Ah that guy-- I only knew of him from the meme template. He looks to be one of those people who call themselves "christians" and then do none of what Jesus said.
Not a hot take at all. Asking someone to go from a GUI heavy operating system to a command line heavy one and be just as productive is lunacy. Like all major changes it is important to ween off the old thing.
My biggest hurdle with the switch has been permission related issues, and you can't deal with those cleanly with a UI, and every help thread under the sun throws out a bunch of command line commands giving a solution without explaining why those changes are needed. It may seem like Unix 101 to experienced Linux users, but it is really cryptic to newcomers coming from operating systems that are...cough more lenient with their permissions.
There is also a mentality that UIs are much more idiot proof than command line. UIs are written by people who actually know the OS so we can't accidentally delete our home folder because of a typo. It is a very legitimate concern.
Yesterday morning i installed Mint xfce on an old laptop.
I wanted to install synaptics drivers for the touchpad because i use the trackball as mouse but need the touchpad for clicking. Something that isnt configureable in the default driver.
When i copied an example config file and added my line, i rebooted the computer.
The GUI broke because in the example config file, there were "..." To indicate writing further options, but xorg couldnt interpret or ignore it, so i had to figure out how to edit textfiles in the command line.
No fun times, and definetely a risk for new users.
I agree, BUT that is only because the average windows user never even had to bother with permission. I find permissions on Linux A LOT easier to handle than on Windows. Basically the way Windows does permissions is garbage, so they made it so that people can just do whatever so they won't complain about permissions. That is... one way of doing things, I guess.
I agree - was switching to Fedora about month and a half ago, and only learned about KDE vs Gnome like a week ago, when I was reinstaling to Nobara to fix some NVIDIA issues.
I did hear terms like KDE or Gnome thrown around, but never really realized that it's actually and important choice. And once you add X11 vs Wayland to the mix, it's suddenly so confusing I just subconsciously choose to ignore that choice and went with whatever the OS installed for me. I though that DE chouse is similar to X11 vs Wayland choice, i.e something tha is more about back-end than front-end, and didn't realize that's literally how your OS UI looks and controls, instead of how it works in the background (which I now know is what X11 vs Wayland is actually about)
Turned out I really don't like Gnome (Which was default for Fedora), but love KDE, which was thankfully a default for Nobara.
So, if you're ever recommending Linux to someone, be it in a comment or somwhere else, or someone is asking for a recommended distro, please include a short paragraph about the importance of choosing the correct DE, and explanation of what it is and that you can change it!
PopOS is great! I have used a few other (but never strayed far from APT), and I also did some light reading when doing my final decision . PopOS was the best fit for and easy-to-use OS without Snaps. Linux is great and all with how much control you have, but I want as little maintenance as possible for my daily driver.
Yeah that's all I need - I'm super into everyone else hyper customizing what they use, I love seeing everything that can be done, but I just need something that works and pop_os is it, and as I've said before, my games run better on pip_os than they ever did on win 10/11
Great take. But you know the real sneaky one that trips you up? File system.
I wouldn't call myself a beginner, but every time I install a Linux system seriously I see those filesystem choices and have to dig through volumes of turbo-nerd debates on super fine intricacies between them, usually debating their merits in super high-risk critical contexts.
I still don't come away with knowing which one will be best for me long-term in a practical sense.
As well as tons of "It ruined my whole system" or "Wrote my SSD to death" FUD that is usually outdated but nevertheless persists.
Honestly nowadays I just happily throw BTRFS on there because it's included on the install and allows snapshots and rollbacks. EZPZ.
For everything else, EXT4, and for OS-shared storage, NTFS.
But it took AGES to arrive to this conclusion. Beginners will have their heads spun at this choice, guaranteed. It's frustrating.
Makes sense to go simplest as possible on a home pc and even home sever. More important with raid and production capacity planning or enterprise stuff.
I did NTFS because both windows and Linux can read it. Do I know literally any other fact about formatting systems? Nope. I'm pretty sure I don't need to, I'm normie-adjacent. I just want my system to work so I can use the internet, play games, and do word processing.
I once tried to install my Steam Library in Linux to an NTFS partition so I wouldn't have to install things twice on a dual boot system. Protip: don't do that.
chkdsk -f (or r or whatever the third option is), reboot twice, but do it multiple times because steam on linux asks you to reinstall the games in the exact same spot and you accidentally do it because you're not paying close attention due to the mild panic windows threw at you?
There is a guide here that says you can do it, but my experience was that I installed the games in Windows on my D drive, mounted the drive in Linux (Mint, I think), and when I tried to play them The system locked up. Rebooting into windows, Steam said the game files were corrupt and I had to reinstall them. I've always just kept two separate game libraries on any dual boot systems ever since.
Interesting. I was able to use the files perfectly fine from linux, but windows threw a tantrum when I tried to boot and removed everything linux had touched.
I once heard that the trick to this is you need to let Steam "update" every game before you switch OSs. If it doesn't get to finish this, it will bork. That's also highly impractical I feel though.
So yeah on my dual boot Linux is for making things and doesn't see my main Steam library. Win10 is just for games. :p
EDIT: Win11 or 12 won't be a problem because I'm confining them to a VM for only the most stubborn situations, and doing everything including gaming with Linux. :D
If I read lsblk correctly, I am using ext4 for my whole drive. I have used linux for some years now, but I never bothered to learn more than "next next next done" when installing my OS.
Does BTRFS popOS allow BTRFS? Should I bother for a daily driver?
Only have one HDD and using a laptop, ext4 has been working well enough so far. I only wonder if there is something else I should use for my home drive for better disaster recovery.
It really depends on the disaster. Snapshotting isn't strong disaster recovery protection. It's more like I'm about to do something stupid and need to undo. If you need real disaster recovery slap an NVMe in an external enclosure and sink them up occasionally. Or set up sync thing or something like that.
In practice BTRFS is a bit faster and on a Distro like Fedora or Opensuse they already integrate it to do system backups while running (copy on write).
In practice it just works and you dont use all the fancy possibilities, because a majority of the Linux world still sticks with ext4 for whatever reason, so Filemanagers and backup tools wouldnt reach everyone.
Its a perfect example of Linux slowing down itself by desperately refusing to change
Xorg
old Desktops
old software, system packages, damn appimages
no automatic updates
ext4 instead of something modern
Ext4 is from 2008. BTRFS is even older from 2007, but was only declared stable in 2013. More innovation, more testing time, more "dont use it yet, it is unstable". Ext4 probably never was as they didnt try that much.
Ext4 is the safe bet for a beginner. The real question is with or without LVM. Generally I would say with but that abstraction layer between the filesystem and disk can really be confusing if you've never dealt with it before. A total beginner should probably go ext4 without LVM and then play around in a VM with the various options to become informed enough to do something less vanilla.
It makes adding space easier down the road, either by linking disks or if you clone your root drive to a larger drive, which tends to not be something most "end users" (I try not to use that description but you said it heh) would do. Yes, using LVM is optional.
It's all skippable if you want... Just put a large / filesystem on a partition and be on your way. There are good reasons for using it in some cases (see my response now).
Can you explain LVM in practice to me? I used ext4 and now Fedora Kinoite with BTRFS, the filsystem never makes any problems and some fancy features just work.
In practice, you would split a disk up to keep /home separate from/ and probably other parts of the filesystem too like /var/log.. this has long been an accepted practice to keep a full disk from bringing something production offline completely and/or complicating the recovery process. Now, you could use partitions but once those are set, it's hard to rearrange them without dumping all the data and restoring it under the new tables. LVM stands for Logical Volume Manager and puts an abstraction layer between the filesystems and the partitions (or whole disk if you are into that). This means you can add Disks arbitrarily in the future and add parts of those disks to the filesystems as required. This can really minimize or even eliminate downtime when you have a filesystem getting filled up and there's nothing you can easily remove (like a database).
It's good to know but with the proliferation of cloud and virtual disks it's just easier on those systems to leave off LVM and just keep the filesystems on their own virtual disks and grow the disk as required. It is invaluable when running important production systems on bare metal servers even today.
I should also point out that some modern filesystems like btrfs and zfs have these capabilities built into the filesystems natively so adding LVM into the mix there wouldn't add anything and could, in fact, cause headaches.
Lending my voice to this as well for most, my thought is EXT4, without LVM, deferring to the preferred FS for the distro. It is a mature, stable, and reliable choice and logical volumes complicate things too much for beginners.
If dual-booting, yeah, definitely an NTFS partition for shared storage (just be aware that Windows can be weird with file permissions and ownership).
Yes, I listened to a podcast about that recently. Linux was far with XFS or something, but then Apple came, improved their HFS and actually made tools for it and it got better.
BTRFS is just as established as etx4, just not as damn old. It also just works, and it has advanced features that are crucial for backups. But I have no idea how to use btrbk and there is no GUI so nobody uses that.
But as a filesystem that just works like ext4, plus the automatically configured snapshots in both regular and atomic Fedora systems and OpenSuse, BTRFS is awesome.
Only outdated Distros that fear change stick with ext4, at least thats my opinion.
I'm still figuring it out. I know ExFAT works across all desktop OS's, NTFS works with Linux and Windows, and ext4 only works with Linux.
But it took a half hour of googling to figure out you can't install Linux on NTFS. I planned to do that to ease cross platform compatibility. Oops. I'm also attempting a RAID 1 array using NTFS. It seems to work, but I'm not sure how to automatically mount it on boot. I feel like I might have picked the wrong filesystem.
Hey there friend! Sorry to hear about your woes.
From my understanding in practice, ExFAT is usually better as more of a universally readable storage system for external drives. Think, using the same portable drive between your PS5, friend's mac, and whatever else. Great for large files and backups! Maybe not as much for running your OS from.
My approach and recommendation would be that you don't want OS's seeing each others' important business anyway. Permissions and stuff can get wonky for instance.
So your core Linux install can be something like EXT4 or BTRFS. I like BTRFS personally because you can set up recovery snapshots without taking tons of space. It does require a little extra understanding and tooling though, but it's worth looking into. (There's GUI based BTRFS tools now though. Yay!)
EXT4 is nice and reliable and basic. Not much to say, really! Both can do RAID 1.
Next, a /home mounted separately, this COULD be NTFS if you really wanted that sharing. (BTW there's some Windows drivers that can read EXT4 I think?)
BUT I feel more organized using a different way:
What I do personally is keep an NTFS partition I call something like "DATA" or "MAIN_STORAGE" and I mount this into my /home on Linux. It's usually a separate, chunky 4TB HDD or something.
On Windows this is my D:\ drive, and it's also where I store my project files, media, and whatever else I want easily accessible. Both OSs see those system-agnostic files, but are safely unaware of each other's core system files.
In Linux, you can mount any folder anywhere, really! You can mount it on startup by amending your FSTAB on an existing install or setting the option during installs sometimes.
So the file path looks something like /home/MonkeMischief/DATA/Music
It's treated just like any other folder but it's in fact an entirely separate drive. :)
I hope this was somewhat helpful and not just confusing. In practice, it'll start to make more sense I hope!
The important thing is to make sure your stuff is backed up.
... Perhaps to a big chonky brick formatted as ExFAT if you so choose. ;)
I am experimenting with Linux on two devices: My daily driver laptop and a desktop.
The laptop is set on a dual boot from 2 SSDs. The first SSD contains Windows and has one 2TB NTFS partition. The other SSD has a 250GB partition for ext4 where Ubuntu lives and a 750GB partition for ExFAT.
The desktop has a 500GB SSD with ext4 for the OS, and has two 4 year old 2TB HDDs for data. This is why I'm trying to run them in RAID 1. For cross compatibility (and what they were already formatted as), they are in NTFS.
What do you think of that? Am I using adequate filesystems?
Honestly, I'd say the defaults most distros use will be fine for most users... If they don't know why they should use one filesystem over another, then it's almost certainly not going to matter for them
Aktually, I prefer Arch + KDE. I say if you like your current desktop, then stay with it. I've hit the sweet spot with what I've got because I love the AUR, pacman, and paru.
Installed it on a thin client instead of win10 iot for the same reason, basic functionality all there, being used as a media streaming browser machine, no regrets.
Had previous experience with fedora and others many years prior, definitely can tell how far it all progressed since
I installed Mint for the sake of trying it and I quite liked Cinnamon, but after that I did some distro and desktop hopping, I will not go back until it has proper Wayland support.
I've been using Linux in different capacities since the late 90s. I use Mint with Cinnamon because it's stable, does all I need and I don't need to fuss with it. You're more than fine.
That's not usually the problem. Usually you can generally do this on any distro, even ones that have a higher level of integration with their DE.
The problem is more likely to be issues caused by overlapping configurations and base libraries that can cause weird issues if they aren't swapped out or kept default. If they aren't default and are managed by the package manager, usually the package manager will mark it as modified and often won't touch it unless you purge the configurations. Some will ask and some will straight up nuke em.
To me the problem is actually removing the old one. You can easily uninstall gnome, but it will leave behind config files and various data. It's less clean.
Also, there's an overlap in the libraries required by DEs, so you should use the "replace" option in you package manager (if it has one) to let o t figure out the best way to uninstall one and install the other.
Is it just me or is every new distro just a base with a different DE? I started to notice this a few years back but not sure if it was my imagination or something developers starting doing because it was easier to ship the DE as "the OS" than it was to instruct users on how to switch to their DE.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. Distros used to be about experimenting with different packaging systems and system managers, but now seems like the packaging systems are mostly the three: Arch, Debian, Red Hat. And the system manager is almost always systemd.
So the only thing to do (beyond better quality control, which takes a lot of constant work) is to make the DE somehow unique.
Repositories and package versioning are also extremely important in ways newbies don't realize yet. There's a significant variety between using Debian, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS or Kali. They are all Debian based using apt but they are all decidedly entirely different systems with completely different purposes and uses.
My problem with Gnome is if it were my desktop, I might as well run Windows, since Gnome shell/mutter is slightly less capable than Windows. Extensions exist, but are very much a second class citizen and get broken by shell versions frequently, and the author of an extension may be gone when it comes time to rework it for a new version.
Plasma/kwin have pretty much everything I want in desktop/window management baked in.
I love gnome overall and it's my favorite de, but the missing features and extensions being almost mandatory for basic functions definitely are a pain.
Extensions are cool but the basics should be built in.
Nowadays fedora is a decent "boring" distribution, that finally settled into blatantly prompting to add the non free repositories you will probably want.
Ubuntu was annoying with it's little adventures in "not invented here" with mir, unity, and nowadays snap. So nice to have a modern, boring distribution.
Fedora also comes with a dozen different DEs prepackaged and installable with a single, simple command. Each user just can select and change their own desktop with a menu selection on the login screen
But the post is more about recommending a DE to start with/them picking one they like since it’s visual. And then you recommend a distro where that is default
Yeah np. For example my dad got bogged down by all the options and features in KDE, but cinnamon was great cause it just launches apps and shows the time lol
Got it! I tend to forget that not everyone can deal with tons of options. I am this person in certain config files like synapse and telegraf. The config files are just impossibly long and getting an overview of them is impossible in my mind.
As a power user of windows I've lost faith in Ubuntu, though. Their DNS implementation alone is a disaster. So I've switched to Debian and KDE, but then I saw there is a Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) so that's probably what I would recommend if anyone asked me. I personally haven't used it yet tho as I'm enjoying KDE.
I recommend KDE as when I switch from windows I tried multiple DE and that one felt the most like windows it also had support for wallpaper engine which I really wanted!
I started with Ubuntu and slowly tried getting used to Gnome over the course of a few months (mainly using windows, every now and then hopping into Ubuntu when not gaming). I learned of KDE, tried it in Kubuntu, and it all instantly clicked for me. I switched over in about a week and haven't had much reason to boot Windows since.
It turned out that front-facing experience was incredibly important to me.
Got Ubuntu because all I wanted was to play/mod games and watch videos..... and Windows 10 totally shit the bed. Constantly on the green loading screens.
I'm so lost with installing, directories, hidden directories, learning how to uninstall things I can't find in directories I can't find. It's a massive headache and steep learning curve.
Still haven't really played a game yet that can't run on Ubuntu natively, and it's still better than Windows 10.
Not a hot take, I keep saying the same thing in different threads. I was not able to switch to Linux for years before I understood that I have problems with Gnome not with Linux itself, tried KDE and given I was migrating from Windows it clicked immediately.
After you gain some experience, DE becomes mostly irrelevant, but it is crucial for starting off in an unfamiliar environment.
I switched back to Linux about a year ago after taking about a 10 year break, and I installed gnome without even considering another option (because it’s good enough right?)
It’s completely different than what I remember and I hate it. I want to switch to something else but that is now a “someday” project.
I remember when it had a cute footprint where the “start button” used to be. It’s so different. I should have went with xfce or something. Maybe I should try cinnamon.
Cinnamon is the most Windows like DE, even more so than default KDE Plasma. Specially since the Mint team went the extra mile to make the OS settings and configuration 100% UI based in a Windows-lite way. It's currently the perfect Linux noobie distro.
the DE is very important unless you have A LOT of free time and REALLY WANT to see something different from what youre used to.
my first distro (other than ubuntu in school computers, but we dont talk about those) was fedora server minimal install, where i installed dwm and had fun using it. i had just switched from windows and was happy to have so many options, even though i had (almost) no linux experience before. after trying most of the big DEs and distros, i ended up on arch with xfce, which i have been using for more than a year now.
most people really should go slower and try things step by step, as what i did would be really weird for anyone that tried it ...probably
This isn't a bad take. DE is what is going to keep people from running back to windows right away, mostly. I do think it is better for people coming into Linux not to try to emulate the Windows experience. It is easier to learn when you accept it is going to be different from the start.
Its easier to learn if your muscle memory is still similar
taskbar with apps, aligned to the left
nearly no workspaces, everything through clicking
normal Window decorations
normal start& app menu
filemanager with features
firefox, thunderbird, libreoffice, inkscape, xnviewmp, freefilesync, kate, krita, ... all the cross-platform software you can learn before switching
I dont agree at all. I switched from KDE which is basically just the way better Windows 10. Windows 11 looks nice but is incredibly bloated, Windows is rock stable though which I admire. KDE is the exact opposite poorly.
But at the beginning the mix of familiarity and "wow a filemanager with tabs is so cool" made me stay with KDE immediately.
DE is how you interact with everything else on the computer for anyone thats not a 100% terminal hackerman.
a good, simple, easy to use windows-like DE is probably one of the most important things for a new user. Since it will influence how easily they can handle and do anything and everything else.
Disagree on picking RPM distros for an absolute beginner (this is what the image is about at least). SUSE maybe but you don't want a newbie having to deal with US patent bullshit and especially SELinux. Similarly, no newbie will ever pic a barebones WM as a first time user.
I have used Fedora for nearly all the time I've daily driven Linux, and haven't encountered any problem that a newbie would encounter and couldn't overcome, excluding distro-agnostic stuff. Yeah, the h264 shit sucks, but if you use flatpaks you shouldn't have to worry about it. And if you ever have to face SELinux, then you're probably doing something that's beyond beginner level.
It's a very rough guide I threw together. There's all sorts of wedge cases you could use to argue against it. E.g. you could use RPMs on slack Linux. Not exactly user friendly.
Bit on the whole fedora or Suse do the job.
Also desktops are better for newbies. I thought I'd mentioned that but yeah I agree deffo better for newbies while WM managers more for tinkerers/power users.
Same. I remember getting interested in Linux in like 1997 or so, and it seemed like RedHat was preferred for newbies.
Of course, what were the alternatives then? It was basically Slackware (or Suse), Debian, and RedHat (or Caldera). There was no RHEL or Canonical or SElinux back then. It was a different time.
Hell one of the language packs for installing RedHat was “Redneck”. It was a gimmick to demonstrate localization options.
I started on CentOS and don't remember any issues but that was a long time ago. I flirted with Suse, Ubuntu, and Arch when RH started being a super dick. I finally settled on Rocky, rpm is the devil I know.
Most new Linux users if not all, are unable to make an educated decision on package management. The UI that they think they will like better would be more important.
So for gaming.... Pacman? I thought mint and kubuntu use aptitude, and was under the impression those are two of the better gaming distros.
I hate windows, but am sick of trying Linux every 5-6 years and finding out that I cannot get half the games I play to work. Admittedly, with you guys I might not be going it alone this time.....
I'd say, just use Ubuntu if gaming is your main concern.
Imo the main problem for games are 1. hardware drivers (afaik only if you have brand new hardware), 2. game launchers (fuck those fucking game launchers, fuck; except steam) and 3. anti- cheat software.
Otherwise gaming is really good under Linux nowadays.
The package manager is usually tied to the distro, but the point above is to let the package manager inform your distro choice.
You'll notice a running theme in my lecture here is "choice." You can switch Desktop Environment and other stuff on just about any distro and make it feel like yours. Switching package managers isn't recommended though! 😅
So for instance, Arch (btw lol), or Manjaro, or Endeavour use Pacman.
I've switched to Endeavour recently which is essentially "User-friendly Arch-based" with an installer and stuff, and it's absolutely lovely for games. My old 960M laptop runs plenty of stuff great. :D
On my main rig I've used OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for years, which is also a rolling release (constantly updated) distro that technically uses RPMs, but uses its own package manager called Zypper, which I find mostly user friendly.
Packages are also a bit more thoroughly tested.
Both use KDE Plasma desktop environment and it's gorgeous.
Alternatively, especially for laptops with hybrid Nvidia graphics, POP!_OS is alright if you're okay with GNOME desktop environment. (You can always change, but it's geared toward GNOME). It used Aptitude, and the updates trail behind a bit, but generally that's supposed to make a more stable system.
(Note that when I say "lags behind", latest security fixes tend to be backported, but you won't see fancy new shiny features as fast.)
For gaming specifically though:
Win10 is gonna be my last Windows. 11 is invasive and opinionated, and 12 is gonna have a forced Ai fetish. Gross.
Good news: Steam games work wonderfully. Thanks to advances with Proton and all their support for the SteamDeck (which runs Linux btw!)
For other platforms, look into Heroic Launcher, which takes a lot of the headache out of managing stuff like GOG games. :)
With rolling releases you usually want to update cautiously and check news updates and stuff, because newer versions aren't as thoroughly tested and some stuff might break...but you get new features faster so that's fun.
That being said:
If you're willing to learn a little as you go, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is a big win in my book for getting the latest fun stuff while still being stable! It's also thoroughly security-minded.
And by default, it includes "Snapper" set up for you, so you can just roll the system back to a working version in the rare case something goes wrong.
You can install snapper on any distro, but it comes pre-configured and ready to go, as long as you use the default "BTRFS" file system.
I won't get into filesystems because hoo boi...but TL;DR: BTRFS allows "snapshots" and rollbacks that don't require literally doubling your disk space for rolling back, so it's a great safety net.
That being said: ALWAYS have more than one backup, in multiple locations, of anything you find important!
Good luck and have fun. I will say, Endeavour, OpenSUSE, and Pop_OS all have great communities that are eager to help if you're eager to learn! :)
Debian-based systems (including Ubuntu and its forks such as Mint) uses dpkg and APT (APT does all the communicating with repositories, dependency managment etc, dpkg actually installs and removes packages.) Aptitude is a TUI front-end for APT that gives you a menu-based system in the terminal. Synaptic (not to be confused with the trackpad driver) is a GUI front-end for APT.
I game on Linux Mint. Now it might be my tendency to play single player and/or cooperative multiplayer (think Stardew Valley or Unrailed!) games often made by smaller studios and indie developers as most of the AAA space has otherwise offended me, but...I don't really have a problem. The vast majority of things just install and run from Steam.
Started using Debian because I only used it for servers to begin with. Learned APT and never dared to learn anything else. So now I just stick with any distro using APT and a DE I like.
I don't think they will officially support it outside of the deck IMO, having used one in the flesh they have hardware optimization down to a tee - which to me really rounds off the deck experience.
The rapid sleep/wake and some options in the quick access menu would likely need some ironing out on other hardware configs, not sure how nvidia card support would work too...
