• NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world
    10·
    6 days ago

    I made this mistake once and every comment was a different distro, they were all upvoted, and everyone was saying good things about all of them.

    I just went with Ubuntu.

        • hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz
          1·
          6 days ago

          TBH I would switch to Nix, from my current long standing arch, but it wouldn’t make any difference to me ultimately. Cool concept though, but I don’t really care much about these immutable distros.

          • Masterkraft0r@discuss.tchncs.de
            6·
            6 days ago

            I have to say the immutability isn’t what got me. It’s that i can propagate changes to all my machines (i have three, with different configurations of work and private users) without fuss. i have one git repo that contains the Config and all i do is git pull && sudo nixos-rebuild switch after i login and it’s done. reinstalling is also somewhat trivial and once the installer is done everything is as i want it to be. which is just bonkers to me. i love it to bits. before i had a super brittle system of dotfiles that regularly broke. nevermore

            • hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz
              1·
              6 days ago

              That does make sense for such use cases, however I feel that archinstall script is also mature enough, allowing you to have config files even. Even w/o them it still has very powerful defaults. I will def give nixos a try in a VM first, as I mostly rely on flatpak and landlock anyways.

  • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
    17·
    7 days ago

    Shame on all of you for not knowing Hanna Montana Linux is the best possible OS ever.

    I thought that it’s a fact everyone using Linux just instinctively knew.

  • Sunsofold@lemmings.worldEnglish
    101·
    7 days ago

    There is a slight difference there. You don’t ask the first two because social norms have pressured those groups to focus on those elements to unhealthy levels, so asking is, on a certain level, disrupting the peace of the other person by touching a sensitive area. The third is not. The third is poking your own peace because whether they have an extreme loyalty to one or a nuanced understanding of why different ones are better suited to different use cases, you are about to be talked at for an hour about it.

  • Carrot@lemmy.today
    81·
    7 days ago

    Pretty much any distro can do any of the things Windows/Mac users are hoping a computer can do. So just pick one and stick with it. Once you’re familiar with Linux, the benefits/drawbacks of each distro will become clearer, and you’ll be able to make an informed decision. People will tell you “Arch is more lightweight than Mint” but compared to Windows/MacOS, all Linux distros are going to feel blazingly fast and lightweight. The only decent advice is, if you are just starting out and you have an Nvidia GPU, use a distro that sets that up for you automatically. It’s not super complicated to set up, but it’s definitely going to feel like a foreign experience the first time.

    • Natanox@discuss.tchncs.deOPEnglish
      2·
      7 days ago

      Pretty much any distro can do any of the things Windows/Mac users are hoping a computer can do.

      Without knowledge and at least an hour of your time for configuration, CLI-first distros like Arch can’t even play a video - or show a GUI for that matter.

      […] Nvidia GPU […] It’s not super complicated to set up, but it’s definitely going to feel like a foreign experience the first time.

      If you’re lucky that means. If you happen to pick a distro / device combo that doesn’t harmonize and the distro didn’t took care of the driver from the start you’ll have a really, really bad time. Especially if it’s a hybrid GPU system. You’re right about picking a distro that comes with it. Options like Pop!_OS, TuxedoOS or Bazzite come to mind.

  • chautalees@lemmy.world
    114·
    7 days ago

    it is OBJECTIVELY linux mint. Why? Because.

    this comment was written on June 2025. So as of this day Mint is fabulous. And if I were to save a single distro from a burning building of all the popular distros, i would grab mint twice.

    I know I know, there are many good distros, even texhnically better ones. But having used Mint as a secondary dual boot to my primary Windows, I have felt that Mint has been least annoying and actually worth retaining and updating and maintaining.

    • Camelbeard@lemmy.world
      3·
      7 days ago

      Mint is great I use it on my desktop and laptop and have been for years (I switched when Ubuntu has that unity desktop period). For Linux it’s the most “it just works” distro for me. My second choice would be manjaro, but mint also has the advantage that there is so much help for Ubuntu you can find online, that usually also works for mint.

      • chautalees@lemmy.world
        2·
        5 days ago

        Agree 100%. The amount of “help” content and documentation, both formal and informal, for other distros doesn’t even come close to that of Ubuntu. It’s like tenfold more. And so 90% of it becomes immediately, if not applicable, alteast in the right direction, for Mint as well.

        • pmk@lemmy.sdf.org
          2·
          5 days ago

          Well it takes like a thousand people to make Debian, so they’d need to do a lot of work.

            • pmk@lemmy.sdf.org
              1·
              5 days ago

              I’m actually thinking about switching from Debian to Mint. I’m thinking that if Mint is the recommended distro for people new to Linux, they will need a big community to answer questions in forums.

              • chautalees@lemmy.world
                2·
                5 days ago

                Absolutely. They will.

                With the momentum that Mint already has, it has the highest chance of succeeding as the primary distro for Linux newbies in the coming years.

                some long winded thoughts…

                Like every PC Semi-enthusiast sufferer of Windows, when I was looking for a Linux distro to respite, I deliberated way too long on which distro to use. Finally I realized that the way I use Windows, I’ll not be able to fully switch over to Linux anytime soon. So instead of burning midnight oil, one day i said fuck it, and installed Mint as a dual boot option. I spent quite a lot of time trying to make the Mint as close to my Windows setup as possible, but couldn’t do fully. Plus the VKD3D performance penalty for Nvidia GPU in DX12 games meant I was never going to ditch Windows as my primary gaming OS.

                • pmk@lemmy.sdf.org
                  2·
                  5 days ago

                  I did the same thing, but with ubuntu. Now, you and I can troubleshoot issues and have patience. But someone who is sort of reluctant to begin with, it’s a hard sell if there are hurdles.

    • Zink@programming.dev
      2·
      7 days ago

      I freaking love Linux Mint. I use it for myself because despite being the “easy” distro, it is still Linux. (Or as I like to call it, GNU plus Linux, lol) But you are still allowed to use the terminal, compile your own code, fiddle with your system, run docker, and generally do what you want with your computer without it bogging down to load ads for services that are already running in the background bogging it down more whether you pay for it or not. And since it is based on debian/ubuntu/apt, users benefit from that popularity when they look up how to do something.

      I love it just as much for the non-power users. It is how I will allow my parents to keep their perfectly good laptop that collects dust instead of spending a thousand bucks on a new win11 laptop to collect dust.

      Long term I assume that I will end up on Arch or a derivative, mostly thanks to Valve, on top of it being a good project to learn on.

      • chautalees@lemmy.world
        2·
        5 days ago

        so I’m not very knowledgeable about the Linux world, but I’m also not completely green. In my lifetime I have dabbled with trying out 4-5 distros either dualbooting or VMing, Ubuntu being my first experience.

        But i feel like, as much as I love our Lord and Savior GabeN, what Valve’s doing with Steam OS is not fully how I image a PC Linux Utopia vision looks like? Maybe i am not able to word it properly, my thought salad, but it feels like there is something missing in the Valve’s approach to challenging Microsoft’s grip on PC market

        • Zink@programming.dev
          1·
          5 days ago

          I’d love to hear your specific thoughts on that one.

          My comment was less about anything technical with SteamOS, and more about its popularity and the influence of gaming on the enthusiast PC market. And I’m not assuming that everybody will install SteamOS on their desktop, just thinking that arch-based distros might get a lot more market share.

          I haven’t even used it, honestly. Like I said I’m using mint on everything.

  • Squirrelanna@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    5·
    7 days ago

    Hey can y’all help me out? I wanna start switching over, but I need a beginner friendly distro that can work well with my 2070 super for gaming. I need something simple to set up or I’ll get ADHD paralysis and never do it.

    I’d also love if it worked well with my Valve Index, but if that still has a lot of issues across the board I may still have to dual boot :c

    • AmanitaCaesarea@slrpnk.net
      6·
      7 days ago

      If you like the color green pick linux mint. If you like blue pick zorinOS.

      If you really want to use arch as noob pick Garuda.

      80% of recommendations will be an Ubuntu/debian child so pick whatever looks good and works. See the first two.

      If you really don’t like Ubuntu/deb check out Fedora. If you want a big screen steam mode pick bazzite.

    • rapchee@lemmy.world
      3·
      6 days ago

      i started on mint, with a 2080, played through hl alyx (with one weird issue - when i had my old xbox 360 controller plugged in, alyx and vr home couldn’t start, but that was a few years ago, maybe it’s not an issue any more).
      which is to say, the index is not the issue, most vr games don’t have a native linux version, so you have to rely on proton, and especially with nvidia cards they’re far from guaranteed to run

    • GiveOver@feddit.uk
      3·
      7 days ago

      Mint. It started as the beginner friendly distro and it’s becoming the “main” distro as of late.