I’ve been using Mint for a few months now after initially trying Fedora and Kubuntu. Mint has been by far my favorite experience and I’ve even gotten a few people converted to Linux via Mint. Definitely my recommendation for any Linux newbies.
For a home user with recent hardware in my opinion the system to beat is openSUSE Tumbleweed. It is a stable and rolling distribution, that is, it has the best of both worlds.
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I think most mainstream distros have reached a point of diminishing returns, and that’s a good thing.
I never ”got" why people like Mint so much. it is mid
Mint is for people who just want stuff to work and not fiddle about too much. It does that very well. Anyone who simply wants an alternative to Windows that is easy to get into and use will be perfectly happy with it. If you want to customise everything to a t, Mint isn’t for you
EndeavourOS is the most simple to work with distro I’ve had. Ubuntu-based and Fedora all were trouble. OpenSUSE was fine but I prefer terminal centric (not saying you cannot use terminal on it). EndeavourOS is amazing. I just yay to update and all works.
I think mid translates to reliable and boring. Which is desirable for an OS.
Exactly. I want my OS to be as fucking boring as humanly possible.
It just works. Whenever anyone I know tells me they are going to install ubuntu or try out linux for the first time - I just tell them to install linux mint and they’ve had no complaints so far.
(Even though I only use mint as a fallback distro, I really appreciate it being there)
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I love how it’s focused on stabilty in UI/UX and that it’s supported by a lots of peoples around the world.
Lmao
It’s been my default choice for years now, and I’ve recently switched to the Debian-based version. Couldn’t be happier.
I never used a spin-off of a unique distribution of GNU/Linux on my own computer, except the dark Ubuntu times. It seemed right at the time.
Now, I don’t see why I should recommend a distro that tries to be easier on new users when the original has sane defaults and is closer to upstream regarding all the tools and software bundled with it.
Here are my recommendations for new users in that order (regardless of their computer knowledge): Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Arch, Slackware, LFS. Friends can help with the installation and should consider easy maintainability when dealing with users who just want to use it.
My personal preferences are Gentoo and Debian.
Yea Gentoo is the go-to for new users. Are you from the last millenium?
Indeed, but what has this to do with my recommendation? ^^
It clearly depends on what the new wants to get in to. Gentoo is a smart way to learn a lot while installing it. I mean it; this is no joke!
Its common sense to learn new stuff going to most complex way. But enough sarcasm for today.
Before switching to LMDE, I did try just using Debian with Cinnamon, thinking it would be pretty much the same experience. I did not really enjoy the experience. There were too many niceties missing that I had taken for granted with Mint. I wasn’t interested in spending my time hunting down all the tweaks and packages to make those changes.
I sure wish I could get off Windows and onto Linux, but as a VR developer, it really is not feasible. Sucks
At least you get Windows and not the abomination that is MacOS.
cries in iOS developer
I’d rather use macOS than windows anyday.
Me here playing VR games on Linux: wut?
My VR runs fine on Linux, just I cannot develop it on Linux as the tools are simply not available.
What are you developing for? Hololens?
Meta Quest and SteamVR.
I’ve used Linux for over two decades (red hat to Gentoo to Ubuntu to arch) and I must say it’ll be a tough sell to get me back to an RPM or a debian based distro solely due to how god awfully slow the package managers (dpkg and rpm) are.
Since Docker came along and brought with it the ride of Alpine and APK, it made me realize that system upgrades on a modern processor, fast internet, and an SSD should take seconds, not minutes.
Installs mint. Connects to wifi at work. Prompted with a window that wants me to specify certificate versions or whatever. No clue about what any of it means and never get to connect. Uninstalled and back to Windows. Mint so easy to use /s 👍
Mints wifi was a pain in the ass first time I used it, try some distro with kde as stock, or install it yourself. Might be more usable
Yeh and apparently Lemmy folks down votes legit bad experiences with gnu/Linux. If you think the user is the problem here, this community seriously have a problem if thet want gnu/Linux to be mainstream.
People here really do need to realize how little the average user is willing to tinker and troubleshoot. Not to mention the software availability. Saying “it’s soooo easy to switch over” is just blatantly false, even now. The vast, vast majority of gamers play games with incompatible anti-cheat. Those people will likely not stop playing the games they want to because of moral values or Foss whatever’s. Same with software. Sure, krita or gimp are easy as hell to pick up, but if you’ve lived your whole life with Photoshop, and have no problem other than the usual adobe bullshit, you’re not gonna switch to an is with zero possibility of supporting that app any time soon.
I can’t offer a solution to fix linux’s issues, but there needs to be a community willing to answer the most basic questions honestly.
I too think Cinnamon is a pretty great Experience. I am using KDE and heard from many people that it feels better, its more unified and has way more features.
Wayland is important for security, and Mint will need a long time to adopt that. There are already apps only running on Wayland for reasons.
KDE is a bit unstable as its a huge project. I hope that will get better in Plasma 6.
I sure wish to have something like KDE more stable. But once you are used to it, its just better. Things that are not there yet on Mint are on KDE since years.
Its a bit of a mess as its so old. Extensions need to be cleaned up. But like, Dolphin extensions are so great, I dont know an equivalent on Cinnamon.
Also the distro model is the standard one. A Fedora Atomic Cinnamon variant, with modern presets and everything working, would be a great thing to install anywhere. Automatic atomic updates, easy version upgrades, transparent system changes and resets being just one command away.
Cinnamon is more unified, but I don’t think any DE has as many features as KDE.
