• starman2112@sh.itjust.works
    26·
    13 days ago

    Mint, judge me

    PS anyone have any favorite resources for absolute tech illiterate noobs? I’m trying, but without a baseline understanding of the subject, it’s hard to find the right guides

    • HStone32@lemmy.world
      9·
      13 days ago

      you’re not using debian? that must mean you hate freedom.

      My advice is to get a hobby. Self-hosting, or home automation to name a few examples. When you have a specific goal for something you want to do, it’s a lot easier to learn.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
      8·
      12 days ago

      Literally the most suggested newbie distro, so you’re probably fine :)

      Like, ideologically I may mention it’s Ubuntu-based so it sucks, but from end user perspective, it’s alright.

      Doubling down on literacy, Linux guides are either “here’s how to do that absolutely basic thing” or “using veheydgvrl for quantumschropping the badumbliss”. To me, Mental Outlaw produced quite some simple guides (warning: most vids are rants so you’ll have to search for actual guides), Veronica Explains might be the fun option and not bloated with anything but tech, and just searching for solutions to whatever your issue is before you grasp how it works.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        1·
        12 days ago

        They have a debian based version, it’s pretty awesome. It’s still a beta fork atm, but it’s rock solid so far

        • Allero@lemmy.today
          1·
          12 days ago

          Yep, true. But currently, I don’t see much point in LMDE, as Debian 12 is user-friendly enough as it is - though you’re free to disagree.

      • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        12 days ago

        That’s the thing, I don’t know enough to know what to even ask. So far I’ve been able to follow step-by-step instructions for installing Mint and downloading software, but I don’t know what I’m doing at all.

        One example of something I spent hours on is adding Cura to the panel. I finally got that done while I was writing this comment by following AndyMH’s answer here.

        Now, I can read

        I would move the appimage into a folder in PATH. If you create a folder /home/you/bin it is automatically added to PATH next time you boot.

        And I can do that. I have no idea what PATH is or why I want to do that, but I can do it. And I can look it up, and I’m sure I’ll eventually get to a point where all of this makes sense to me, but I feel kind of helpless when I have to look up multiple terms every time I want to do something as simple as adding an application to the panel

        • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
          1·
          12 days ago

          That’s the thing, I don’t know enough to know what to even ask.

          Fair enough.

          I have no idea what PATH is or why I want to do that, but I can do it

          Its really only for non standard installs. That is outside of the package manager or flatpak. PATH is just where the computer will look for executables. Since you installed from source or some other side then it won’t be in the normal /bin. You’re just updating your PATH to include other places.

    • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
      2·
      12 days ago

      Depends on what you’re wanting to learn. I’m a fellow tech illiterate noob, but I’ve been off and on with Linux since like 2006. Finally switched full time a few years ago. Honestly, with Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora I’ve found you basically can just set it and forget it, depending on your use case. YouTube has been my best friend whenever I have a problem, normally I type my issue into that before even google. How long have you been using Linux? If you’re still in the distro hopping phase,I suggest trying to swap Desktop environments instead of distros, as it gives you a little experience with the terminal, is well documented on how to do it, and gives you a good idea of what kind of UI you want

      That’s all I got, though. I really am pretty illiterate at tech stuff haha

    • LordPassionFruit@lemm.ee
      1·
      12 days ago

      This may be shit advice, but it may help.

      I have a mint laptop and was also linux illiterate when I started. The way I did most of my learning was by googling (or duckduckgo-ing) “How do I [x] linux mint” and reading through stack overflow threads. If this doesn’t return results, (almost) any solution for Debian or Ubuntu will work on Mint.

      In general, I just assumed that if I thought the computer could do it, there would be a way to do it.

  • Skyline969@lemmy.caEnglish
    16·
    14 days ago

    Linux Mint. Cinnamon. With a Windows Vista theme. It confuses and/or irritates everyone who sees it.

      • Strykker@programming.dev
        4·
        13 days ago

        The only people who hate Linux users more than windows and Mac users are Linux users who think you chose the wrong distro

        • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
          3·
          13 days ago

          I’ve always felt good about using Ubuntu and derivatives. I get their opinions and they have some good points, but I’m not sure why I’d let that change my flow.

          • I'm back on my BS 🤪@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
            2·
            12 days ago

            Because Ubuntu sucks! 👎 Here’s a list of why:

            • Snaps = 👹

            • Ads in start menu (they did this before Winblows!)

            • Unity is sooo fucking slow and stupid. That dumbass bar of most used apps always present taking up screen space 🙉

            • Canonical doesn’t give a shit what users want🖕

            But the most important part is that I really don’t care. I don’t use your computer. You do. So use whatever the 🔥hell🔥 you want. Use a version of Winblows 🪟 themed to look like Arch 🤭, wallpaper and all👌, then post screenshots on the Internet about your superiority 💪.

            Live how you want! And if someone shames you for it, kick them out of you life 😎

      • SeventySeven@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        13 days ago

        Because there’s always going to be someone who says the distro you liked the most is not the distro you should be using. (I use Arch btw)

        • Allero@lemmy.today
          2·
          12 days ago

          Arch is unstable and time-consuming to maintain, and should never be reasonably used as anything but upstream for something usable, you’re wrong!

          Jk, you do you :)

    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      14 days ago

      So going off the chalice in the movie, the distro that will save you from judgment is the plainest one – the one with the least bloat? That tracks.

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
          0·
          14 days ago

          More like Alpine or something else without systemd. I mean no shade (well, a bit of shade) since I’ve got Fedora myself. Alpine doesn’t even have glibc IIRC.

            • barsquid@lemmy.world
              0·
              14 days ago

              I think it is breaking the Unix philosophy, it is an enormous piece of code that does so many different things. My ideal is smaller components with smaller dependencies. When distros or software becomes inextricably dependent on systemd they are then beholden to whichever direction the maintainers take it.

              My take on it is somewhat based on “what if.” Other people have some pragmatic discussions on security aspects if you search around.

      • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
        1·
        14 days ago

        I highly recommend avoiding manjaro like the plague, their team is incredibly incompetent (see: https://manjarno.pages.dev/ ), I say this as someone who has given people manjaro for years and regretted it, I was also their it person, manjaro regularly broke every few months and gave people a very bad taste of linux

        for example, why are kernels given version numbers in packages? This caused 3 separate peoples computers to break multiple times. Everything good about manjaro comes from arch, everything bad about manjaro comes from the manjaro team.

        Y’know how it’s not rolling release because they delay packages by 2 weeks? They actually do no testing in this time. How do I know this? They pushed an update that caused steam to uninstall your desktop environment. Famously covered by linus tech tips… this is something that should have easily been caught, and yet the two week window did absolutely nothing.

        the truth is for manjaro there is no real usecase, there’s no set of desires that align with manjaro being the best choice for you. I am not asking you to switch away from manjaro, but I do not think we should ever recommend it to anyone, and on your next machine, I recommend trying the arch installer.

        But if what you’re looking for is an easy pre-setup arch, use endeavoros

        If you want something simple and up to date, use fedora kinoite

        If you’re a power user and want to configure every little thing about their system, use arch or nixos

        If you don’t care at all about updates and want the most rock solid system possible, debian.

        • Crismus@lemmy.world
          1·
          11 days ago

          I hear you. I was looking more for Arch with less of a hassle. Something similar to my Steamdeck. I guess I should just wipe this weekend for something else. I really want something for playing my steam and GOG games that works with my Nvidia 3080.

          Luckily for me I keep every game installed on different Steam Libraries so wiping my install drive to put something else in isn’t difficult.

          • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
            2·
            11 days ago

            What about arch is it that you want?

            I do a ton of distro research because I try to convert people to linux a lot so I might be able to help you with that.

            https://bazzite.gg/ this is probably what you want, make sure to install the nvidia version.

        • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
          0·
          13 days ago

          If openSUSE Slowroll wasn’t experimental I’d recommend it in place of Manjaro. It’s a rolling release with monthly releases.

          • Dojan@lemmy.world
            0·
            13 days ago

            I really like Tumbleweed. Sure it updates a lot, but it doesn’t force updates so you can take it at your own pace.

            • Zaemz@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              13 days ago

              SUSE’s Open Build Service absolutely rules, too. I use Fedora personally, but would switch to Tumbleweed any day. I’ve gone back and forth, eventually settling on Fedora only because of familiarity with Red Hat.

              There are things I miss, big one being Zypper. It’s slow as balls but it’s usability and ability to dig through packages is unmatched, in my opinion.

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7·
    13 days ago

    The one that does what I need it to do on the device I’m running it on. I’ve currently got four different Linux distros on x86 PCs around my house at this moment.

  • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
    5·
    12 days ago

    Put any distro in front of me and provided I don’t need to master it, I’m good. Ubuntu is fine. Debian is fine. RedHat is fine. Fedora is fine. I even have a tiny low-end system that is using Bohdi. Whatever. We’re all using mostly the same kernel anyway.

    90% of what I do is in a container anyway so it almost doesn’t matter; half the time that means Alpine, but not really. That includes both consuming products from upstream as well as software development. I also practically live in the terminal, so I couldn’t care less what GUI subsystem is in play, even while I’m using it.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
    51·
    13 days ago

    Ooookay, this will get controversial.

    Proud Manjaro/Debian user!

    • Ubuntu and derivatives suck because of Canonical and their practices
    • Fedora sucks because of Red Hat
    • OpenSUSE sucks because RPM (why?!) and still SUSE (but they’re the best of the three)
    • Rest is exotic and obscure

    So we end up with Arch and Debian. Debian 12 is good enough as is, and runs on a work laptop where I don’t care about anything but stability. Arch is respectable and great, but requires excessive maintenance to work properly. Among its derivatives, Endeavour is just a nicer archinstall (so, why?), Garuda is cool but unstable and too gamer’y, Manjaro is a bit problematic at times but generally the safest bet when it comes to Arch. So, when it comes to my main PC doubling as a gaming rig, this is a no-brainer.

      • Allero@lemmy.today
        3·
        12 days ago

        Normally when people hear Manjaro, hell breaks loose :D

        Apparently folks here are a lot more chill about it

      • Allero@lemmy.today
        2·
        13 days ago

        The fact that it adds too little to Arch to be seen as a separate entity. And I don’t want to run mainline Arch. It requires too much maintenance to work with it properly, and every update is a bit of a gamble on what’s gonna break next - unless you spend solid time reading notes to every update.

          • Allero@lemmy.today
            1·
            12 days ago

            Yeah, I am aware of some of those controversies, and they sure are unfortunate!

            However, it’s really, really hard to find a well-supported distro free of controversies. Still doesn’t excuse Manjaro on that front.

            I personally did not test Arch for such a long time, but what I had I certainly didn’t like. Also, full barebones approach is not for me, and more of an enthusiast kind of thing. So, to each their own indeed!

          • Allero@lemmy.today
            1·
            12 days ago

            Lol, fair, fair! :D

            But really, I just see no point for myself when there’s Debian 12 already. I’ve always seen LMDE as a backup of sorts, so that the community would remain should Ubuntu really screw it for everyone. Or if you’re Cinnamon maximalist, they have everything as polished as possible for that (but generally you can easily have Cinnamon on mainline Debian)

            I myself am KDE fanboy, though :)

  • finkrat@lemmy.world
    4·
    12 days ago

    This is dumb because it’s making it out to seem like there are Super Distro Wars and not just folks calling out bad decision makers like Ubuntu and Manjaro, and non-free-as-in-beer distros like Zorin and Elementary

    I’m pretty sure outside of those two categories nobody really cares