The fun part comes later on, when you get a bit laissez-faire with the backups and kick yourself for missing something and having to configure it from scratch. Then you start tinkering and remember that you actually like configuring things.
I love poking around in good settings menus. I can’t stand Windows 11, and even Windows 10 and 7 are rubbish - there shouldn’t be two layered styles of settings menus, and I shouldn’t have to click through multiple pages to get to the function I want. Android, too, has gotten a bit crap, but at least the search function works well.
So far, everything gets backupped automatically, but on top of this, i already am in the habit of backupping important documents by hand in files that don’t get synced. So, as soon as i’m editing important files, i backup them, on top of the sync folders. I will need to switch to manual backups anyway, since proton drive - which syncs automatically - is not yet available on linux, but they do have a web app where you can backup manually.
GNOME was focusing on building Rust bindings for GTK for many years before Qt development picked up. The GTK bindings were usable within a year or two after Rust’s 1.0 release. Yet even today, those looking to build applications in Rust will find that GTK is the only mature toolkit right now. And if you’re doing that today, I’d recommend starting with Relm4 for the best GTK Rust experience.
Rust does not support the C++ ABI, and Qt does not provide a C interface, so much work has to be done on building the tooling for binding C++ libraries to Rust. That work is still ongoing, so some have opted to use QML instead of interfacing with Qt C++ libraries. Yet if you’re looking to use Qt or QML, you may as well use Slint instead. It’s developed by former Qt/Trolltech developers and has a similar approach as QML.
For laptops, I’ve been using EndeavourOS lately. All of the Arch goodness, but with an easy installer that handles the DE too. It’s as close to “just works” as you can get while still having pacman + AUR at the end.
I still love raw Arch, but I leave that for server installs.
Two more things that came to mind. If you want to use another desktop environment than gnome (default), you should be aware of spins: fedoraproject.org/spins/
Spins work against the same repositories, they just come with other sets of packages preinstalled.
Also, you said you’re using amd gpu. Fedora has the drivers for that out of the box. But due to fedora’s strict FOSS policy, some hardware acceleration features are stripped out of the amd driver. I mentioned you can get the unstripped drivers from rpmfusion. That is detailed here: rpmfusion.org/Howto/Multimedia
Those packages work together with the drivers from the official repos. They can get out of sync. That never happened to me, yet. But if an update mentions some conflict with mesa-*, just don’t do that update until that conflict disappears. If you ever run into the issue you can also undo the last update with the dnf history commands.
You mention Arch before other distros and never even explain what a distros is (e.g. ‘a flavor of Linux with a choice of preinstalled software’).
Then you say that it’s a beginners and not an advanced tutorial, but mention advanced distros.
Also your reasons for the beginner distros are not well written:
Fedora mentions "rightful backlash against the company"
Linux Mint "I haven’t used"
Pop OS “shares some issues”
Why take one of them? They all sound difficult or weird. (to a newby reader)
Then the part about Ubuntu and Manjaro which is longer than the 3 distros you recommend. This has major “Linux fanboy bashing other Linux fanboys” vibes.
The rest I really liked, maybe replace “this era” with “its era”.
To be honest, sometimes it’s just easier to use Windows, for compatibility sake. Sure, I can install Office or Photoshop through Wine, but some software can just be a pain in the neck to install and use on Linux.
This is the main reason why I dual boot and will most probably for a very very long time. I just don’t have the time to tackle with these things ATM, real life is more important.
There is a trade off i guess if you put it that way. Would you rather tinker and make your software work for you, or would you install a shitty bloated operating system that routinely trades your data like pokemon cards just so you can install a handful of programs comfortably.
People use a lot of proprietary software because it’s their job, why would you want to use a program requiring you to relearn an entire operating system, is more difficult to initially setup and generally has less features and support when you can just… Use the thing that works? I understand where you’re coming from but there’s a lot of fields where using Linux is just not reasonable and your response here is just obnoxious and part of why Linux has the reputation it does
I would rather tinker to be honest, I am that kind of a person, but currently, my family (kid) needs me. He’s young and needs guidance, playing, attention, etc. That is more important than tinkering with tech IMO.
Just as a note, I believe you still need to tick the “Enable Steam Play for all titles” in Steam settings to allow it to be used with non-verified games.
I will probably use your approach, because the windows like gui should only help me transition. Getting to know how to use the terminal is my next step. Thanks!
Careful here. Absolutely start learning bash, but one of the points of Mint is that everything a normal user needs to do can be done through a settings gui. Don’t feel bad for reaching for the gui if you need to get something done and don’t have time right then and there to learn. Have fun!
It’s called Software Manager in Mint. It’s in the start menu. It’s basically like an app store, but without the surveillance and ads. Just type steam in the search field and click install. Really couldn’t be easier.
Yeah like they (the Windows sheeple) celebrated a CLI package manager as if it was their best invention since sliced bread. Every Linux user was like yaaawwwn… “finally”
Like, I get the self-reinforcing bubble that Linux communities exist in and all, but... nobody did that.
The vast majority of Windows users are random people that never touch anything beyond the Start menu in their entire computing lives. What segment of the Windows userbase is out there celebrating any features, let alone command line anything? This is not a thing. At least not in numbers large enough to matter.
Sorry, I try not to get involved in these arguments. Frankly, grown adults taking sides on operating systems of all things like it's Sega vs Nintendo in a 90s playground seems very strange but I don't begrudge people finding communities wherever. It's just... you know, come on.
People who do not use the dominant system/program/etc. often feel the need to tear down everyone else in order to validate their decision instead of just letting the results and their daily happiness with the decision speak for itself.
You don’t even need to quality it. Some people just feel the need to tear down others to make themselves feel good. It’s low self-esteem, misplaced onto whatever happens to be near them.
I think we’re all vulnerable to it, too. Part of being a good neighbor is checking yourself to see if you’re being a dick about your preferences, and just letting people enjoy what they enjoy (unless that thing is harming others; you know, common sense).
Oh yeah, let me be clear: I’m sure I engage in it myself. I like to think though that I’ve mostly gotten away from it, as I did plenty of that snobbery when I was younger with music and by the time I got to college realized that was just a really tool-ish way of acting that kept people away from what I thought was awesome art
Because I am too lazy to make an actual thread on mastodon I’m going to corner you and ask you a quick question if you don’t mind! Feel free to ignore haha.
I’ve recently dipped my toes in Linux and it’s been really fun learning about all of it, but I still haven’t really settled on an OS. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel or trying to predict everything, I decided to use what I have right in front of me: my steamdeck! I figured playing around on SteamOS in desktop mode is a great way to acclimate myself to Linux a little bit and figure out what I really like and such.
What are some essential programs and QOL things you would recommend? I am interested in trying to host my Plex server off of it, maybe even fiddle around with video editing since that’s what I do professionally (resolve runs on Linux so not worried there), maybe some audio tools. I just want to kind of see what it would look like as a daily driver, though I am very aware that Steam OS has limitations as one.
I’m coming from Mac and I am pretty comfortable doing terminal commands, troubleshooting tech issues, and I’m pretty privacy concerned. Hence why I’m trying to migrate a little bit away for macOS potentially haha. Any and all suggestions are welcome! Even just good website or resources for learning more would be very welcome.
As someone who needs to do initial installs on computers with 10-20, I celebrated. It is much easier to type names of the programs and the manager do anything instead of manually downloading installers. But turned out WinGet is really badly done.
As for preferences, for some this is actually Nintendo vs Sega unfortunetly. But don’t underestimate moral decitions too.
Sysadmins very commonly make a lot of use out of automating things with Powershell and various utilities that work with it.
Given that a pretty decent sized portion (I’d assume at least, no numbers to back that up sadly) of the Linux user base tends to be “cut from the same cloth” in terms of having the passion to automate (and heavily customize) their system - I would think this is why you see this sentiment repeated often.
Arch wiki is the reason I started using Arch. After fixing an install from something I found there for like the 10th time I thought “Why not give it a try”
20% is a LOT. That’s probably because of the random shit that nobody ever asked for but windows is always doing in the background anyway. Building a search index, windows update (which consumes an insane amount of CPU for a completely unreasonable amount of time sometimes), other individual updater services (because there can’t be one program that updates everything because every vendor does their own proprietary bullshit to handle updates), compressing and sending all you personal data to microsoft and of course the pre-installed McAffee (on trial license) that works hard to make your system less secure (that HP probably installed for you because apperently you haven’t paid enough money for the computer, so you must pay with your patience and your privacy as well). Depending on the benchmark, the pathetic legacy file system windows uses might also play a role.
The Windows scheduler is so stupid chip manufacturers manipulate the BIOS/ACPI tables to force it to make better decisions (particularly with SMT) rather than wait on MS to fix it.
Linux just shrugs, figures out the thread topology anyway and makes the right decisions regardless.
I have to use Chocolatey, Winget, Windows Store and invididual updating to use the tools I need in Windows, It’s ridiculous. I only use Flatpak and Zypper in my Linux partition.
linux
Top
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.