I upvote for a non-AI thumbnail.
God I am tired of them!
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Linux
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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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Longtime every OS user. But have been using Linux since the days of Mandrake in ‘96. Switched to Debian shortly thereafter though mostly as a server/SDN device. Then a long spell on Ubuntu starting with 8.something. While I don’t use Linux on the desktop as my primary work OS, I do use it daily.
Recently, annoyed with windows, which I only used/booted up for gaming, I gave gaming on Linux a try. It’s been mostly flawless even when the games aren’t Linux-native. Hilariously Ubuntu was awful and I couldn’t get it working so I’ve switched to something more gaming specific and couldn't happier.
What are you using now? I've been thinking of switching to popos but I'm keeping my eyes open for options.
Took my first steps last night, I flashed a USB stick with Mint Cinnamon and gave it a spin. Looks like it'll handle everything I need to just fine, so imma start partitioning and backing up the next couple evenings and just go for it. I've installed Linux before, but only really as temporary solutions. I'm looking forward to making it my daily driver and learning the system.
Took my first steps last night, I flashed a USB stick with Mint Cinnamon and gave it a spin.
Happily using Mint myself, welcome onboard ;)
Welcome aboard! Linux Mint was the first distro I daily drove, so it still has a special place in my heart even though I haven't used it in years. One quick tip, check out SaveDesktop It's not a proper backup utility, but it makes it very quick and easy to restore all your apps, settings, and layouts if something ever breaks / you switch distros / you want to experiment with multiple desktop layouts.
OpenSUSE is hardly what I would consider noob friendly, but it certainly beats remaining under Microsoft's oppressing thumb.
I mean YaST is kind of snazzy, though not enough to pull me from Debian for the moment.
Yeah, I'm basically married to Fedora at this point.
Leap is surely noob-friendly.
how do they do regular updates? how do they do major version upgrades?
I think both of these is a big pain point.
They're fine for a stable release I think. Nvidia is on 550 for example. For Major updates, ping me next year since I'll try it then, when new Leap arrived.
I don't understand, sorry. what I meant is the way you as the user do upgrades. you grab a terminal, elevate and run the system update command (zypper refresh, zypper update). major version upgrades are more complicated.
I can do this sure. But this is not noob friendly the slightest. and the YaST graphical tools don't make it much better either.
I won't say that the update system of windows is good because why the fuck does searching for updates minutes, and other reasons. but the UI of it is much better. it tells you what will it update, it has a button for starting the process, an automatism for it too. there's also a menu for the update history.
Not sure when the last time you used openSUSE but the reason why I think it's noob-friendly is you don't need a terminal to update the system (talking about the KDE version here). When there is an update a notification pops up, you go to system tray, click on the icon and do the updates. You can even see a list what's been updating. It doesn't even ask a password, probably thanks to polkit.
Could that be my issue? I've always done Gnome. WiFi is always broken. Network in general really.
To be fair, that sounds like a driver issue rather than a desktop environment. But you can try though.
Could be. What blows my mind is that both my PC and laptop work on Fedora, PopOS, Endeavour, and Bazzite out of the box, but network is fully broken, LAN and WiFi.
Does network work on those distros but not on openSUSE, or network doesn't work at all?
Maybe it's a switch issue? Can you try sudo rfkill and see what's the output?
opensuse was my shortest experiment when i used to distro hop because of how old their software seemed to be. (ie old like debian stable).
this was almost 20 years; has it gotten better?
My first experiment with openSUSE was also not ended well back then but nowadays it's in my top 3 list when I'm suggesting distros to people.
... nowadays it’s in my top 3 list when I’m suggesting distros to people
same here; but only because of the support like red hat's and canonical's
I've tried it a few times over the years, but always find it clunky when coming from Fedora, so I end up jumping right back. It's also a real shitshow with my System 76 laptop WiFi, just doesn't play nice and takes to much work to make it functional.
i take back what i said; i just discovered that suse isn't going to support opensuse anymore.
I tried to find sources on that but failed. Could you help me out?
I use it at home just because I wanted to try something different on my laptop, I really don’t understand what some people love about it so much. It’s bot terrible or anything, I just find it a bit clunky and there’s nothing remarkably good.
The big thing it has going for it is that they set up btrfs snapshots out of the box so you can rollback if necessary.
They also do more automated testing than Arch so theoretically it should be more stable.
Why did we all collectively choose mint?
its easy, less gross than ubuntu/canonical, if mint specific instructions aren't available for something then ubuntu or debian instructions will generally work without much adaptation if any, etc.
It’s polished and easy to use, it leverages all the work that goes into Debian and Ubuntu, but it’s still Linux under the hood and doesn’t forbid you from getting into the weeds.
I run Mint Cinnamon on my work machine, developing software for embedded Linux products, and I haven’t had any regrets.
I dont need my OS to be a challenge or a flex.
Because common advice isbto use Mint for beginners.