Yeah I installed that one you’re thinking of.

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

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

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

    Distro, and desktop environment.

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

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

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

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

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

    • coaxil@lemmy.zip
      6·
      3 days ago

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

            • Crozekiel@lemmy.zipEnglish
              3·
              3 days ago

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

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

  • DFX4509B@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    261·
    4 days ago

    Mint is pretty much the de facto recommendation for absolute beginners freshly moving away from Windows right now, but LMDE especially will be subject to dealing with older software.

    Otoh, any of the Puppy distros are a great option for genuinely old hardware; think AM2+/775 or older, that a lot of heavier distros may or may not struggle on.

    • JustARegularNerd@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      6·
      4 days ago

      Having Socket 775, Puppy Linux and genuinely old hardware in the sentence shook me.

      I still remember being in high school playing Minecraft on those Optiplexes, and even before that playing Poptropica and CoolMathGames…

        • JustARegularNerd@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          1·
          3 days ago

          Yeah, I’m not disagreeing with you, more so making a comment on how it never occurred to me they were that old today.

          That being said, by the time I was playing with 775 computers they were pretty out of date (2013) and by 2015 all of those machines were replaced at my school. So in a rational sense that explains the time disparity I feel for Socket 775.

    • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      1·
      4 days ago

      The only thing I would like to add to mint is more folder colors.

      It’s soo solid, good and stable (as it’s Linux eh), I’m still a recovering windozer.

    • Bobo The Great@startrek.website
      1·
      4 days ago

      but LMDE especially will be subject to dealing with older software

      Are you sure about this? As far as I know, debian modernized their repos quite a bit even compared to ubuntu, that also sparked some controversy from debian long time fans especially because they wanted more dated, stable software. Never used LMDE though, so I’m not sure if it applies

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
    18·
    4 days ago

    Good analogy by using cars. You can test drive a car. Since a lot (all?) distros have a way to run off a USB, so you can get the general “feel” of it. Then you can go from there. Or if you have room to work with, setting up dual boot isn’t that hard (outside of how Windows acts sometimes about it). Asking a lot of people what flavor ice cream they prefer isn’t going to help you decide your own.

    • wltr@discuss.tchncs.de
      4·
      3 days ago

      The easiest way would be getting the cheapest SSD (even 30 GB is enough for most distros), swap your current disk with it, play around, and return where you were, if you don’t like anything.

  • slothrop@lemmy.caEnglish
    130·
    4 days ago

    I dual boot Arch and Arch, and I run an Arch hypervisor as well as an Arch vm in each Arch instance.

  • Broadfern@lemmy.worldEnglish
    46·
    4 days ago

    The one that makes you happy.

    ^Or at least overrides the desire to grab a sledgehammer when troubleshooting^

    • Ooops@feddit.org
      1·
      3 days ago

      rolling release (for gaming)

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