• Skyline969@lemmy.caEnglish
    214·
    2 months ago

    Linux Mint. Cinnamon. With a Windows Vista theme. It confuses and/or irritates everyone who sees it.

    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      2 months ago

      So going off the chalice in the movie, the distro that will save you from judgment is the plainest one – the one with the least bloat? That tracks.

      • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
        10·
        2 months ago

        I highly recommend avoiding manjaro like the plague, their team is incredibly incompetent (see: https://manjarno.pages.dev/ ), I say this as someone who has given people manjaro for years and regretted it, I was also their it person, manjaro regularly broke every few months and gave people a very bad taste of linux

        for example, why are kernels given version numbers in packages? This caused 3 separate peoples computers to break multiple times. Everything good about manjaro comes from arch, everything bad about manjaro comes from the manjaro team.

        Y’know how it’s not rolling release because they delay packages by 2 weeks? They actually do no testing in this time. How do I know this? They pushed an update that caused steam to uninstall your desktop environment. Famously covered by linus tech tips… this is something that should have easily been caught, and yet the two week window did absolutely nothing.

        the truth is for manjaro there is no real usecase, there’s no set of desires that align with manjaro being the best choice for you. I am not asking you to switch away from manjaro, but I do not think we should ever recommend it to anyone, and on your next machine, I recommend trying the arch installer.

        But if what you’re looking for is an easy pre-setup arch, use endeavoros

        If you want something simple and up to date, use fedora kinoite

        If you’re a power user and want to configure every little thing about their system, use arch or nixos

        If you don’t care at all about updates and want the most rock solid system possible, debian.

        • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
          6·
          2 months ago

          If openSUSE Slowroll wasn’t experimental I’d recommend it in place of Manjaro. It’s a rolling release with monthly releases.

          • Dojan@lemmy.world
            3·
            2 months ago

            I really like Tumbleweed. Sure it updates a lot, but it doesn’t force updates so you can take it at your own pace.

            • Zaemz@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              2 months ago

              SUSE’s Open Build Service absolutely rules, too. I use Fedora personally, but would switch to Tumbleweed any day. I’ve gone back and forth, eventually settling on Fedora only because of familiarity with Red Hat.

              There are things I miss, big one being Zypper. It’s slow as balls but it’s usability and ability to dig through packages is unmatched, in my opinion.

        • Crismus@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 months ago

          I hear you. I was looking more for Arch with less of a hassle. Something similar to my Steamdeck. I guess I should just wipe this weekend for something else. I really want something for playing my steam and GOG games that works with my Nvidia 3080.

          Luckily for me I keep every game installed on different Steam Libraries so wiping my install drive to put something else in isn’t difficult.

          • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
            2·
            2 months ago

            What about arch is it that you want?

            I do a ton of distro research because I try to convert people to linux a lot so I might be able to help you with that.

            https://bazzite.gg/ this is probably what you want, make sure to install the nvidia version.

    • TheRedSpade@lemmy.world
      7·
      2 months ago

      Steam Deck is weird. I mean, I love it, but coming from vanilla Arch it can be frustrating at times. Discover is terrible. Luckily, Distrobox is a thing.

      • Zaemz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        I putz with Discover sometimes. Though I have no idea how it resolves package updates under the hood, as it often will produce a different manifest than running dnf itself.

        What would you like to see improved?

        • TheRedSpade@lemmy.world
          3·
          2 months ago

          I usually can’t find what I’m looking for, so a larger catalogue would go a long way. I also had problems with some software versions. The one that comes to mind is that Firefox had behavior with the save dialogue that I don’t like. It’s a minor issue, but one that I don’t have with the build in the Arch repo. I have a vague memory of something just not working, but I couldn’t tell you what at this point.

          • Zaemz@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            2 months ago

            Ah, I see! Yeah, a bigger catalog would be nice. You can add more repositories to it, enable Flathub, which provide more options, but something about it does feel hamstrung.

            The Firefox thing is something I know about! You can set a config option in the about:config page to tell Firefox to use your desktop’s standard dialogue. It has to do with XDG Desktop specifications, I think

            • TheRedSpade@lemmy.world
              2·
              2 months ago

              It uses the system dialogue, but it starts from the same directory each time. If I’m saving files it’s usually multiple files in succession, so I want the dialogue to start off pointed at the last directory I saved to. The Arch build does that.

              • Zaemz@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                2 months ago

                Ooohh! Interesting. You’ve got me curious about that now. I’ll have to look into it.

  • atmur@lemmy.worldEnglish
    62·
    2 months ago

    For as much as Linux nerds (myself absolutely included) complain about distros like Ubuntu and Manjaro, I’d still take either one over Windows or MacOS any day.

    • OpenStars@discuss.onlineEnglish
      29·
      2 months ago

      Mac OSX isn’t bad… so long as you sell it your soul, and don’t want freedom in return, it’s great 👍.

      I kid… mostly - it’s iOS that is horrifying, but Mac OSX is still Unix (tho not GNU), so not anywhere within leagues of Microdick.

      And - possibly dumb question - couldn’t you always just run a Linux VM at near-native speed, and get the benefits of both?

        • OpenStars@discuss.onlineEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          I had to look it up (e.g. https://www.extremetech.com/internet/317371-evaluating-apples-data-collection-in-macos-big-sur) and damn, I didn’t know that they collected and sent THAT detailed of info!? (and perhaps they didn’t, until Big Sur)

          Even so, as the other reply mentioned, it’s still leagues away from Windows at this point. But yeah, fair then that both Windows and Mac OSX are doing it, while Linux is not.

          Still, if you had to pick a machine for your grandma to use, or like either Windows or Mac at work (but not Linux, though lets say that there is a terminal SSH option to Linux available from either), I would pick Mac OSX. It’s fine if others would pick Linux for the former, but I don’t think Mac OSX is a bad choice there.

          While Windows… urg, is basically synonymous with being a cuss word nowadays. Witch: “a pox be upon thee - nay, moresooth, may you be cursed to only use Windows for the rest of your days!” (Onlookers: “gasp! what could anyone have done to be cursed with that bad of a punishment!? I would not wish that upon even my worst enemy!?”) hehe:-P

            • OpenStars@discuss.onlineEnglish
              3·
              2 months ago

              That Apple blocks you from running every program you put onto it until/unless it can be properly certified, and that “Big Sur can bypass any firewall restrictions the end-user attempts to create”? It’s true that it’s not nearly as bad as it may sound at first, and they even released a statement that:

              We do not use data from these checks to learn what individual users are launching or running on their devices.

              Notarization checks if the app contains known malware using an encrypted connection that is resilient to server failures.

              These security checks have never included the user’s Apple ID or the identity of their device. To further protect privacy, we have stopped logging IP addresses associated with Developer ID certificate checks, and we will ensure that any collected IP addresses are removed from logs.

              Though I also understand that if someone wants the ultimate in privacy, it’s difficult to trust such a corporate promise, especially one like Apple known to hide or lie about such things. (Edit: also… “developer ID certificate checks”, so if you don’t register with Apple as a known developer then…?)

              I still use Mac OSX myself, but if someone wants to avoid that and use Linux for this reason, I’m not going to argue with them - whereas I would push back a little bit if a friend were to tell me they planned to put Windows (as the primary OS) onto a machine.

      • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
        5·
        2 months ago

        The company that laid me off let me keep my Mac which was a nice parting gift. I don’t think I’d ever buy one myself. They’re just way to expensive.

        • OpenStars@discuss.onlineEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          I hoped for that at my previous job, and they said it could happen… but it was never going to, and it was a false hope offered. Why do that to me man…? 😭

          Then I come to my current job, and they have a super old Mac laptop that was barely holding on that nobody else wanted, and I’m like “yes please”!

          Bc if its Windows vs. Mac, and especially if “nothing” isn’t even an option, then a million times out of a million I will choose super old, barely holding on Mac that nobody else wants.:-)

          It’s a single SSH command away from my work Linux, and it has MacVim, tons of other open source software available, plus a bunch of stuff that only Mac OSX has, like Preview and other fairly nice tools, which have open source equivalents like ImageMagick and gimp, but aren’t nearly as easy to use.

          I don’t need a nice car, and I went without one entirely until I moved to the Midwest where it becomes absolutely necessary, but it’s essential to have a good computer for me:-).

      • tatterdemalion@programming.dev
        1·
        2 months ago

        couldn’t you always just run a Linux VM at near-native speed, and get the benefits of both?

        The obvious downside is that Linux is no longer the host OS. MacOS or Windows would be closed source code managing your hardware. And any VM could only be as fast as the host OS allows it to be.

        • OpenStars@discuss.onlineEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          The host OS is likewise limited, but more by hardware, so it might be a small performance tradeoff, depending on whether, as you brought up, you need Linux to be ultimately in control rather than to simply run some software.

          So that would not always work, ofc… but it sometimes would!:-)

    • puppycat
      5·
      2 months ago

      new to Linux, my first distro was and is Manjaro. what do people complain about? i love it and am glad i left windows for it :)

      • Strykker@programming.dev
        7·
        2 months ago

        The only people who hate Linux users more than windows and Mac users are Linux users who think you chose the wrong distro

        • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
          3·
          2 months ago

          I’ve always felt good about using Ubuntu and derivatives. I get their opinions and they have some good points, but I’m not sure why I’d let that change my flow.

          • I'm back on my BS 🤪@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
            2·
            2 months ago

            Because Ubuntu sucks! 👎 Here’s a list of why:

            • Snaps = 👹

            • Ads in start menu (they did this before Winblows!)

            • Unity is sooo fucking slow and stupid. That dumbass bar of most used apps always present taking up screen space 🙉

            • Canonical doesn’t give a shit what users want🖕

            But the most important part is that I really don’t care. I don’t use your computer. You do. So use whatever the 🔥hell🔥 you want. Use a version of Winblows 🪟 themed to look like Arch 🤭, wallpaper and all👌, then post screenshots on the Internet about your superiority 💪.

            Live how you want! And if someone shames you for it, kick them out of you life 😎

      • SeventySeven@sh.itjust.works
        6·
        2 months ago

        Because there’s always going to be someone who says the distro you liked the most is not the distro you should be using. (I use Arch btw)

  • TheKracken@lemmy.world
    36·
    2 months ago

    Just setup Mint last night and have been troubleshooting how to get everything to work. So far I’m liking it. Last thing I setup was Lutris for gaming so that’s nice.

        • baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          7·
          2 months ago

          I’m pretty sure the question was more about linux mint (ubuntu/default) vs. linux mint debian edition, as those can confidently be called different distros. Don’t worry about it though, the issues with ubuntu are actually very small, they’re just infinitely magnified on the internet by people who care a lot about the smallest things. There are also many advantages to using ubuntu or an ubuntu derivative. Also this question can be interpreted very humorously, so maybe do that if you like.

          • TheKracken@lemmy.world
            7·
            2 months ago

            Ah I assume Ubuntu based since I just downloaded the latest from the mint website. Still learning about Linux so not 100% sure.

            • baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
              6·
              2 months ago

              If you just went with the most prominent and easily accessible download button it’ll probably be ubuntu, but as i said, despite what some might say that’s not necessarily a bad thing

              • Zink@programming.dev
                5·
                2 months ago

                If he got the cinnamon version, that is indeed the default Ubuntu based one. I use the same thing.

                One of the biggest draws of regular Mint IMO is that it leverages the advantages and resources of Ubuntu but it removes the parts that many people don’t like.

  • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
    27·
    2 months ago

    Mint, judge me

    PS anyone have any favorite resources for absolute tech illiterate noobs? I’m trying, but without a baseline understanding of the subject, it’s hard to find the right guides

    • HStone32@lemmy.world
      9·
      2 months ago

      you’re not using debian? that must mean you hate freedom.

      My advice is to get a hobby. Self-hosting, or home automation to name a few examples. When you have a specific goal for something you want to do, it’s a lot easier to learn.

      • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        2 months ago

        That’s the thing, I don’t know enough to know what to even ask. So far I’ve been able to follow step-by-step instructions for installing Mint and downloading software, but I don’t know what I’m doing at all.

        One example of something I spent hours on is adding Cura to the panel. I finally got that done while I was writing this comment by following AndyMH’s answer here.

        Now, I can read

        I would move the appimage into a folder in PATH. If you create a folder /home/you/bin it is automatically added to PATH next time you boot.

        And I can do that. I have no idea what PATH is or why I want to do that, but I can do it. And I can look it up, and I’m sure I’ll eventually get to a point where all of this makes sense to me, but I feel kind of helpless when I have to look up multiple terms every time I want to do something as simple as adding an application to the panel

        • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
          2·
          2 months ago

          That’s the thing, I don’t know enough to know what to even ask.

          Fair enough.

          I have no idea what PATH is or why I want to do that, but I can do it

          Its really only for non standard installs. That is outside of the package manager or flatpak. PATH is just where the computer will look for executables. Since you installed from source or some other side then it won’t be in the normal /bin. You’re just updating your PATH to include other places.

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
      2·
      2 months ago

      Depends on what you’re wanting to learn. I’m a fellow tech illiterate noob, but I’ve been off and on with Linux since like 2006. Finally switched full time a few years ago. Honestly, with Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora I’ve found you basically can just set it and forget it, depending on your use case. YouTube has been my best friend whenever I have a problem, normally I type my issue into that before even google. How long have you been using Linux? If you’re still in the distro hopping phase,I suggest trying to swap Desktop environments instead of distros, as it gives you a little experience with the terminal, is well documented on how to do it, and gives you a good idea of what kind of UI you want

      That’s all I got, though. I really am pretty illiterate at tech stuff haha

    • LordPassionFruit@lemm.ee
      2·
      2 months ago

      This may be shit advice, but it may help.

      I have a mint laptop and was also linux illiterate when I started. The way I did most of my learning was by googling (or duckduckgo-ing) “How do I [x] linux mint” and reading through stack overflow threads. If this doesn’t return results, (almost) any solution for Debian or Ubuntu will work on Mint.

      In general, I just assumed that if I thought the computer could do it, there would be a way to do it.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
      13·
      2 months ago

      It’s wonderful how the expression “humble Arch Linux user” manages to pack a contradiction in a mere 4 words.

    • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      2 months ago

      There is nothing wrong with Mint EZ mode. I got a computer illiterate buddy with a 8 year old shittop running it like its new.

    • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
      4·
      2 months ago

      I love Mint, it has become my workhorse distro. I use LMDE on my personal business laptop. I switched my parents from Windows 10 to Mint earlier this year, and it’s been great on their very old and low power desktop.

      Cinnamon is not the prettiest or slickest DE, but damn if it ain’t the most stable DE I’ve used.

      I’m a KDE fanboi myself, but when I spin up a machine that I need to just work in a super dependable way and is no muss, no fuss, I usually choose Mint with Cinnamon.