows/Mac/Android/iOS.

    Edit: Steam Deck uses the Arch distro instead of Fedora.

    • coaxil@lemmy.zip
      6·
      7 days ago

      Solid write up!! One correction though, steam deck uses their own version of arch for the distro, Bazzite is running Fedora under the hood though.

            • Crozekiel@lemmy.zipEnglish
              3·
              6 days ago

              Funny, because I had the opposite problem with my laptop… Bazzite couldn’t seem to keep the nvidia gpu happy and working so I switched to Garuda and it hasn’t had a problem gaming since.

              I love Linux, but hate the user-to-user inconsistency - it really makes answering the #1 question “which distro should I use” basically impossible to answer. Go download all of them that sound interesting and put them on flash drives and try them out in live environment - narrow down to the ones you like the look of the most, and then install them and try it out and see if you can do what you need or not. It’s not a difficult process but it is a process and there is no simple answer.

  • Klnsfw 🏳️‍🌈@lemmynsfw.com
    3·
    6 days ago

    Any popular non-specialized version will be perfect.

    For a new user, the internal differences will be imperceptible, the same applications will be available, and community support will be there.

    If you can, install Virtual Box on your current operating system and test the distributions you are considering to see if there is one whose default interface you like best.

    I use Mint/Cinnamon.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      6 days ago

      Okay, so, Richard Hammond would be the first to arrive with Linux Mint! …xfce Edition. It’s the sports version, it’s lighter, sleeker, faster than the standard version.

      Meanwhile, Jeremy Clarkson would arrive with Ubuntu Server, under the impression it somehow has more POWAAA!!!

      James May turns up, having done this properly. With FreeBSD.

  • flemtone@lemmy.world
    6·
    7 days ago

    Start out with Linux Mint, it’s a debian/ubuntu based distro which has massive support online and is less likely to break during an update, then when you get use to using linux you can make a more personal decision for which distro suits you best.

    • Ricaz@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      61·
      7 days ago

      less likely to break during an update

      In my experience, Ubuntu and Debian are by far the most likely to break during an upgrade

        • Ricaz@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          7 days ago

          Apt is one of the worst package managers I’ve used. Yum is also trash, dnf a bit better. But pacman is by far the best

          • Damage@feddit.it
            1·
            7 days ago

            I haven’t used pacman in ages and I don’t remember rolling back updates with it so I either never needed to or it was not possible at the time.

            dnf did everything I needed it to so I wouldn’t know what to fault it for

            • Ricaz@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              7 days ago

              You can very easily rollback updates from cache, and even rollback all your packages to a specific date in time.

              It does get a bit iffy with AUR packages because you often compile them locally, so they would need to be recompiled from a specific commit.

              • Damage@feddit.it
                1·
                7 days ago

                Now that you mention it, I remember rolling back by reinstalling old packages stored in cache, but not rolling back to a specific date. On dnf I once had to roll-back an update, and that is managed by transaction number (let’s say revert the last update), so it’s good if you don’t know which package exactly is causing the issue.

        • Ricaz@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          4·
          7 days ago

          Upgrading, like from Debian 12 to 13. It’s too complex, and if you install anything out of the ordinary (which you have to if you want packages from this decade), things get even more complicated.

          I’ve used the same Arch installation for 14 years and only had issues when we switched to from sysvinit to systemd in 2012 because I didn’t read the news. Easily fixable though