If you’re a programmer: NixOS.
Define your OS config, which programs to install, and dotfiles in one repo. Install a fresh OS, pull in the repo (
nix-shell -p git, because NixOS doesn’t come with git >_> ) and run the command to install the whole thing (sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .for me.wodanis just the name of a config - I have multiple all combines into one repo, so I can share configuration between machines).Took me 17 minutes to set up my laptop exactly the same as my Desktop. Same configuration, applications, and OS settings. It’s so fucking nice.
With Windows, that used to take 2 days to download and install everything manually.
Only downside: You’ll need to learn Nix-the-language, nix-the-os, and nix-the-terminal-program, which took about a month of deeply digging into the Vimjoyer and LibrePhoenix channels.
Ubuntu is just Debian with extra steps… and snaps
Just checked my Mint. Why Cinnamon uses so much VRAM? I have over 1GB idle, without anything running. In my Windows i usually have 400Mb with all things closed.
I remember this site
https://www.linuxatemyram.com/
But honestly, although I can’t check it, 1GB idle is still far more ram than what I get idle, so you might have some weird program auto-starting and actually eating your ram.
RAM is ok, i have plenty of it. VRAM (Video RAM) is the problem. The RAM of the GPU, used for showing graphics, UI etc.
Oof sorry my bad lol
Use whatever the fuck you want, you fucking weirdo cultists.
This. I’d better use windows then listen to another round of debate Ubuntu vs Arch…
spoiler
I use arch btw
Guys hi, just looking for some support share, a Fantasy Adventure Story, for all ages and just some entertain with some storyes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mVIvQ1wsgg - maybe you are curious
This is seriously a hot take
linux Mint
Debian since 1998. No reason to change.
Debian gaming wasn’t great when a lot of the landscape was changing (around 2016?) and even one of my very Debian friendly colleagues switched his gaming machine to Arch back then because getting the new stuff like AMD Vulkan drivers and DXVK running was really hard on Debian. Don’t think he migrated that particular machine back since then.
Prior to bookworm making non-free easy and nvidia driver opening one could make some arguments.
These days, though, nothing compelling can be said to walk past Debian.
What about Debian’s inability to run Proton 10?
That’s what beta is for right?
Yeah, but the post I replied to said “since 1998”. That is prior to bookworm.
Personally, I don’t care for it too much. Every time I try it (which is rare) something annoys me. "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE"s, deviation from upstream that renders official documentation less valuable. With Arch (which I don’t use anymore), you can be pretty sure that what’s on your machine is what’s currently released by upstream. This refers both to version and the software itself. Remember cdrkit? xscreensaver? The weak OpenSSH keys? Sure, these must notable examples are from long ago, but there were just so many issues over the course of my “career” that the distribution for me is somewhat burned. Also because all of this could have been easily avoided.
Anyhow, use what you want, but it’s for sure not my favorite distro.
that should be their mission statement.
Use Debian. No good reason to change.
“You’ve done a lot of work to make this work. Do you really want more work?”™
I’m okay with it.
I can think of one. The Debian logo is boring!
Ubuntu sucks
You choose the worst option
Why?
It’s not that bad but I feel like fedora’s probably a better option
Installed 24.04 this week. On the second day my graphical interface was completely borked. Bare in mind I only installed the usual things I need like neovim, appimage support, compilers, etc.
I’ve used the same installation of Arch, Fedora and Suse on different machines for years in a row without an issue
Mint because the name is fun
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TL;DR: I’m a true Linux noob, and now love and appreciate Linux thanks to openSUSE Tumbleweed. :)
In all seriousness, as a Linux noob, openSUSE Tumbleweed made me actually start to really enjoy using Linux as my main OS. I’ve fucked up plenty of times, and at that point I would’ve had to reinstall most other distros, but Snapper came in and saved the day. I’m sure there are plenty of other distros that do snapshots just as well, but this is coming from someone who last tried running Linux 5-6 years ago, and was still fucking my shit up somehow. I’ve never had the best of luck with Linux, which is why I always stayed on Windows.
Then came Microsoft’s ever increasing enshittification, and I saw openSUSE Tumbleweed on the distrowatch website, downloaded it, and here we are 8 months later, and openSUSE has remained my main OS. I only got a desktop for gaming, and it fit the bill almost perfectly. I had to learn some things, that’s for sure, but what got me to stay was the stability! I had never used a Linux distro up until that point that made BTRFS and system snapshots the default. This was crucial for someone like me who only dabbled in Linux because I love the idea behind it, I could just never get too far into using it before fucking my shit up!
There are plenty of options that are similar, or maybe even better than openSUSE, but they won my interest and respect for getting a noob like me to truly envelope themselves into Linux.
I’m still nowhere near anything that might resemble your common Linux user, but damn do I really love my computer again now. It’s like when I was kid again, and first started using computers, fascinated by what I could do.
Out of curiosity, do you have an Nvidia graphics card? I tried migrating to Linux at the beginning of this year, but I couldn’t get my favorite games to run, like Cyberpunk 2077 and Kingdom Come Deliverance, so I ended up bailing.
As someone with two separate computers that have nvidia cards, I can only recommend hopping distros until one works.
(I’m not going to admit that manjaro worked out of the box on both of them and I ended up staying on it out loud on the internet)
Same bro, Nvidia and Linux don’t play very nice together. I had horrible framerates in browser animations for example, so even videos ran at 3fps or so with audio glitches.
Not to mention 3d gaming. I’ll try again in a few years, see if it changes.
I consider myself to be ‘techie’ for lack of a better word. I have custom janky solutions for everything. I have in the past written down a blue screen and troubleshooted it to give the IT team notes… Hell, I used to be the guy IT would call if they received a ticket from my office (anyone in my office) because I could give them more details and such… So, I like computers and shit, right?
And holy fuck I don’t get the Linux world. I used Mint back in '13ish and it was fine but in a different place back then. I use Pop_OS! on my laptop and I like it just fine. I use Ubuntu on my secondary computer and I like it just fine. I don’t get what I’m supposed to prefer about all these different distros/environments. I can’t wrap my head around it. Do y’all change OSes that often? Am I missing out on something? Am I wrong or are y’all the kids who are wrong?
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I feel like a lot of it is from new-ish users excited to talk about it and in the process of forming often prematurely strong opinions on this versus that within Linux. After 15 years of daily driving Linux desktop environments i settled on the one that gave me the least fuss and havent given it a second thought since. I suspect there are many with a similar story, but it’s a boring conversation start if people are looking to debate it.
i settled on the one that gave me the least fuss
Debian?
Lol, yep.
This is crazy. You shouldn’t use Ubuntu for anything desktop related. There’s nothing vanilla about vanilla Ubuntu.
(Custom Gnome extensions, patches on top of Gnome, custom sandbox packages that don’t always work, custom apt that refuses to install the real packages in place of snaps, paywalled security patches, should I keep going?)
Except I have no trouble replacing snaps. I only replace them when there is a need. I always add gnome extensions to mine. I like a little extra and I get it easily with ubuntu. If you are a individual user you can get the ESM updates for free and I do.
When one of the other distros demonstrates anything that I cant get with ubuntu I will move on. Until then I’ll keep using it because it keeps working.
When one of the other distros demonstrates anything that I cant get with ubuntu I will move on. Until then I’ll keep using it because it keeps working.
You can’t get vanilla Gnome on Ubuntu. There are tons of other distros that will give you vanilla Gnome (they don’t put any of their own patches on top of Gnome).
But I think you were pretty clear that you don’t want vanilla Gnome, so if Ubuntu’s working for you, more power to you. I just wouldn’t recommend it to anyone new to Linux.
I don’t like vanilla gnome. Like I said the first thing I do with any debian installation I work on is install extensions.
Extensions are one thing. Even if a distro comes with some Gnome extensions, you can just disable them. Ubuntu puts custom patches on the Gnome packages they ship. Those can’t be disabled, and they could potentially interfere with extensions that don’t expect them to be there. That’s my problem with Ubuntu’s approach to Gnome.
I understand that you don’t like vanilla Gnome, but I still wouldn’t recommend Ubuntu to anyone, especially noobs, as a desktop OS, because of the myriad issues with Canonical’s approach to modifying the source of the packages they ship.
It’s the same reason if anyone reports a bug to any of my software, and they say it happens on Ubuntu, I’ll disregard it unless they can replicate it on an OS that doesn’t patch their packages that way. Canonical is responsible for fixing the bugs their patches cause, and they’ve added tons of extra triage work to devs who have to determine whether Canonical fucked something up or there’s actually an issue with their code.
I totally get you don’t like it but once again you are not giving me any reason why what you prefer is somehow better.
I’ve given you quite a few reasons, you just don’t care.
Let me put this really simply. Canonical fucks shit up with their patches. Users experience this as buggy software. Users file bug reports to the software. The bugs aren’t valid because the problem is with Canonical’s mess of patches. That is bad for me as the dev, because I have to triage that bug and determine that it’s Ubuntu, not my software. That is bad for you as the user, because software that works perfectly fine on any other system doesn’t work on yours. This is also bad for you because the devs that build the software you use have to waste their time tracking down Ubuntu bugs, instead of spending their time improving the software you use.
Maybe you don’t consider this a problem, because you’re used to how buggy Ubuntu is, or maybe you don’t use any software that Ubuntu has fucked up, but that is a problem that people experience, and if you don’t see that, that’s a you problem.
Also, I specifically didn’t mention “what I prefer”, because it doesn’t matter. Canonical is the only big Linux company that does this to an extent that devs waste their time on it. Any other big name distro is better than Ubuntu.
Your right I don’t care. Fanatics care about things no one else does. I don’t have many bugs with ubuntu and any that I do are usually trivial. You keep saying its bad but its not my experience. My experience started with Slackware. I still have a Slackware box that I still compile my own kernel on from time to time to keep in the know on kernel changes. I’m not by any metric an amateur. I’m sure some of these bugs seem unique and are a major problem for you.
I’ve tried mint and wasted my time with arch. I’m installed them all. I’ve even created my own. None of them have ever brought anything game changing to the table. I’ve seen bugs with every distro. Somehow to you these bugs are worse. I can clearly see they are similar to other distros and the bugs they have.
In reference to what you prefer. Its clear you don’t prefer ubuntu and you have continually mentioned it. So don’t pretend you don’t have a preference. Disguising it as some general disdain on how canonical operates doesn’t negate its clearly your preference. You will not change my mind and I don’t want to change yours. You seem like you just can’t take I don’t care about how you see it any other way than personally.
Other linux companies? Of which I really only know of three in total all do things that people don’t like
Red Hat(IBM) killed centos and I moved all my servers over to straight debian the week after their announcement. I didn’t like it but I didn’t foam at the mouth about it. They also clamped down on their sources so fedora is going to become increasingly obscure. Kind of like SCO became. They wont die that death but I look at Red Hat as a dead end.
SUSE has never been a distro I’ve used. No reason really. I always had other options. Their decisions were business ones and therefore unpopular to some.
Canonical is doing it their way and they are doing a good job. You can’t deny that but Its clear you don’t like it. I would really like you to stop generalizing and give me a specific bug they have out of the box that isn’t tied to some specific hardware. I don’t pay for ESM but I use it since I only have two Ubuntu machines that I use personally.
In the unlikely event anyone else bothers to read this. I will speak to you what I’ve said elsewhere in this thread. Find something you like and stick with it and don’t let someone elses problem become yours.
Kubuntu LTS (
--minimal-install; nosnapfuckery from the start) has been wonderful.You could also just use Fedora KDE
I haven’t seen this classic in a long while…
I recently scooped up a pack of rage faces and old memes and threw them into my Immich instance. Now searchable classics ondemand.
I think the whole works part is the most important part, Linux can be janky (and by that I mean obsolete information and deprecated or outdated packages are often recommended and there are a thousand different ways to do anything with only one of them actually working (don’t have an aneurysm)) on the best of days, If something just works you can change what you want later.
This is why I switched to Mint. It just works. It’s broken less than vanilla Ubuntu did. So thats what I use.
Yeah. Generally when I’m using a Linux PC to work on something, I don’t want to be fixing the PC itself too. And we make an embedded Linux product at work, so it’s not like I miss out on the fun, lol.
I use Mint everywhere. It works great. Being easier for newcomers to use and having an extra layer of polish does not restrict my use of the command line or scripting.
Using pop OS for 5 years. Never tried any other, never seen the need to. I picked at mostly random and don’t really understand the differences.
I went Ubuntu > Mint > Ubuntu > Pop_os. The only difference I’ve noticed is Pop breaks less often.
That is the thing of it. I started with Slackware. Then Debian and moved to ubuntu. I’m still using ubuntu. I’ve loaded up some other distros but they bring nothing definitive to the table. I’ve installed pop os and it works. If it had existed when I moved away from slackware I might have picked it. If you are using it and its working for you why bother changing.
I used Mint for a good long while, but went to Fedora KDE for better Wayland support. KDE is quite different to Cinnamon, not sure I have the words to articulate how. It’s fussier. The main difference about Fedora is package management, DNF is slower than APT, a lot less software is packaged as RPMs, and a lot of “we don’t package it, you have to compile it” software offers no instructions for Fedora, and trying to translate the Debian/Ubuntu instructions practically always fails because the library they want you to install isn’t there. So Fedora is Linux with less software.
