In 2007 I tried Ubuntu and it was weird, then again in 2008, no! In 2009 I found Mint and was really happy, until they stopped supporting KDE. Then I tried a ton of distros, Xfce, no. Lxde, no. open suse, no. fedora, no, lots of others, no. I finally found Kubuntu and I have been on it ever since. Even tested Neon lately but hated it.
Kubuntu does what I want it to do.
Linux always seems scary at first, but once you learn enough, it's super easy.
Yeah, did you find mint easy to use? I’m in Ubuntu and thinking about switching. I just worry about driver support, cause everything works on Ubuntu for me. I try and apt get everything I can TBH.
I really liked Mint at the time, but only the KDE version, and would never have left if they hadn't stopped supporting it. They had great nVidia support. I no longer have nVidia on any of my computers because it's just annoying to fight with that mess.
Plus Linux as a whole has better driver support than it used to.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed–coming from Arch, it just felt so refined and ready to go right out of the box. Then I started installing programs and ran into dependency hell–now on EndeavourOS with the AUR which is great
Additionally, the combination of terminal + GUI to do things just felt wrong
One program that comes to mind is Protonmail Bridge. I first tried installing the RPM via Discover, and it silently failed every time. Next, installed it from the terminal and got an error about missing DejaVu fonts–no problem, I’ll just install them from here, but unfortunately I was getting the same error. I tried to “install anyway” ignoring dependencies–failed again!
Another issue trying to install the linux-surface kernel. The GUI package failed to install (again, silently), and command line packages kept failing since the linux-surface kernel was on 6.6.6 and the rolling release kernel was on 6.6.7–eventually I chrooted in from a live USB, removed the kernel, and replaced it with the linux-surface kernel, but the fact that it kept failing with a “success” message was confusing! Then I had to compile iptsd–on Arch I’d ‘pacman -S git meson ninja gcc etc.’, and searching and selecting package groups via YAST (and hoping my compilation worked) just felt clunky.
I did manage to get everything up and running eventually (save Protonmail), but at that point I’d messed up my installation to the point where I had to start over, and I just loaded up EndeavourOS instead.
I’m sure a lot of these issues stem from a lack of understanding of Tumbleweed itself, and when I get another desktop I’ll be happy to try again. I did love the setup process though–super polished KDE Plasma, and everything that was possible with the stock kernel (even autorotate!) worked out of the box!
ZorinOS. I tried to install it on my spouse’s computer with all modern, well-supported AMD hardware. Had nothing but problems, to the point that the computer was barely usable. WiFi broken, GUI was laggy, repositories were buggy. When I finally got the system somewhat stable, I didn’t like the interface at all. Styles were bland, icons dull, everything just seemed clunky and awkward.
For a distro advertised as a beginner-friendly and pay-for-polish system, I was very dissapointed.
Might have been a fluke, I don’t think my experience is standard for Zorin, but it was a really terrible first impression and I never suggest it to Linux-curious folks. Mint or Vanilla Fedora are my go-to for newbs.
Honestly, depending on whether you count it or not, LFS. I have not tried Gentoo yet, though I want to one day, for the learning experience, and yet I already know that compiling everything is not something I enjoy.
I can get by with OpenSUSE and Void (kinda), I’ve used Debian for a few weeks, I’ve used Fedora for a month or so, I’ve used Ubuntu for a bit, I’ve tried PopOS for a week or two, I’ve used NixOS for a few months, and I’ve used Arch for most of my time on Linux.
Currently I’m on Arch, but I don’t like rolling releases that much. At the same time, I am also not a fan of immutability, as there are some programs I need that cannot be installed on an immutable distro, so that’s why I’m on Arch. Why am I only using these 2? Because they are the only distros that have all the packages I need (excluding the specialist software that I need for university). By the time I discovered Distrobox (which would solve this problem), I was already on Arch. I’ve also done some changes to my setup and as such, I’ll need to wait for some new features to make their way into program releases and into the NixOS Stable repo with the following release. Until then, I’m on Arch.
Gentoo is useless for learning how things work. Back in the 00s when I still had time to hang out at events it was always quite ridiculous at what kind of basic stuff the gentoo crowd got stuck at - and with the tooling 15+ years more polished now I’d expect what is actually going on is way more hidden than back then.
If you do want to understand how things work just build a minimal system - either on spare hardware, or qemu/kvm. Don’t go with systemd, or other fat userland options - that just makes you compile a lot of dependencies not adding value for learning.
Use some lean init (or just write one yourself), and some lean shell.
I’d just start from very simple kernel and static init, and work my way up to adding more functionality. I’d use kvm with rootfs on p9fs - that allows playing with it without having to build images. I can throw together the initial invocation, if you’re interested.
Then start building simple core elements in a language allowing easy static linking - I’d use C with dietlibc or go. Start adding core userland programs, explore initramfs (without using something like dracut), add dynamic libraries and explore the dynamic linker, … - if you’re interested we could set up a matrix channel for questions (typically with some lag, though), and do a github repo to follow along.
LFS iirc goes for full desktop - the high level userland is very complex, but easy to understand when you know the basics. You pretty much learn how to compile lots of libraries - which has limited use. A full LFS style desktop I’d no longer recommend nowadays - it’s just too many dependencies to deal with. I used to build my own system (not following LFS) until the Xorg fork made it sigificantly more complicated - and things got just worse since then, and I never was using a complicated UI stack.
edit: I had a few minutes, so I’ve thrown this together github.com/bwachter/lll - you should easily get a kernel with a custom init running, and have enough to start experimenting. If you or anyone else is interested to go deeper I’ll set up a matrix channel for guidance.
Gnome is amazing, without it I probably wouldn’t bother with Linux. Honestly nothing comes close UX-wise for me. I don’t want yet another Windows clone.
Minimising is a misuse of the gnome workflow, ideally you’d move a window to another desktop. Better than hiding it in some dock IMO.
Maximising I literally never used the button for anyway. I double clicked the title bar, dragged the program to the top, or pressed Super+Up. Aiming for a relatively small button just feels worse than all of those. It’s literally a pointless button and I feel like the only reason anybody has it it just because they’re used to seeing it/having a Windows UX.
It’s fine that you want your UX to work like Microsoft’s, but that doesn’t mean others are bad.
E: people get really upset when you point out that their Windows clones are windows clones lol. It’s not an insult.
They must have swapped roles at some point, Elementary lets you minimize windows the last time I checked (use toolbar or gesture), and GNOME doesn’t 😂
I honestly don’t mind lack of visual customization as long as the design language makes sense, is clear, is consistent, and applies to all the system apps and default utilities. In the case of Elementary and GNOME this is OK IMO because they are ridiculously consistent, and share some similarities
Ubuntu gnome. Wanted to install a gnome add on (hibernation button), searched how to do it and learned there’s a section in the gui store but couldn’t find it. Searched for that and turns out they removed the add ons section from the store in the latest version and I need to use a browser. Tried to install it from a browser and it still didn’t work. Tried the other browser and failed again. Searching for that discovered that the pre-installed browsers are snap packages and can’t interact with anything else 🤦
Instantly switched to kubuntu. It had the hibernation button out of the box
Debian world - apt sucks. For something with a sole purpose of resolving a dependency tree, it’s surprisingly bad at that.
Redhat world - everything is soooo old. I can see why business people like it, buy I rarely, if ever, agree with business people.
Opensuse world - I’ve only tried it once, probably 15 years ago. Didn’t really know my way around computers all that much at the time, but it didn’t click and I’ve left it. Later on I found out about their selling out to Microsoft and never bothered touching it again.
Arch - it was my daily for a year or two. Big fan. It still runs my email. At some point the size of packages started to annoy me, though. Still has the best wiki. I’ve never really bothered with the spinoffs, as the model of Arch makes them useless and more problematic to deal with.
I’ve got the Gentoo bug now. For the first time I genuinely feel ~/. A lean, mean system of machines :)
Later on I found out about their selling out to Microsoft and never bothered touching it again.
Ah yes, when Microsoft looked for a contractor to develop FOSS implementations of some Windows technologies to meet demands by the EU and Mark Shullteworth made a big fuss of it until making deals with Microsoft himself…
What about that time Suse supported Microsoft’s claim that Linux infringes on their patents? Ms got enough grounds to sue everyone even marginally related to Linux for over a decade, Suse got a contract to sell licences that prevent Ms from suing companies for using Linux.
The wider company, that included Novell at that time, entered some cross patent licensing deal. It happens all the time. Didn’t kill Linux as we can comfortably say these days.
With enough sophistry anything can seem insignificant. The Linux we use today has developed within the constraints of Microsoft threatening to sue anyone and everyone. The only reason they could do that was due to suse, as the longest running commercial distro, publicly saying that Linux infringes on those patents.
I need to try Gentoo again. The installer used to be absolute garbage and required a ton of work to get the a usable system if you deviated too far from a normal computer setup.
There is no installer as such. You copy an archive, extract it and rebuild @world. Anything beyond that is up to you. I’m sticking to openrc - haven’t had any issues since libxcrypt news item. Can’t even recall what it was.
Mind to elaborate a little bit more about the Manjaro problem? I am driving it since a couple of years without any issue but I keep hearing this… now I am afraid :)
I hope it works for you forever. I am not going to get in an argument with the other Manjaro users here that will come to argue with you.
Just keep in mind that most of the people warning you away from Manjaro have a story that basically sums up as “I used to love Manjaro until, one day, it totally broke on me. Now I won’t touch it.” Sadly, this includes me. Will you join us one day? I hope not.
People who do stuff they shouldn’t, like using non-recommended kernel or driver versions or replace critical system components from AUR, then blame it on the distro when stuff breaks.
People who don’t understand how AUR works and think that Manjaro holding back binary packages for a couple of weeks has any effect on AUR (which is built from source…)
People who can’t get over the times when they didn’t renew their certs or when they accidentally DDoS’ed the AUR. It doesn’t matter if the distro is good or not. Those instances of carelessness should be held against it forever.
People who can’t stand the fact it’s a commercial distro.
People who can’t stand the thought of any Arch-based distro that dares to do anything different from Arch (other than make the install easier, that one seems to be acceptable for some reason; but there are more extreme people who dislike that too).
I am trying to think of how to respond to this without being a jerk.
Let me skip to the end. Until very recently, I thought of Manjaro users as innocents that just did not understand the risk. Like islanders living next to a volcano that had never erupted in their lifetime.
I still view most Manjaro users that way. Manjaro defenders though I now think of as dog owners whose animals have bitten multiple times. When told, the owner insists that “my dog would never do that” or “if it did, you must have done something wrong”. I am done arguing with those people. All I can do is warn others that this dog has bitten several of us and you may not want to enter that yard. If you do, who knows, the dog may be friendly. Or not. Again, all I can tell you is that many of us have scars. Use that information as you will.
Most “Manjaro detractors” I have encountered have years of experience with both Manjaro and other Arch distros. Their tales come from experience. When they share their cautionary tales, there are often Manjaro defenders whose best defence is just to deny that what the “detractors” are saying ( about their own experience ) is real.
My core question for the defenders would be, if it is our fault, why do we only encounter the problems on Manjaro?
Let’s go through the bullets above one by one:
I never did that on Manjaro. I probably do it more on EOS. Why only problems on Manjaro?
why does my lack of knowledge of how the AUR works only break things on Manjaro?
this bullet is the best. It admits that Manjaro has repeatedly broken things but we should not hold it against it. Literally this is saying that “Manjaro breaks things” is wrong because, while it does, we should just get over it. Hilarious.
how does attacking the “detractors” address the claim that Manjaro breaks things?
how does attacking the “detractors” address the claim that Manjaro breaks things?
I got in a lengthy back and forth with a Manjaro fan the other day where I repeatedly related the ways that Manjaro used to break on me and how that does not happen for me on vanilla Arch or EndeavourOS. They just kept coming back telling me that it could not have happened and, if I thought it could, that I did not understand how the AUR works. It was insane. Basically, this guy could not follow what I was saying to him. His response to his inability to understand the scenario that I was describing was to insult my intelligence and expertise.
Look loser. I don’t care if you believe me that your dog bites. I will continue to warn people and they can decide if they want to risk it or not.
Isn’t it funny how none of the people who claim that Manjaro “just broke” on them can recall what the problem was? They can’t point at a bug report. It’s nothing they did, naturally (they’re “experienced” users, after all). It just broke.
Meanwhile, it never broke for me or others, in years of use, with dozens of AUR packages installed. So yeah. I think I’ll stick to concrete evidence like a rational person, thanks.
A few years ago I wanted to get away from Ubuntu on my desktop PC so I sat down and considered about a dozen of the most recommended Linux distros install images.
My requirements were:
Image should be live so I could test it without installing.
Should work out of the box with everything I could think to throw at it: wifi, Bluetooth devices including controllers, network shares, play music/video out of the box, printing, audio devices on USB etc.
Easy to install and maintain. No need for brain-dead install or zero maintenance, I’m a seasoned Linux user and anyway I don’t want to be absurd, but I also don’t want to spend my spare time debugging or maintaining the desktop system. I have a server for that.
Recent packages and frequent updates, but stable.
Usable for everyday use, work (mostly Citrix and other forms of remote desktop) and of course gaming.
Rolling release.
Guess which distro ticked absolutely every single box.
Suit yourself. I’m telling you that you’re sleeping on one of the most user-friendly, up to date, gaming-ready, stable and generally hassle free distros out there, and it’s coming from someone who actually tried all the popular ones.
In exchange you just have to stick to a LTS kernel and not replace critical system components from AUR. Which I think you’ll agree are reasonable conditions for all Arch distros, heck, all distros.
Gentoo all the way since 20 years, on all kind of devices, going strong and never looked back.
Ubuntu, I hate you. A messy complex windows-esque caricature in the Linux world, where “somebody else” knows better than me and shoves it down my gully.
So there you go, my best and worst distros choice.
Been usig Debian for home and work and on hundreds of servers for 2 decades and it have been near flawless. Any issues i have had have always been my own fault.
While debian is the least offensive, I did explicitly say world. Add your buntus, mints, whathaveyou into the mix and shit hits the fan very quickly. Yes, real world runs that bollocks in prod. No, I do not agree with it.
The first time I installed Debian on my desktop I didn’t do my homework properly. This was a long time ago. It didn’t take long for me to realize just how out of date many packages were and that was a deal breaker. I have since used Debian successfully in different contexts, because I knew what to expect. I still wouldn’t install Debian stable on my desktop because I prefer to have a more up to date environment. Might try Debian sid one of these days though. But yeah, Debian, great distro, but you need to know what you’re getting in to.
The great thing about Debian is; it has a gear-shifter.
Whether stable or sid, it’s still debian but you can go from “rock solid, reliable” to “most recent with several updates per day” in the same ecosystem and just by changing the repositories, apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade, done.
Anything arch, basically. Maybe I'm just a too lower tier power user, but I have always returned to Mint. Rock solid daily driver working out of the box. I don't really want to have to tinker with the os, I admit. It should just work.
Fully agree. I once wanted to try it. I took a look at the documentation for partitioning and realized that I needed 2 full days for a working installation and constant access to another PC to be able to read the documentation… No thanks, I don’t care about the hate, Debian/Ubuntu is up and running in 30 mins and gets out of the way…
My personal PC and work PC are windows. I also just accidently removed a lot of my game files, so I figure it’s about time to start over. I’m going for kubuntu this time. I figure it’s going to be easier to get set up and running quickly without much fuss.
That said, I also run endeavor os on a little netbook tablet I have, so I’m dipping a toe there as well.
I get it. It does have a learning curve. This being said, I would argue that without selinux Linux can’t really be meaningfully secure. It’s worth learning. Seljnux exits elsewhere too. I deploy Debian with selinux and it works well there as well.
The problem with SELinux is that everyone rushed to push it out, alongside packages affected by it without support for it. So it was a crapshoot whether or not you’d have something working each time. That is better now, but was initially a colossal pain in the ass for about five years or so.
Fair. But audit2allow makes it really easy to add support for apps without policies. For custom in-house apps I use this to spit out some nice policies that can be rolled out.
What put me off selinux is that the officially documented way of generating a new policy is to run a service unconfined, and then generating the policy from its behaviour. This is backwards on so many levels… In contrast policy-based admission control in kubernetes is a delight to use, and creating new policies is actually doable outside of a lab.
You could preemptively write the policy if you know the context and policies you want to apply. I just don’t think it’s worth the time when you can generate a policy with two commands.
NixOS… for now. I was on Fedora and was looking for something new. Thought I’d try these new „immutable” distros. Then realised I didn’t know enough about normal ones yet, so I switched to Arch instead. Plus, Nix’ docs are horrendous imo
I tried NixOS too, and their docs are horrible for new users. I found myself looking for anything but the docs to get started. I decided to stay with my EndeavorOS install.
I put commands in a bash script, with a parameter for each one, and it lists them all if I don’t give a parameter. So for example it goes “arch upgrade” instead of having to remember “pacman -Syuu”.
I use paru and the default is “paru” with no parameter for the upgrade. But I am on your team here: I have to Google everysingletime the -Q params for all the queries and I have been using arch for almost 2 decades now: “who owns this file?” “what are the deps of this package?” “Which packages are installed?” “Which packages I explicitly installed vs dependencies?” Not a single one of them is intuitive to query with the pacman command line for some reason.
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