i have been using mint (cinnamon) too for like a year and a half. every now and then i try another distro and a few more, but i always land back where i started. it even looks pretty with the "sweet dark v40" gtk theme.
I do some e-wasting for a number of big companies and have piles of old laptops. I've taken to giving the laptops to people that need computers and the ones with Linux don't taken. I literally can't give away Linux computers. They can buy their own windows licenses.
Yep, people are so stubborn they would rather risk their entire online presence than learn that penguin hacker thingy with the white text. Also the Water is wet
Oh is this an excuse to hop on the Mint praise train? Don’t mind if I do!
For me it was smoother than windows to install, it runs much better moment to moment (it’s like the people that made it were worried about making nice software rather than the business goals being pushed by their managers), and most importantly the fact that it is the “beginner” distro doesn’t compromise its capabilities. I am in the terminal all day every day and I use the machine to work on software for embedded Linux systems.
Mint was so easy to install. I'm pretty new to Linux. Not afraid of having to do things in the terminal, but I don't really know many commands yet. So, I appreciate the graphical managers for updates and drivers. You can definitely tell they really worked to make a polished OS. And I really like Cinnamon. It's a very clean looking DE that has been super easy to transition to from Windows.
Unlike Kubuntu, I didn't have to do any tricks or install anything from github to get stuff from my Steam library to work, everything just worked. And Kubuntu (or perhaps just Wayland) would crash upon waking my PC from sleep and wouldn't recover.
Don't get me wrong, Cinnamon is fine, but it gets recommended religiously to beginners for some reason. It just doesn't make sense, so I will keep repeating this, not least to keep alive the ancient linux tradition of Desktop wars.
Still, any Windows to Linux transition is a step forward and I support this, upvoted.
As someone who has extensively used both Cinnamon and Plasma: I find Plasma a lot less polished, by a huge margin. Not only do settings have unusual defaults and are located in places you wouldn't expect, it also often has desktop-breaking bugs out of nowhere even in stable versions, and this has only gotten worse with Wayland. Even as someone who has been using Arch for years now, I still struggle with getting Plasma to not shit itself every once in a while.
Cinnamon on the other hand does have a lot less features out of the box, but the few things it does, it does them well, and every setting is where a sane person would search for them.
I would not recommend Plasma to a Linux beginner at all. It's the kind of unpolished mess that would make anyone who doesn't care enough about computers to just give up and go back to Windows.
Hm thanks for sharing your experience, it's very different from mine though. Have you used Plasma recently (Version 6+) ? And have you used it on a distro where it came pre-packaged? In my (limited) experience any DE installed on Arch is janky out of the box.
I am running Plasma 6.2.1 as we speak. Admittedly, yes, using Arch has certainly made it less stable. But more often than not, when I search the web for some strange behavior/bug/limitation in my desktop, I often find dozens of threads with lots of people reporting the same misbehavior or limitation from all over the distro space, and I have come to the conclussion that it's not entirely Arch's fault at that point.
Have you done literally any customization to panels? I swear that shit keeps crashing whenever I do so much as unpinning a simple app launcher plasmoid, and even if it didn't crash, it still takes patience to navigate through all the menus. They completely overhauled the way panel settings look and behave, and I still find the experience annoying as hell. In contrast, customizing panels is pretty straightforward in Cinnamon, and works as expected. It merely doesn't look as good.
I don't hate Plasma, or else I would have switched to another DE by now, but this is mostly because I have learned to tame it, and that took a lot of effort that no beginner should have to go through. Cinnamon is like, the polar opposite of that, which is why I'm okay with it being religiously recommended to beginners.
KDE's priorities are just kinda weird. I have the similar issues with Krita, an otherwise excellent drawing program.
I will likely go back to mint once Windows 10 is done. 11 is pure trash.
The major hang up I have is gaming. I have an Nvidia card and it's never behaved well with Linux. I also like GTAO but I will no longer be able to play it. Most of my other titles work fine.
I switched to Linux Mint several months ago. Thanks to Proton, All my Steam games that I bought for Windows run great. (I'm using an nVidia RTX 3060). And any older games like "Deus Ex" or "Giants: Citizen Kabuto" run under Wine, using the default settings.
pop!os reportedly packs in and handles the proprietary nvidia drivers for you, which can be a pain to handle yourself. i haven't tried it nor do i have nvidia but i see it highly recommended a lot.
Am using Pop!_OS for video editing (DaVinci Resolve Studio) and gaming with nvidia GPU. I don’t have to think much about the operating system or GPU drivers, they work perfectly fine and get out of the way when I need to do some work.
Also have it installed on both kids’ PCs (both with nvidia GPUs) and my wife’s laptop (AMD iGPU). My son has installed a few GNOME extensions to customize; my wife and daughter have left it pretty much stock. It’s about as unobtrusive as an OS can get.
I will always have a special place in my heart for EndeavourOS, but right now, I feel like I have a more solid foundation with Pop!_OS.
I got my start with kdenlive and still pull up some of my old project files in it, yeah. It’s really good, has a much better feature set than one would expect.
I got into the Blackmagic ecosystem with an Intensity Pro 4k capture card and was pretty happy to see that they offer native Linux support, even if it is for Rocky 8, so I snagged one of their Resolve Speed Editors, which came with a Resolve Studio license, and I’ve been using that ever since.
I too am in a conundrum. I like the idea of Linux a lot, but pretty much all I use my laptop for is a) Excel and b) very rarely games, neither of which make sense to use Linux for.
I'll build a home server at some point and I think that'll be my start.
In my experience people who really use excel are always going to need excel.
Also in my experience excel runs great on Mac Laptops, which are so much better than any other laptop I’ve touched in the last 20 years. If you’ve tried their touchpads you’ll know what I mean. Total game changers for truly mobile computing working without a desk.
In my experience people who really use excel are always going to need excel
That's my experience too, unfortunately. LibreOffice is lagging too far behind O365 on features that you can reliably cooperate on spreadsheets across applications. Something like e.g. XLOOKUP is a fairly recent addition in Calc.
Like if people actually cared that a Windows version goes EoL. That literally means nothing to most people and typical PC user won’t even notice anything until something will functionally break, which will take YEARS after it's EoL.
Sure, Linux has some selling points and it’s a good moment for it to try and gain new users, but I'm tired of people acting like it’s the YOTLD because of what Microsoft is doing to Windows. It’s just delusional
The Steam Deck and it's desktop mode are why I decided to try jumping head first into a single boot of Bazzite on my main computer, it's basically like using a Steam deck, just across four monitors, a year in and I haven't looked back.
That was my thoughts, too. So, now I'm running Mint on my gaming PC and the one hooked up in my living room for streaming. I tried Kubuntu, and liked it, but KDE Wayland was giving me issues. Installing a different desktop environment just introduced more problems, so I went with a different distro with the DE I wanted, which was Mint with Cinnamon. Now, life is good.
Remember when Windows XP reached EoL the first time in 2009 and people abandoned it? Yeah, me neither, but I remember Microsoft groaning and extending some support for a few more years, until the final EoL in 2014. I expect the same to happen to 10.
question, i have a older computer that i want to switch to linux. It has a 1080. Do i just install linux and it will work, or do i have to go look for drivers, or do i have to use the onboard graphics till i get everything installed? How do i have to imagine it?
I am a Linux beginner so i could be wrong, but I believe Linux is very plug and play and has drivers already integrated. At least I don't remember downloading any when I set it up. I am personally using Linux Mint Cinnamon with a GTX 1060. In Mint there is a Driver Manager preinstalled which let's you pick a few nvidia drivers and an open source alternative, so it's very beginner friendly :)
::: spoiler screen capture Driver Manager
:::
do I have to use the onboard graphics till i get everything installed?
To that I can confidentially say no: because I have no onboard graphics and always had video output ^^
But joking aside, I admit I haven't done much with the laptop since installing mint (cinnamon for those playing at home). But I did instsll a daw (reaper) and recorded some music ideas using my Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 audio interface
Does anyone else find these OS wars silly? To me an OS is a tool and you should be using whatever tool is best suited for the job. For me I'm regularly switching between all 3 major OS's.
I've got windows systems, Linux systems and MacOS all under regular use at home
Well, most people don't have spare computers at home, so they do actually need to decide. It also means that they can't easily try out different operating systems, so even when they're unhappy with their current OS, they'll rarely inform themselves about alternatives.
You would be right, only if a preference for one OS didn't negatively affect other OSes. If less people used windows, there would be fewer windows-exclusive software. And if that were the case, the likelihood would decrease that my university classes would require windows-exclusive software.
You might say, "just use wine," or "just use a windows VM." Wine doesn't always work with all software, and using a windows VM would undermine one of my main reasons for using Linux, which is privacy.
It is therefore in my best interest that people stop using windows. It's not a vendetta, it's not activism, it's democracy.
The average user cares less about their OS being EoL, than that they have to learn a whole new OS that works "completely" different to what they are used to.
This just objectively isn't true. The XP EOL date actually forced users hands. There WAS refresh cycle in 2014, the only reason it didn't turn in to the uprising it is seemingly turned into, is because Microsoft kinda got lucky, and this refresh cycle purged Pentim 4-s and Celeron M-s and Pentium D-s, and old Athlons, all of which were ewaste from new.
I started on mint a couple months ago and so far I've tried as many distros as I could find. I liked manjaro but then found out about their controversies so I'm currently on endeavour os. Half of the fun for me has been experimenting with different desktops and whatnot, which has gotten me back into computer stuff.
They are starting to test opt-out telemetry and from what I read, it sounded pretty invasive. I'm no tech genius though so I'd check the links in that other comment.
Serious question from someone who is in this situation: What the best os for someone who want to switch from window 10 to Linux because of the eol? Is it really mint ?
First step: Decide on the so-called desktop environment. A shortlist is provided below. For a new user, this should be decisive when choosing between beginner-friendly distros.
Before going over to the next (and final) step, we need to set the stage for our contenders:
Versions of Linux Mint. Linux Mint has (rightfully so) become the face of Linux for beginners. Stand out feature would be how crazy popular it is; it's a joy to look up your problem through a search engine and find solutions for it.
Images of uBlue. Where Linux Mint tries to smooth the rough edges of the "traditional Linux model" as nicely as possible, uBlue's images can be referred to as revolutionary by comparison. The model strikes some (re)semblance to what you might know from your phone or chromebook. These images aren't even close to reaching their full potential, but have already garnered/amassed a wide audience for how they (at least attempt to) solve some of Desktop Linux' long-standing issues. Note that finding solutions for your problems might not be as straightforward. However, documentation is decent and they've been very helpful on Discord.
Final step: Pick the distro corresponding to your preferred desktop environment. The list found below (ordered alphabetically) isn't trying to be exhaustive on desktop environments.
Cinnamon; Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition. This is their flagship and probably what people mean when referring to Linux Mint.
GNOME; Bazzite's GNOME. If you don't intend to game, then consider Bluefin instead.
KDE Plasma; Bazzite's KDE Plasma. If you don't intend to game, then consider Aurora instead.
My first foray into Linux was through what you'd refer to as immutable Linux; shortly after the release of Fedora Kinoite. I'm literally the embodiment of the antithesis to your statement.
It is very new
This is factually true. So I can't simply deny that. But being more precise is helpful:
Fedora Atomic, the family of distros that enable uBlue, has been in the works since 2014. This eventually culminated into the release of Fedora Atomic Workstation in 2018, which was the name of Fedora Silverblue before the name change.
The first commit of uBlue as a project happened over three years ago.
They will get a little more respect from me when they stop trying to target programmers and gamers. Because of course everyone uses Steam and VScode. It just feels very much like it is being run by young edgy programmers. It is the same group that is trying to force crappy "dark mode" everywhere.
What's the bigger program is the lack of internet knowledge about how to fix problems. With Ubuntu and Debian there are tons of stack overflow pages on all of the various issues. Sure things have changed over time but it still the most documented distro. I can look up "how do I fix X Linux Mint" and I will get an answer. With the Bazzite immutable base almost all of the help online will be useless.
So in short I wouldn't recommend something like Bazzite. Immutable Linux requires that you understand Linux under the hood. Also I am strongly against distros that need to market themselves as gaming.
Bazzite started as a project to resolve some of the issues that plague SteamOS:
Mainly out of date packages (despite an Arch base).
The lack of a functional package manager.
Issues pertaining to persistence of installed software across updates. (Reinstalling that obscure VPN software you spent an hour trying to get working in SteamOS isn't fun.)
Like, SteamOS is a pretty cool operating system that allows both Linux enthusiasts and Linux newbs to enjoy playing (most of) their favorite games on Linux. But the former may find it too restrictive, while the latter may want to import that experience over to other devices. Bazzite aims to be that solution. Were it not for the success of the Steam Deck (and by extension SteamOS), such pressing need wouldn't even have arisen. So Bazzite isn't trying to target gamers as "an easy way to attract users" (or whatever the insinuation may be); its raison d'être is to address SteamOS' limitations.
Regarding the targeting of programmers, you could be right on that. But I suppose it's fine as VS Code's inclusion (and other goodies) is only confined to the respective -dx images. I regard Bluefin (and Aurora; its KDE Plasma spin-off) as the opinionated distro its maintainers like to use for themselves (i.e. programmers). I'd argue this actually makes it suitable for most people. But your average Linux user is a lot more sensitive towards 'bloat'. So it's definitely not for everyone.
It just feels very much like it is being run by young edgy programmers.
I guess my reply would be that I simply don't feel that way. And factually, it's being worked on by people that work (or have worked) at places like Canonical, Red Hat and (even) Microsoft. So, while that doesn't necessarily dismiss them as being "young edgy", it does make it easy to trust and be confident in their proficiency and competence. I wonder what other distros are maintained by such a star ensemble.
It is the same group that is trying to force crappy “dark mode” everywhere.
This is probably some meme or meta joke/reference I didn't get. Please feel free to enlighten me.
What’s the bigger program is the lack of internet knowledge about how to fix problems. With Ubuntu and Debian there are tons of stack overflow pages on all of the various issues. Sure things have changed over time but it still the most documented distro. I can look up “how do I fix X Linux Mint” and I will get an answer. With the Bazzite immutable base almost all of the help online will be useless.
I admitted to as such in my first comment. But, what if, instead of looking up questions in your favorite search engine, you visit their support channels and get the exact answer within a couple of moments? This last bit has been based on my own experience*.
Immutable Linux requires that you understand Linux under the hood.
Instinctively, I just absolutely have to disagree on this. The most clear-cut counterexample would be how NixOS -the granddaddy of immutable atomic distros if you will- doesn't adhere to many Linux conventions (including FHS). Therefore, "understanding (traditional) Linux under the hood" might have even been detrimental and wasteful for the many things you'd have to unlearn.
Beyond the overlap in Linux 101 that most distros adhere to and/or the basics everyone should know about their operating system, could you please demonstrate how "understanding (traditional) Linux under the hood" becomes necessary with atomic distributions?
Kubuntu uses snaps as default and I’ve had some trouble with that. My dad is using Kubuntu and there are problems with how programs communicate. Mint is probably a better choice.
I'll admit I'm biased because I think Cinnamon is ugly. Most people seem to like it and I get it. I just wish Mint hadn't abandoned the KDE edition. Mint is definitely a great choice though.
I switched from Win10 to Mint, and am quite happy. You can get a lot of stuff done through GUI, so you can put off learning how to use the terminal a little. If you are worried about using it, I can recommend using ChatGPT. Helped me troubleshoot a lot of issues and learning a few tricks.
And you could stay in mint for years and barely have to use bash, and when you do there is a well stocked forum, so it is sometimes even easier than windows to troubleshoot.
Such a decisive question. I wouldn't say there's necessarily a "best". Mint is an EXCELLENT choice. So too would be Fedora (Fedora KDE edition I'd recommend for most) or OpenSuSe Tumbleweed.
Just pick what looks decent to you and give it a shot.
mint is good, pop!os is also good, i use and recommend endeavouros as arch-but-easy. tbh just about any popular distro these days is prolly gonna do fine for the average user.
RIP your inbox lol. Like others have said though whatever you choose test it out booting off a USB first, fwiw I'd vote try FedoraKDE, but more importantly I'll add this:
Whatever you choose it will be different and it will be an adjustment in some capacity, and that's ok! And don't be scared of the terminal, always keep back ups just in case but you really can't fuck up tooooo bad unless you're using sudo and then just be real careful. Watch a few youtube videos on something like "linux terminal basics" or "bash basics" and follow along like you're taking a class, it'll really help you get familiar with it. It's a great thing to know how to use, these days if I know how to do it through the terminal I usually will instead of puttering through a gui honestly.
I recommend Linux Mint with the default Gnome/Cinnamon desktop. I think it's the most "Windows-like" (You can add other desktops later on without having to reinstall anything. KDE Plasma is really nice). The installer found all my hardware for me and set it up, including my network printer. It installed my nVidia drivers (even gave me a choice of several with a 'Recommended' one at the top).
The LibreOffice suite is already included, which should take care of your productivity needs. (It recognizes and can read/write MS-Office documents). Thunderbird will take care of your email needs.
There's also a utility called TimeShift, which works like Windows System Restore. Since you'll be making a lot of changes the first month or so, it's a great way to undo any screw-ups. Make sure you create a Restore Point before you do any serious fiddling. Even if you make your system unbootable, you can boot from a Linux Mint flash drive and run TimeShift that way, too.
Gaming is awesome. Steam has a native linux client, which uses a version of Wine called Proton, which has all the settings needed to run your games. Basically, everything I bought on Steam under Windows, runs in Linux. (NOLF 1 was the only game I couldn't get to completely work. No music, I think the game uses DirectPlay for music, which no games seem to use anymore).
Fuck it man, I'll take it, you can still spin that up with Linux and run a bunch of microservices on it. Not a great form factor for a server, but guess what, if these China tariffs take off, you're gonna be so glad you have a 10 year old machine to have around for extra compute power, since buying new compute will be obscenely costly. (Assuming you're in the USA of course, if you're in Europe you'll be fine)
nah, for old computers, you can't get anything better than MenuetOS or its fork, KolibriOS. That will run on my flipflops too. recommended system requirements: Pentium MMX (this is literally from 1997), 32 mb ram (yes, you read that right), 1.4 mb (entire operating system size with preinstalled programs, yes it is something else), any vga adapter released after 1995
Download the Windows 11 ISO and tick an option to mitigate the new requirements in Rufus. That's all you have to do. Or download the Windows 10 IoT iso from massgrave. Supported until 2030-something.
I think it needs to be retired. I strictly using it for streaming shows and it's about a 30% chance that I have to do a hard reboot for that to work. It's had 2 factory resets and a number of internal cleanings. It's dying bro. It's time to put it down
Jut put my Mother on mint. Her windows 10 pc is reaching EOS, and I finally convinced her that having to buy a new computer every several years is unacceptable.
Distro-hopped a lot till I landed on Manjaro with XFCE desktop environment. Been daily driving it for about a month now without any complaints. There is an option to install with NVIDIA drivers as well.
I put Mint on a PC for my dad because it's first thing easy for him to use and second a 32-bit machine and Mint the best choice I found that runs on that.
I have literally talked to one person at work, that he might want to try out Linux Mint in VM. Dude have never used Linux, but seems to be skilled enough to install it on his own.
God I hope there will be a good enough solution for professional audio stuff when Win 10 is done. This and when will the new proper CAD software.
It sucks ass, but I don't see how one will be able to change to Linux in those spaces on a professional level. All my private stuff is on Linux systems, though.
If you have the budget Siemens NX CAD CAM FEA runs on Linux (Redhat and SUSE, also works on OpenSUSE). However the GUI version is NX 12 or prior releases, newer versions are headless...maybe that will change with Linux Desktop gaining percentage steadily
Yeah I wouldn't mind trying out Reaper but I've only heard bad things when it comes to VST plugins.
So annoying that Steinberg takes their time to port Cubase to fucking Mac but not Linux. And even if I use Reaper, then I can't use my Focusrite interface properly.
You can just use a graphical file manager in Linux like you might have been used to in Windows. When I open mine I see my windows partition and my USB drive listed on the left side.
I know Mint has one that I use all the time, but I’m not familiar with what’s in Ubuntu out of the box.
There may be an easier way to access the external drive, It depends on what you are bar is for difficult. Are we talking about a NAS or an external USB drive?
It's not supposed to be read only every time, The nasty command you enter is likely fixing a symptom.
A lot of times if you're swapping back and forth between windows and Linux the drive will be perceived as dirty. An fsck might be enough to make it stop misbehaving.
After you plug it in if you run sudo dmesg, It might give you some insight as to why it's being mounted read only, If you fix the underlying cause you won't have to remember the command anymore
Ow I can upgrade, I just blocked TPM motherboard side to stop windows from doing it.
But in the end I really would like to give Linux a shot, these days I basically only play steam game or watch a movie, most of it should be easy enough nowadays in linux
Closer to the EoL time, someone is going to release a version of Linux that is basically windows, with a super locked down interface etc to make it so newbies can install and use with zero CLI or setup.
Or at least some serious consumer-grade onboarding.
Presumably it will have reduced functionality to make it as stable as humanly possible too.
And they'll probably become one of the larger distributions until people get the confidence to "upgrade" to a more complex one.
If they can get a version that just runs all Windows programs (not just games) out of the box without user modification then great. I'd consider that to be an actual Windows replacement.
If all you're running is a browser and some light office suite use then great, Linux can do that now. Otherwise what people saying "just switch to Linux" are really saying is "stop using your PC".
I think they're working on it, I could have sworn they said they were but a quick Google search shows nothing for me..
I saw someone posted bazzite as an alternative to steam os, but I'd just rather wait for whatever valve puts out at this point. I trust them to make it happen a little bit too much lol
Huh, and i just installed it on my secondary computer (laptop).
Maybe i should setup a dual boot on my main one soon and disable network communications in the windows partition, and then migrate ny files slowly until i can confidently get rid of that partition.
I personally thought I'd miss parts of windows, but the consistent bombardment of bing search results when I wanted to search my computer for a filename, application or just fucking anything drove me to curbstomp all my windows installs.
That and the ever changing settings menus, having to delve through shit sandwiches to end up in an antiquated but familiar window to change a setting was a fucking nightmare.
Honestly, if there was a bit more KISS happening within windows I'd probably have not moved OS - but Microsoft's never ending desire to change what really worked for so many years drove me to where I am.
You do you, I'm not here to convince anyone to migrate OS, but having some level of semblance and control - for me is such a relief. Probably some of the ASD + ADHD coming through but I'm sure there are many typical folks that feel the same way.
I don't want to keep windows because i like it, i need to keep it because I won't have enough time to migrate all at once, knowing how complicated windows is.
I'm basically going to migrate little by little, as much as i need every session, i also don't know how to use linux much so i expect to learn with time.
Mine was when they have windows 8 out for free for a limited time. Then I wasn't able to go back to 7 somehow. Was already into linux by then. That just made me commit 100%.
Gamer, CAD user, but still haven't looked back.
Weird everyone suggests Mint, when it's way less user friendly then KDE Fedora. I mean, I guess on old hardware Mint is good, but anything newer (like the last 4-5 years) Fedora is pretty much set and forget.
Same with gaming, Bazzite is a WHOLE lot better than Mint.
Desktop has both Mint and Bazzite. I use both daily.
Mint can't natively control my display or sound, and it has had issues with internet and the Nvidia graphics card before.
Bazzite can natively control display and sound, and I haven't had to use the CLI even once.
New Lenovo Laptop I tried both too. The mousepad and fn shortcuts for brightness and sound didn't work on Mint. Fedora mousepad works perfectly and fn shortcuts work
Old 8 year HP 4gb ddr4 laptop neither worked well, so went with a lightweight distro that was debian based.
Old 12 year HP 16gb ddr3 laptop; mint gave internet LAN issues and DVD drive issues, keyboard shortcut for brightness issues. Fedora XFCE no issues.
Friend's 4 year old Asus laptop; Mint gave issues with WiFi, Nvidia graphics card, and controlling screen brightness. Fedora no issues.
Another friend had similar issues with their laptop on Mint but said no issues on Zorin btw, and Zorin also worked better on their mom's old desktop. Both are debian based interestingly enough, but Zorin is sort of paid so makes some sense I guess?...
This is all anecdotal of course, but at least based on what I've seen, Mint has never been as beginner friendly as it seems compared to Fedora in that it usually requires more tinkering. You even see that here with the pro mint comments suggesting some use of a CLI.
including, but not limited to nvidia. network cards might be another issue. yes i know that there are open source alternatives and i most definitely choose foss where i can but people that just came from windows aren't likely to care.
i saw on a hardware website that only a select few of devices run well with these distros. What about Peppermint? i heard that is relatively privacy-oriented but doesn't extend this philosophy on drivers, and instead tries to provide a lightweight, bloat-free webapp-based system. How good is it?
Bazzite is currently seeing a hype wave, because it's strongly inspired by what the Steam Deck does. But that also means, it's somewhat built like an OS for a console (or in fact like Android), in that it's a transactional/atomic distribution.
This means, you can't easily make changes to the OS itself, only to the applications you install and of course your personal files.
It certainly makes it more difficult to break, but it's still a relatively new thing in the Linux world and particularly you might still run into some limitations when trying to use it as a full-fledged desktop (depending on what you're looking to do with your PC).
Garuda Linux is based on Arch Linux, which is what we refer to as "bleeding edge" (as opposed to "cutting edge"), because you get the newest version of all the software on your PC just a few days after it got released by the respective developers. Sometimes, those newest versions will have bugs.
You'll find folks who'll tell you they've been running Arch since they were two years old and never had a problem, but ultimately, why risk it?
And yeah, Trisquel is also getting basically a hard no from me. It's a distribution for purists. For people who want nothing to do with the corporate world, who'd rather not be able to do something than rely on proprietary software.
If you're coming from Windows, the chances of you even really knowing what that means are basically non-existent, so I doubt it's what you want...
on desktop, i'm coming with windows, but i do have good relations with the linux kernel, as i am an android custom rom user for 2 years now, i've been on PerryRice kernel, now on Helios. And there are 114 user apps on my phone, and 32 are closed source, so that means 72% of my android is open-source. And my phone is also rooted and has a custom recovery installed. I use my phone for everything, Windows only for gaming and homework. I already daily-driven Tumbleweed in Virtualbox for a little bit more than one week and it was pretty good, i could handle it mostly, despite many people saying it is hard to use for a beginner. But i'm still very new to linux and if something seriously breaks, i doubt i could fix it by myself, so it would be good if the desktop enviroment didn't delete itself, the boot won't corrupt, and no update would brick my system (ik how to solve bricking on android, but desktop is an another story). So out of Bazzite and Garuda, which is more suitable for me?
Oof, so I came to Linux also with a history of Android Custom ROMs. And well, I had quite a bit of frustration, because my phone was so much more capable and customizable than my (Windows) desktop.
In that regard, Linux has been an absolute fucking delight. And it kind of took Android's place, in that I now prefer tinkering with my desktop and am frustrated with how incapable Android is.
If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, I have one recommendation to make:
You want something with KDE Plasma as the desktop environment. It's extremely customizable, extremely feature-rich. Other desktops, as well as more minimal GUIs ("window managers"), can be fun, too, but for starting out, I would recommend KDE.
If your Tumbleweed looked like this, that was KDE:
Well, kind of the default for both Bazzite and Garuda is KDE, so this doesn't tell you terribly much. 😅
But I'm coming at it in this roundabout way to tell you that I'm on Tumbleweed and well, therefore I'm probably biased, but I don't really see why you're looking for something else, if you liked Tumbleweed.
openSUSE has the best implementation of KDE (by some fine details, but still). It's got a really nice snapshotting system (btrfs for the filesystem + Snapper).
Garuda seems to have adopted that from openSUSE, although I don't know, if it's quite as fully integrated in Garuda.
But yeah, I would kind of recommend against Bazzite due to it being a relatively new concept (with the caveat that I haven't dabbled around with it yet; I simply wouldn't know, if it's actually already very mature).
I should also say that I actually lied, I'm not on Tumbleweed, but rather Slowroll, which is a semi-official flavor of openSUSE. It's essentially Tumbleweed, but you get one big upgrade once per month and only security updates in between. While the snapshots can easily rollback the breakages, eventually I got mildly annoyed at having to do so once or twice per year on Tumbleweed, when a bad update made it through, so I'm trying out Slowroll. Might be an option for you, too.
And finally, if you feel like I'm coddling you a lot less in this comment than in the last: Yep.
Since you're dicking around with Android Custom ROMs, you'll be fine, no matter what you choose. I mean, Linux will still be a humbling experience, because it has no qualms showing you how much you don't yet know about computers, but it also loves to teach you. The most important 'skill' is having fun when tinkering with technology, which you've got.
A lot of the newbie recommendations, and that people tell you Tumbleweed is hard to use, are like that, because we just don't know who's asking these questions. Some people want to get away from Windows, but have no interest in learning. And then, yeah, I'll also sometimes recommend Linux Mint, because its keyboard shortcuts are exactly like Windows, even though it actively got in the way of my desire to tinker, when I initially switched to it...
yes, i had the same desktop, just different stock background. My only problem with kde is that even at 1920x1080 buttons are irrealistically small. And i plan to use a linux distro on 2k display, maybe even 4k. Propably there is a way to make them bigger but idk. And i'm considering Garuda, or maybe Bazzite as a secondary option, because these are preconfigured for gaming out of the box and i really don't know what to tweak on a vanilla distro to make it game-ready. And Garuda is also very loud about their btrfs implementation with zstd backups (ik a lot about compression algorythms, can even use some of them on paper to manually compress data like a lunatic, and zstd is a very decent algorythm, especially if we measure compression/time ratio). Slowroll actually sounds good because my custom rom is set to major releases every second week (maintainer is Tejas Singh, you propably heard about him, he is a prominent figure in the custom rom genre). And on linux, i should be able to edit custom shortcuts, macros and stuff, right? Also, i tried Tumbleweed in vm for a week and it had a little learning curve but i took it very well, only had one issue when i couldn't install anything because the same package conflicted with an another from a different repo and stuff, but a simple reboot solved it.
There's a slider to apply a global scale multiplier in the System Settings under "Display & Monitor". So, if you set it to 200%, everything will be twice as big.
As for making a distro gaming-ready, honestly I think that's a bit overpronounced on the webpages of Bazzite and Garuda. It's one of their distinguishing features, so that's what they'll talk about, but I'd be surprised if we're talking 5 FPS more compared to a general purpose distro.
They generally use the same software and both of them are tuned for performance, with only a slightly different focus when they'll perform the most optimal.
Yeah, I don't know what concrete difference zstd makes. The Arch Wiki (great resource, generally applicable independent of distro) tells me that compression may speed up some workloads while slowing down others: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Btrfs#Compression
Maybe Garuda found out that it mostly helps with gaming when openSUSE decided to not make use of it, because openSUSE is more general-purpose.
But yeah, I don't know, if you're feeling Garuda, then go for it. At this point, you could tell me that you merely like the theme of Garuda better and I'd support that decision, because what I've read about it does sound reasonable, and it sounds like you'll be fine either way.
And on linux, i should be able to edit custom shortcuts, macros and stuff, right?
Not entirely sure what you mean by macros, but: Yes.
The whole OS is built from the ground up to be scriptable and configurable. It's very likely better than you can imagine.
I’ll go Linux when I don’t need any more windows based software, and there’s been almost 0 progress made in that sector in the last 5 years.
Between games that don’t run on Linux (Apex, CoD, any other shooter) and professional tools such as Lightroom and photoshop, there’s no way to switch to Linux without needing to boot back to windows multiple times per day.
I guess it depends on your use case. I haven't owned a Windows PC since 2016. Linux all the way for me. The games I play run on it, the applications I need run on it, and it works well for me without tinkering getting in the way. I can even use it for work these days and I have far less VPN flakiness than both Windows and Mac colleagues.
For my use case the year of the Linux desktop is here, and has been for a while.
I finally switched when I got truly familiar with the terminal in collage and then I happened to get a hand down pc to play around with. Installed Linux on it, and it surprisingly quickly became my main computer, especially once I got it a proper graphics card.
I don't think they are going to support Mac. If you want to play Valorant you need to have Windows on bare metal. The company ships mandatory malware and there is nothing you can do.
Ughh my RDP into work is the only reason I have a minimal windows install :/
I love mint, but I can't get work's IT support people to go near it (needs the preshared key and some settings to get their Sharepoint VPN working). It grates having to boot into windows!
Really hope more people at work ask for Linux support and I don't need 11, but not holding my breath. :)
To be fair, they connected the XP and 2k machines directly to the internet. Normally you have a router in between nowadays which makes such infections way harder.
right? end of support has never meant end of useful life in my experience. I went from 98 to vista. don't inconvenience yourself is my main advice to people looking to switch. Shit I'll probably be installing win 10 LTSC at some point even though I'm all in on Linux as a daily driver already.
This is the first time I've seen a Roblox meme template 💀💀
The future is now old man!
I'm in my early 20s 💀
Sheesh gramps get with the times
TwT
What's wrong with it?
nothing in particular, I was just taken by surprise that a Roblox meme was in my feed lol
Trying to get Roblox running inside of mint is a pita
Weird to use a game that decided to drop its official Linux support for this meme
At least Sober's working.
Not only that but they also detect VMs so if you want to play it you have to dual boot
Lutris is a thing
They disabled the use of Proton/Wine.
I don't think that there's ever been an "official" client for Roblox?
Unless Linux hits 2-digit market share and iPad kids start to use Linux
Official Linux support is silly honestly. It will always be janky.
Windows just works with wine and proton most of the time.
What?
By "ending official Linux support" they meant that they disabled the use of Roblox through Proton/Wine.
Using roblox to talk about linux
It once played perfectly fine under WINE, then Roblox explicitly blocked it for no good reason.
sober.vinegarhq.org
i have been using mint (cinnamon) too for like a year and a half. every now and then i try another distro and a few more, but i always land back where i started. it even looks pretty with the "sweet dark v40" gtk theme.
I love this absolute fantasy Linux folk have come up with
I do some e-wasting for a number of big companies and have piles of old laptops. I've taken to giving the laptops to people that need computers and the ones with Linux don't taken. I literally can't give away Linux computers. They can buy their own windows licenses.
Yep, people are so stubborn they would rather risk their entire online presence than learn that penguin hacker thingy with the white text. Also the Water is wet
Oh is this an excuse to hop on the Mint praise train? Don’t mind if I do!
For me it was smoother than windows to install, it runs much better moment to moment (it’s like the people that made it were worried about making nice software rather than the business goals being pushed by their managers), and most importantly the fact that it is the “beginner” distro doesn’t compromise its capabilities. I am in the terminal all day every day and I use the machine to work on software for embedded Linux systems.
Mint was so easy to install. I'm pretty new to Linux. Not afraid of having to do things in the terminal, but I don't really know many commands yet. So, I appreciate the graphical managers for updates and drivers. You can definitely tell they really worked to make a polished OS. And I really like Cinnamon. It's a very clean looking DE that has been super easy to transition to from Windows.
Unlike Kubuntu, I didn't have to do any tricks or install anything from github to get stuff from my Steam library to work, everything just worked. And Kubuntu (or perhaps just Wayland) would crash upon waking my PC from sleep and wouldn't recover.
Don't get me wrong, Cinnamon is fine, but it gets recommended religiously to beginners for some reason. It just doesn't make sense, so I will keep repeating this, not least to keep alive the ancient linux tradition of Desktop wars.
Still, any Windows to Linux transition is a step forward and I support this, upvoted.
As someone who has extensively used both Cinnamon and Plasma: I find Plasma a lot less polished, by a huge margin. Not only do settings have unusual defaults and are located in places you wouldn't expect, it also often has desktop-breaking bugs out of nowhere even in stable versions, and this has only gotten worse with Wayland. Even as someone who has been using Arch for years now, I still struggle with getting Plasma to not shit itself every once in a while.
Cinnamon on the other hand does have a lot less features out of the box, but the few things it does, it does them well, and every setting is where a sane person would search for them.
I would not recommend Plasma to a Linux beginner at all. It's the kind of unpolished mess that would make anyone who doesn't care enough about computers to just give up and go back to Windows.
Hm thanks for sharing your experience, it's very different from mine though. Have you used Plasma recently (Version 6+) ? And have you used it on a distro where it came pre-packaged? In my (limited) experience any DE installed on Arch is janky out of the box.
I am running Plasma 6.2.1 as we speak. Admittedly, yes, using Arch has certainly made it less stable. But more often than not, when I search the web for some strange behavior/bug/limitation in my desktop, I often find dozens of threads with lots of people reporting the same misbehavior or limitation from all over the distro space, and I have come to the conclussion that it's not entirely Arch's fault at that point.
Have you done literally any customization to panels? I swear that shit keeps crashing whenever I do so much as unpinning a simple app launcher plasmoid, and even if it didn't crash, it still takes patience to navigate through all the menus. They completely overhauled the way panel settings look and behave, and I still find the experience annoying as hell. In contrast, customizing panels is pretty straightforward in Cinnamon, and works as expected. It merely doesn't look as good.
I don't hate Plasma, or else I would have switched to another DE by now, but this is mostly because I have learned to tame it, and that took a lot of effort that no beginner should have to go through. Cinnamon is like, the polar opposite of that, which is why I'm okay with it being religiously recommended to beginners.
KDE's priorities are just kinda weird. I have the similar issues with Krita, an otherwise excellent drawing program.
I'd say kde plasma is closest to windows 10 while Linux mints cinnamon covers vista, 7, 8.1 and 11
For me kde is closer to windows 8.1 10 and 11
i fully disagree with windows 11 with every part of my being(i came from 11)
The Taskbar atleast
the bar is more squished like cinnamon, 10 had a thicker bar like plasma not sure abt 8.1
maybe back during the plasma 4 days, this meme needs to go away
Hmm TDE is not resource intensive?
That's a good point!
Plasma and Cinnamon are two different Desktops, one can't be in the other :) Did you mean Plasma on Mint?
No Plasma on Kubuntu,KDE neon,etc
ah, I think you meant "than". Fair enough, my recent experience has been super smooth
I will likely go back to mint once Windows 10 is done. 11 is pure trash.
The major hang up I have is gaming. I have an Nvidia card and it's never behaved well with Linux. I also like GTAO but I will no longer be able to play it. Most of my other titles work fine.
I don't know what I'm going to do yet.
I switched to Linux Mint several months ago. Thanks to Proton, All my Steam games that I bought for Windows run great. (I'm using an nVidia RTX 3060). And any older games like "Deus Ex" or "Giants: Citizen Kabuto" run under Wine, using the default settings.
pop!os reportedly packs in and handles the proprietary nvidia drivers for you, which can be a pain to handle yourself. i haven't tried it nor do i have nvidia but i see it highly recommended a lot.
Am using Pop!_OS for video editing (DaVinci Resolve Studio) and gaming with nvidia GPU. I don’t have to think much about the operating system or GPU drivers, they work perfectly fine and get out of the way when I need to do some work.
Also have it installed on both kids’ PCs (both with nvidia GPUs) and my wife’s laptop (AMD iGPU). My son has installed a few GNOME extensions to customize; my wife and daughter have left it pretty much stock. It’s about as unobtrusive as an OS can get.
I will always have a special place in my heart for EndeavourOS, but right now, I feel like I have a more solid foundation with Pop!_OS.
have you tried Kdenlive and Olive? i heard those are very advanced and open-source. I will also switch to those from InShot
I got my start with kdenlive and still pull up some of my old project files in it, yeah. It’s really good, has a much better feature set than one would expect.
I got into the Blackmagic ecosystem with an Intensity Pro 4k capture card and was pretty happy to see that they offer native Linux support, even if it is for Rocky 8, so I snagged one of their Resolve Speed Editors, which came with a Resolve Studio license, and I’ve been using that ever since.
i heard good things about Bazzite abd Ubuntu/Pop OS with nvidia support
I too am in a conundrum. I like the idea of Linux a lot, but pretty much all I use my laptop for is a) Excel and b) very rarely games, neither of which make sense to use Linux for.
I'll build a home server at some point and I think that'll be my start.
Have you tried Libre Office? It's an open source Microsoft Office alternative that works pretty great. You can try it on Windows.
In my experience people who really use excel are always going to need excel.
Also in my experience excel runs great on Mac Laptops, which are so much better than any other laptop I’ve touched in the last 20 years. If you’ve tried their touchpads you’ll know what I mean. Total game changers for
truly mobile computingworking without a desk.That's my experience too, unfortunately. LibreOffice is lagging too far behind O365 on features that you can reliably cooperate on spreadsheets across applications. Something like e.g. XLOOKUP is a fairly recent addition in Calc.
If your system supports windows 11 then dual boot for the games you want windows support for.
Then you have a bare metal option for those games and you can run whatever distro you want along side it.
Like if people actually cared that a Windows version goes EoL. That literally means nothing to most people and typical PC user won’t even notice anything until something will functionally break, which will take YEARS after it's EoL.
A lot of people will be happy not to have windows update asking to restart the computer anymore.
Sure, Linux has some selling points and it’s a good moment for it to try and gain new users, but I'm tired of people acting like it’s the YOTLD because of what Microsoft is doing to Windows. It’s just delusional
Considering people kept using Windows XP well after EOL... yup.
/s/can't/won't
¿Por Qué No Los Dos?
The Steam Deck and it's desktop mode are why I decided to try jumping head first into a single boot of Bazzite on my main computer, it's basically like using a Steam deck, just across four monitors, a year in and I haven't looked back.
I learned of bazzite today and will be trying an install soonish
Microsoft added a CoPilot icon to my Windows 10 Taskbar yesterday. It looks to me like they're not going to take "no" for an answer.
They also added a "it's time to upgrade to Windows 11" full screen message on my login screen (with the option to decline in tiny text).
That was my thoughts, too. So, now I'm running Mint on my gaming PC and the one hooked up in my living room for streaming. I tried Kubuntu, and liked it, but KDE Wayland was giving me issues. Installing a different desktop environment just introduced more problems, so I went with a different distro with the DE I wanted, which was Mint with Cinnamon. Now, life is good.
I'm experimenting with Pop!_OS on my aging laptop running it on a USB drive. Was happy to see it supports 2-in-1 functionality.
I love everything about Pop!_OS. Except the name, that I cannot stand.
It's a silly name for sure.
Remember when Windows XP reached EoL the first time in 2009 and people abandoned it? Yeah, me neither, but I remember Microsoft groaning and extending some support for a few more years, until the final EoL in 2014. I expect the same to happen to 10.
Maybe they'll drop the fake requirements from 11 so people can actually upgrade to 11 from 10.
Linux Mint is easy af, that or Ubuntu
Potato potato
Ahh I do love that classic Harley sound..
I've installed mint on my laptop, I like it so far. Everything was super easy to get set up, even the graphics drivers
question, i have a older computer that i want to switch to linux. It has a 1080. Do i just install linux and it will work, or do i have to go look for drivers, or do i have to use the onboard graphics till i get everything installed? How do i have to imagine it?
I am a Linux beginner so i could be wrong, but I believe Linux is very plug and play and has drivers already integrated. At least I don't remember downloading any when I set it up. I am personally using Linux Mint Cinnamon with a GTX 1060. In Mint there is a Driver Manager preinstalled which let's you pick a few nvidia drivers and an open source alternative, so it's very beginner friendly :) ::: spoiler screen capture Driver Manager :::
To that I can confidentially say no: because I have no onboard graphics and always had video output ^^
Thanks :). Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.
Now install drivers to webcam, for example elgato
Why would I do that? People might see me!
But joking aside, I admit I haven't done much with the laptop since installing mint (cinnamon for those playing at home). But I did instsll a daw (reaper) and recorded some music ideas using my Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 audio interface
Glad to hear that you didn't had any problem with focusrite, I also use it so at least now I know that it works.
Does anyone else find these OS wars silly? To me an OS is a tool and you should be using whatever tool is best suited for the job. For me I'm regularly switching between all 3 major OS's.
I've got windows systems, Linux systems and MacOS all under regular use at home
Well, most people don't have spare computers at home, so they do actually need to decide. It also means that they can't easily try out different operating systems, so even when they're unhappy with their current OS, they'll rarely inform themselves about alternatives.
I think MacOS and Linux are viable OS's whereas Windows is shit and deserves to be nowhere near a computer, maybe a toaster or something idk
Imagine your toast not popping up because your toaster started updating itself randomly.
You would be right, only if a preference for one OS didn't negatively affect other OSes. If less people used windows, there would be fewer windows-exclusive software. And if that were the case, the likelihood would decrease that my university classes would require windows-exclusive software.
You might say, "just use wine," or "just use a windows VM." Wine doesn't always work with all software, and using a windows VM would undermine one of my main reasons for using Linux, which is privacy.
It is therefore in my best interest that people stop using windows. It's not a vendetta, it's not activism, it's democracy.
Uh oh, prepare to be downvoted to oblivion for such a balanced take (j/k... I hope).
The average user cares less about their OS being EoL, than that they have to learn a whole new OS that works "completely" different to what they are used to.
This just objectively isn't true. The XP EOL date actually forced users hands. There WAS refresh cycle in 2014, the only reason it didn't turn in to the uprising it is seemingly turned into, is because Microsoft kinda got lucky, and this refresh cycle purged Pentim 4-s and Celeron M-s and Pentium D-s, and old Athlons, all of which were ewaste from new.
I started on mint a couple months ago and so far I've tried as many distros as I could find. I liked manjaro but then found out about their controversies so I'm currently on endeavour os. Half of the fun for me has been experimenting with different desktops and whatnot, which has gotten me back into computer stuff.
What are these Manjaro controversies?
Have a look at this and this.
They are starting to test opt-out telemetry and from what I read, it sounded pretty invasive. I'm no tech genius though so I'd check the links in that other comment.
Which Desktop did you settle on as a favorite?
I like KDE and xfce. My hardware is pretty old so I appreciate how light xfce is, but I like KDE connect too.
Serious question from someone who is in this situation: What the best os for someone who want to switch from window 10 to Linux because of the eol? Is it really mint ?
Whatever you pick, first test it by running it from a USB drive first.
First step: Decide on the so-called desktop environment. A shortlist is provided below. For a new user, this should be decisive when choosing between beginner-friendly distros.
Before going over to the next (and final) step, we need to set the stage for our contenders:
Final step: Pick the distro corresponding to your preferred desktop environment. The list found below (ordered alphabetically) isn't trying to be exhaustive on desktop environments.
I wouldn't go uBlue personally. It is very new and I don't like the focus. Don't go straight to immutable Linux.
My first foray into Linux was through what you'd refer to as immutable Linux; shortly after the release of Fedora Kinoite. I'm literally the embodiment of the antithesis to your statement.
This is factually true. So I can't simply deny that. But being more precise is helpful:
Could you be more elaborate 😜?
They will get a little more respect from me when they stop trying to target programmers and gamers. Because of course everyone uses Steam and VScode. It just feels very much like it is being run by young edgy programmers. It is the same group that is trying to force crappy "dark mode" everywhere.
What's the bigger program is the lack of internet knowledge about how to fix problems. With Ubuntu and Debian there are tons of stack overflow pages on all of the various issues. Sure things have changed over time but it still the most documented distro. I can look up "how do I fix X Linux Mint" and I will get an answer. With the Bazzite immutable base almost all of the help online will be useless.
So in short I wouldn't recommend something like Bazzite. Immutable Linux requires that you understand Linux under the hood. Also I am strongly against distros that need to market themselves as gaming.
Thank you for the reply! And apologies for the late response*.
First of all, I owe you another apology for the deleted comment; I was still in the process of cooking and accidentally sent the undercooked message.
As per its README (I'm paraphrasing):
Bazzite started as a project to resolve some of the issues that plague SteamOS:
Like, SteamOS is a pretty cool operating system that allows both Linux enthusiasts and Linux newbs to enjoy playing (most of) their favorite games on Linux. But the former may find it too restrictive, while the latter may want to import that experience over to other devices. Bazzite aims to be that solution. Were it not for the success of the Steam Deck (and by extension SteamOS), such pressing need wouldn't even have arisen. So Bazzite isn't trying to target gamers as "an easy way to attract users" (or whatever the insinuation may be); its raison d'être is to address SteamOS' limitations.
Regarding the targeting of programmers, you could be right on that. But I suppose it's fine as VS Code's inclusion (and other goodies) is only confined to the respective
-dximages. I regard Bluefin (and Aurora; its KDE Plasma spin-off) as the opinionated distro its maintainers like to use for themselves (i.e. programmers). I'd argue this actually makes it suitable for most people. But your average Linux user is a lot more sensitive towards 'bloat'. So it's definitely not for everyone.I guess my reply would be that I simply don't feel that way. And factually, it's being worked on by people that work (or have worked) at places like Canonical, Red Hat and (even) Microsoft. So, while that doesn't necessarily dismiss them as being "young edgy", it does make it easy to trust and be confident in their proficiency and competence. I wonder what other distros are maintained by such a star ensemble.
This is probably some meme or meta joke/reference I didn't get. Please feel free to enlighten me.
I admitted to as such in my first comment. But, what if, instead of looking up questions in your favorite search engine, you visit their support channels and get the exact answer within a couple of moments? This last bit has been based on my own experience*.
Instinctively, I just absolutely have to disagree on this. The most clear-cut counterexample would be how NixOS -the granddaddy of
immutableatomic distros if you will- doesn't adhere to many Linux conventions (including FHS). Therefore, "understanding (traditional) Linux under the hood" might have even been detrimental and wasteful for the many things you'd have to unlearn.Beyond the overlap in Linux 101 that most distros adhere to and/or the basics everyone should know about their operating system, could you please demonstrate how "understanding (traditional) Linux under the hood" becomes necessary with atomic distributions?
Mint is fine, Kubuntu is also great.
Kubuntu uses snaps as default and I’ve had some trouble with that. My dad is using Kubuntu and there are problems with how programs communicate. Mint is probably a better choice.
I'll admit I'm biased because I think Cinnamon is ugly. Most people seem to like it and I get it. I just wish Mint hadn't abandoned the KDE edition. Mint is definitely a great choice though.
I switched from Win10 to Mint, and am quite happy. You can get a lot of stuff done through GUI, so you can put off learning how to use the terminal a little. If you are worried about using it, I can recommend using ChatGPT. Helped me troubleshoot a lot of issues and learning a few tricks.
Mint is the best to start tbh.
And you could stay in mint for years and barely have to use bash, and when you do there is a well stocked forum, so it is sometimes even easier than windows to troubleshoot.
Such a decisive question. I wouldn't say there's necessarily a "best". Mint is an EXCELLENT choice. So too would be Fedora (Fedora KDE edition I'd recommend for most) or OpenSuSe Tumbleweed.
Just pick what looks decent to you and give it a shot.
mint is good, pop!os is also good, i use and recommend endeavouros as arch-but-easy. tbh just about any popular distro these days is prolly gonna do fine for the average user.
Anything Arch based has a higher chance of breakage. The trade off is that you get very new packages frequently
RIP your inbox lol. Like others have said though whatever you choose test it out booting off a USB first, fwiw I'd vote try FedoraKDE, but more importantly I'll add this:
Whatever you choose it will be different and it will be an adjustment in some capacity, and that's ok! And don't be scared of the terminal, always keep back ups just in case but you really can't fuck up tooooo bad unless you're using sudo and then just be real careful. Watch a few youtube videos on something like "linux terminal basics" or "bash basics" and follow along like you're taking a class, it'll really help you get familiar with it. It's a great thing to know how to use, these days if I know how to do it through the terminal I usually will instead of puttering through a gui honestly.
I recommend Linux Mint with the default Gnome/Cinnamon desktop. I think it's the most "Windows-like" (You can add other desktops later on without having to reinstall anything. KDE Plasma is really nice). The installer found all my hardware for me and set it up, including my network printer. It installed my nVidia drivers (even gave me a choice of several with a 'Recommended' one at the top).
The LibreOffice suite is already included, which should take care of your productivity needs. (It recognizes and can read/write MS-Office documents). Thunderbird will take care of your email needs.
There's also a utility called TimeShift, which works like Windows System Restore. Since you'll be making a lot of changes the first month or so, it's a great way to undo any screw-ups. Make sure you create a Restore Point before you do any serious fiddling. Even if you make your system unbootable, you can boot from a Linux Mint flash drive and run TimeShift that way, too.
Gaming is awesome. Steam has a native linux client, which uses a version of Wine called Proton, which has all the settings needed to run your games. Basically, everything I bought on Steam under Windows, runs in Linux. (NOLF 1 was the only game I couldn't get to completely work. No music, I think the game uses DirectPlay for music, which no games seem to use anymore).
Damn. My 10 year old HP all in one is gonna be bricked? Damn shame
Fuck it man, I'll take it, you can still spin that up with Linux and run a bunch of microservices on it. Not a great form factor for a server, but guess what, if these China tariffs take off, you're gonna be so glad you have a 10 year old machine to have around for extra compute power, since buying new compute will be obscenely costly. (Assuming you're in the USA of course, if you're in Europe you'll be fine)
I gotta figure out how to transfer my PLC software first lol
Install Linux if you still want use your old computer
Not particularly lol. Probably gonna retire it and give it a heroes funeral for lasting as long as it did
nah, for old computers, you can't get anything better than MenuetOS or its fork, KolibriOS. That will run on my flipflops too. recommended system requirements: Pentium MMX (this is literally from 1997), 32 mb ram (yes, you read that right), 1.4 mb (entire operating system size with preinstalled programs, yes it is something else), any vga adapter released after 1995
Download the Windows 11 ISO and tick an option to mitigate the new requirements in Rufus. That's all you have to do. Or download the Windows 10 IoT iso from massgrave. Supported until 2030-something.
I think it needs to be retired. I strictly using it for streaming shows and it's about a 30% chance that I have to do a hard reboot for that to work. It's had 2 factory resets and a number of internal cleanings. It's dying bro. It's time to put it down
Fair enough. Tho if you do discover some functional hardware that's unsupported by W11, know that you don't have to turn to Linux at all.
Ironically Roblox doesn't work on Linux(On Wine at least not sober).
Jut put my Mother on mint. Her windows 10 pc is reaching EOS, and I finally convinced her that having to buy a new computer every several years is unacceptable.
Distro-hopped a lot till I landed on Manjaro with XFCE desktop environment. Been daily driving it for about a month now without any complaints. There is an option to install with NVIDIA drivers as well.
I put Mint on a PC for my dad because it's first thing easy for him to use and second a 32-bit machine and Mint the best choice I found that runs on that.
or a distro using kde plasma.
I have literally talked to one person at work, that he might want to try out Linux Mint in VM. Dude have never used Linux, but seems to be skilled enough to install it on his own.
God I hope there will be a good enough solution for professional audio stuff when Win 10 is done. This and when will the new proper CAD software.
It sucks ass, but I don't see how one will be able to change to Linux in those spaces on a professional level. All my private stuff is on Linux systems, though.
Try downloading and installing Tiny11.
This sounds good, thank you for the hint. Does this also prevent all ai bullshit and recall and stuff?
Yes and yes. It also bypasses the windows login.
If you have the budget Siemens NX CAD CAM FEA runs on Linux (Redhat and SUSE, also works on OpenSUSE). However the GUI version is NX 12 or prior releases, newer versions are headless...maybe that will change with Linux Desktop gaining percentage steadily
That's good to know for the future, but I'm currently bound to SolidWorks which supposedly doesn't run at all on Linux :/
Whatever version of Windows that allows group policy changes will let you turn off all the annoying stuff, that'd probably be your best bet for now.
I'm currently using Ardour on Arch with some packages from the pro-audio group, but I wouldn't exactly call my setup "professional"
Yeah I wouldn't mind trying out Reaper but I've only heard bad things when it comes to VST plugins.
So annoying that Steinberg takes their time to port Cubase to fucking Mac but not Linux. And even if I use Reaper, then I can't use my Focusrite interface properly.
Linux doesn't run what I need, getting some form of LTSC is my only option.
You can get the LTSC ISOs directly from Microsoft, and activate with https://massgrave.dev/
Thanks for the link, that is where I will be going to do just that.
I would use Linux if I could but sadly I can't.
I’ve been learning Linux (Ubuntu) with an old Laptop a friend was going to throw away.
I like it, but I’m not ready to switch. My biggest complaint… why the hell is it so hard to access an external drive??
I eventually got it, but now I can’t for the life of me remember the command line I used to set access for the first one to set up another one.
You can just use a graphical file manager in Linux like you might have been used to in Windows. When I open mine I see my windows partition and my USB drive listed on the left side.
I know Mint has one that I use all the time, but I’m not familiar with what’s in Ubuntu out of the box.
Nothing as far as I know. What’s the one for Mint called?
That's "Nemo".
The one that's used by Ubuntu by default is called "GNOME Files" or "Nautilus", in case you want to do some research on it.
I did do some research and I’m now using Nemo! :D
I went to bed after I figured that out though, not sure if it helps my drive situation yet.
There may be an easier way to access the external drive, It depends on what you are bar is for difficult. Are we talking about a NAS or an external USB drive?
What's your current method for connecting to it?
External drive connected by USB, formatted to FAT32.
Shows up readable, but not writable as default.
It's not supposed to be read only every time, The nasty command you enter is likely fixing a symptom.
A lot of times if you're swapping back and forth between windows and Linux the drive will be perceived as dirty. An fsck might be enough to make it stop misbehaving.
After you plug it in if you run sudo dmesg, It might give you some insight as to why it's being mounted read only, If you fix the underlying cause you won't have to remember the command anymore
People will keep using Windows 10 even if Microsoft will not fix any vulnerability
I tried mint for a little bit but ended up using Kubuntu.
If you like Kubuntu because of apt and KDE, don't be afraid of going Debian with KDE next time.
Ow I can upgrade, I just blocked TPM motherboard side to stop windows from doing it.
But in the end I really would like to give Linux a shot, these days I basically only play steam game or watch a movie, most of it should be easy enough nowadays in linux
Closer to the EoL time, someone is going to release a version of Linux that is basically windows, with a super locked down interface etc to make it so newbies can install and use with zero CLI or setup.
Or at least some serious consumer-grade onboarding.
Presumably it will have reduced functionality to make it as stable as humanly possible too.
And they'll probably become one of the larger distributions until people get the confidence to "upgrade" to a more complex one.
If they can get a version that just runs all Windows programs (not just games) out of the box without user modification then great. I'd consider that to be an actual Windows replacement.
If all you're running is a browser and some light office suite use then great, Linux can do that now. Otherwise what people saying "just switch to Linux" are really saying is "stop using your PC".
is this not what the steam deck os will eventually offer? cause I can see myself using that on my desktop eventually
Didn't know that was a thing outside of steam deck.
But yeah I'm waiting until the last moment because it's likely that's when the best contender will appear.
I think they're working on it, I could have sworn they said they were but a quick Google search shows nothing for me..
I saw someone posted bazzite as an alternative to steam os, but I'd just rather wait for whatever valve puts out at this point. I trust them to make it happen a little bit too much lol
eh, im lazy. true that there is nothing special about steam os, but I like the Linux experience they released, so I don't mind waiting
Huh, and i just installed it on my secondary computer (laptop). Maybe i should setup a dual boot on my main one soon and disable network communications in the windows partition, and then migrate ny files slowly until i can confidently get rid of that partition.
Mount the partition in Linux and migrate it all?
I personally thought I'd miss parts of windows, but the consistent bombardment of bing search results when I wanted to search my computer for a filename, application or just fucking anything drove me to curbstomp all my windows installs.
That and the ever changing settings menus, having to delve through shit sandwiches to end up in an antiquated but familiar window to change a setting was a fucking nightmare.
Honestly, if there was a bit more KISS happening within windows I'd probably have not moved OS - but Microsoft's never ending desire to change what really worked for so many years drove me to where I am.
You do you, I'm not here to convince anyone to migrate OS, but having some level of semblance and control - for me is such a relief. Probably some of the ASD + ADHD coming through but I'm sure there are many typical folks that feel the same way.
I don't want to keep windows because i like it, i need to keep it because I won't have enough time to migrate all at once, knowing how complicated windows is.
I'm basically going to migrate little by little, as much as i need every session, i also don't know how to use linux much so i expect to learn with time.
lol @ all these arch/Ubuntu/mint users. been using debian for years.
😅LoL, because you feel superior?
Not very sympathetic…
I like turtles.
That is more sympathetic.
Mine was when they have windows 8 out for free for a limited time. Then I wasn't able to go back to 7 somehow. Was already into linux by then. That just made me commit 100%. Gamer, CAD user, but still haven't looked back.
Weird everyone suggests Mint, when it's way less user friendly then KDE Fedora. I mean, I guess on old hardware Mint is good, but anything newer (like the last 4-5 years) Fedora is pretty much set and forget.
Same with gaming, Bazzite is a WHOLE lot better than Mint.
I'm on Mint 22 with current laptop hardware (Intel/Nvidia) and it's been completely plug and play, even for gaming.
I absolutely love Mint.
Desktop has both Mint and Bazzite. I use both daily.
Mint can't natively control my display or sound, and it has had issues with internet and the Nvidia graphics card before.
Bazzite can natively control display and sound, and I haven't had to use the CLI even once.
New Lenovo Laptop I tried both too. The mousepad and fn shortcuts for brightness and sound didn't work on Mint. Fedora mousepad works perfectly and fn shortcuts work
Old 8 year HP 4gb ddr4 laptop neither worked well, so went with a lightweight distro that was debian based.
Old 12 year HP 16gb ddr3 laptop; mint gave internet LAN issues and DVD drive issues, keyboard shortcut for brightness issues. Fedora XFCE no issues.
Friend's 4 year old Asus laptop; Mint gave issues with WiFi, Nvidia graphics card, and controlling screen brightness. Fedora no issues.
Another friend had similar issues with their laptop on Mint but said no issues on Zorin btw, and Zorin also worked better on their mom's old desktop. Both are debian based interestingly enough, but Zorin is sort of paid so makes some sense I guess?...
This is all anecdotal of course, but at least based on what I've seen, Mint has never been as beginner friendly as it seems compared to Fedora in that it usually requires more tinkering. You even see that here with the pro mint comments suggesting some use of a CLI.
Mint is on kernel 6.8 what are you talking about(Alteast mainline Mint not LMDE)
what are the opinions on Bazzite, Garuda, Trisquel? are these ideal for those coming from windows?
the first two can be, but i don't recommend trisquel to those coming from windows
is it hard? or why?
it's not hard, but it only specifically consists of free software. that can be confusing and some hardware won't work
You mean nvidia stuff or could be others? there are open-source alternatives for everything that can be considered general use
including, but not limited to nvidia. network cards might be another issue. yes i know that there are open source alternatives and i most definitely choose foss where i can but people that just came from windows aren't likely to care.
i saw on a hardware website that only a select few of devices run well with these distros. What about Peppermint? i heard that is relatively privacy-oriented but doesn't extend this philosophy on drivers, and instead tries to provide a lightweight, bloat-free webapp-based system. How good is it?
peppermint is fine, you can use it
Bazzite is probably fine
They're certainly somewhat more exotic choices.
Bazzite is currently seeing a hype wave, because it's strongly inspired by what the Steam Deck does. But that also means, it's somewhat built like an OS for a console (or in fact like Android), in that it's a transactional/atomic distribution.
This means, you can't easily make changes to the OS itself, only to the applications you install and of course your personal files.
It certainly makes it more difficult to break, but it's still a relatively new thing in the Linux world and particularly you might still run into some limitations when trying to use it as a full-fledged desktop (depending on what you're looking to do with your PC).
Garuda Linux is based on Arch Linux, which is what we refer to as "bleeding edge" (as opposed to "cutting edge"), because you get the newest version of all the software on your PC just a few days after it got released by the respective developers. Sometimes, those newest versions will have bugs.
You'll find folks who'll tell you they've been running Arch since they were two years old and never had a problem, but ultimately, why risk it?
And yeah, Trisquel is also getting basically a hard no from me. It's a distribution for purists. For people who want nothing to do with the corporate world, who'd rather not be able to do something than rely on proprietary software.
If you're coming from Windows, the chances of you even really knowing what that means are basically non-existent, so I doubt it's what you want...
on desktop, i'm coming with windows, but i do have good relations with the linux kernel, as i am an android custom rom user for 2 years now, i've been on PerryRice kernel, now on Helios. And there are 114 user apps on my phone, and 32 are closed source, so that means 72% of my android is open-source. And my phone is also rooted and has a custom recovery installed. I use my phone for everything, Windows only for gaming and homework. I already daily-driven Tumbleweed in Virtualbox for a little bit more than one week and it was pretty good, i could handle it mostly, despite many people saying it is hard to use for a beginner. But i'm still very new to linux and if something seriously breaks, i doubt i could fix it by myself, so it would be good if the desktop enviroment didn't delete itself, the boot won't corrupt, and no update would brick my system (ik how to solve bricking on android, but desktop is an another story). So out of Bazzite and Garuda, which is more suitable for me?
Oof, so I came to Linux also with a history of Android Custom ROMs. And well, I had quite a bit of frustration, because my phone was so much more capable and customizable than my (Windows) desktop.
In that regard, Linux has been an absolute fucking delight. And it kind of took Android's place, in that I now prefer tinkering with my desktop and am frustrated with how incapable Android is.
If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, I have one recommendation to make:
You want something with KDE Plasma as the desktop environment. It's extremely customizable, extremely feature-rich. Other desktops, as well as more minimal GUIs ("window managers"), can be fun, too, but for starting out, I would recommend KDE.
If your Tumbleweed looked like this, that was KDE:
Well, kind of the default for both Bazzite and Garuda is KDE, so this doesn't tell you terribly much. 😅
But I'm coming at it in this roundabout way to tell you that I'm on Tumbleweed and well, therefore I'm probably biased, but I don't really see why you're looking for something else, if you liked Tumbleweed.
openSUSE has the best implementation of KDE (by some fine details, but still). It's got a really nice snapshotting system (btrfs for the filesystem + Snapper).
Garuda seems to have adopted that from openSUSE, although I don't know, if it's quite as fully integrated in Garuda.
Those snapshots will save you, if your system should ever break.
Basically, if your filesystem and bootloader are still intact, there's a pretty easy way to rollback: https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/reference/html/book-reference/cha-snapper.html#sec-snapper-snapshot-boot (should work the same on Garuda)
But yeah, I would kind of recommend against Bazzite due to it being a relatively new concept (with the caveat that I haven't dabbled around with it yet; I simply wouldn't know, if it's actually already very mature).
I should also say that I actually lied, I'm not on Tumbleweed, but rather Slowroll, which is a semi-official flavor of openSUSE. It's essentially Tumbleweed, but you get one big upgrade once per month and only security updates in between. While the snapshots can easily rollback the breakages, eventually I got mildly annoyed at having to do so once or twice per year on Tumbleweed, when a bad update made it through, so I'm trying out Slowroll. Might be an option for you, too.
And finally, if you feel like I'm coddling you a lot less in this comment than in the last: Yep.
Since you're dicking around with Android Custom ROMs, you'll be fine, no matter what you choose. I mean, Linux will still be a humbling experience, because it has no qualms showing you how much you don't yet know about computers, but it also loves to teach you. The most important 'skill' is having fun when tinkering with technology, which you've got.
A lot of the newbie recommendations, and that people tell you Tumbleweed is hard to use, are like that, because we just don't know who's asking these questions. Some people want to get away from Windows, but have no interest in learning. And then, yeah, I'll also sometimes recommend Linux Mint, because its keyboard shortcuts are exactly like Windows, even though it actively got in the way of my desire to tinker, when I initially switched to it...
yes, i had the same desktop, just different stock background. My only problem with kde is that even at 1920x1080 buttons are irrealistically small. And i plan to use a linux distro on 2k display, maybe even 4k. Propably there is a way to make them bigger but idk. And i'm considering Garuda, or maybe Bazzite as a secondary option, because these are preconfigured for gaming out of the box and i really don't know what to tweak on a vanilla distro to make it game-ready. And Garuda is also very loud about their btrfs implementation with zstd backups (ik a lot about compression algorythms, can even use some of them on paper to manually compress data like a lunatic, and zstd is a very decent algorythm, especially if we measure compression/time ratio). Slowroll actually sounds good because my custom rom is set to major releases every second week (maintainer is Tejas Singh, you propably heard about him, he is a prominent figure in the custom rom genre). And on linux, i should be able to edit custom shortcuts, macros and stuff, right? Also, i tried Tumbleweed in vm for a week and it had a little learning curve but i took it very well, only had one issue when i couldn't install anything because the same package conflicted with an another from a different repo and stuff, but a simple reboot solved it.
There's a slider to apply a global scale multiplier in the System Settings under "Display & Monitor". So, if you set it to 200%, everything will be twice as big.
As for making a distro gaming-ready, honestly I think that's a bit overpronounced on the webpages of Bazzite and Garuda. It's one of their distinguishing features, so that's what they'll talk about, but I'd be surprised if we're talking 5 FPS more compared to a general purpose distro.
They generally use the same software and both of them are tuned for performance, with only a slightly different focus when they'll perform the most optimal.
Yeah, I don't know what concrete difference zstd makes. The Arch Wiki (great resource, generally applicable independent of distro) tells me that compression may speed up some workloads while slowing down others: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Btrfs#Compression
Maybe Garuda found out that it mostly helps with gaming when openSUSE decided to not make use of it, because openSUSE is more general-purpose.
But yeah, I don't know, if you're feeling Garuda, then go for it. At this point, you could tell me that you merely like the theme of Garuda better and I'd support that decision, because what I've read about it does sound reasonable, and it sounds like you'll be fine either way.
Not entirely sure what you mean by macros, but: Yes.
The whole OS is built from the ground up to be scriptable and configurable. It's very likely better than you can imagine.
I’ll go Linux when I don’t need any more windows based software, and there’s been almost 0 progress made in that sector in the last 5 years.
Between games that don’t run on Linux (Apex, CoD, any other shooter) and professional tools such as Lightroom and photoshop, there’s no way to switch to Linux without needing to boot back to windows multiple times per day.
I guess it depends on your use case. I haven't owned a Windows PC since 2016. Linux all the way for me. The games I play run on it, the applications I need run on it, and it works well for me without tinkering getting in the way. I can even use it for work these days and I have far less VPN flakiness than both Windows and Mac colleagues.
For my use case the year of the Linux desktop is here, and has been for a while.
I finally switched when I got truly familiar with the terminal in collage and then I happened to get a hand down pc to play around with. Installed Linux on it, and it surprisingly quickly became my main computer, especially once I got it a proper graphics card.
praying for valorant to get a mac port before they kill win10. the second we get that port, i am nuking windows from my drive
I don't think they are going to support Mac. If you want to play Valorant you need to have Windows on bare metal. The company ships mandatory malware and there is nothing you can do.
Ughh my RDP into work is the only reason I have a minimal windows install :/
I love mint, but I can't get work's IT support people to go near it (needs the preshared key and some settings to get their Sharepoint VPN working). It grates having to boot into windows!
Really hope more people at work ask for Linux support and I don't need 11, but not holding my breath. :)
What flavor do you recommend?
Do you disconnect your EOL machines from the internet then?
Bc using an OS that doesn't get security updates is just asking for trouble, especially if you connect it to the internet
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/idle-windows-xp-and-2000-machines-get-infected-with-viruses-within-minutes-of-being-exposed-online
That’s not necessarily going to happen to Windows 10 the day support ends, but do you really want to gamble on when it will?
To be fair, they connected the XP and 2k machines directly to the internet. Normally you have a router in between nowadays which makes such infections way harder.
right? end of support has never meant end of useful life in my experience. I went from 98 to vista. don't inconvenience yourself is my main advice to people looking to switch. Shit I'll probably be installing win 10 LTSC at some point even though I'm all in on Linux as a daily driver already.
Windows 11 is not that bad really. People are freaking over some annoyances
Like, not being able to run it on a perfectly capable machine, just because someone at MS decided it's not new enough? Yeah, minor annoyance.
There's machines that can't upgrade to Win11. That's the issue OP is talking about.