hey nerds, I’m getting myself a new personal laptop as a treat, but I very much do not want windows 11 shitting it up. Is there a linux distro with caveman-compatible instructions for installation and use? I want to think about my OS as little as possible while actually using it.
I’ve got one friend who uses mint, but I’ve also seen memes dunking on it so who knows. I actually really only know what I’ve seen from you all shitposting in other communities
Fedora’s KDE spin
I really hope more beginner distros switch to kde from GNOME. When I was first getting into linux and did not know about what a DE was, GNOME put me off from fully switching to linux and themeing it was hell with it not playing nice with qt applications, of course as a newbie i did not know what “qt” or “Gtk” was and did not understand at the time why some applications were not following theme.
while kde default is not pretty it can be anything you want it to look like and its easy to customize and plays nice with gtk applications. GNOME IS very customizable that you might even be able to make it into a usable desktop.
Came to say Fedora KDE is the way to go now. Stable, reliable, powerful and customizable.
Linux mint, Debian, Fedora
PopOS if you are into gaming
How is Debian beginner friendly? Quite far from it imho
Have you used it in recent years?
I have to agree, to the extent that it is very vanilla and missing a lot of things a new user may want but don’t know they need or don’t want to take the time to figure out how to make it work.
It’s hilarious how uncool it is to suggest Ubuntu but it often just works, including very recent hardware if it’s from Canonical partners like Lenovo or Dell. And the kerfuffle about things like snaps are way overblown.
More specifically Ubuntu LTS, since interim releases are now expectedly beta quality and require upgrades a few months after release. Ubuntu LTS, enable unattended upgrades, register and activate Ubuntu Pro for them and you won’t have to touch it for the lifetime of the hardware.
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I came here to say this as well. Ubuntu "just works"™ and was my entry into linux 15+ years ago.
Ubuntu was my entry to linux as well, 19 years ago. But Ubuntu of today is not the Ubuntu of 15-19 years ago, and not in a good way.
you’re right, but the issues with ubuntu crop up later, when you have to update or after you install enough incompatible stuff that it breaks your system. which is a shame bc ubuntu is the most user friendly distro there is imo
I don’t recognize this myself. I’ve never had trouble with incompatibilities or degradation etc.,
Especially these days my OS can remain very vanilla, as many complex things can be containerized. E.g. I run syncthing and an nfs server and sometimes torrenting over vpn, through docker-compose; I’d never install all that on the host with all the extensive dependencies. Same with some heavyweight apps like darktable - spin them up from Flatpak.
Ubuntu does it very well with minimal fuss. I see little to dislike.
my last personal anectode with ubuntu is this: my company decided to setup our office as a remote-onsite hybrid workplace, so our working machines were moved to a rack elsewhere to be accessed remotely and the local machines were supposed to act as basically dumb terminals that can be used interchangeably by us
we develop on rhel, but since the local machines are just to access our dev machines remotely, support decided to install ubuntu because it “just works”. turns out, since ubuntu does a lot of stuff its own way for no good reason, it broke under our network configuration (it’s complicated) and no snap application could run – so, no slack or firefox. not a great scenario for a workplace. in the end we decided to replace ubuntu by rhel and no longer had any issues
you’re right that ubuntu might work flawlessly for you and that it might never break. but, it also might break in unexpected ways. i cannot reliably recommend ubuntu to a beginner because this risk might forever put someone off of linux
is it user friendly if it’s so prone to breakage?
i mean… when it doesn’t break, it works better than anything else. 5-minute installs, supports a ton of configurations and peripherals out of the box, makes gnome a little more usable, etc, etc
…but it breaks, eventually
Is it though? I’ve found it rock solid for years on end - been using it for 14 years, and Debian before that.
i mean idk, i was just asking about what that other poster was saying. i fuckin’ hate ubuntu for other reasons and i generally don’t speak on it in the negative or positive in threads like this. i only chimed in because what was being said struck me as odd. “it’s the most user friendly distro there is, it just breaks a lot”
it made me wonder what user friendly meant to this other user. i wanted to hear their perspective because i thought i could learn something, especially as i help my mom, an inexperienced linux user, use linux on an old laptop for the first time
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I haven’t used Windows in about 3 years, so I may be out of date, but in my experience, Ubuntu and its derivatives work easier with scanners and printers. For me and my printer-scanner combo, I literally just have to place it and the Linux desktop on the same network/WiFi. I don’t even have to add the printer-scanner. The OS finds it in the background on its own. It confused me the first time it happened because like you, I had wearisome issues in the past. Last I used Windows, I had to tell the OS to search for the printer and find the drivers for it myself online. Now, it’s installed before I open up printers on my OS.
Especially because it’s to a newbie, who stands to benefit the most from using an OS with more user share and more available online resources.
Fedora tends to “just work” too. Some manufacturers that support Ubuntu also support Fedora for customers that need a “RedHat-ish” distro instead of a “Debian-ish” one.
Go ahead with mint. It’s the only distro I know with a fully featured setup wizard that holds your hand through the entire process. I am confident anyone who has used computers can use it.
But honestly, most modern distros are about as difficult as picking up an iOS/android phone for the first time. There are different ways of doing things, but they’re still phones and can’t be too different anyway. Same with mint, it’s just a computer, it isn’t all that different.
It’s the only distro I know with a fully featured setup wizard that holds your hand through the entire process.
Ubuntu, Fedora, Nobara(Fedora fork by GloriousEggroll of proton-ge), Garuda Arch, Pop!OS. Those are just the few I’ve personally fiddled with.
Highly recommend Garuda, Nobara and Pop!, in that order, for gaming.
No it can’t be. I’m using fedora right now and it drops me into the GNOME desktop with nothing. The GNOME tours barely count, they just tell you to login to your dropbox or smth.
Have you seen the mint one? It’s actually dummies proof. Full “It’s my first day on linux” step-by-step guide. Everything from updating, setting themes, backups, installing nvidia drivers is in there. All relevant choices are meticulously explained.
I’m so certain of its coverage, I recommend mint to internet strangers because I genuinely believe it’s sufficient even for the lowest common denominator. I can drop mint on any rando and fully trust that the Mint setup wizard will hold their hands through their first day on Linux.
I last switched distros 3 years ago, and the wizard definitely wasn’t on popOS or Ubuntu either.
Full “It’s my first day on linux” step-by-step guide. Everything from updating, setting themes, backups, installing nvidia drivers is in there. All relevant choices are meticulously explained.
Ok… that’s not what you said though? That’s a usage guide, not a set up wizard. Sorry for being pedantic, but words mean things, and sometimes if you use the wrong words for things people can get confused by what you’re trying to say.
I second mint, back when I had more time to fuck with such things I distro hopped like crazy, mint is easy and it just works
Any Debian/Ubuntu or fedora based distro will do you fine. I personally ran PopOS when I built my computer earlier this year and didn’t have any issues with it
I’m very impressed by the work by the Elementary OS team. Linux is a beast to figure out, and while I’ve used Linux for 30 years, I remember how frustrating getting started was. I use Pop!_OS on my desktop machines today and Debian or Ubuntu for other machines and I’ve used dozens of desktops, but Elementary really does just work (and also also happens to be Debian / Ubuntu based).
It has the easiest install process, trouble free device support, and it starts you with guardrails that keep from breaking things, but can be turned off as you figure it out. Very Mac inspired experience, so not completely intuitive from Windows, but the reality of Linux is that you are going to change distros over time, or even use multiple as each do a better job at dealing with niche requirements. Certaintly not the one size that fits no one that is the current Windows 11 debacle.
Edit: Wine math last night, it was summer of 1994 so 30 years, not 35 😅. It was on my new AMD 486DX4/100 with VLB and getting X to work was no picnic. A friend gave me the CD ROMs so at least I wasn’t using dialup to download it.
It will be 35 years way too soon. I can’t remember the last time I compiled a kernel let alone what exactly I was doing with a computer in the early 90s.
Its weird that most of the world runs on Linux outside of desktop and we still have these discussions. I didn’t know what a distro was in the beginning. It was a Linux kernel and gnu user space someone had compiled to get people started. If the disk sets had a name I didn’t know or care.
You used Linux two years before it was released?
Why did the hipster burn its tongue?
Linux isn’t even 35 years old …
I’ve never noticed any hate for Mint, it seems to be a pretty good option. It’ll easily run on anything that was able to run Windows 10 (probably 8 too) and the default desktop environment Cinnamon is easy to navigate if you’re coming from Windows. Even if you have some obscure piece of hardware with Mint being based on Ubuntu there’s probably a tutorial you can follow to get it working.
Go with Mint, it’s my daily drive on both my laptop and HTPC. If you choose the regular edition Ubuntu based you have also hardware enablement (hwe) kernels which could be useful on newer hardware.
I’ve got one friend who uses mint, but I’ve also seen memes dunking on it so who knows. I actually really only know what I’ve seen from you all shitposting in other communities
Every distro gets shit on in memes, because each distro does things its own way that some don’t agree with. As a new user, most of that doesn’t matter much, the biggest changes between distros are how stuff works in the background. What matters more is your choice of Desktop Environment (DE). Essentially “the coat of paint on top”. Most distros offer a couple different options when downloading the ISO, or when installing it.
I’d reccomend starting out by trying GNOME and KDE Plasma (if they’re easily available for your distro), with GNOME being slightly more macOS-like, and KDE being somewhat similar in feel to Windows. Those are “the big two” DEs, but there’s plenty of other options available if you don’t like them.
As for distros, whatever works for you is the option you should go with. There’s only two distros I recommend against using, Ubuntu (/ close derivatives) and Manjaro. Ubuntu is becoming extremely corporate, going against the “spirit” of a Linux distro. There’s “Ubuntu Pro”, a subscription for security updates, and “snap”, an “alternative to” flatpak that forces you on Ubuntu managed repositories, along with many other issues. Manjaro is often marketed as “an easy Arch-based distro”, but is in fact only very loosely derived from Arch. This combined with Manjaro team’s inability to maintain the distro properly, causes nothing but issues.
As for every other distro, if it’s being updated, and it works for you, then it’s a great option. Because that second one is very personal, there is no “single best Linux distro”. I would personally suggest to check out Mint and Fedora, those are often great options.
As someone else mentioned, with a “new laptop”, hardware compatibility may be an issue. Most distros allow you to try them off the USB before installing, that’s probably a good idea.
I’ve been running Manjaro for about a decade and never had issues. Not saying they don’t exist but I feel like the concerns are overblown.
There’s several online sources that compile some of the reasons why Manjaro is objectively a bad distro, here’s one as an example: https://manjarno.pages.dev/
You’re free to choose whatever you want on your system, I just reccomend against Manjaro (and Ubuntu).
Linux Mint is one of the most common gateway drug for getting into linux.
It’s incredibly easy to set up and use. And it has plenty of resources if you ran into any issue.
This is quite a rabbit hole you are getting yourself into, but to keep it short and relatively simple, you need to figure out something very important beforehand:
- Do you want a rolling release or a stable distro?
I’m assuming that, you are not yet familiar with these terms, so let’s go with the stable distros.
You have a lot of options here, most of them will all be based of Ubuntu, which is based in Debian, so let me drop a few generally good suggestions in no particular order:
- Linux Mint
- MX Linux
- ZorinOS
- PopOS
- Fedora, (This one is not a stable distro, but you should be good with it)
Either of these is a good starting point. If down the road you feel like they stop fitting your needs, start exploring the big three, (Debian, Fedora and Arch Linux).
When first coming from Windows, starting with Mint is the safest bet for a good transition because things will work pretty much as you expect them to, and there’s a very helpful forum if you have any questions. But I always say to try several distros and Desktop Environments to see how you like them. Everyone is different and it’s all a matter of preference.
I suggest that once you’ve got whatever distro you decided on up and running, install a virtual machine software such as Boxes (very simple) or Virtual Box (a little more complicated but with more options). Then just download various distros and make VMs for them to try them out easily. Have fun!
- Mint
- Kubuntu
- Fedora KDE Edition
- OpenSuSE
- Pop!OS
These are all easy to use desktop distros (or variants). Use them with their respective default desktop environment. Check screenshots first or try them out in a VM or via live USB before installation, to see whether you like the look&feel.
Linux Mint.
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https://ultramarine-linux.org/ Linux ultramarine is based on very popular fedora distro. Let me quote some fedi post:
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Just like Microsoft Windows, you do not need to configure your firmware, drivers, media codecs, and sources. That is already taken care of for you.
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Just like Windows, you can have automatic update, update notifications, or choose not to update. By default, update notifications is the default, allowing you to choose when and what to update. And you can update with a click of a button (point and click), just like Microsoft Update.
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Installing, updating, and removing apps through the app store is point and click easy.
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Go ahead and download an RPM setup file, and double-click to install, just like you would a Windows setup file. Updating and removing that program, can also be done through the app store, which doubles as the app manager.
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Point and click settings. No matter if you want to add users, manage a VPN, add a printer, etc… etc… A simple-to-use control panel is what is offered.
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Friendly support - Based on Fedora Linux, means you have 20+ years of documentation, live help, support forums, and chat groups, both from Fedora and Ultramarine. Source: https://kitty.social/notes/a12bji4hf8zb0332
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