Congrats! Your laptop will be even happier with a lighter but still nice-looking desktop environment like Xfce and you even have an Ubuntu flavor around it: Xubuntu.
I’ve run cinnamon on some pretty anemic systems and it was quite snappy. But I’d also been able to upgrade the memory so if it’s not upgradabe that may not be as good
I’d recommend Linux Mint with the XFCE desktop over Xubuntu, because they’re mostly the same thing but Mint doesn’t use Snap packages by default while Ubuntu does and Mint is better suited for desktop usage due to their various nice little config tools.
That sounds kinda like my journey, although without the Marxist part.
Clueless about tech, bought an iMac
These ads are annoying. [Installs adblock Plus]. There. Except for fricking Taboola, they can DIAF. And the cookie popup banners. Why do they love cookies if they’re not playing cookie clicker?
It’s the MacOS Catalina Update!! It Thanos snapped my iPod music library. This taught me to avoid MacOS and realize that updates often just make things worse. Set up a dual boot with Windows.
I start browsing r/asshole_design too much. Teaches me to never trust a corporation. I also realize how phones keep dropping useful features. I finally realize uBlock origin blocks much more than ads.
Oh boy, this is where the rabbit hole starts. I’m sick of how slow my Mac is, addicted to discovering new cool apps on my phone, and discover FOSS. I install Linux for the first time, and it runs quite well on a laptop from 2009. Also YouTube goes full greed mode.
Get my new Windows gaming laptop, try to balance privacy with convenience. But I’m irked at how slow it is for some basic tasks. Everything is stable, except when the laptop’s SSD borked.
Uh oh. Discord, YouTube, and Reddit all make massively greedy decisions, and I don’t want to support those platforms anymore. I discover Lemmy. I try to focus extra hard on FOSS and donate $150 over the course of the year. I think this tells me I’ve became radicalized. Proprietary platforms keep getting worse and worse.
Linux resurgence. Tired of Windows, and one of my classes needs a UNIX terminal. Sounds like it’s time to dual boot (on 2 SSDs), with Ubuntu being the default. Also I buy a year of Nebula to support creators and stick it to Google.
+1 for Syncthing, I use it a lot. However anyone have any methods of 1-way sync? I’d like to backup camera photos from my phone with it but not have a 2-way sync so I can delete the pictures off my phone, and not have it deleted on my server. At one point I found a discussion with the developers about this exact use case and if I remember right, they were kind or in the camp of ‘that use case extends beyond what we envision for the app and would introduce more complexities, so we’re not a big fan of introducing that feature.’
True but you could set up a schedule /cronjob to move the files from the shared folder perhaps. Would be a bit extra traffic I guess if pics are not deleted on main device regularly.
are you sure you would this something like that on your devices? Because I’m not sure if you reasoned enough about that monstruosity you randomly propose here :D
actually I’m not sure of the qualities you go looking for online, certainly not the solidity of solutions that you seem to be looking for 🤷but ehi, I’m not here to judge! Cyao :*
I know the “Arch BTW” meme exists for a reason, but one of the reasons I haven’t been able to drag myself away from Arch-based distros in recent years is that it allows me to always have current versions of my software while also just not having to care about all this appimage/flatpak/snap brouhaha.
I guess it’s somewhat of a “pick your poison” kind of situation, but I find dealing with the typical complaints about Arch based distros to be both less of a problem than detractors would have you believe, and less of a headache than having to pick one of three competing alternative packaging approaches, or worse, to use a mix of them all. Standing on the sidelines of the topic it seems like a small number of people really like that these options exist, and I’m happy for those people. But mostly I’m grateful that I don’t have to care about this kind of thing.
Edited to add: Seeing how this thread has developed in the past 5 hours convinces me anew that “on the sidelines” is where I want to stay on this topic. 😁
I think if we could drag users (at least gamers) away from these Debian/Ubuntu based distros we could have developers just shipping packages that wouldn’t need to be compatible with some ancient LTS library release, and maybe we wouldn’t need appimage/flatpak/snap at all anymore (or at least only in rare cases).
What about in unstable or testing? I moved to Arch from Debian because I wanted faster releases and it just made sense to move to rolling instead of testing Debian install.
I think Debian has a place in the Desktop market, it’s just not gamers or anyone wanting anything new (unless they of course go the flatpak route). Not a perfect analogy, but it’s kinda like gaming on Windows 7 these days because it “just works” for you. Sure you can, but you’re not getting the best of anything that way and all the underlying libraries are outdated and some things just aren’t going to work at all.
From my perspective as someone who is both getting into gaming on Linux and also not much of a power user, Arch would have to make the installation and maintenance process a lot simpler to attract more people, and I’m not sure that’s something they actually want to do.
Looking at the official Arch installation guide, the average gamer may be overwhelmed by the process here, especially if they’re not comfortable with the terminal. Something like Linux Mint, on the other hand, has a built-in GUI installer with reasonable partitioning defaults, and it comes packaged with stuff like an app manger and update manager, something that will feel much more familiar to someone coming from windows.
100% all this. Canonical has been pushing snaps for awhile, and I wonder if the 12 year LTS for Ubuntu is part of that strategy - want something newer? It’s in the snap store. snap is terrible, worse than flakpak and appimage - but just as you say, as an arch user I don’t have to care. Whatever I want is probably in the AUR if not the main repos. Rolling distros, done right (arch), are an amazing experience.
I distribute an app I made for Linux, macOS and Windows. The Linux version I only have available as a .deb. Released recently and has about 200 users so far, but definitely exists. No Arch user contacted me yet.
When folks start wanting it, someone will package it for the AUR, or if it becomes even somewhat mainstream it will end up in the main repos eventually.
Possibly, though I wonder how updates would work then. Currently I have a Debian repository that contains a single package, and installing the .deb from my website also installs the repository so you get updates as with any other package.
If someone repackages it on AUR, I guess they will also need to update it every time I update the .deb, so it’s always behind? Of course it would be better if I provided a first party package for AUR, but I can spend time on that when there is actual interest. Most of my users are on Windows anyway.
Usually what you describe is what they do. Someone “owns” the AUR package (and it’s not quite literally any random user IIRC - you have to be accepted as an AUR maintainer I think) and they then take on the responsibility to repackage it whenever the author (you) releases a new version. There is also a mechanism for users to flag the AUR package as out of date in case that maintainer misses a release, and if they abandon it (or even if folks just don’t like how they package it) someone else can package it, assuming someone else wants to.
Sometimes the AUR maintainer is the dev themselves. I can’t think of a good example currently, but I know I’ve seen it before.
I don’t know the process for how things end up in the official repos, but I would guess it’s similar to however any other distros identify software they want to officially package.
I know you already got another answer, but - it’s very rare that any software for Linux exists that is both 1) not present in the official Arch repos, and also 2) not packaged by a user for the AUR.
Probably 99% of what a typical user (I know we all define that differently) will want doesn’t even require AUR access - it will be in the official Arch repositories and will be up to date to within a few weeks of release.
There are some potentially substantial downsides to the AUR (it’s the Arch USER Repository - so these are not official arch packages) but IME the real world problems are minimal. I would suggest anyone who is new to the Arch way of distributing software should hit up the relevant page on the Arch wiki and make up their own mind before using the AUR - but it’s about being aware of what you are doing more than it is a real warning, if that makes sense. I suspect few Arch or Arch-based users don’t have at least a smidgen of AUR packages on their system. (Edit: That page is very thorough. I think it makes installing from the AUR sound much harder than it needs to be. For most people the command is just “yay -S packagename.” There are gui options that handle all packages including AUR, and yay is not the only cli option, either.)
Interestingly, there are some AUR packages that work by pulling down the deb and deconstructing it for installation on your system - AFAIK it can be that, RPM, a true “compile from source” situation, or I’m guessing some AUR packages are deconstructing snaps\flatpaks\appimages during the install. Whatever the origin of the files, they include a pkgbuild file that tells your system how to either compile or deconstruct and install the software.
I know I ran into this years ago. I think it was some collection manager app for a trading card game that someone had on GitHub and only had .deb releases. Eventually you will want to install something niche.
Nah, it’s repeating the installation process until you finally get enough stuff working to have internet, and then you can bootstrap installing every other bit of software that you need. Thank goodness for rolling release - I can’t imagine having to go through that again.
You can install Arch directly from a UEFI shell over the Internet: archlinux.org/releng/netboot/
If your BIOS has a UEFI shell that supports DHCP, HTTP and IPv4 PXE you can load the ipxe-arch.efi over HTTP and start installing.
Depends on the version. All of them (the newer ones with networking) have TFTP. Some even have HTTPS. I think HP Servers even have HTTPS-Boot with client TLS certificates.
None of it works with Wifi though. iPXE has wifi support for some devices but you obviously can’t start it over the Internet. You need to flash a ROM you don’t need or use a USB drive to load it. Then you can boot Linux from the Internet. (That also works if you don’t have a UEFI Shell in BIOS). netboot.xyz can also boot other OSes than Arch.
I haven’t done a vanilla arch install for years either, because if that sort of thing is fun for some folks great, but it was only fun once or twice for me. I think a lot of the vanilla arch faithful end up scripting it for fresh installs.
But, FWIW there’s always endeavouros, manjaro, and I’m sure other Arch derivatives I’ve forgotten about. I just did an endeavouros install on new hardware I was given last weekend, and it’s certainly no harder to install than Ubuntu.
For each Ubuntu LTS release, Canonical maintains the Base Packages and provides security updates, including kernel livepatching, for a period of ten years.
There’s no need to register an account with Ubuntu at all. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t need a pro license to get updates for an LTS for 5 years of support. The “base packages” are both the “main” and “restricted” repositories - it isn’t just a few “core libraries” as you seem to think.
Debian is an excellent distro but I can’t even find out what Debian considers to be covered by their LTS. Their page about it is very vague. I would guess that it’s the same though - “main” repository is what they cover. Similar to Ubuntu.
There’s no need to register an account with Ubuntu at all. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t need a pro license to get updates for an LTS for 5 years of support. The “base packages” are both the “main” and “restricted” repositories - it isn’t just a few “core libraries” as you seem to think.
Really? So why does apt tell me that I need <some blabla that usually means “give us your money”, don’t remember exact wording> to get updates for more packages than it has downloaded each time I run apt update? I have latest LTS (22.04) on my laptop. Maybe you have no idea what you are talking about? I could get any updates until recent (year or two? I use that laptop only occasionally, so I don’t remember the exact time), but now it is clear that Canonical goes the same way as RedHat/IBM.
I would guess that it’s the same though - “main” repository is what they cover. Similar to Ubuntu.
You are wrong because Debian’s main is not similar to Ubuntu. Debian has no universe repo, all FOSS packages go to main.
So why does apt tell me that I need to get updates for more packages than it has downloaded each time I run apt update? I have latest LTS (22.04) on my laptop.
“I’m going to provide zero information about a problem I’m having, say that I have no idea why it’s happening, and then claim it supports my conclusion - check mate!”
@atzanteol@bizdelnick
From what I read, the +5 yrs with a Pro account is on top of the LTS 5 yrs support.
Say Xenial ended last April 2021. With Pro that extends it another 5yrs. With it support ends some time in 2026?
But that is not +5 from when you got the Pro account. It started ticking the moment Xenial EOL'd. So if I signed up Pro now, my Xenial updates will still end on 2026. Should work for later LTS versions, +5 after base 5 on the same Pro account free up to 5 machines.
Installing Debian is not an alternative to the 10-12 year Ubuntu LTS support because Debian doesn’t offer that kind of support. Also as the sibling noted, Ubuntu Pro isn’t needed to get the same support you’re getting from Debian. Ubuntu Pro provides additional support that you don’t get from Debian throughout the support lifespan.
BTW, not offering 10-12 years of support is totally reasonable for a community distribution. I don’t expect volunteers to be backporting fixes for packages built 12 years ago.
10-12 years of support attract only those who think they will never need to update. I don’t think so and I update to each released version, each ~2 years. I know that skipping a release is not supported in any distribution. And update cost grows exponentially over time. So thank you, but I don’t need a support for longer than 3 or 4 years. But for that period I want to have security updates for all software I installed, not only “base”. And I want to get them from public repositories hosted on independent mirrors to be sure that I wont be banned by vendor for some reason.
As for additional support, I don’t need it. I can solve my problems myself and do if faster than Canonical would do. And not only my problems. I also contribute to open source software and I want my contributions to be available to anyone, not only those who pay for support to some company that I have no relationship with.
Ubuntu: It’s not a lack of features that pushed me away; it’s more about the way things are going. I am not a fan of snap packages. I have run into odd issues trying to use them. I used Ubuntu server for my Dell Poweredge and I shut it down until I can find a suitable replacement. I struggled with it respecting my DNS settings which in turn killed my reverse proxy setup.
Manjaro: While I love Arch and some of its derivatives, I can’t stand by Manjaro. I thought it would have been a good OS to use since I was familiar with Arch, but it had enough dependency issues where updates broke them. Funny enough, never have I had a dependency issue with just plain old Arch.
I use Arch btw. But besides the meme on it, I legitimately eo use arch and couldn’t be happier.
Same. Both started out good but kept becoming more and more… not good. If nothing else Manjaro taught me how to chroot from a live distro to fix catastrophic failures. Ubuntu really ruined my week when they decided to try becoming a smart phone with the very touch centric looking UI at the time when I didn’t have time to revert or change distros, which is what finally pushed me to run servers headless and use ssh. Last I tried none of the phone like de’s are particularly intuitive as touch interfaces either.
I use KDE on Arch on my Lenovo Yoga 7i, and I don’t particularly use the touchscreen as much as I would have thought. Though for Waydroid it does work fairly nicely.
I got pissed off at Google Photos, which led me down a self-hosting rabbit hole. Ended up installing Linux everywhere, even my “gaming” one eventually (I do development, and WSL was a resource hog).
The hardest thing to degoogle has been email - I’ve used the same address for years. But I use Thunderbird so at least I don’t have to see ads in my fucking inbox
I DO have an ad blocker. I still ended up seeing an ad, that one time. It might’ve been on mobile. Or I might have had my ad block turned off. Either way, I’ve gone out of my way to make sure I never see an ad in my email again. Used mobile devtools to uninstall the Gmail client, Firefox with uBlock add-on, etc…
May I recommend Proton Mail? I used gmail for years then decided to finally switch and it was easier than I thought, tho tbf I also don’t have a lot of people who need to email me, it was mostly services where it’s easier to tell them to switch over to the other mail.
I’ll have to check it out! Same here, mostly services on my end - but I’ve accumulated enough of them to make it tiresome. Still, I’ll have to do it at some point
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