this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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What would be considered "bare" about it? Granted, I'm not gaming on it or anything, but I've found it to work pretty well out of the box, just downloading software as I need - but nothing that has caused any sort of headache due to missing drivers or anything like that.
To me it seems like it would be pretty simple for most people to switch over from windows - albiet maybe not for the super beginners that have never seen a command line - but for most semi-tech literate, I would think it would be a decent entry into Linux.
Genuinely curious what is actually stripped down or missing, because maybe it's just something that I'm not even aware that I'm missing out on, lol
Older drivers won't support newer hardware. Only includes default apps from gnome and KDE. No DE tweaks to speak of. No performance optimizations. No Gear Lever. No fractional scaling implemented, etc. etc.
I guess it makes sense that I'm comfortable with using Debian then, lol, because I don't know what most of those things you mentioned are - haha.
Thanks for the explanation though :)
no fractional scaling? thats a DE/WM feature not distro related
old drivers? so is every stable point release distro unless you go out of your way to get an to date kernel,
only includes default apps? you mean following the DE's developer's vision? (sure for gnome it is a downside for most, tweaks should 100% be included on all gnome installs)
It is a distro thing. It requires configuration and most good distros have it pre-configured.
Lots of distros these days come out of the box with that pre-configured, so no, it's not.
Yes.