People doing the 30 days linux Challenge are having several problems because of Mint's old packages and technology. Why people still recommend it when there is Fedora and Opensuse with KDE and Gnome?
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Can you explain? As a Mint user with really old hardware, I appreciate using the LTS kernel. However, I also appreciate them giving users other options.
Why would I care what software KDE comes with? This is Linux. I can install whatever works best for me. Including the whole of KDE software suite if I so chose. You KDE fans are voracious.
I use KdenLive on Mint whenever I need to edit a video. I've never bothered to look for the other two because I use Darktable and GIMP for my photo editing, but I can check to see if they're available if you want me to.
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.
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.
Looks like mid-to-high-level difficulty if you really want to build from source, due to multiple complex interdependent configuration flags that have to match your hardware, and the need to check a kernel option or two. (Based on the Gentoo ebuild for mesa 24.1.2).
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.
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.
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)
If you have cutting edge hardware, this might be an issue. But most people don't and for them Mint will work just fine. If you want cutting edge, don't use Mint. But that's not their focus at all. Mint is for people who just want their computer to work with minimal hassle.
If you want cutting edge, don't use Mint. But that's not their focus at all. Mint is for people who just want their computer to work with minimal hassle.
These don't seem like competing needs. When I think "just work with minimal hassle", I don't think "I need to restrict myself to outdated hardware".
I'm perfectly happy running old packages in general. I'm still on Plasma 5, and it works just as well as it did last year. But that's a matter of features, not compatibility. Old is fine; broken is not.
I think Mint is mostly for the "I have a PC that’s a few years old and want something easy and reliable to replace Windows with" crowd. Because it works great for that. It’s the perfect beginner distro.
I do want to add that new games can also require new packages, the way Alan Wake II did at launch. Even on Arch you had to compile the development version of Mesa for it to run.
The thing is that Linux has gone mainstream, with young adults and teens trying it out for Gaming and Streaming. The target people has changed so recommending Mint is not suitable anymore.
I wouldn't quite go so far as to say it's gone "mainstream" since you still have to be moderately nerdy to know about it. I get your point though. This is one of the reasons I am so happy the Steam Deck exists. Before Valve released the Steam Deck nobody wanted to make games for Linux, so Valve said "fuck it, we'll do it ourselves" and proved it was not only possible, but a better experience overall. While not all games work, having 78-80% of your game library work on Linux, with no Windows OS performance tax, is a great experience. Even with the Proton compatibility layer games generally run faster than on Windows.
this video from last month has 600k views. Ive seen several recent linux videos with 150k+ views. Brodie, Horn and the Linux Experience constantly pull 50k to 200K views on some of their videos.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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...
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.
That's really depending on your use cases, for example if I want to install distro for my grandma use Mint, for a graphic guy (as in this example) use Arch or Fedora (or even OpenSUSE), etc.
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.
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.
I think the onboarding and new user experience for Mint could be better, but I think there's one important thing that I think makes Mint a good intro distro: Its Ubuntu base.
If you look up guides for "linux" it usually gives instructions for Ubuntu, which usually also apply to Mint. Likewise, if you look for software downloads you tend to find Ubuntu debs.
I know flatpak fixes these issues to an extent, but I think we're not there yet.
some of those ubuntu instructions that come up jn search results are from as far back as the mail order ubuntu cd era and installing debs directly is a slippery slope
Stable is not equivalent to "works well". It is randomly frozen at some point, mostly not in contact with upstream devs, so you just have outdated packages.
OpenSUSE slowroll sounds like a way better model. Or maybe CentOS stream.
But it's not randomly frozen, it's tied to Ubuntu's LTS builds. And they didn't say "stable" is the same as "works well", they said Mint is both (which is true from my experience at least)
If you need newer packages with Mint, Flatpak is a good way to go (yes it has its own issues, but they do work well for a lot of people)
It is randomly frozen as not all developers follow Ubuntus release schedule. They just release when it is ready.
Stability means backporting tons of bugfixes to tons of small packages and libraries. I dont think Ubuntu does that for enough packages, best example Plasma 5.27 on Kubuntu. I have reported over 200 bugs I guess and most of the newer ones are just fixed in Plasma 6.
Flatpak for sure is a good way, and if a distro is stable, they should only install Flatpaks.
It is not randomly frozen as Mint does follow Ubuntu's LTS releases, every new version they put out is based on whatever the current Ubuntu LTS is. Their release cadence isn't linked that closely as a new LTS usually takes a few months to spawn a new Mint release based on it, but they aren't just freezing some arbitrary point in time of development.
If you mean Ubuntu is randomly frozen, it isn't either. It follows a release schedule, determines a roadmap, and at a certain predetermined point in developing a new release, they do freeze for new versions so they can complete testing and ensure everything works together in time to release on schedule. It's certainly not "random".
And that's also not what stability means. Stability means functionality doesn't change, so an up to date Mint 21.3 installed on release is going to be the same as one installed and updated now, functionally speaking. This is accomplished by only backporting important security patches and bug fixes to the version of the software that's used by the system rather than getting it with new versions where there are new features and changes to existing functionality that can break things based on the previous version. This does not mean it gets all fixes, just the ones they deem worth the effort of backporting.
Yes I think you mentioned the relevant points here. Ubuntu tests their preinstalled software, while there is tons more in the repos that is not as tested. Same with Mint.
And they backport only stuff they think is necessary. For example Plasma 5 is based on the EOL Qt5 and backporting things to Plasma 5 is nearly impossible as you need real Plasma devs and nobody really wants to do that.
Plasma 6 is really stable, 6.1 not so much, but the timing was not perfect. Simply because they do their release schedule as fixed as that.
It is a total pain if you simply want working software, as they may backport some stuff, but all the stuff not preinstalled, or that is very complex, will not get fixes.
This is the same with all stable distros, if the maintainers dont literally maintain all the software there is.
I mean, that's definitely a downside to long term stable distros. So, basically, the choice is between that and a rolling release which has the downside of the possibility of things breaking on update and never really having an easily reproducible build
You said the bad word that hipster Linux boi's don't like. I rarely have trouble our of Ubuntu. I've slowly eliminated most of the snaps. But its not cool for it to work. It has to be hyped. This is what they can't stand.
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.
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.
I mean, you can change that behaviour somehow. But there are so many other small things like the constant vendor changes. Zypper is just so quirky. It's a cool distro and to have a rolling release option like tumbleweed is always a big plus in my opinion, but I just wouldn't recommend it to people who are not really eager to play around with their distro.
What I find weird about Tumbleweed is, that updating is not integrated into YaST or another UI. You have to use the commandline to keep your system up to date. That makes it exactly as inconvenient as Arch for newcomers, but Arch has a whole philosophy behind this while SuSE is typically very GUI oriented. It's weird.
With KDE Plasma it lets me update from its store, even though it's kind of annoying because I like to do it from the CLI and it blocks Zypper when checking for available updates.
I recommend fedora to every one. It's the correct kind of stable distro. The kernel updates are slow to roll out after being tested and all... But guess what version of plasma I have? 6.1. That's just a few weeks later than arch got it.
Plus not to mention how easy setting up my Optimus gpu was because of rpmfusion. I have never had such ease with any other distro.
Fedora (including Silverblue/Kionite) is hard to recommend as a first distro though. It's an excellent platform when you know your end goal and how to get there, while providing "leading-edge" packages that's great for gaming.
But a project like Bazzite? Phenomenal new user experience for gaming and a very easy recommend.
If you want a non-gaming alternative to Bazzite to recommend, there's it's two universal blue siblings, Aurora (general purpose desktop) and Bluefin (silverblue/workstation distro). They both have the same setup as Bazzite but without the explicitly gaming elements. https://universal-blue.org/
Yeah, I think they're based off the fedora atomic desktops of Silverblue and Kinoite respectively which are gnome and kde based. They do angle Bluefin as more workstation oriented, for what it's worth.
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.
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.
This was news to me as well, but I assume that the Arch Linux logo in question suggests that it might be strange to use an Arch Linux specific illustration, for something that isn't mentioning Arch Linux.
Did that clear it up, or were you just being rude?
I'm generally in the same boat. I don't think of Mint's packages as "old", but "stable". I've had a few cases where I want the latest features, and there are easy ways to get new versions. Dialing down instability isn't so easy.
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.
Why? Because there's no distro which just works! You want HDR? Instead distro X. You want to play games? Install distro Y. You want your high DPI monitor to work properly? Install Z. What the fuck is this shit?
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.
Well you went from one of the easiest to one of the more complicated distros so thats not surprising. There's a lot of distros thst are just as simple to install as mint, you don't need to mess around with arch and gentoo unless you're planning on becoming a real Linux enthusiast.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's easy to install, it's Ubuntu based which means stable and a wide variety of software and support. Cinnamon looks beautiful in Mint and works perfectly. Installing a deb is a breeze and using the App Store is way easier than using YAST. The cli commands are now easy to understand or remember compared to apt.
Fedora usb creation is a nightmare and can potentially f up your bios if something goes wrong. DNF is also but easy to understand or remember compared to apt.
Gnome is too barebones for a first time user whereas Cinnamon is feature rich and is themed very well. Plus great wallpapers are included. The lock screen wallpapers are easily changed and look great too.
As long as there is no shit Nvidia card the driver installation tends to work perfectly.
Don't use Nvidia people. They are a shit, unethical, don't give a crap about Linux company. Use AMD.
And for Linux users who've been around longer, there's Linux Mint Debian Edition which for us is even better because it's not Ubuntu based but Debian based and stable.
I get the latest Firefox directly from Mozilla and any app I can't find in Synaptics I can normally get in Flatpak. Works perfectly well for me. I highly recommend it.
It does some weird formatting to the usb stick. You literally have to use their tool to unformat it again otherwise it's screwed. That's been my experience.
I had an issue on my MacBook bios safety installing Fedora. Wouldn't boot and even if I tried installing Ubuntu over it, still would not boot.
Had to reinstall Mac OS and have it repair the bios. Only after that could I get Linux installed and booting again.
I'm not sure what you mean by broken bios. If you has broken bios, you wouldn't be able to reinstall Mac OS.
Also any formatting tool in any OS should be able to turn bootable USB stick back to storage only USB stick. Windows, Linux, Mac, Haiku, *BSD, original Unix. Anything.
Mac OS doesn't install like a traditional OS. It downloads an iso from the cloud, stores it locally and then installs itself. It lets you open a terminal and I put in some commands to clear and restore the bios before installing the OS.
Normally any formatting tool should work on the USB but Fedora does something to the USB that prevents that. It definitely ruined a usb 3 drive I had and no amount of formatting would get it to work properly until I used their Fedora usb tool.
Because Mint is popular among the crowd, and such challenges are also driven by the crowd. Better to see it as some social or meme dynamics, than to explain it with logical reasons. I also see more new users who use arch, because of the "I use arch BTW" meme.
As a Fedora Silverblue user I find it hard to recommend it to new users. It's not an issue with Fedora, but with the state of Linux desktop in general. At least with Mint/Ubuntu people can rely on social media and the community if they have problems. And Fedora is a more niche thing, and doesn't have a big crowd.
Moreover, I chose Fedora because of my experience, which allows me to have opinion what is better. But I don't think it's a good idea to explain the years of the Linux desktop drama to new users, when they are just doing the first steps or trying to feed their curiosity.
It is comparatively to Debian/Ubuntu derivatives. Even Arch and NixOS probably have more users now. Lately I see some popularity of uBlue derivatives among new users, but I don't know how many people use it, and where the popularity comes from.
I've tried a few distro's recently. Pop os, mint, and nobara. Mint was pretty bad (i really wanted it not to be), nobara was good but had issues with sleep and after a month my sound quit working. Pop OS has been flawless and I love that I can set the workspaces hot key to the windows key.
I don't know the difference between Wayland and X11, all I know is that they're options, and I'm 30 days into the Arch-derived(is that the right term?) Garuda Linux that defaults Wayland with a 3080 and I haven't had any problems? Aren't the Mint problems that it's a stable distro with outdated stuff?
Fedora is a stable distro because generally the packages stay on the same major version throughout the version, however they have a list of exceptions for certain applications that should be updated for security or perhaps they don't follow a major/minor/bugfix release and it's bad practice to hack together your own versions.
Fedora rebases it's packages every 6 months, so it's never left far behind.
I see! Thank you for the explanation, I'm still very new as this is my first Linux and I did no planning or intentional research before swapping over, I just got mad at Windows and was formatting my main dive 15 minutes later. I avoided Mint specifically because I'd seen lemmy threads saying it was using old packages on purpose for stability reasons, and that for actual gaming I'd want rolling release?
I have a computer connected to the TV with Chimera installed because that's SteamOS 3 with emulators preconfigured and is completely couch + controller friendly.
My laptop has Fedora because it's up to date, but everything is tested before release, and all upgrade paths are automated unlike Arch which burnt me in the past with breaking changes.
On my Pi's I have Diet Pi, which is Debian but has images for each of the different ARM boards and has a bunch of scripts for setting up print servers, Home Assistant, etc. I want Debian for it's slow unchanging nature there.
On my desktop, less so.
But underneath they are all Linux, and they all behave in very similar ways, it's all about the initial setup.
Screen tearing hasn't been a serious issue in X11 for years now, unless you run XFCE. It's just not an issue in Gnome or KDE.
I run Wayland+ optimus and it worked on PopOS just fine. Took a slight bit of tweaking on Universal Blue, but nothing major. Mainly it works with gaming on Bazzite but not Aurora for some bizarre reason. CUDA worked fine in all of the above.
Arch is actually reasonable as the foundation of an easy to use Linux OS, provided you don't care about stability. It's up to date with all the latest stuff, has support for many apps and packages without having to add extra repos, and it has fantastic documentation. All that's really missing is the GUI installer and stuff to help newbies. Projects like EndeavorOS and Garuda provide that.
If you actually need stability though, which lots of new users would appreciate, use Fedora or a derivative like Nobara or Universal Blue.
I daily drive Nvidia plus Optimus with wayland, but it's easy enough to switch back to X11 just using a menu on the login screen.
No, for one Red hat has every incentive to support Fedora. Also Fedora does its own thing separate from Red hat. Red hat does have some control but the community elects leadership and the elected leaders are what control the project direction. Also Fedora has a lot of volunteer package maintainers that would stop working if there was a hostile take over.
Notice that the community has left Ubuntu which used to be the community go to. They no longer have a large community working on projects and maintaining software.
thanks for the clarification. I just recently got into linux and don't know much, but as i was researching Fedora, that's what i came across. Which is a pretty big turn off for a newcomer migrating from windows and wanting to get away from big corporations.
Because people suggest distros based on their preference, not what is best suited in a given situation.
On one hand Mint is limited to X11 for now and surprise surprise “dealing with multiple monitors is horrible on Linux”. On other hand they’re on NVIDIA. This is close to not be the case, but X11 was a hard requirement for decades
Your argument makes sense that KDE and Cinnamon can be welcoming to Windows users. However I can argue that it can also make these newcomers to keep a "windows-like" mindset and that can be frustrating.
If a newcomer comes to Gnome, due to it's totally different paradigm, it may induce this newcomer to have an open mind and, therefore, be more welcoming to linux experience.
I don't think one argument or the other is right or wrong. I think both arguments are valid and that's just a different perspective. I, personally, think that a totally new paradigm is good to newcomers, but be free to disagree, since you understand that there is no right or wrong regarding this topic
I totally see your point and I tried GNOME first to have a uniquely Linux experience. I do agree with you. But the inflexibility of GNOME by default made it a much harder flip. I tried it with PopOS too, after using Debian for a while.
Plus tbh, I don't think with still how much you need to use the terminal for linux, anyone would be mistaken in the transition. Windows has kludge from the 90s for their settings and linux still needs terminal.
The kernel is too old for newer AMD gpu drivers to work, but switching to a newer kernel isn't too hard. I had to when I built a new computer last winter, but I have also used various *nixes for a good long time.
Knowing how to discover you need a newer kernel is a bit tough for recent convert, though.
I wouldn't call switching kernels that hard. It takes a few clicks and a reboot to do. However, they kicker is that you need to know to do that. You don't know what you don't know.
Exactly. As far as Linux has come in terms of ease of desktop use and hardware compatibility, there is still a barrier in knowing how to know which flavor is right for you and, almost more importantly, why that flavor is right.
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.
I'm sure talking about the 30days challenge from Raid Owl and I have an idea of his conclusion. First he's a power user (not in the fact of tweaking and scratch in the file system), he needs a lot of stuff to work. And for someone outside of the traditional office work or maybe developing, Linux is hard to use for graphics works, so sure Linux Mint is not for this kind of people but you should always recommended it to "normal" people and beginner in Linux. Sure in this case his conclusion is wrong, he should have used Fedora, Arch or OpenSUSE, but that's it.
I've played this game every year since 1998, and each year I try a wider range of distros. Long story short, EndeavourOS is the first distro that worked reliably and has by far the best support resources.
it hasn't been a problem lately, but for basically an entire year I was helping first timers through getting a more recent lutris for games because the one mint shipped was ancient and broken and on top of that the 32 bit wine dependencies were practically impossible to resolve for some games
It's the Lutris version shipped with 22.04, which by today's standards is definitely ancient. Because I'm not generally a Flatpak fan for stuff that requires larger packages or dependencies, I went directly to the Lutris PPA. And because I'm running KDE Neon, I had to work around the annoying libpoppler dependency issue that's always plagued Wine on Neon.
I always suggest Mint Edge edition, that has a newer kernel, not the default Mint. But I still suggest Mint, because simply, it's more user friendly than any of the other ones. It has gui panels for almost everything.
I'm not sure but, I always recommended Mint for it's ease of use, I tried fedora, didn't like it, will likely never use it again. First impressions are a pain cause if you fail the first impression you lose before you begin. It could be an amazing system but, it was a bigger pain to setup and get going plus had less resources for me to get started while using more lesser known tools that wern't easily transferrable from the previous systems I has tried.
For me, the systems I've installed Mint on for people, haven't had any problems at this current time. While I have never had an issue using Fedora myself(never been interested enough in OpenSUSE to keep with it when I've tried it), I'll never recommend Fedora in similar cases where I've installed Mint. The machines were older and the users aren't Linux enthusiasts. They just want a working machine to do basic tasks without breaking their bank to get a new machine when their Windows OS reached EOL.
However I can't confirm or explain why the people you say that are doing this challenge are having problems. I don't know their hardware specs and I don't know them so I don't know what they know about Linux.
(Please note, to all Mint users, I'm not saying Mint is only for non-Linux enthusiasts. I love how Mint is good for the non-enthusiasts and enthusiasts alike).
Trying different distributions is a must on using Linux, I still remember my first one, Mandrake, and is not a happy memory. Now Arch is my master, to get here It was not an easy or direct ride, I tried several ones through the years until I find the light ;)
Oh, you need media codecs out of the box to watch pretty much anything in your browser?
That takes Fedora out.
OpenSUSE has probably the most confusing install interface for a noob you'll ever find. Which DE do I choose? What other software do I put in? How do I partition? Oh, I click a button here to make a user, or can I ignore it completely?
So much for OpenSUSE.
And don't get me started on Arch. You'd be way better off pushing a new user to Manjaro but everyone's got their panties in a twist about its devs.
FWIW, +1 for Nobara. I think it's an excellent turnkey Fedora for most purposes. But it's a little chancy on being dependent on a single maintainer.
But Fedora itself isn't noob friendly when you have to figure out how to add the non-free repos and install all the rest of the shit. Nobara takes care of that well.
Are media codecs hard to install on Fedora? I haven’t daily driven Fedora in a while, but last I remember it was one of the top-level categories in GNOME Software. Click it then install all the things. Although I suppose if the user didn’t know what a media codec is that wouldn’t help them very much
@Magnolia_ I drive Fedora on laptop without any issues, and I reaally like Wayland and Fedora. X11 still better for normal people. Also UI and UX similar on Mint to Windows
To be fair the nobara website is very "pet project" both in the design and also in the frequent warnings about using it for anything real. Is a good distro tho, having said that.
By default Mint ships 3 years old kernel and a lot of hardware don’t work with it. Mint allows installing newer kernel easily but one must know that is the case.
Mint only works on X11. This is fine to some, but to others it’s a showcase of X shortcomings right away
You think LM being "too old" is a problem for newbies? I've been running some distro or other since RedHat 5. I it took me 6 weeks of waiting for Fedora to sort out most of the issues, (and I STILL have some minor ghosting issues and I ain't no gamer), and 4 tries to get Fedora 40 to successfully take the nVidia drivers for the GTX1650 chipset in my laptop.
You think a new wannbe convert is going to put up with that?
I think it started with Linus and Luke of Linus Tech Tips doing a 30 day linux challenge to see what it's like daily driving linix. Jeff of Craft Computing did one recently as well.
Which is his fault, but also this would never happen on Windows. The power and lack of hand-holding of Linux is a great advantage for power users, but with great power comes great responsibility, and many people don't need the responsibility.
For sure, which is why I only use Mint anyway. I need my hand held. But Linus was doing power-user things without power-user reading. You can't really claim the car is no good when you opened the hood and started swapping hoses without checking to see what goes where.
Yeah, I feel like Linux needs the equivalent of Administrator accounts on Windows. Root is the equivalent of the System account on Windows, something even power users might never encounter, because it's a level of power you shouldn't ever need.
We need users to have permission to install software and do other administrative tasks, without having permission to do very destructive actions like uninstalling core system packages. Aunt Flo should be able to install Mahjong from her distros package manager GUI, without needing dangerous root access.
Well, no, not exactly. Most accounts on desktop linux distros are admin accounts. The way I would define that is whether or not the user has sudo permissions, either by being in the sudo group or sudoers file. Some distros do ask if you want the user to be admin. And that's pretty analagous to being admin on windows and getting a UAC prompt for an elevated process.
Yeah, but there is no separation between being able to do day to day administrative actions like installing software, and being able to do destructive actions no one should need to do unless in exceptional circumstances.
Windows has its own set of "never happen" things that would never happen on Linux. For example, without being instructed, writing a partition onto a disk with an "unknown" file system, which turned out to be disk, part of a RAID. Or simply override an existing boot partition after an update. Etc.
You are right, I wanted to do some nodejs and realized that the package in the repo was Node version 12.something while latest node is version 20.something.
Also they still ship Python 3.10 which is ancient technology by today's standard, luckily nothing major is added between 3.10 and 3.12
Their mirrors are worst, ALL OF SELECTABLE OPTIONS FROM MIRROR SELECTOR which shows up at 47 KB/sec which just hurts your area spanning from asshole to large intestines.
I use bridgetide linux mint mirror btw
So why am I not switching?
Here is why: Linux mint is based on Ubuntu meaning that you can add Ubuntu repos or ppas or whatever they need directly into Linux Mint and dont have to worry about it breaking.
Say that you need to have some software for a reason and you cannot find one in Flatpak or an appimage, etc. You will be happy to realize that many of these software are built for Ubuntu and provide their deb package with own repo with updates.
I run Linux Mint 21.3 and that means I can just use a program built for Ubuntu Jammy as Linux Mint Virginia is based on Ubuntu Jammy. If I need to install something out of repo, I can just go and install Ubuntu jammy deb package and it will work normally.
I recommend OpenSUSE Thumbleweed for everyone, but I haven't used it for long time and I use only Gentoo and OpenWRT on all my devices. And Android on phone, hopefully 10 years later I will replace it with linuxphone.
I never recommend Mint! It’s like it became this de facto distro to steer newbies toward just because it sort of kind of looks like Windows?
Elementary OS is simple, polished, elegant and in a good way less customizable so the user can just get to work.
Alternatively if they want something more familiar like the start menu there’s KDE on Ubuntu or OpenSUSE, among others.
Mint was impressive like fifteen years ago; it’s still fine, but nothing in particular makes it more appealing than some of the ones I mentioned which have significant advantages.
Linux Mint has a very good track record thanks to their "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" mentality and user friendliness. That's why people still recommend it. With the rapid developments around gaming related software, their mentality works against them.
Yes it does. Your whole display server is your desktop/WM when using Wayland. Using the newer versions you get things like VRR, HDR, fractional display scaling and so on.
In the last year I was intentionally using beta packages of KDE Plasma to get stuff like touchpad gestures early. Even now, Plasma makes important developments like HDR and explicit sync so yes, it still matters.
#NobaraGang. I gave Mint a go a few years ago and just never really got anywhere close to replacing my Windows install.
I've gotten 90% of all use cases handled by Nobara at this point. The main outlier being my sim racing setup just because according to forums the drivers for all the peripherals are just really not ready for adoption yet. My sim rig will stay on Windows for now as the whole reason I invested in a proper cockpit and peripherals was to reduce the friction involved with enjoying the sims. Also, anti-cheat seems to be a no-go on Linux for now so as an iRacing enjoyer, Linux is out of the question for the time being.
That said, my entire home studio for recording (incl. Hardware peripherals), my daily driver use case and all my other gaming needs are currently met by Nobara. I'm so happy to be able to end my reliance on Microsoft.
I’m so happy to be able to end my reliance on Microsoft.
Microsoft is a frequent contributor to core Linux technologies these days. Lennart Poettering to Microsoft has probably been the most prominent move but there are others that work on Azure Linux and WSL who also upstream their work.
What I was trying to say was that I'm happy to be free of Microsoft's ability to just sunset an operating system version that I liked and replace it with an even more privacy-disrespecting, ad and AI-bloated nightmare.
Nobara is at least under my control in a significant way. Windows, like so many other software solutions these days wants to treat me like cattle and I want no part in that.
Also fedora is hella configured out of the box, which is nice for new users, and a good reason to just use it. But at that point i think you should just use something like debian while figuring out how to properly do the whole linux thing because it's going to positively benefit you quite a bit.
None of them good for non techy people. I wouldn't recommend mint. Gnome is the most friendly DE with pleasing defaults. There are many immutable flatpak distros coming with gnome. e.g.: Endless os which is pre installed on some asus laptops instead of Ubuntu for reason.
I feel like people have an interesting view of techy/advanced/etc
My view is that you need to pick something in line with your goals: some people may be techy but just need something to host files and a web browser and don't care about new packages or whatever, or modern security or anything. I wouldn't recommend mint or fedora for a gaming PC regardless of techiness, you know?
Our views can be compatible. Endless os is quite limited right now, but if flathub would have xampp, for example, that would be easily the simplest way to run a webserver. However, every techy person prefers docker, me too. It's just not something that my mother can deal with. In general, linux is lacking these mother compatible apps where we have more advanced solution. Of course, I wouldn't recommend endless and others in the category if the goal is to run a webserver.
People who expect an effortless transition from Windows to Linux, are better off sticking to Windows. You are expected to be able to read stuff, and make some effort to understand it. It shouldn't be any less than what you'd expect if going from Linux to Windows.
Many things will be different. You'll get a long way with learning some fundamentals. If you make the effort, it'll be well rewarded. If it's not worth the effort, stick to windows.
I agree that Linux Mint is closer to what the vocal Linux desktop community would like to see, but Ubuntu is anything but abandoned. Where I work, both my coworkers (excluding myself) and customers are either using RHEL or Ubuntu. That’s it. Sure, everyone on Lemmy and Reddit swears against Ubuntu and has no need for plain-RHEL, but a lot more of the non-vocal Linux community is using Ubuntu. I prefer Pop!_OS, but that’s besides the point.
Source: Ubuntu is anywhere between 4th and 6th place on these charts:
These thumbnails are also the reason why people stay away from Linux. How is the little girl relevant to your question?
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.
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.
Hur durr... You have different interests... Therefore degenerate...
Do you even realize how incredibly stupid the whole concept of tribalism is?
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.
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.
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.
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"
Not sure why you're getting downvoted for correctly using the term and calling out the degenerates who self-insert as little girls everywhere.
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.
She uses arch btw
Yes I do
Idk, I feel like gatekeeping is a bigger problem than anime thumbnails.
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.
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.
Not at all but ok.
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.
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.
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"
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.
To be fair this is kinda "did you try to reboot?" kind of answer. Stupid, but effective.
IT'S TIME TO REINSTALL ШINDOWS! This is why I love Linux community, especially Gentoo. Reinstalling system is rarely considered to be valid answer.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
Linking to upstream source instead of copying answer that will be outdated is neither gatekeeping nor "RTFM toxicity"
I never said rtfm is toxic but it is well known how toxic arch community used to be. Im very much referring to that.
from the thumbnail and title text i thought i was browsing 4chan
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.
maybe it's a good thing these blind haters of anime stuff aren't nearby
Anime fans, despite counterintuitiveness, have greater average IQ that not anime fans.
Lol source pls
Personal experience. Go search for linux users among football fans. Both footballs. You won't find as often.
That's a terrible comparison
Ok. Marvel fans then.
Ok that makes more sense, I see your point
What problems?
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?
If you have new hardware, why wouldn't you use the Edge ISO?
Can you explain? As a Mint user with really old hardware, I appreciate using the LTS kernel. However, I also appreciate them giving users other options.
It's a bad choice to have choice?
I run a 3x1 setup and KDE didn't handle it any better than Cinnamon did.
Wayland support is coming to Mint. You can actually use it on 21.3 right now but it is unstable.
Rest of what you said is opinion.
Well, I got rid of KDE and I'm on Cinnamon right now, so where are these tearing issues? You think I would have noticed after over a year of use.
Are your monitors all the same resolution, refresh rate and size?
Why would I care what software KDE comes with? This is Linux. I can install whatever works best for me. Including the whole of KDE software suite if I so chose. You KDE fans are voracious.
I use KdenLive on Mint whenever I need to edit a video. I've never bothered to look for the other two because I use Darktable and GIMP for my photo editing, but I can check to see if they're available if you want me to.
Does that include support for variable refresh rate with multiple monitor (Freesync in my case).
Yes
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.
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.
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.
wait is THAT why my mint edge iso randomly fucking sends me back to login screen??
I assume compiling Mesa is rather difficult to set up? For reference I've not bothered to try and compile Lutris or Wine.
With AUR it's as easy as installing any other package, actually.
You just install the git version from AUR.
Installing Arch appears to be more complex than Mint's Click Yes x4 GUI. Should I expect almost everything to just work after install?
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.
Looks like mid-to-high-level difficulty if you really want to build from source, due to multiple complex interdependent configuration flags that have to match your hardware, and the need to check a kernel option or two. (Based on the Gentoo ebuild for mesa 24.1.2).
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.
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.
stay away from debían stable or slackware then....
I generally would for desktop use, and absolutely wouldn't rexommend them for a new user.
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.
And I'm on 6.5 right now running the Mint Edge ISO edition on Mint 21.3
And worse compatibility. Old packages are a no go for upstream supported hardware like Intel's and AMD's.
If you have cutting edge hardware, this might be an issue. But most people don't and for them Mint will work just fine. If you want cutting edge, don't use Mint. But that's not their focus at all. Mint is for people who just want their computer to work with minimal hassle.
These don't seem like competing needs. When I think "just work with minimal hassle", I don't think "I need to restrict myself to outdated hardware".
I'm perfectly happy running old packages in general. I'm still on Plasma 5, and it works just as well as it did last year. But that's a matter of features, not compatibility. Old is fine; broken is not.
I think Mint is mostly for the "I have a PC that’s a few years old and want something easy and reliable to replace Windows with" crowd. Because it works great for that. It’s the perfect beginner distro.
Yeah absolutely zero newbies are going to buy a new computer in order to test out Linux.
The machine I have running mint is a fifteen year old Core 2 Duo T6600 laptop. Works great!
I do want to add that new games can also require new packages, the way Alan Wake II did at launch. Even on Arch you had to compile the development version of Mesa for it to run.
Elementary OS. Hassle-free, elegant and polished, distraction-free.
I'd give it a shot if i was on the lookout for something new, but I see absolutely no reason to switch from Mint.
Yeah there’s no need to change if you’re content with what you’re using.
No, thanks to Valve's efforts for Steam Deck all RDNA2 hardware directly benefits for upstreamed improvements.
If you have cutting edge hardware, you would probably need linux-next kernel. Otherwise you don't have cutting edge hardware.
The thing is that Linux has gone mainstream, with young adults and teens trying it out for Gaming and Streaming. The target people has changed so recommending Mint is not suitable anymore.
I wouldn't quite go so far as to say it's gone "mainstream" since you still have to be moderately nerdy to know about it. I get your point though. This is one of the reasons I am so happy the Steam Deck exists. Before Valve released the Steam Deck nobody wanted to make games for Linux, so Valve said "fuck it, we'll do it ourselves" and proved it was not only possible, but a better experience overall. While not all games work, having 78-80% of your game library work on Linux, with no Windows OS performance tax, is a great experience. Even with the Proton compatibility layer games generally run faster than on Windows.
this video from last month has 600k views. Ive seen several recent linux videos with 150k+ views. Brodie, Horn and the Linux Experience constantly pull 50k to 200K views on some of their videos.
You don't have to run linux to watch a video about linux.
It mean to say its not an obscure thing anymore, Id say its becoming mainstream.
Not even close to approaching mainstream!
It'a close. Isn't it at 4% market share? That's higher than Firefox.
Any distro will "just work" if used correctly....
If you have to tiptoe around to use it "correctly", it doesn't "just work"
I never said anything about "tiptoeing around", but what you said here is correct....
As someone who daily drives Mint, wut.
Why did you post a drawing of a child? Kinda weird
What do you mean? She's 32000 years old. /s
Linux user moment
Linux users can't even agree on what distro is actually beginner friendly, 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 @Magnolia_ The best Distro for beginners is the one, a friend or family member can give support.
I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in my circle who even knows what Linux is.
You are on the path to be that family member or friend for someone else. Welcome.
You are on the path to be that family member or friend for someone else.
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.
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
The solution is to not be cconfident and remain open minded. You can switch any time
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.
What would you need for convincing?
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)
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...
Thank you for the reply!
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.
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 😅.
Brings back memories. This process took me about two weeks.
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.
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.
That's really depending on your use cases, for example if I want to install distro for my grandma use Mint, for a graphic guy (as in this example) use Arch or Fedora (or even OpenSUSE), etc.
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.
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.
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?
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.
I think the onboarding and new user experience for Mint could be better, but I think there's one important thing that I think makes Mint a good intro distro: Its Ubuntu base.
If you look up guides for "linux" it usually gives instructions for Ubuntu, which usually also apply to Mint. Likewise, if you look for software downloads you tend to find Ubuntu debs.
I know flatpak fixes these issues to an extent, but I think we're not there yet.
I wish it shipped a newer kernel
They have a fairly new version called Edge that ships with a newer kernel (currently 6.5).
6.5 is not a new kernel though. I am on 6.9. Maybe they should move the normal release to 6.5 and make edge use the latest stable kernel or something.
some of those ubuntu instructions that come up jn search results are from as far back as the mail order ubuntu cd era and installing debs directly is a slippery slope
Because it is stable and works really well. It has GUI apps that are not only not broken but well designed and snappy.
Stable is not equivalent to "works well". It is randomly frozen at some point, mostly not in contact with upstream devs, so you just have outdated packages.
OpenSUSE slowroll sounds like a way better model. Or maybe CentOS stream.
But it's not randomly frozen, it's tied to Ubuntu's LTS builds. And they didn't say "stable" is the same as "works well", they said Mint is both (which is true from my experience at least)
If you need newer packages with Mint, Flatpak is a good way to go (yes it has its own issues, but they do work well for a lot of people)
It is randomly frozen as not all developers follow Ubuntus release schedule. They just release when it is ready.
Stability means backporting tons of bugfixes to tons of small packages and libraries. I dont think Ubuntu does that for enough packages, best example Plasma 5.27 on Kubuntu. I have reported over 200 bugs I guess and most of the newer ones are just fixed in Plasma 6.
Flatpak for sure is a good way, and if a distro is stable, they should only install Flatpaks.
It is not randomly frozen as Mint does follow Ubuntu's LTS releases, every new version they put out is based on whatever the current Ubuntu LTS is. Their release cadence isn't linked that closely as a new LTS usually takes a few months to spawn a new Mint release based on it, but they aren't just freezing some arbitrary point in time of development.
If you mean Ubuntu is randomly frozen, it isn't either. It follows a release schedule, determines a roadmap, and at a certain predetermined point in developing a new release, they do freeze for new versions so they can complete testing and ensure everything works together in time to release on schedule. It's certainly not "random".
And that's also not what stability means. Stability means functionality doesn't change, so an up to date Mint 21.3 installed on release is going to be the same as one installed and updated now, functionally speaking. This is accomplished by only backporting important security patches and bug fixes to the version of the software that's used by the system rather than getting it with new versions where there are new features and changes to existing functionality that can break things based on the previous version. This does not mean it gets all fixes, just the ones they deem worth the effort of backporting.
Yes I think you mentioned the relevant points here. Ubuntu tests their preinstalled software, while there is tons more in the repos that is not as tested. Same with Mint.
And they backport only stuff they think is necessary. For example Plasma 5 is based on the EOL Qt5 and backporting things to Plasma 5 is nearly impossible as you need real Plasma devs and nobody really wants to do that.
Plasma 6 is really stable, 6.1 not so much, but the timing was not perfect. Simply because they do their release schedule as fixed as that.
It is a total pain if you simply want working software, as they may backport some stuff, but all the stuff not preinstalled, or that is very complex, will not get fixes.
This is the same with all stable distros, if the maintainers dont literally maintain all the software there is.
I mean, that's definitely a downside to long term stable distros. So, basically, the choice is between that and a rolling release which has the downside of the possibility of things breaking on update and never really having an easily reproducible build
No, Fedora is semi-rolling with less random freezes. Regular Ubuntu is similar but just not Ubuntu please.
Fedora also had 13 months of support so staying on the older version gives an extra stability.
And then there is OpenSUSE slowroll, which is CI/CD with more testing
Ubuntu has a lot of "snappy" GUI apps as well...
You said the bad word that hipster Linux boi's don't like. I rarely have trouble our of Ubuntu. I've slowly eliminated most of the snaps. But its not cool for it to work. It has to be hyped. This is what they can't stand.
Ubuntu is a lot of things but it isn't snappy
Snappy and bloaty
Not slow and bloaty. I'm not sure why you think snaps are snappy. They aren't.
It is pun. Snaps are bloaty and not snappy.
Because choosing a distro to begin with isn't easy. Ask ten people and you'll get eleven suggestions.
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.
Laughs in Debian Stable
Excitedly get new machine. Install Debian.
Not so excitedly search error messages.
Dejectedly find need kernel/drivers that's 18 months later than the Debian versions
boot sysrescuecd to find next distro to write to USB drive ....
kick self for buying shiny, latest hardware without checking for linux support. Again....😡
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.
Ah, OpenSuse. The distro with the package management that spams your drive full of unnecessary optional dependencies.
Would always recommend EndeavourOS.
Sadly true. When I installed texlive-base it tried to install like 300 recommended packages, I almost accepted D:
I'd still recommend it, I don't know if you can change the default for recommended packages because aside from that, I actually love it.
Yesss! My first five minutes with OpenSuse.
I mean, you can change that behaviour somehow. But there are so many other small things like the constant vendor changes. Zypper is just so quirky. It's a cool distro and to have a rolling release option like tumbleweed is always a big plus in my opinion, but I just wouldn't recommend it to people who are not really eager to play around with their distro.
What I find weird about Tumbleweed is, that updating is not integrated into YaST or another UI. You have to use the commandline to keep your system up to date. That makes it exactly as inconvenient as Arch for newcomers, but Arch has a whole philosophy behind this while SuSE is typically very GUI oriented. It's weird.
With KDE Plasma it lets me update from its store, even though it's kind of annoying because I like to do it from the CLI and it blocks Zypper when checking for available updates.
Tried it once and literally could not get nvidia drivers to install. Went straight back to endeavouros and continued to enjoy
Maybe you should have clicked on 'nvidia repository' in Yast. That's pretty much all there is to it.
Except that didn't work
I recommend fedora to every one. It's the correct kind of stable distro. The kernel updates are slow to roll out after being tested and all... But guess what version of plasma I have? 6.1. That's just a few weeks later than arch got it.
Plus not to mention how easy setting up my Optimus gpu was because of rpmfusion. I have never had such ease with any other distro.
So I recommend fedora all the way.
Fedora (including Silverblue/Kionite) is hard to recommend as a first distro though. It's an excellent platform when you know your end goal and how to get there, while providing "leading-edge" packages that's great for gaming.
But a project like Bazzite? Phenomenal new user experience for gaming and a very easy recommend.
If you want a non-gaming alternative to Bazzite to recommend, there's it's two universal blue siblings, Aurora (general purpose desktop) and Bluefin (silverblue/workstation distro). They both have the same setup as Bazzite but without the explicitly gaming elements. https://universal-blue.org/
I'm literally switching from Bazzite to Aurora right now.
Bluefin and Aurora are the same except they use Gnome and KDE respectively.
Each offers a general purpose version and a developer experience version.
Yeah, I think they're based off the fedora atomic desktops of Silverblue and Kinoite respectively which are gnome and kde based. They do angle Bluefin as more workstation oriented, for what it's worth.
I love Bazzite. It's now my daily driver on my laptop and Stream Deck! It just works.
Bazzite is broken AF on Nvidia right now, with no X11 and no explicit sync driver. I can't wait to see if driver 555 fixes it.
Edit - 555 is out, and yes it is considerably better.
I just switched it to x11 and it was fine.
I recently picked up an AMD GPU so I re-based to the regular one which was amazingly easy.
Ouch, didn't realize the Nvidia build was struggling. Hopefully it gets patched up soon.
If there's a previous commit before the issue is introduced you can pin it and wait to unpin until the issue gets resolved.
I have an Nvidia image and haven't had these issues. I can run Wayland just fine. I believe they include X11 as well.
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.
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.
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
The moemorphic character shown in the picture is Archchan, created by ravimo. I wonder why show her in a discussion about Mint?
I have no idea wtf you're talking about
This was news to me as well, but I assume that the Arch Linux logo in question suggests that it might be strange to use an Arch Linux specific illustration, for something that isn't mentioning Arch Linux.
Did that clear it up, or were you just being rude?
Ohhhhhhhh
@Magnolia_ been running Mint for years and never had issues with the package versions being too old for anything 🤷🏻♂️
I'm generally in the same boat. I don't think of Mint's packages as "old", but "stable". I've had a few cases where I want the latest features, and there are easy ways to get new versions. Dialing down instability isn't so easy.
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.
Why? Because there's no distro which just works! You want HDR? Instead distro X. You want to play games? Install distro Y. You want your high DPI monitor to work properly? Install Z. What the fuck is this shit?
The three replies:
Just search for how to do it, there's lots of support. Not that hard.
Just run these terminal commands. It looks scary but it'll work trust me.
What do you expect it's Open Source? If you don't like it contribute asshole.
"not that hard" is the kind of glib, conceited thing that keeps lots of new people from joining the community
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.
Well you went from one of the easiest to one of the more complicated distros so thats not surprising. There's a lot of distros thst are just as simple to install as mint, you don't need to mess around with arch and gentoo unless you're planning on becoming a real Linux enthusiast.
Don't know. I was installing Gentoo in 6th grade of school with poorly-translated gentoo handbook.
EDIT: had wrong quote
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dear Faust.
Difficulty:
I thought you went with minimalcd, opened handbook in links(browser) and installed stage3.
Self-perpetuating circle of "Gentoo is not for noobs" stereotype.
Gentoo is good at explaining how system works.
30 days? I'm on month 3 with no issues.
Meanwhile, I had to dump Nobara on another PC because I couldn't get RDC working, no matter what instructions I followed.
And no, VNC wasn't an option for this.
It's easy to install, it's Ubuntu based which means stable and a wide variety of software and support. Cinnamon looks beautiful in Mint and works perfectly. Installing a deb is a breeze and using the App Store is way easier than using YAST. The cli commands are now easy to understand or remember compared to apt.
Fedora usb creation is a nightmare and can potentially f up your bios if something goes wrong. DNF is also but easy to understand or remember compared to apt.
Gnome is too barebones for a first time user whereas Cinnamon is feature rich and is themed very well. Plus great wallpapers are included. The lock screen wallpapers are easily changed and look great too.
As long as there is no shit Nvidia card the driver installation tends to work perfectly. Don't use Nvidia people. They are a shit, unethical, don't give a crap about Linux company. Use AMD.
And for Linux users who've been around longer, there's Linux Mint Debian Edition which for us is even better because it's not Ubuntu based but Debian based and stable.
I get the latest Firefox directly from Mozilla and any app I can't find in Synaptics I can normally get in Flatpak. Works perfectly well for me. I highly recommend it.
Yeah if only VR would work hassle free without Nvidia... At this point it became a Stockholm situation for me
Why shouldn't VR work without Novidia?
I have to ask obvious question first. How?
It does some weird formatting to the usb stick. You literally have to use their tool to unformat it again otherwise it's screwed. That's been my experience.
I had an issue on my MacBook bios safety installing Fedora. Wouldn't boot and even if I tried installing Ubuntu over it, still would not boot.
Had to reinstall Mac OS and have it repair the bios. Only after that could I get Linux installed and booting again.
I don't know how they screwed it up but they did.
I'm not sure what you mean by broken bios. If you has broken bios, you wouldn't be able to reinstall Mac OS.
Also any formatting tool in any OS should be able to turn bootable USB stick back to storage only USB stick. Windows, Linux, Mac, Haiku, *BSD, original Unix. Anything.
Mac OS doesn't install like a traditional OS. It downloads an iso from the cloud, stores it locally and then installs itself. It lets you open a terminal and I put in some commands to clear and restore the bios before installing the OS.
Normally any formatting tool should work on the USB but Fedora does something to the USB that prevents that. It definitely ruined a usb 3 drive I had and no amount of formatting would get it to work properly until I used their Fedora usb tool.
They are doing something weird.
Mint has user-friendly tools that are much better than Fedora's lack of tools and openSUSE's YAST for beginners.
Because Mint is popular among the crowd, and such challenges are also driven by the crowd. Better to see it as some social or meme dynamics, than to explain it with logical reasons. I also see more new users who use arch, because of the "I use arch BTW" meme.
As a Fedora Silverblue user I find it hard to recommend it to new users. It's not an issue with Fedora, but with the state of Linux desktop in general. At least with Mint/Ubuntu people can rely on social media and the community if they have problems. And Fedora is a more niche thing, and doesn't have a big crowd.
Moreover, I chose Fedora because of my experience, which allows me to have opinion what is better. But I don't think it's a good idea to explain the years of the Linux desktop drama to new users, when they are just doing the first steps or trying to feed their curiosity.
Fedora a niche distro?
It is comparatively to Debian/Ubuntu derivatives. Even Arch and NixOS probably have more users now. Lately I see some popularity of uBlue derivatives among new users, but I don't know how many people use it, and where the popularity comes from.
I've tried a few distro's recently. Pop os, mint, and nobara. Mint was pretty bad (i really wanted it not to be), nobara was good but had issues with sleep and after a month my sound quit working. Pop OS has been flawless and I love that I can set the workspaces hot key to the windows key.
I don't know the difference between Wayland and X11, all I know is that they're options, and I'm 30 days into the Arch-derived(is that the right term?) Garuda Linux that defaults Wayland with a 3080 and I haven't had any problems? Aren't the Mint problems that it's a stable distro with outdated stuff?
Stable has nothing to do with outdated packages.
That's a personal decision by a distro.
Fedora is a stable distro because generally the packages stay on the same major version throughout the version, however they have a list of exceptions for certain applications that should be updated for security or perhaps they don't follow a major/minor/bugfix release and it's bad practice to hack together your own versions.
Fedora rebases it's packages every 6 months, so it's never left far behind.
I see! Thank you for the explanation, I'm still very new as this is my first Linux and I did no planning or intentional research before swapping over, I just got mad at Windows and was formatting my main dive 15 minutes later. I avoided Mint specifically because I'd seen lemmy threads saying it was using old packages on purpose for stability reasons, and that for actual gaming I'd want rolling release?
It all depends on what you actually want to do.
I have a computer connected to the TV with Chimera installed because that's SteamOS 3 with emulators preconfigured and is completely couch + controller friendly.
My laptop has Fedora because it's up to date, but everything is tested before release, and all upgrade paths are automated unlike Arch which burnt me in the past with breaking changes.
On my Pi's I have Diet Pi, which is Debian but has images for each of the different ARM boards and has a bunch of scripts for setting up print servers, Home Assistant, etc. I want Debian for it's slow unchanging nature there.
On my desktop, less so.
But underneath they are all Linux, and they all behave in very similar ways, it's all about the initial setup.
Screen tearing hasn't been a serious issue in X11 for years now, unless you run XFCE. It's just not an issue in Gnome or KDE.
I run Wayland+ optimus and it worked on PopOS just fine. Took a slight bit of tweaking on Universal Blue, but nothing major. Mainly it works with gaming on Bazzite but not Aurora for some bizarre reason. CUDA worked fine in all of the above.
Arch is actually reasonable as the foundation of an easy to use Linux OS, provided you don't care about stability. It's up to date with all the latest stuff, has support for many apps and packages without having to add extra repos, and it has fantastic documentation. All that's really missing is the GUI installer and stuff to help newbies. Projects like EndeavorOS and Garuda provide that.
If you actually need stability though, which lots of new users would appreciate, use Fedora or a derivative like Nobara or Universal Blue.
I daily drive Nvidia plus Optimus with wayland, but it's easy enough to switch back to X11 just using a menu on the login screen.
How are you managing to break Linux OSes so much?
Isn't red hat enough reason to not use fedora?
Not really. Fedora is community run.
No, for one Red hat has every incentive to support Fedora. Also Fedora does its own thing separate from Red hat. Red hat does have some control but the community elects leadership and the elected leaders are what control the project direction. Also Fedora has a lot of volunteer package maintainers that would stop working if there was a hostile take over.
Notice that the community has left Ubuntu which used to be the community go to. They no longer have a large community working on projects and maintaining software.
thanks for the clarification. I just recently got into linux and don't know much, but as i was researching Fedora, that's what i came across. Which is a pretty big turn off for a newcomer migrating from windows and wanting to get away from big corporations.
Red hat I can live with. The problem is IBM.
Because people suggest distros based on their preference, not what is best suited in a given situation.
On one hand Mint is limited to X11 for now and surprise surprise “dealing with multiple monitors is horrible on Linux”. On other hand they’re on NVIDIA. This is close to not be the case, but X11 was a hard requirement for decades
I daily drive Optimus plus Wayland. Doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.
I like the mint project, but I dislike how it's done
I don't suggest mint to anyone anymore. I rather suggest Fedora or PopOs
PopOS! and Endeavor are my two recommendations for newbies. The former for fresh to Linux folks and the latter for those with some experience.
I don't recommend PopOS! because I think the Gnome UI is confusing to people who have only used Windows before.
I mean, Gnome suck imho. But, it’s easier to learn than dealing with issues that Mint causes due to drivers and game compatibility.
COSMIC looks awesome in screenshots though.
I tried PopOS and the pop store is not the best, and gnome is too foreign for someone coming from windows.
And also, too fiddly to make it work with a number of third party extensions vs the customization being built in.
KDE is heavier but also seems more streamlined and Cinnamon is fairly decent too.
I think Gnome VS KDE it's just a POV
Your argument makes sense that KDE and Cinnamon can be welcoming to Windows users. However I can argue that it can also make these newcomers to keep a "windows-like" mindset and that can be frustrating.
If a newcomer comes to Gnome, due to it's totally different paradigm, it may induce this newcomer to have an open mind and, therefore, be more welcoming to linux experience.
I don't think one argument or the other is right or wrong. I think both arguments are valid and that's just a different perspective. I, personally, think that a totally new paradigm is good to newcomers, but be free to disagree, since you understand that there is no right or wrong regarding this topic
I totally see your point and I tried GNOME first to have a uniquely Linux experience. I do agree with you. But the inflexibility of GNOME by default made it a much harder flip. I tried it with PopOS too, after using Debian for a while.
Plus tbh, I don't think with still how much you need to use the terminal for linux, anyone would be mistaken in the transition. Windows has kludge from the 90s for their settings and linux still needs terminal.
wait Mint was (and still is) out of date?
The kernel is too old for newer AMD gpu drivers to work, but switching to a newer kernel isn't too hard. I had to when I built a new computer last winter, but I have also used various *nixes for a good long time.
Knowing how to discover you need a newer kernel is a bit tough for recent convert, though.
I wouldn't call switching kernels that hard. It takes a few clicks and a reboot to do. However, they kicker is that you need to know to do that. You don't know what you don't know.
Exactly. As far as Linux has come in terms of ease of desktop use and hardware compatibility, there is still a barrier in knowing how to know which flavor is right for you and, almost more importantly, why that flavor is right.
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.
I'm sure talking about the 30days challenge from Raid Owl and I have an idea of his conclusion. First he's a power user (not in the fact of tweaking and scratch in the file system), he needs a lot of stuff to work. And for someone outside of the traditional office work or maybe developing, Linux is hard to use for graphics works, so sure Linux Mint is not for this kind of people but you should always recommended it to "normal" people and beginner in Linux. Sure in this case his conclusion is wrong, he should have used Fedora, Arch or OpenSUSE, but that's it.
I've played this game every year since 1998, and each year I try a wider range of distros. Long story short, EndeavourOS is the first distro that worked reliably and has by far the best support resources.
it hasn't been a problem lately, but for basically an entire year I was helping first timers through getting a more recent lutris for games because the one mint shipped was ancient and broken and on top of that the 32 bit wine dependencies were practically impossible to resolve for some games
It's the Lutris version shipped with 22.04, which by today's standards is definitely ancient. Because I'm not generally a Flatpak fan for stuff that requires larger packages or dependencies, I went directly to the Lutris PPA. And because I'm running KDE Neon, I had to work around the annoying libpoppler dependency issue that's always plagued Wine on Neon.
yep, and then they got rid of the ppa and people had to fall back to the deb
I always suggest Mint Edge edition, that has a newer kernel, not the default Mint. But I still suggest Mint, because simply, it's more user friendly than any of the other ones. It has gui panels for almost everything.
I'm not sure but, I always recommended Mint for it's ease of use, I tried fedora, didn't like it, will likely never use it again. First impressions are a pain cause if you fail the first impression you lose before you begin. It could be an amazing system but, it was a bigger pain to setup and get going plus had less resources for me to get started while using more lesser known tools that wern't easily transferrable from the previous systems I has tried.
Why not UBlue or Nobara?
For me, the systems I've installed Mint on for people, haven't had any problems at this current time. While I have never had an issue using Fedora myself(never been interested enough in OpenSUSE to keep with it when I've tried it), I'll never recommend Fedora in similar cases where I've installed Mint. The machines were older and the users aren't Linux enthusiasts. They just want a working machine to do basic tasks without breaking their bank to get a new machine when their Windows OS reached EOL.
However I can't confirm or explain why the people you say that are doing this challenge are having problems. I don't know their hardware specs and I don't know them so I don't know what they know about Linux.
(Please note, to all Mint users, I'm not saying Mint is only for non-Linux enthusiasts. I love how Mint is good for the non-enthusiasts and enthusiasts alike).
came here to spread the good word of endeavor os
Trying different distributions is a must on using Linux, I still remember my first one, Mandrake, and is not a happy memory. Now Arch is my master, to get here It was not an easy or direct ride, I tried several ones through the years until I find the light ;)
Oh, you need media codecs out of the box to watch pretty much anything in your browser?
That takes Fedora out.
OpenSUSE has probably the most confusing install interface for a noob you'll ever find. Which DE do I choose? What other software do I put in? How do I partition? Oh, I click a button here to make a user, or can I ignore it completely?
So much for OpenSUSE.
And don't get me started on Arch. You'd be way better off pushing a new user to Manjaro but everyone's got their panties in a twist about its devs.
Whatcha got now, big guy?
This is where Universal Blue and Nobara come in. They are made to be plug and play versions of fedora inc. media codecs, Nvidia, steam, and so on.
FWIW, +1 for Nobara. I think it's an excellent turnkey Fedora for most purposes. But it's a little chancy on being dependent on a single maintainer.
But Fedora itself isn't noob friendly when you have to figure out how to add the non-free repos and install all the rest of the shit. Nobara takes care of that well.
Are media codecs hard to install on Fedora? I haven’t daily driven Fedora in a while, but last I remember it was one of the top-level categories in GNOME Software. Click it then install all the things. Although I suppose if the user didn’t know what a media codec is that wouldn’t help them very much
Not anymore. They completely divested that off to having to get RPM Fusion repos set up and then manually install the codecs.
As another user said, Nobara does all this, and I use Nobara myself. But Fedora itself has made all that harder.
Oh that’s a shame. Yeah, then I’m right with you, that’s not beginner friendly
This can be said about any OS installer. Even Windows.
Not really
I am sure Win7 installer has it and if, I didn't get early dementia, Win10 installer has too.
Endeavouros ofcourse! All the goodness of arch, but with the ease of installation of any other desktop based distro!
Agreed, this is the distro that worked best for my needs (modern security, without wanting to die from maintenance of that security)
Ubuntu is fine. Pop!_OS if you're set on Flatpaks instead of Snaps.
Oh no! What's a desktop environment!? NEXT!
Honestly, Ubuntu and its variants are probably the best distros. It's not great, it has its drawbacks, but to get people started, perfectly fine.
@Magnolia_ I drive Fedora on laptop without any issues, and I reaally like Wayland and Fedora. X11 still better for normal people. Also UI and UX similar on Mint to Windows
I don't understand why people don't go for something like ZorinOS or Nobara. Both work great out of the box with support for like everything.
To be fair the nobara website is very "pet project" both in the design and also in the frequent warnings about using it for anything real. Is a good distro tho, having said that.
I agree with @[email protected] here. Could you describe what issues are people having? What is their user profile (programmers, writers, ...)?
Problems? 'old'? I seem to need a little clarification.
By default Mint ships 3 years old kernel and a lot of hardware don’t work with it. Mint allows installing newer kernel easily but one must know that is the case.
Mint only works on X11. This is fine to some, but to others it’s a showcase of X shortcomings right away
You think LM being "too old" is a problem for newbies? I've been running some distro or other since RedHat 5. I it took me 6 weeks of waiting for Fedora to sort out most of the issues, (and I STILL have some minor ghosting issues and I ain't no gamer), and 4 tries to get Fedora 40 to successfully take the nVidia drivers for the GTX1650 chipset in my laptop.
You think a new wannbe convert is going to put up with that?
I think it started with Linus and Luke of Linus Tech Tips doing a 30 day linux challenge to see what it's like daily driving linix. Jeff of Craft Computing did one recently as well.
Linus uninstalled his desktop after ignoring the warning that said °hey, this will uninstall your desktop.°
Which is his fault, but also this would never happen on Windows. The power and lack of hand-holding of Linux is a great advantage for power users, but with great power comes great responsibility, and many people don't need the responsibility.
For sure, which is why I only use Mint anyway. I need my hand held. But Linus was doing power-user things without power-user reading. You can't really claim the car is no good when you opened the hood and started swapping hoses without checking to see what goes where.
Yeah, I feel like Linux needs the equivalent of Administrator accounts on Windows. Root is the equivalent of the System account on Windows, something even power users might never encounter, because it's a level of power you shouldn't ever need.
We need users to have permission to install software and do other administrative tasks, without having permission to do very destructive actions like uninstalling core system packages. Aunt Flo should be able to install Mahjong from her distros package manager GUI, without needing dangerous root access.
Well, no, not exactly. Most accounts on desktop linux distros are admin accounts. The way I would define that is whether or not the user has sudo permissions, either by being in the sudo group or sudoers file. Some distros do ask if you want the user to be admin. And that's pretty analagous to being admin on windows and getting a UAC prompt for an elevated process.
Yeah, but there is no separation between being able to do day to day administrative actions like installing software, and being able to do destructive actions no one should need to do unless in exceptional circumstances.
Windows has its own set of "never happen" things that would never happen on Linux. For example, without being instructed, writing a partition onto a disk with an "unknown" file system, which turned out to be disk, part of a RAID. Or simply override an existing boot partition after an update. Etc.
Fedora isn’t all that easy for a complete noob to install NVIDIA proprietary drivers
It isn't bad these days. You just go into the software center and make a few clicks. It is something that you can find guides on how to do.
You are right, I wanted to do some nodejs and realized that the package in the repo was Node version 12.something while latest node is version 20.something.
Also they still ship Python 3.10 which is ancient technology by today's standard, luckily nothing major is added between 3.10 and 3.12
Their mirrors are worst, ALL OF SELECTABLE OPTIONS FROM MIRROR SELECTOR which shows up at 47 KB/sec which just hurts your area spanning from asshole to large intestines.
I use bridgetide linux mint mirror btw
So why am I not switching?
Here is why: Linux mint is based on Ubuntu meaning that you can add Ubuntu repos or ppas or whatever they need directly into Linux Mint and dont have to worry about it breaking.
Say that you need to have some software for a reason and you cannot find one in Flatpak or an appimage, etc. You will be happy to realize that many of these software are built for Ubuntu and provide their deb package with own repo with updates.
I run Linux Mint 21.3 and that means I can just use a program built for Ubuntu Jammy as Linux Mint Virginia is based on Ubuntu Jammy. If I need to install something out of repo, I can just go and install Ubuntu jammy deb package and it will work normally.
I recommend OpenSUSE Thumbleweed for everyone, but I haven't used it for long time and I use only Gentoo and OpenWRT on all my devices. And Android on phone, hopefully 10 years later I will replace it with linuxphone.
I never recommend Mint! It’s like it became this de facto distro to steer newbies toward just because it sort of kind of looks like Windows? Elementary OS is simple, polished, elegant and in a good way less customizable so the user can just get to work.
Alternatively if they want something more familiar like the start menu there’s KDE on Ubuntu or OpenSUSE, among others.
Mint was impressive like fifteen years ago; it’s still fine, but nothing in particular makes it more appealing than some of the ones I mentioned which have significant advantages.
Linux Mint has a very good track record thanks to their "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" mentality and user friendliness. That's why people still recommend it. With the rapid developments around gaming related software, their mentality works against them.
Do you really need fresh system packages? Outside of the kernel the desktop shouldn't impact the experience much.
Yes it does. Your whole display server is your desktop/WM when using Wayland. Using the newer versions you get things like VRR, HDR, fractional display scaling and so on.
In the last year I was intentionally using beta packages of KDE Plasma to get stuff like touchpad gestures early. Even now, Plasma makes important developments like HDR and explicit sync so yes, it still matters.
Elementary and OpenSUSE are problematic for so many reasons. Linux Mint is stable and reliable.
IDK, I use Debian sid
#NobaraGang. I gave Mint a go a few years ago and just never really got anywhere close to replacing my Windows install.
I've gotten 90% of all use cases handled by Nobara at this point. The main outlier being my sim racing setup just because according to forums the drivers for all the peripherals are just really not ready for adoption yet. My sim rig will stay on Windows for now as the whole reason I invested in a proper cockpit and peripherals was to reduce the friction involved with enjoying the sims. Also, anti-cheat seems to be a no-go on Linux for now so as an iRacing enjoyer, Linux is out of the question for the time being.
That said, my entire home studio for recording (incl. Hardware peripherals), my daily driver use case and all my other gaming needs are currently met by Nobara. I'm so happy to be able to end my reliance on Microsoft.
Microsoft is a frequent contributor to core Linux technologies these days. Lennart Poettering to Microsoft has probably been the most prominent move but there are others that work on Azure Linux and WSL who also upstream their work.
What I was trying to say was that I'm happy to be free of Microsoft's ability to just sunset an operating system version that I liked and replace it with an even more privacy-disrespecting, ad and AI-bloated nightmare.
Nobara is at least under my control in a significant way. Windows, like so many other software solutions these days wants to treat me like cattle and I want no part in that.
I figure you weren't a Gnome user during the 2.x to 3.x transition times.
Yes but also Nobara isn't an LTS distribution. Its versions get sunset way sooner than any major release of Windows.
because redhat smelly.
Also fedora is hella configured out of the box, which is nice for new users, and a good reason to just use it. But at that point i think you should just use something like debian while figuring out how to properly do the whole linux thing because it's going to positively benefit you quite a bit.
This.
MX
Using Linux for 30 years, I'm with MX and Xfce for years.
None of them good for non techy people. I wouldn't recommend mint. Gnome is the most friendly DE with pleasing defaults. There are many immutable flatpak distros coming with gnome. e.g.: Endless os which is pre installed on some asus laptops instead of Ubuntu for reason.
I feel like people have an interesting view of techy/advanced/etc
My view is that you need to pick something in line with your goals: some people may be techy but just need something to host files and a web browser and don't care about new packages or whatever, or modern security or anything. I wouldn't recommend mint or fedora for a gaming PC regardless of techiness, you know?
Our views can be compatible. Endless os is quite limited right now, but if flathub would have xampp, for example, that would be easily the simplest way to run a webserver. However, every techy person prefers docker, me too. It's just not something that my mother can deal with. In general, linux is lacking these mother compatible apps where we have more advanced solution. Of course, I wouldn't recommend endless and others in the category if the goal is to run a webserver.
i have a question, where is her second hand?
Below the frame looks like to me.
Compiling
People who expect an effortless transition from Windows to Linux, are better off sticking to Windows. You are expected to be able to read stuff, and make some effort to understand it. It shouldn't be any less than what you'd expect if going from Linux to Windows.
Many things will be different. You'll get a long way with learning some fundamentals. If you make the effort, it'll be well rewarded. If it's not worth the effort, stick to windows.
It's because Mint used to be Ubuntu without the fuss. Now Ubuntu is Ubuntu without the fuss and mint is Ubuntu with broken packages.
The funny part is that Mint was always just Ubuntu with broken packages.
Edit: I think I hurt some feelings
Ubuntu is a trojan horse for Snap.
What packages are broken? I haven't run into any.
P.S. I think Snaps are now the fuss, so I still think Mint is Ubuntu with the fuss.
Mint is what Ubuntu should of been. Ubuntu is kind of a dumpster fire that everyone abandoned.
I agree that Linux Mint is closer to what the vocal Linux desktop community would like to see, but Ubuntu is anything but abandoned. Where I work, both my coworkers (excluding myself) and customers are either using RHEL or Ubuntu. That’s it. Sure, everyone on Lemmy and Reddit swears against Ubuntu and has no need for plain-RHEL, but a lot more of the non-vocal Linux community is using Ubuntu. I prefer Pop!_OS, but that’s besides the point.
Source: Ubuntu is anywhere between 4th and 6th place on these charts:
https://distrowatch.com/dwres-mobile.php?resource=popularity