The best one, of course
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
This is great. Just to let you know, whatever decision you make is wrong. Cheers!
Linux Mint. Cinnamon. With a Windows Vista theme. It confuses and/or irritates everyone who sees it.
I was going to go Mint/Cinnamon, but now I’m going to more.
kde has some impressive windows themes that are REALLY convincing
I’m using the Windows XP Bliss wallpaper on my Fedora PC at work. I’ve had a few people ask about it haha. Most of the company uses Macs.
What’s it called?
Windon’t
^ this ^
Not sure but it’s by B00merang-Project. Check their site.
LDME/Cinnamon
Nice! Not my thing but I’m glad that you can enjoy the Vista theme (I remember enjoying it when it came out)
Hannah Montana Linux
Is it really a choice?
TEMPLEOS
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.
“the cup of a
carpentercoder”Is this going to be Arch or Debian?
That’s just what I was going to say - that will either be Arch or Debian…
Debian.
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.
In 2024, having systemd is less complicated than not having it.
Musl can be a bit annoying compilation target sometimes. Usually it works but I’ve debugged bugs a few times that were due to musl target.
I prefer my distro with glibc…
So… Slackware?
Of course. No other distro existed when Jesus was alive.
BTW…
Also kudos to you for your modding last couple days.
Possibly a perfect use of this.
I use arch, err nixos/nix on macOS btw. Do I win or have I made the Linux nerds angy?
I recently installed Manjaro. It works for my games right now
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.
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.
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.
If openSUSE Slowroll wasn’t experimental I’d recommend it in place of Manjaro. It’s a rolling release with monthly releases.
I really like Tumbleweed. Sure it updates a lot, but it doesn’t force updates so you can take it at your own pace.
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.
Screw that You’re all great everybody from slackware to steam deck.
to steam deck.
to SteamOS
Slack where?
Slack there!
Slack where?
Slack here!
Slack there?
Slack here!
Slack there?
Steam Deck is weird. I mean, I love it, but coming from vanilla Arch it can be frustrating at times. Discover is terrible. Luckily, Distrobox is a thing.
Portage Prefix is a thing too
I wasn’t aware of it. It’s certainly an option, but Gentoo isn’t for me.
Yeah. You can run Prefix even on Android. And then there is project SharkBait.
I putz with Discover sometimes. Though I have no idea how it resolves package updates under the hood, as it often will produce a different manifest than running dnf itself.
What would you like to see improved?
I usually can’t find what I’m looking for, so a larger catalogue would go a long way. I also had problems with some software versions. The one that comes to mind is that Firefox had behavior with the save dialogue that I don’t like. It’s a minor issue, but one that I don’t have with the build in the Arch repo. I have a vague memory of something just not working, but I couldn’t tell you what at this point.
Ah, I see! Yeah, a bigger catalog would be nice. You can add more repositories to it, enable Flathub, which provide more options, but something about it does feel hamstrung.
The Firefox thing is something I know about! You can set a config option in the
about:configpage to tell Firefox to use your desktop’s standard dialogue. It has to do with XDG Desktop specifications, I thinkIt uses the system dialogue, but it starts from the same directory each time. If I’m saving files it’s usually multiple files in succession, so I want the dialogue to start off pointed at the last directory I saved to. The Arch build does that.
Ooohh! Interesting. You’ve got me curious about that now. I’ll have to look into it.
That’s all well and good, but can we talk about proper use of this meme template?
Shouldn’t it be “further”? farther is for physical distance, further is for figurative/metaphorical distance.
"I am altering the language, pray… "
Yes
deleted by creator
Nooo !!! You can’t just use the meme template how you want to, even if it’s funny !!!11!1!1!1
Ah yes, that’s exactly what I said.
Eh it works just fine 🤷♂️
I’m shocked there wasn’t a single minion or cry-laugh emoji plastered on.
(Sorry in advance…)
Look, a meme Heimdall.
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.
This is why you just fucking lie and say “Arch btw”
Or just suck it up and learn Arch and never worry about the incredibly minor differences in distros
For as much as Linux nerds (myself absolutely included) complain about distros like Ubuntu and Manjaro, I’d still take either one over Windows or MacOS any day.
Mac OSX isn’t bad… so long as you sell it your soul, and don’t want freedom in return, it’s great 👍.
I kid… mostly - it’s iOS that is horrifying, but Mac OSX is still Unix (tho not GNU), so not anywhere within leagues of Microdick.
And - possibly dumb question - couldn’t you always just run a Linux VM at near-native speed, and get the benefits of both?
MacOSX is great, other than the fact that it only runs on insanely overpriced, un-upgradeable and irreparable hardware. And that you have what I would consider limited control over it.
Other than all that, yeah:-)
Still not comparable to Windows though, imho.
Its sins are just of a different sort - e.g. you don’t need to repair or upgrade those machines so often, bc they work so well for so long as it is, plus other than for gaming, who even upgrades machines these days to begin with?
For non-gaming, Macs are great machines. So too are Linux. While Windows sux ass no matter what. Thus that’s the dividing line, imho.
Well my point was that’s not a software problem, it’s a hardware problem.
I mean… a Mac machine will run non-Mac OSX software. Pretty much everything can run linux, with a little effort put into it:-) (unless somehow these M chips have prevented that? even if so, surely it’s only a matter of time before someone cracks that barrier)
But yeah, it’s definitely a choice. e.g., Apple does not even sell cheap Macs, whereas machines intended to run Windows can be bought all up and down the scale - though I recall at various points in time, comparing equivalently-equipped machines, Apple ones were pound-for-pound actually cheaper than their Windows equivalents. This is ofc b/c of the monopolistic practices: when you rigidly control the hardware, you are able to order in bulk, and when you order in bulk, you are able to get large discounts from the supplier!
Though surely nobody was arguing to purchase a Mac, not knowing who or what Apple is or is about? Installing Arch Linux is also known to be somewhat ah… “tricky”, so if we are comparing things like ease-of-use, the question gets back to OP’s “which distro?” And it’s all a matter of choice - what you want to get out of it, and which constraints you want to live underneath.
But anyway, we were talking about “Mac OSX”, which yeah, very much is limited to specific sets of hardware, and cannot be installed willy-nilly on any old machine, this is very much a true statement, to be paid very much attention to by anyone wanting to learn more, or use that in their purchasing / installation decisions:-). I was just saying that while Apple (& iOS) may be evil these days, Mac OSX itself kinda is great, caveat: if you can live with its restrictions, and moreover, those are MUCH less than Microsoft’s set of restrictions these days (whereas Linux has its own set of difficulties).
I mean… a Mac machine will run non-Mac OSX software.
Ah yes, the worst of both worlds! Wonderful!
I recall at various points in time, comparing equivalently-equipped machines, Apple ones were pound-for-pound actually cheaper than their Windows equivalents.
I don’t ever recall that…
I was only illustrating how Mac hardware is not identically the same as Mac software. They are tied together, yet distinct entities.
Your lack of recollection neither proves nor disproves anything at all. If you doubt me, look it up? (since surely if I did so for you, you would distrust that as well? 🤪)
I did not downvote you btw.
You can use UTM on an M1 or up Macbook and iOS/iPadOS:
https://getutm.app/
It is not VirtualBox yet, but it is moving fast. And thank $deity it’s not Oracle… like VirtualBoxHow does this work with containers?
I’d say iOS is still unix too, just rootless.
Mac is BSD, and the Darwin kernel is open source.
I forgot about the latter, thanks for the reminder:-).
It’s worth noting that Apple has (for example) gone so far as to replace bash with zsh just because the GPL v3 was too copyleft for them to handle. In other words, fuck Apple.
Right decision but for the wrong reason.
Oh, I thought it was because zsh is better.
That’s the point of the BSD license.
Exactly; fuck BSD too.
Unless you’re a copyleft developer your opinion on the decisions of the creators is hilariously irrelevant.
The company that laid me off let me keep my Mac which was a nice parting gift. I don’t think I’d ever buy one myself. They’re just way to expensive.
I hoped for that at my previous job, and they said it could happen… but it was never going to, and it was a false hope offered. Why do that to me man…? 😭
Then I come to my current job, and they have a super old Mac laptop that was barely holding on that nobody else wanted, and I’m like “yes please”!
Bc if its Windows vs. Mac, and especially if “nothing” isn’t even an option, then a million times out of a million I will choose super old, barely holding on Mac that nobody else wants.:-)
It’s a single SSH command away from my work Linux, and it has MacVim, tons of other open source software available, plus a bunch of stuff that only Mac OSX has, like Preview and other fairly nice tools, which have open source equivalents like ImageMagick and gimp, but aren’t nearly as easy to use.
I don’t need a nice car, and I went without one entirely until I moved to the Midwest where it becomes absolutely necessary, but it’s essential to have a good computer for me:-).
couldn’t you always just run a Linux VM at near-native speed, and get the benefits of both?
The obvious downside is that Linux is no longer the host OS. MacOS or Windows would be closed source code managing your hardware. And any VM could only be as fast as the host OS allows it to be.
The host OS is likewise limited, but more by hardware, so it might be a small performance tradeoff, depending on whether, as you brought up, you need Linux to be ultimately in control rather than to simply run some software.
So that would not always work, ofc… but it sometimes would!:-)
A VM doesn’t change the underlying OS collecting data from you
Privacy and data collection-wise MacOS is fine. It’s their main selling point. Doesn’t even force updates on you. I know it’s a low bar, but damn Windows bar is at the floor at this point.
MacOS collects a large amount of data compared to Linux (although not even close to windows). Take a look at their tosdr page and this
I didn’t say it’s perfect, but it’s not terrible. And I think that page is mostly about Apple services, like iCloud and stuff, not MacOS specifically. It’s not necessary to use the services.
Privacy and data collection-wise MacOS is fine
At best it’s “okay but not great”.
It’s their main selling point.
The millions of people who log into Facebook on their MacBooks prove that’s not true.
I mean, if you log in to Facebook at all, whatever MacOS collects is a drop in a bucket in comparison.
Yes that’s my point
You have no point.
I had to look it up (e.g. https://www.extremetech.com/internet/317371-evaluating-apples-data-collection-in-macos-big-sur) and damn, I didn’t know that they collected and sent THAT detailed of info!? (and perhaps they didn’t, until Big Sur)
Even so, as the other reply mentioned, it’s still leagues away from Windows at this point. But yeah, fair then that both Windows and Mac OSX are doing it, while Linux is not.
Still, if you had to pick a machine for your grandma to use, or like either Windows or Mac at work (but not Linux, though lets say that there is a terminal SSH option to Linux available from either), I would pick Mac OSX. It’s fine if others would pick Linux for the former, but I don’t think Mac OSX is a bad choice there.
While Windows… urg, is basically synonymous with being a cuss word nowadays. Witch: “a pox be upon thee - nay, moresooth, may you be cursed to only use Windows for the rest of your days!” (Onlookers: “gasp! what could anyone have done to be cursed with that bad of a punishment!? I would not wish that upon even my worst enemy!?”) hehe:-P
That link doesn’t say what you think it does.
That Apple blocks you from running every program you put onto it until/unless it can be properly certified, and that “Big Sur can bypass any firewall restrictions the end-user attempts to create”? It’s true that it’s not nearly as bad as it may sound at first, and they even released a statement that:
We do not use data from these checks to learn what individual users are launching or running on their devices.
Notarization checks if the app contains known malware using an encrypted connection that is resilient to server failures.
These security checks have never included the user’s Apple ID or the identity of their device. To further protect privacy, we have stopped logging IP addresses associated with Developer ID certificate checks, and we will ensure that any collected IP addresses are removed from logs.
Though I also understand that if someone wants the ultimate in privacy, it’s difficult to trust such a corporate promise, especially one like Apple known to hide or lie about such things. (Edit: also… “developer ID certificate checks”, so if you don’t register with Apple as a known developer then…?)
I still use Mac OSX myself, but if someone wants to avoid that and use Linux for this reason, I’m not going to argue with them - whereas I would push back a little bit if a friend were to tell me they planned to put Windows (as the primary OS) onto a machine.
Yeah, that’s what network-level blocking is for.
Zenarmor ftw.
damn had not heard of that and I have so many friends fucking with OPNsense. Thanks!
“always” in this case is when you have two or more gpus in your system, which limits the ability to “just” run a vm considerably.
Ah, for gaming, yes Macs are not fantastic gaming machines that’s for sure.
Then again, Linux has long been known to have issues with gaming as well, especially with an Nvidia card…
Unless you use Steam, and then both work, kinda?
Still it seems like it’s Linux and Mac OSX on one side, and Microsoft left behind thousands of years in the past, except maybe for gaming where literally an old Windows running on a VM may run the widest selection of games?
But I still don’t see the logic of grouping Macs together with Windows, even for gaming.
For VMs, I expected more someone to bring up the switch to the M1 chipset, a huge setback for VMs definitely even if temporary, though I’m old enough to remember that Linux and Macs both running Intel were often easier to get things running on than Linux on Intel vs. Linux on AMD. But things definitely change over time, as to what is easiest at any given moment.
Microsoft sucks tho - now THAT’S universal. Can’t we all just get together, united in our hate for it?! (/s, or, well, actually… not!)
Edit: hey, anyone want to start like an anti-Windows or I-fucking-hate-fucking-Windows community? I’ll join it today if you do!? :-)
new to Linux, my first distro was and is Manjaro. what do people complain about? i love it and am glad i left windows for it :)
This website has a decent summary: https://manjarno.pages.dev/
TL:DR: Repeated dumb mistakes that a (relatively) big distro like Manjaro should not be making. Haven’t heard any drama in the past year or so though, so maybe they’ve finally gotten their act together. Time will tell.
679 days since the last incident.
I feel like this incident is over blown. The weird holding back for 2 weeks without testing is a valid complaint though.
Idk, it worked well for me. Been on fedora for a while now.
It’s too “easy” for all the kiddos who tie their self-worth to their ability to follow installation instructions.
Ubuntu has Snap and ads and stuff, but I thought Manjaro was considered good. What’s wrong with it? It’s supposed to be Arch based.
Replied to a different comment about this: https://lemmy.world/comment/12365020
Fuck it, I’m switching to TempleOS
I’m not doing that unless it has its own compiler.
It has. Now learn HolyC.
Has anybody tried to get TempleOS to run Doom?
A quick Google search says… Yes! they even implemented a basic sdl2 library in holyc to access the full potential of the video hardware.
Does it get any holier than practicing combat against the forces of hell? Lol
Mint Cinnamon. Fight me.
Fedora Workstation 40.
On windows until last year, after trying 11 on my T440s which made it unbearably slow so had to start over but instead of going back to 10 tried a bunch of distros.
Fedora stuck, mainly because of gnome vanilla (I really like the paradigm, don’t care about deep personalisation) and how everything just worked great.
Fight me?
Nah, Fedora is a valid choice, just like Ubuntu is. Both are great if you don’t care that much about personalization and just want a solid distro to get work done.
Fedora is pretty much the new Ubuntu more or less. Ubuntu has gone so far downhill that I can’t recommend it to anyone and that’s been the case for quite a while.
Just curious does anyone actually care about what distro people use or more just a meme?
