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Qustions

Hi…

  • I don’t know what to say in the introduction, but in brief I have some questions about Linux, which were formed after trying some distributions on DistroSea and observing Linux communities on the Internet. Can you help with the answer?
  1. I liked Gnome DE interface very much, but whenever I look at the empty workspace after closing an app , I feel that something is missing (sorry, I have been using Windows for almost 15 years). Is there an add on - or any other way - to install some apps on workspace? Or do I have to get used to it as it is ?
  2. I read that Linux is more problematic on laptops than on personal computers, is this true? If so…what are the usual problems and is there a way to avoid them?
  3. Are there any distributions that come with the minimum pre-installed apps ? … I mean not even a video or music player
  4. If I want to delete a pre-installed app (let’s say the default browser), can this be done easily or does it require root, like Android?
  5. Does rooting invalidate the system from obtaining updates?
  6. I read that switching DEs is easy… but how exactly is it done? Something in the settings, or downloading the interface independently, or customizing it to be similar to the other, or something else?
  7. Lazy question : What are wayland and docker? I see a lot of people mentioning them
  • Sorry for the many questions, and thanks in advance
solrize , (edited )
  1. Like someone else said, try MATE, it is more like windows and even though I’m not a windows user, I find it less confusing than gnome.
  2. to some extent though maybe not as bad as before. Solution seems to be buy a Thinkpad since that’s what more devs tend to use. I’ve stayed with that plan and haven’t had much trouble, though at work I had an Acer laptop that also worked fine.
  3. Yes, I generally run Debian, including on small servers where there is not even a window manager (because no screen), much less a browser, music player, or anything like that.
  4. Generally stuff like that requires root, but root just means admin privs. It’s normally protected by a password that you yourself choose when you install the OS. That is, the idea is that you own your computer and can do what you want with it, so of course you have root and can use it when needed. Android is the weird exception that breaks that model, transferring ownership of your phone to app vendors and keeping you out of the application data.
  5. No
  6. DE=desktop environment? Ermmm… maybe not so easy. Simplest might be separate user accounts for different DE’s? Idk, I just use MATE though I’ve played with XMonad n the past.
  7. Wayland = relatively new window system (API through which applications show stuff on the screen), intended to replace X (older system). Docker = container system for wrapping an application and its dependencies in one package, to prevent the Linux version of “DLL hell”. This is mostly used on servers as Linux’s packaging systems tend to be better than Windows’s and not get you into too much trouble, as long as you don’t try to mix approaches on a single machine.
Ephera ,
  1. Are there any distributions that come with the minimum pre-installed apps ? … I mean not even a video or music player

You would not believe the obsession the Linux community has with minimal distros. Yes, there are many variants of “nothing” pre-installed.

Problem is, that many of the minimal distributions are more difficult to use, because they might not have a GUI, for example. Or they don’t have handling for Bluetooth out of the box. Things like that.

For someone new to Linux, I would not recommend jumping straight to a minimal distro. The pre-installed apps are typically decent on Linux (like a recommendation by the folks who create the distro) and if you don’t know much of the ecosystem yet, it’s a good way to start learning about it.

If you do find, you really just don’t need any video or music player, you can also separately uninstall them. Which, again, is easier than installing missing things that you never heard of.

Kongar ,
  1. there are things called gnome extensions that change things up.
  2. it’s just that a lot of laptops are potatoes with wierd hardware and drivers aren’t always available. If you have a popular laptop you’ll have better luck. Can’t predict how it’ll go other than goggling your laptop and seeing if you can find a post saying what worked and didn’t. Can’t hurt to try either way…
  3. yes. There are plenty with installed apps. Hard to believe you didn’t find any music or video players. Either way - doesn’t matter. Install VLC and it plays everything.
  4. most Linux distributions will let you delete Linux itself if you’re so inclined. My vote is to just leave the default programs that install with the distro unless you’re in need of an absolute bare bones system/size (which it doesn’t sound like you are)
  5. root is a user, nothing more. If you don’t know why you’re using root, then don’t. Based on your questions, I’d say you can do everything you need as a normal user with sudo privileges.
  6. to be honest I’ve never actually done this. I believe you can even install multiples at once and switch between them. Most distros come with a choice of DE during install. Check them out in a vm and just install the one you want. If you’re hell bent on swapping on an existing install, best read a guide on how to do it for your distro.
  7. this isn’t exactly right, but docker is kind of like virtual machines. Not quite full on VMs, but rather they are called containers. You can download a docker image, and fire up say, a pihole server. Or in my case, I run a preconfigured ubiquity WiFi controller. Don’t worry about these for now - it’s a later thing. Wayland is replacing X. Some distros use it, some don’t. X is very old - it’s stable and doesn’t get updates and just works. Until it doesn’t because it’s old and doesn’t get updates. Enter Wayland. New things of that complexity are hard to make so there’s bugs with it. Works for some people, not for others. Go watch some YouTube videos on the topic - it’s interesting.

Good luck!

PancakeBrock ,

My answer for #2 is I have never personally had a problem with Linux on a laptop. Everything works as intended. The only funny thing was when I switched to Arch Linux took a little bit of work to get games to use my Nvidia GPU instead of the integrated one in my CPU. But that was maybe 30 minutes of googling and installing stuff off the AUR. When I ran pop_os it worked right out of the box. I believe pop has all of the Nvidia stuff installed and on Arch I just had to figure out what I needed. That problem was just from lack of experience.

My answer for #3 is I don’t know but I’ve had fun testing different software out to find something that suits me. I want to say way back in the day Ubuntu had a bunch of stuff pre installed. But that was probably 2007 when I last used Ubuntu. On Arch you can just use the discover store to find stuff. If you can’t find it there it’s in the AUR.

#4 rooting on Linux isn’t like rooting on Android. Android is built off Linux so to have “root” access is just like having administrator access or whatever on Windows. Android phones are more locked down so it’s usually a pain to root (the manufacturer don’t really want you to do it). On your own Linux computer you just use root access. For example on Arch in the terminal to do a full system update you have to use root access so you type “sudo pacman -Syu” in the terminal then it asks you for the sudo password or root password that you yourself setup on install. Sudo is the command that says hey I want to do this no questions asked.

#5 it’s Linux you can do whatever you want. You can go through and destroy the entire os if you want.

I’m coming on a year being full time on Linux so that’s about the best I can do answering your questions. I’m sure other people will explain stuff better. Good luck!

cmnybo ,

Arch is about as minimal as you can get. You won’t even have a text editor if you don’t specifically install one. You won’t be able to connect to the internet to install that text editor if you don’t install the software to configure the network connection either. I made that mistake the first time I installed Arch.

kionite231 ,

Yeah It’s a pain when in newly installed system there is no Internet and you have to boot off of USB again!

Shdwdrgn ,
  1. Have you looked at Mate Desktop? It’s based off of an earlier version of Gnome but I find it much more familiar to the way things used to be managed on Windows.
  2. That’s going to come down to the specific hardware. A lot of vendors build their devices to only work under Windows but there are a lot of smart Linux techs who have been able to reverse-engineer working drives. Your best bet is to find a hardware compatibility list and see how much support your particular laptop has.
  3. If you look at Debian, you can get the “net-install” image. This doesn’t even install a desktop environment, it simply boots you to a command line and you can install whatever you want to use. Many other distributions probably have a similar installed available, it’s just a matter of deciphering what the names mean.
  4. If you install something as root, or if it’s installed by the system during the initial installation, then yes you’ll need root, but more likely you will use “sudo” which gives your user account the temporary access needed (if it was set up with that access). Again, going back to something like Debian’s net-install, everything except the core OS would be installed by you anyway.
  5. “Rooting” sounds like a term you brought from an Android phone. In desktop terms, think of the root user as being like the admin on Windows. You only use it when needed, like when you’re performing a system update, otherwise you do everything under your regular user account.
  6. When you install a DE like Gnome, it also adds a login to your graphical interface. If you install a second DE, then on the login screen you are presented a choice as to which one you want to use this time. If you want to switch, you just log out and select another one from the login screen. You can have as many as you want, just remember that this loads a ton of extra stuff on your system. It’s ok to play with, but then I would suggest uninstalling the ones you don’t like.
  7. Wayland is the core of the DE. The previous system was Xorg, but both are still in common use. Docker is a container system, so like if you wanted to install a web server then Docker would contain all of the modules for that software independently of anything else you have installed. This means that a system update is less likely to break something (although that’s already pretty unlikely), but it does require more storage space.
variants ,
  1. The net install would that allow you to then install for example firefox and run the gui like normal?
Shdwdrgn ,

Sure. You install your DE first, and then start installing software like browsers, email, etc. The net install disk is just a barebones system to get you up and running and then you install whatever you need from there. If you’re building a desktop them you might want a DE. If you’re building a server then you might want web or email services. The basic installation can be expended to include everything you want for that particular machine.

The advantage of using a pre-configured full setup is that you don’t need to know the name of all the packages you want to install, and typically you can still remove the ones you don’t like. Even with the DE you will probably find that the package also installs a number of common tools like task bar widgets or file managers. So in making a truly custom system you will have to hit google quite a bit to find the things you want to install, but then you learn what all those various packages actually do. Even the GUI login screen has multiple choices to select from which give you different ways of managing the logins. That’s one of the things most people really enjoy about linux – almost every type of software has multiple choices (like Firefox vs Chrome) so it’s easy to build up a desktop that suits your particular needs.

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