None of them good for non techy people. I wouldn’t recommend mint. Gnome is the most friendly DE with pleasing defaults. There are many immutable flatpak distros coming with gnome. e.g.: Endless os which is pre installed on some asus laptops instead of Ubuntu for reason.
I feel like people have an interesting view of techy/advanced/etc
My view is that you need to pick something in line with your goals: some people may be techy but just need something to host files and a web browser and don’t care about new packages or whatever, or modern security or anything. I wouldn’t recommend mint or fedora for a gaming PC regardless of techiness, you know?
Our views can be compatible. Endless os is quite limited right now, but if flathub would have xampp, for example, that would be easily the simplest way to run a webserver. However, every techy person prefers docker, me too. It’s just not something that my mother can deal with. In general, linux is lacking these mother compatible apps where we have more advanced solution. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend endless and others in the category if the goal is to run a webserver.
I always suggest Mint Edge edition, that has a newer kernel, not the default Mint. But I still suggest Mint, because simply, it’s more user friendly than any of the other ones. It has gui panels for almost everything.
The thing is, I don’t care to distrohop and experiment with this or that. I just want to use my computer. Until I see a distro that can convince me that switching will be actually painless (not ‘long time linux user painless’, but ‘casual new user that does more than just web browse’ painless) I’ll just use windows.
Specifically? I don’t know. It would likely help if the conversation around new user distros was a bit less of an argument or if the number of suggested distros was a bit less. It would help with the decision paralysis aspect of it at least. I see enough threads of experienced users troubleshooting more than I really want to deal with, I stopped maintaining my modded skyrim installation because I was fixing when I could be playing and I don’t like the idea of my whole computer being like that because I chose the wrong hardware (I have nvidia)
The simple way is to dual boot or even simpler, set up a Linux distro in a Windows VM.
Let’s you play/see if the distro works for you.
TBH, I’ve got 1 machine where Windows is more problematic than the Ubuntu that is setup to dual boot… Can’t bring myself to do a fresh install of Windows lol…
It would likely help if the conversation around new user distros was a bit less of an argument
Fair. Though, I suppose we shouldn’t ignore that the promoted distros are mostly the distros people use for themselves. And, while some have been on a distrohopping spree to arrive at their home. Others, instead, just got a recommendation, tried it and have been using it ever since. Yet others knew what they sought and/or needed. Hence, in their case, it was more a search to find a distro that satisfied their specific needs. Finally, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that the popular distros mentioned in these discussions are overall good picks.
if the number of suggested distros was a bit less.
Absolutely fair. Unfortunately, we’ve got over 300 distros that are currently maintained and 50 would argue they’re newbie friendly 😅. It’s a hard one for sure. But, I believe you can definitely narrow down the list if you know what you want. For example, in my case, there’s literally only one distro that answers my needs. So, I just use that one 😅.
It would help with the decision paralysis aspect of it at least.
Brings back memories. This process took me about two weeks.
I see enough threads of experienced users troubleshooting more than I really want to deal with
On the other hand, people that don’t ever experience any issues, don’t feel the need to post about that 😅. But, I can understand why it could make you anxious. Thankfully, distro choice does play an important factor in this. So, it makes sense for you to use a distro that’s designed to (somehow) avoid this and thus limits the amounts of troubleshooting you’d have to resort to.
I don’t like the idea of my whole computer being like that because I chose the wrong hardware (I have nvidia)
Absolutely fair. Nvidia on Linux can definitely be a mess. The more popular and modern models should work on most distros. However, if your specific model is more obscure, then this can definitely cause more trouble than it’s worth.
That’s really depending on your use cases, for example if I want to install distro for my grandma use Mint, for a graphic guy (as in this example) use Arch or Fedora (or even OpenSUSE), etc.
I know its one of the strengths of Linux, but I can’t help but laugh that the response to “you can’t agree on one, how can I?” is for several people to suggest several distros.
what do you think about:. “you don’t need to choose one” and “you don’t need other people to choose for you” and “distro isn’t that important in many cases”
I can agree 100% on what distros I use for what types of computer. And I can agree 100% on what I’d have used now, if i were a beginner again.
But all i can recommend to a stranger is, backup all your stuff properly,
try a few out (v.m. or liveCD/Ventoy) and be prepared to change.
make sure to check application versions in the base software repository - for any programs where that matters to you. and ease of updating - if that matters to you. and check out some flatpak if you think that might be a useful way to get extra applications or in some cases up to date.
Ubuntu isn’t the most popular and hasn’t been for a while. It actually has a lot of issues new users are likely to run into, including lots of spurious error messages. Apparently the top 5 according to distro watch is: MX Linux, Mint, EndeavorOS, Debian, and Manjaro.
So essentially debian, arch and ubuntu derivatives.
If you haven’t heard of EndeavorOS that’s because you are out of the loop. Entirely your issue. It’s a much better alternative to Manjaro essentially.
Also that’s general popularity according to page hits, nothing to do with newbies. Newbies aren’t the majority of Linux users.
Not that there is anything wrong with recommending EndeavorOS to Newbies. The whole point of arch derivatives like that is to make installing arch simpler and easier for the user. Arch is actually a better base distro imo than say Ubuntu for this. It has packages for pretty much anything in the AUR, no digging up PPAs for everything. Likewise it’s all up-to-date too.
I don’t remember MX Linux ever being that popular before, but maybe I am out of the loop.
Linux users can’t even agree […] so how am I supposed to pick one with any confidence?
Easy. You make a post like the OP, count the positive mentions of distros in the comments, and bam, you have your distro of choice. It’s called the Linux newbie roulette and works kind of like the magic hat in Harry Potter that sorts you into your house.
The Ocean and Oxygen sound themes now include bell sounds, so our automatic “make the system bell not not make you want to commit homicide” transformer can get its sound from those themes
I wish the team would just spent an entire year of bug fixing and refining user experience without adding new features or making big changes such as the new desktop edit mode. Don’t get me wrong, this is super exciting too, but for the complex nature of KDE it would be good if they keep a bit of focus after a major release.
I guess you meant this as a joke, but for clarification, I meant no big changes such as new desktop edit mode. I wish the team would just focus of bug fixes and enhancements without introducing new elements or changing things up in a big way like this.
This isn’t a joke. Often times rewriting features like this will allow the code to be more streamlined and use the latest KDE library features. This is brining new features using modern and more maintable code that solves long standing issues. Fixing the old code sometimes isn’t worth the effort for a variety of reasons (based on unmaintained libraries, the original code might have been written a while ago so it’s had many revisions of fixes that necessarily complicated the code, etc.)
You misunderstand me. They can write new code and be ready when the bug hunting phase is over. The end user only gets bug fixes. Later they can backport any new feature after the phase.
I don’t think anyone has misunderstood you here. You misunderstood what you wrote in your first comment. The new desktop edit window is not proposing any new functionality that wasn’t there, but showcasing it in a more streamlined fashion. That’s in itself refining the user experience, which is exactly what you wanted.
The problem here is that we are dealing in largely imprecise terms. If we instead turn to semantic versioning for inspiring what we’d consider a large change, then Plasma 5 -> 6 is a big change, breaking previous API.
The new desktop edit effect is largely irrelevant under this rather precise terminology.
It is not irrelevant to me and I made it multiple times clear. Its a suggestion by me, regardless of what terminology you use or the team uses. The desktop edit change is a big change which I suggest not to do for a year. Only bug fixes and small changes that enhance and improve usability. The desktop edit change is a huge change for the developers and for the end user, with lot of background changes to make it work correctly, with lot of fixes after it.
Something that complex is not a small change and is not irrelevant for the topic I brought up. I made it multiple times clear now, I don’t know why you are still act like this. It’s not a definition of a term we are trying to agree, I don’t care the term.
The desktop edit change is a huge change for the developers and for the end user, with lot of background changes to make it work correctly, with lot of fixes after it.
How do you know this? The desktop edit feature was already in place. It’s not new. They refined the UI in 6.1 and made the desktop zoom out
Compared to what I am talking about it is a huge change. My suggestion is not to do this. How I know it? Because I said so. It is my suggestion. Can we stop arguing about semantics and definitions of words? That’s not the point of my suggestion.
My suggestion is to not do such big changes for 1 year and only focus on bug fixes and small changes for the developer and for the user. That’s the point. The desktop edit change is a HUGE change with new logic. It’s incredible complex compared to what I am suggesting.
I was just curious about why you think this way. It’s not a big deal to anyone except you. The KDE team already has a deadline for new feature before a big release in order to have enough time for testing and fixing. And this wasn’t a big change or new feature so they decided to implement it. It’s pretty bold to assume this was a huge change. Both of us can go check the source code but I don’t care enough to do it.
The edit mode works a lot better now and it’s not as buggy from my experience.
If you really care about stability then use Debian or any other distro that delays big updates and does backports to fixes. Exactly like you are suggesting. If you are using Arch or any other rolling release distro then this is what you signed up for.
Wrong, this is a big deal for the developers, for the users and for any maintainer of packages.
And this wasn’t a big change or new feature so they decided to implement it. It’s pretty bold to assume this was a huge change.
It is by definition a big change. And I defined it in my first reply. As you ignore all of this and waste my time, I will not read any further and block you now.
The KDE team really should consider a 1 year bug hunting phase without bigger changes like the thing about desktop edit mode we discussed here. This is my suggestion.
I swear I think of this every time someone mentions kde should just fix bugs. I follow Nate’s blog weekly and try to keep track of any other work that is going on. 90% of any kde release is polishing, bug fixing, and refactoring or outright replacing old code that was causing issues. For some reason, people seem to consider colors changing from blue to red a new feature.
To be fair the nobara website is very “pet project” both in the design and also in the frequent warnings about using it for anything real. Is a good distro tho, having said that.
In KWin’s new (off-by-default) “Hide Cursor” effect, you can now turn off hiding it after inactivity, and only hide it while typing (Vlad Zahorodnii, Plasma 6.2.0. Link)
Does Plasma Bigscreen still receive updates? This feature would be very useful with it. Arch’s bigscreen package is unfortunately stuck at 5.27
I also noticed slow dl speeds some weeks ago, and had to restart the download. Nearly did not install it out of growing frustration. But it worked out in the end.
Oh, I thought it was my NoScript addon that was messing that up, good to know. Gonna try again in a couple of days or just go the Fedora -> rebase route.
Yeah rebase will probably be the fastest way. Otherwise maybe you can find a torrent of bazzite? Looks like they have several different images so that may be hard to find
By default Mint ships 3 years old kernel and a lot of hardware don’t work with it. Mint allows installing newer kernel easily but one must know that is the case.
Mint only works on X11. This is fine to some, but to others it’s a showcase of X shortcomings right away
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