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Linux which Distro?

splifingate said:
having installed Gentoo/Funtoo/et. al. each many hundreds of times, I've come to find that {Gentoo&ilk} are not really that difficult to get installed . . .
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At least a FreeBSD installation is done within one hour, including initial configuration from scratch. Gentoo can't do that. 😀

splifingate said:
I've been meaning to do a series of deep-dives into raw BSD, but other things have held my captive.
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Rule number one is: Forget everything you thought you'd know. (Granted, FreeBSD has grown quite GNU'ish these days, so... forget most things you thought you'd know. Still true for the other BSDs though.)
 
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it wasnt me said:
At least a FreeBSD installation is done within one hour, including initial configuration from scratch. Gentoo can't do that. 😀
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"notably easier" != less time

I can get to a Gentoo/Funtoo bespoke-compiled desktop in a few hours of interrupted time 😉

That being said, asking Daniel for a dedicated Funtoo Container takes about a week to get a response + about 12min to Base install!

it wasnt me said:
Rule number one is: Forget everything you thought you'd know. (Granted, FreeBSD has grown quite GNU'ish these days, so... forget most things you thought you'd know. Still true for the other BSDs though.)
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Challenge accepted!
 
I would recommend Fedora, it’s cutting edge but not bleeding edge like Arch based distros tend to be. Because it’s a major distro it has a large community ready to assist with any issues you might have plus it has decent documentation.

By default it ships with GNOME desktop environment which I felt really at home with as I find it quite similar to MacOS. It has decent extensions to tweak things up. Fedora 41 just came out too.

I wouldn’t personally recommend it on systems with 4GB of RAM though, I tried it on an old MacBook Air and it was a bit much for it. I went with Linux Mint on that Mac and it ran a lot better.
 
Fedora Linux Workstation is very close to Mac OS, so I'd go that route. I'm running it at the moment and absolutely love the experience and plus you can play games.
 

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Dr McKay said:
I would recommend Fedora, it’s cutting edge but not bleeding edge like Arch based distros tend to be. Because it’s a major distro it has a large community ready to assist with any issues you might have plus it has decent documentation.

By default it ships with GNOME desktop environment which I felt really at home with as I find it quite similar to MacOS. It has decent extensions to tweak things up. Fedora 41 just came out too.

I wouldn’t personally recommend it on systems with 4GB of RAM though, I tried it on an old MacBook Air and it was a bit much for it. I went with Linux Mint on that Mac and it ran a lot better.
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whats special about fedora over OpenSuse, Ubuntu, or just plain debian? other than its "cutting edge"
 
MacBH928 said:
whats special about fedora over OpenSuse, Ubuntu, or just plain debian? other than its "cutting edge"
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OpenSuse I found a lot more complicated to get set up so I would only recommend to users who are more experienced, and I find people asking what distros to try usually aren’t experienced Linux users.

I personally don’t like Ubuntu because of its snap applications, they run so much slower than alternatives, though as an OS it’s probably better for beginners than fedora if you’re using nvidia drivers since it has them preinstalled. Both Ubuntu and Fedora have enormous communities so are generally good first choices. Fedora is “cutting edge” because it receives very regular updates, but they’re tested for longer than arch based distros which I’d describe as “bleeding edge” so you encounter issues with updates far less. Ubuntu is fairly good on updates too but during the 2 years I’ve been on Linux they’ve been slightly behind fedora in updating to newer kernels and such.

Debian is rock steady but at the expense of often being outdated and encountering out of date dependencies. Great if you need a server that never falls over but not if you want to do stuff like gaming, newer kernels have better support for modern hardware.
 
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Dr McKay said:
OpenSuse I found a lot more complicated to get set up so I would only recommend to users who are more experienced, and I find people asking what distros to try usually aren’t experienced Linux users.

I personally don’t like Ubuntu because of its snap applications, they run so much slower than alternatives, though as an OS it’s probably better for beginners than fedora if you’re using nvidia drivers since it has them preinstalled. Both Ubuntu and Fedora have enormous communities so are generally good first choices. Fedora is “cutting edge” because it receives very regular updates, but they’re tested for longer than arch based distros which I’d describe as “bleeding edge” so you encounter issues with updates far less. Ubuntu is fairly good on updates too but during the 2 years I’ve been on Linux they’ve been slightly behind fedora in updating to newer kernels and such.

Debian is rock steady but at the expense of often being outdated and encountering out of date dependencies. Great if you need a server that never falls over but not if you want to do stuff like gaming, newer kernels have better support for modern hardware.
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thanks for clearing that up. I thought one of the targets of Debian is desktop user, but I guess its more towards a work machine which is very understandable. For work I rather have stable+secure over new features updates.
 
For gaming I would try Pop!_OS. From Wikipedia:
Pop OS (stylized as Pop!_OS) is a free and open-source Linux distribution, based on Ubuntu, and featuring a customized GNOME desktop environment known as COSMIC.
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Pop!_OS provides full out-of-the-box support for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs.
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Personally I do not like Gnome but when the goal is gaming one could try standing it (GNOME) 🙂
For normal desktop use I would recommend Debian. Recently I have bought a Samsung Galaxy Book 4 laptop and Debian 12 Stable did not work fine (driver recognition) on it but Debian Testing and Fedora 40 both worked like a charm - touchpad, WiFi, audio, Bluetooth, keyboard backlight etc, everything worked OOB.
But to install Windows 11 you have to use a USB mouse because before installing the drivers from Windows Update the touchpad does not work.
I use Debian and not my favourite Slackware because I am lazy and apt-get install is sooo easy.
 
popup said:
For gaming I would try Pop!_OS. From Wikipedia:


Personally I do not like Gnome but when the goal is gaming one could try standing it (GNOME) 🙂
For normal desktop use I would recommend Debian. Recently I have bought a Samsung Galaxy Book 4 laptop and Debian 12 Stable did not work fine (driver recognition) on it but Debian Testing and Fedora 40 both worked like a charm - touchpad, WiFi, audio, Bluetooth, keyboard backlight etc, everything worked OOB.
But to install Windows 11 you have to use a USB mouse because before installing the drivers from Windows Update the touchpad does not work.
I use Debian and not my favourite Slackware because I am lazy and apt-get install is sooo easy.
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I thought Ubuntu is better since Steam/Valve officially support Ubuntu
 
Ubuntu is Debian based, Pop OP is Ubuntu based, Steam OS is Debian based.

Gaming on Pop!_OS​

Steam Deck uses Arch.
I am not a gamer. But if someone is a gamer and wants to use Linux may try different distros and use what suits him.
 
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I have just reinstalled the current 2401 LTS Ubuntu Mate, which I consider perfect in every aspect.
(excepted that the major pay apps are not available, blame on the editors)

It deals with all Mac hardware out of the box, knows the Mac Keyboard, handles Retina screens perfectly.
Everything just works. Beautifully, with an ergonomy, that leaves no whish open.

The installation was a real pleasure: it plays a presentation while it installs. In one single run. In five minutes.

While Apple and Microsoft are f*cking you with endless progress bars, that leave you in the dark with lying "95% ready" for half an hour, "almost ready" and other stupidities accompanying multiple reboots, Ubuntu Mate has a really clever progress bar with sort of raindrops for every partial task performed.
You have a small >_ icon, on which you can click to display/hide the progressing log, to see what happens if you want.
That is just a reference of how user friendly an OS can be.

Apple and Microsoft could learn from that.
 
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bogdanw said:
The Verge - "After three months on Linux, I don’t miss Windows at all"
https://www.theverge.com/tech/918797/switched-to-linux-dont-miss-windows
"I picked CachyOS rather than a better-known distro like Ubuntu because it’s optimized for modern hardware, and I had heard that it’s easy to install and set up for gaming, which is one of the reasons I’d stuck with Windows for this long."
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I secomd this. I installed CachyOS (Plasma) along with Windows about a month ago on all my x86 devices.
With its Proton integration, which works really well, it even runs Windows programs (like Unteal Editor).
Haven't booted into Windows since. Cachy really is blazing fast
 
Mike-G said:
If you are new to Linux, I would definitely recommend Linux Mint. It is very user friendly and has a large user base, with loads of online help forums.

You can try different distros in a virtual machine, to see which you prefer. But if you plan on Linux being your main OS, I would install it natively on your Mac, to get the best stability and performance.

The main problem I had when switching to Linux, was finding alternative applications for my use cases. So that would be something I would suggest you look into early on.
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+1 for Mint. Had old Lenove with i7 5th get and 8 gb of ram - not eligible for win 11 update. Install Mint and LOVED! all my daily routine now on that laptop. Linx Mint comminity - https://community.linuxmint.com/
 
MacBH928 said:
Yeah but if they alter the files/system settings it might not work as good. Why does Pop-OS provide over ubuntu?
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It's been a few years since I made the decision for Pop_OS over regular Ubuntu so this might be outdated but back then my main sticking points were:

- I wanted a widespread flavour of Linux so there hopefully wouldn't be issues with compatibility and I'm an end user not a server operator so the focus had to be on desktop. Ubuntu came up, along with Mint but I wasn't a fan of their desktop

- The Ubuntu I knew previously came with Unity as a desktop environment which felt pretty incomplete and had some issues. Later they shipped it with Gnome which was too heavy and 'trendy' for my taste. Pop_OS comes with their own desktop which is leaner and more to my liking. No complaints about configurability here and it works like something I'd call no-nonsense computing. 🤪

- Ubuntu at least at the time made sandboxed 'app's (snaps) their default over regular packages. I definitely don't like sandboxed-everything and this stuff auto-updates too. Pop_OS gives you the choice to go with either type of application format and their storefront will deliver accordingly.

Edit: swapped out some terms
 
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