• Marxine@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I’d rather someone’s first choice about Linux was which DE to use. This plays a way bigger part in first impressions.

    The obvious choice is KDE, ofc

    • atmur@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I totally agree, that’s a way more important factor when you’re starting out with Linux.

      Gotta be Gnome though

    • Livie@iusearchlinux.fyi
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      1 year ago

      DEs are clearly bloat, so the best DE is no DE.

      Definitely not just because I prefer i3

    • TheInsane42@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      DE? WM!

      ctwm rocking along nicely since last century

      Whatever, I always say, use what you want when you want to dive into things. When you don’t want to dive into things, use either IOS when you can afford it or Windows. (As long as they don’t expect help with the last 2 ;) )

    • Victron@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I used to be a huge Plasma evangelist. At first I hated it, the old versions I mean. You just moved the mouse pointer the wrong way and your whole DE was fucked. Too many options and settings. But KDE 5 changed my world. Stable and lighter than Gnome, but still fully configurable. Last night I switched to Debian 12, Gnome. Maybe I’m getting old, but I’m loving it. I don’t tinker with my DEs that much anymore. Just a couple Gnome extensions and I was good to go.

    • pelya@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The arrangement of Start menu hardly matters. Virtual desktops are indispensable though. And I can restart crashed Plasma in 35 seconds.

    • Hextic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I use SteamOS btw

      (Which is arch based meaning… I use arch btw lol)

      Otherwise Debian stable is my go-to set it and forget it server OS

    • Peruvia@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Needing to feel superior is meaningless. Feeling just in your distro decisions is something you can only give to yourself when you are honest. If I need to shame your decisions based on your needs, I know I am doing something wrong and I need to distro hop. I should feel self sufficient in my choices, and so should you. I encourage your distro usage and hope you master it enough to suit your needs.

  • Andrew@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Searched, not googled. Google is bad, M’kay?

    Reference

    Drugs are bad, M’kay? Don’t do drugs.

  • MyFairJulia@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Hannah Montana Linux is the best distro! It leaves out all those newfangled things like Wayland, GNOME 3, SysVInit and gives you Hannah Montana.

    • such_fifty_bucks@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      newfangled… SysVInit

      You mean systemd? Cause SysVInit was created in 1991 based on Unix System V from 1983. Which means it’s literally older than Miley Cyrus.

      • MyFairJulia@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Frankly i don’t know much about Linux. I was looking for some boot programs and i thought SysVInit was one of the newer ones after systemd. My gf uses Void Linux and it has some boot program that is supposedly less bloated than systemd.

      • MyFairJulia@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s the best Linux distro and only the best OS is enough for our glorious leader Kim Jong-Un! I heard he has the nuclear launch button integrated right into GNOME 2.

    • atmur@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      the ultimate beginner’s distro, it’s a great start before moving on to something complicated like mint

    • Duckman@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Oddly, Gentoo was where I started out when I got serious about using Linux. That was when I was in my 20’s and I wanted to get every last bit of performance out of my computer. Also, breaking stuff was fun and gave me a chance to figure new stuff out.

      Now I just want stuff to work and be relatively up to date. So I use Debian testing.

      • glibg10b@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I’ve found a good compromise between the two. I’ve disabled most of the desktop profile USE flags and I compile everything with -Ofast and LTO

        Portage errors are uncommon, and build failures are easily fixed by disabling compilation flags from package.env. Build failures get less and less common as package.env grows (it’s currently at about 20 lines)

        As for the kernel, I just started with a distribution kernel, disabled all modules and only enabled the ones that I need (this can automatically be done with make localmodconfig). These modules are built-in (so lsmod usually returns nothing)

        I chose systemd because of the huge increase in boot speed

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Compiling everything with LTO landed me in a situation where a bunch of packages fail to build because apparently having some LTO’d static libraries can cause issues.

          I’m now going to start investigating where exactly the issue is. Trouble is, the package that was giving me errors, depended on a whole lot of static libraries, soooooo… Good luck to me.

          Being an ultra-madlad, I used to also -ffast-math everything that didn’t fail, but because I didn’t know about package.env yet, I found it easier to just keep it off rather than turning it off and on again every time I needed to emerge something that failed because of it.

          • glibg10b@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            apparently having some LTO’d static libraries can cause issues

            Yeah, I think I’ve had that problem once or twice. I think I found the culprits by disabling all build flags for libraries that seemed related, rebuilding them, running emerge @preserved-rebuild and then repeating the process to narrow it down

            dmesg and PFL help with diagnosing crashes due to libraries, but I don’t think that would help here

            If it helps, here’s my package.env:

            # Build failures
            app-emulation/wine-vanilla noflto O3
            sys-apps/groff O3
            dev-lang/rust noflto
            dev-lang/python O3
            sys-auth/polkit O3
            sys-libs/libomp noflto
            sys-libs/compiler-rt noflto
            net-libs/nodejs O3
            dev-lang/duktape O3
            x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel noflto
            
            # Runtime failures
            gnome-extra/cjs noflto O3
            sys-devel/llvm noflto
            
  • mrmanager@lemmy.today
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    1 year ago

    If beginner, use PopOS.

    If Linux nerd, use Arch.

    That’s my guide. I don’t like any other distros. :)

    • swordsmanluke@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I started with Ubuntu and then migrated to Arch. I learned a ton about Linux and how tune everything for optimal performance!

      …And then I went back to Ubuntu because I just want to work with my computer, not on it.

      • mrmanager@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        Yeah many people say that but Ubuntu is not very good in my opinion. Outdated packages, snaps, commercials in the installer and so on. I would pick PopOS any day over that myself. But it’s because I’m really sensitive to those things.

        • swordsmanluke@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, I honestly agree that Ubuntu is getting worse. For better or worse though, it’s a base that I’m familiar with. I end up customizing and tweaking it, but I’ve automated enough of that to where I can just run a few scripts on a fresh install and be back up and running.

          Basically, I built myself a shittier, highly specific version of Nix in self-defence. 😁

      • mrmanager@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        No, absolutely not dumb at all. I have tried almost all Linux distros myself over the years, and ran them for a while. It’s fun. And maybe you like this one and stick with it.

        Either way you will learn new things just by trying it.

        • berrodeguarana@lemmy.eco.br
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          1 year ago

          Great! I’m looking forward to testing it, seem a great distro that comes with many Linux gaming stuff ready. I just wanna check if it is that good, cos I was impressed once I read it’s only one guy maintaining this whole project

    • kolfen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I started with Pop_OS then switched toto manjaro and now again switched to Pop

      • mrmanager@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        It really is the best system for new people using Linux. Everything is so smooth and nice. Looking forward to the new cosmos desktop that is coming. :)

  • ZephrC@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Okay, but when most people are looking for advice on which distro to use it’s because they don’t know what they want.

    • atmur@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, this meme is mostly to poke fun at the people who genuinely think that Linux Mint is only for beginners or you have to switch to Arch or whatever else, that kind of crowd.

      I’m a little bit tempted to try and make an actual flowchart with distro recommendations since I’ve used and like most of the major ones at this point, but there are better resources out there than what I could contribute.

      • xkforce@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Linux mint is the sort of distro newbies start with and long time linux users retire to after theyve explored the distro multiverse.

  • Nefyedardu@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I was a huge distro hopper until I started using immutable distros. One thing no one tells beginners is that you do have to maintain your system more on Linux than other OSs because Linux gives you the rope to hang yourself with. I would always bloat my OS and things would get unruly, everything would slow down or become unstable and I would lose track of how I had everything set up. Immutability make things so much cleaner.

  • Televise@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The two things that matter when choosing a distro - package managers and desktop environment/window manager. And even then, universal package managers like Flatpak, Snap and AppImage can provide a substitute for the package managers.

    • bob_wiley@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Even DE doesn’t really matter, as you can change that. And if you’re not comfortable doing it yourself, most major distros have versions available with all major DE options, or let you pick during the install process.

      I was trying to find what ran best, while still being usable, on a cheap mini pc I picked up and installed a bunch. I simply picked my DE from a drop-down menu on the login screen.

    • atmur@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I literally just switched to openSUSE yesterday because I’m trying out an Intel Arc GPU for a bit and wanted more recent packages than Fedora offers to give it the best chance possible. Gotta say…it’s really good. Once I’m done testing the Intel card, I don’t think I’ll be switching back.

    • tibi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The distro itself is pretty good, but the repos are missing many packages, and it can get pretty frustrating.

      • ciko22i3@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        You can use opi to install packages from packman repo and open build service. It has pretty much everything.

    • atmur@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I was going to joke about compatibility, but apparently there is a version of Raspberry Pi OS for desktops…huh, TIL