Yo linux team, i would love some advice.
I’m pretty mad at windows, 11 keeps getting worse and worse and I pretty done with Bill’s fetishes about bing and ai. Who knows where’s cortana right now…
Anyway, I heard about this new company called Linux and I’m open to try new stuff. I’m a simple guy and just need some basic stuff:
- graphic stuff: affinity, canva, corel, gimp etc… (no adobe anymore, please don’t ask.)
- 3d modelling and render: blender, rhino, cinema, keyshot
- video editing: davinci
- some little coding in Dart/flutter (i use VS code, I don’t know if this is good or bad)
- a working file explorer (can’t believe i have to say this)
- NO FUCKIN ADS
- NO MF STUPID ASS DISGUSTING ADVERTISING
The tricky part is the laptop, a zenbook duo pro (i9-10/rtx2060), with double touch screens.
I tried ubuntu several years ago but since it wasn’t ready for my use i never went into different distros and their differences. Now unfortunately, ready or not, I need to switch.
Edit: the linux-company thing is just for triggering people, sorry I didn’t know it was this effective.
First of all Linux isn’t a company, but the name some dude named Linus gave his code he put for free on the internet.
Most modern Linux distros are still not run by companies, that’s why they don’t force the data collection, ads, ai etc down your throat.
That said: Linux is made from thousands of interlocking programs, scripts, services and libraries, made mostly by some guys or gurls in their free time. So with a lot of stuff you need to fit it to your needs, as granular customization is to troublesome to have working out of the box for every different usecase there could be. So with most stuff you should not be afraid to learn the basics of terminal commands (packet manager, editor, foldermanagment)
Some OS like Ubuntu and manjaro do a lot for you, but if you have weird double monitors, you may need to manually do some stuff.
If you want as much as possible easy install options I would go with manjaro - then you can install everything where users made an AUR (arch user repository) package. Check if they have all programs you want, if not look for alternatives.
If you want a more stable system but with a bit less possibilities, go for Ubuntu, debian, popOS or something like that.
Some things may never run, for example for my music daw(ableton) with low latency and not native support on Linux or the htc vive wireless (where there isn’t a driver for the PCI card for Linux) I keep a win machine around. Day to day use is on debian on my side
No sorry man, it’s my british humor coming out. I needed to bait some linux users :) I’m one of those evil people who works in marketing. But thank you for the tips, I do appreciate it!
Don’t be sorry, the joke was funny, it’s just that you’re talking to this kind of crowd
This is so apt, I’m not a Linux user but I’ve seen so many on Lemmy this fits. One day I may join y’all… One day.
I’m one of those evil people who works in marketing.
Yet here you are, complaining about the ads in Windows. Are you sure that you can go without them? :-D
Ahah correct! But in all seriousness, i believe ads are drastically changing right now (ai is just fuel on the flame). Good advertising is great, fun and builds community, which is the end goal in my humble opinion.
If you force me to use/install a product without telling me why, just because “trust me bro I’m Microsoft”, you are just pathetically insecure about your product and deserve 0 users.
Unfortunately, I think you’re a rare breed. I’ve met people in graphic design and marketing who will actually defend advertising practices in the face of the incontrovertible fact that: I don’t like it.
We’re past the point of “you just don’t know what you want” and well into “we’re going to hold you down and shove it down your gd throat” territory.
deleted by creator
The poison brewer would never try his own product 🙃
I’m sure you’ve seen it many times, but I love Bill Hick’s take on marketing.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I knew it was a troll post.
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Company called Linux
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Only mentioned programs that work in Linux
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The general way of writing
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How much of the question was sincere and how many of my time was wasted? XD
I wasn’t sure myself honestly, thought I’d check if someone else brought it up first
I think people get super excited to share the good news that it’s not a company behind it and all the benefits that come with that
I would swap out Manjaro for Endeavour.
I started off with Manjaro, and updates kept breaking shit. Only reason it was usable for me, was that I kept timeshift going so I could recover from an unbootable state if updates borked something.
Especially if OPs system is unusual, I wouldn’t trust Manjaro. I’ve yet to need timeshift on my Endeavour install, while setting it up to do the same things was no more difficult.
Dude is just starting out, no matter what arch derivative you’re suggesting, it’s a bad idea. Flatpak is perfectly fine for installing fresher versions of those packages AFAIK.
My first experiences were Ubuntu and and pop OS and i t really drove me away from Linux, because especially with Ubuntu lots of the promised customizability and deep control wasn’t there (if you are a first time user who don’t know about the 4-5 places config files can be located, often differing between distros so google doesnt always hekp, you have no idea what sysctl is, how compiling works, how to manage dependencies), instead with gnome you get an Apple/mobile like minimalistic look, where nothing of the ui just says what it does and most things can’t be changed in the gui which I really hated.
When I got manjaro for the first time, I was blown away about how much you could do with Linux even when not a programmer, because smart people on the AUR have paved the way. Also you had things like btrfs which are just plain better then win NTFS or linux ext.
Im not a programmer and don’t work in IT, but man arch was making me interested in Linux.
But you are right, it broke way to often, that’s why I settled for debian after all, as it has the right amount of stability and options imho
Also when coming from win OR having some technical skill OR wanting a highly customizable, good looking feature rich desktop envirment: GO FOR KDE PLASMA!!! THE NEW VERSION IS SO GREAT I FUCKING LOVE IT
In my experience, Manjaro breaks all the time.
Arch doesn’t.
That said, Debian is great. Probably gonna ditch Ubuntu for just pure Debian on my server.
That’s some nice info. From what I’ve heard manjaro is just arch with things done for you most users would do anyway (Desktop environment setup, package management set up, etc.) But if arch is more stable even if some casual hobby ITler like me installs it I should maybe give it another try at times.
Didn’t know there was much difference between arch distros, but now that you mention it: steamOS is working flawlessly while being arch could be an argument for your point. It thought this was more because its perfectly configured for the hardware and deck and I seldom need the OS itself outside of steam because I only use it for gaming.
Nono, arch breaks too, with no pebcak involved. Been there. Dude’s just been lucky.
Well the deck only gets updates once Valve decides they’re good to go, and it’s immutable so there can’t be edge cases where system packages don’t play nice with something user-installed.
Something similar is true for arch in general, package updates go out once they are good to go, and more importantly, when something really breaks, the fix comes in fast.
But manjaro tries to fix something which isn’t broken by delaying arch updates by two weeks, meaning you sometimes gets stuck with broken things, waiting for the fix, or get updates that install versions of things that don’t work together.
Ah that makes sense. The argument for manjaro is that they are not as vulnerable to easy to find 0days or what?
Ubuntu lots of the promised customizability and deep control wasn’t there (if you are a first time user who don’t know about the 4-5 places config files can be located,
How’s arch any different?
often differing between distros so google doesnt always hekp
It’s either following FHS or not. I’ve never seen them dropped in random places and also differing between distros.
Not knowing about FHS is not distro specific.
you have no idea what sysctl is, how compiling works, how to manage dependencies)
And why would a brand new beginner touch any of those? If you need to enable something specific, the guide will most likely include systemd instructions. If you need something that’s not in the repo, use flatpak for example. If you’re not pointlessly compiling, you don’t need to manage dependencies, your PMs are doing it for you.
When I got manjaro for the first time, I was blown away about how much you could do with Linux even when not a programmer, because smart people on the AUR have paved the way.
You can do the same things, and AUR doesn’t change that, it only gives you an additional source of packages that can’t be blindly trusted.
Also you had things like btrfs which are just plain better then win NTFS or linux ext.
They can be set up on other distros, if you don’t like timeshift or other solutions. Btrfs is also not really necessary on a stable distro. A security patch is far less likely to break your system when compared to random bleeding edge releases.
But you are right, it broke way to often, that’s why I settled for debian after all, as it has the right amount of stability and options imho
Check out MX, it’s Debian with some desktop improvements, and a far more sensible default DE for the distro. I’m using it and it’s pretty great, nix makes it a lot better, but flatpak does the job as well.
Also, it’s really funny that a Debian user goes all fangirl over plasma 6
Plasma 6 - soon on a desktop near you (in 1-3+ years when it stops being a broken mess early enough to be tested and included in the new release)
PS, why is it funny Debian users like plasma? Such a rarity?
But to be fair, plasma has only become good recently imho, I really liked concept years ago but it was way to fragile and incomplete then.
Pretty much. Plasma depends on regular updates, and is not nearly as good on stable distros that freeze it for years at a time. The version in Debian is almost 2 years old by now, and a new one isn’t coming out for at least a year.
I think what makes arch different for first time users is mainly the user repository. If I want to have glassy themed desktop for example on Ubuntu I need to understand kvantum, which folder need which permissions, download themes from a website, kvantum from the terminal and install them, while on arch I type yay glassy-themeXY
Sure arch comes with more possibilities in terms if what combinations of software are possible and rolling release etc. Pp. But that’s not that tangeble or import for the beginners usage.
When installing teamspeak for Ubuntu I need to understand how to make my own desktop entries, mark files as executable, how to install .deb packages etc, while on arch I type yay teamspeak, done.
Sure aur is not the most secure source, but better (and easier) then blindly copy pasting commands from some forum or manually downloading dubious python scripts from github.
In a nutshell: I can rely on other (smarter) users better on arch than Ubuntu.
For the customization at the time Ubuntu only had gnome, which is easy but not very powerful in its GUI options from my experience. Manjaro came with KDE plasma which is way more in depth with its GUI.
I don’t know what you are talking about with everything in the same place regardless of distro, I seldom find any config file i dont already know without googleing it for my system. Package names are different, the according folders are different, depending on you DE all paths regarding this will be different.
In win you have all your settings in the settings app (and the values stored in registry) EVERY file of the program you would need to accsess is in the program folder (or roaming).
On Linux, the steam installation via snap has another file structure than via apt, and another for flatpack and another for appimage and another for the aur version which is different from the selfcompiled version. Depending on your Linux version the gamebug could be produced by a file in any of those folders (mostly not one place but some in /etc some in /home/steam some in home/.local some in /home/.share etc. Pp.) Also steam depends on like 100 libraries which are stored in different places. Not to even start with symlinks, config files you should not edit because they get generated from a template in another dir which you instead should be editing and stuff like this.
For people who are working in the field or using the system since decades this becomes natural at some point. But for people who can’t (yet) deal with this kind of stuff it makes a HUGE difference if they can type “yay teamspeak” or not.
Sure, by now it seems trivial for me to know about sudo, chmod, .deb files, apt, .desktop files how to add a repository, manage gpg keyrings and so on but in the beginning, coming from windows this was confusing and overcomplicated as heck (remember under win installing a programming is literally double klicking an installer and that’s it) When you don’t know about this stuff and don’t have the time to watch tutorials or read man pages when wanting to do anything, the difference between this and “yay teamspeak” was like day and night, a matter of usable vs. Unusable.
People good with this stuff underestimate how valuable it is for noobs to be able to rely on smarter people. If I had installed ts when starting with Linux it would have been way more prone to failure and insecurity than a package by an experienced arch user.
The “why would a beginner need those” question always strikes me as odd, because it always sounds love me people wanna deny use cases. I tried changing my local one time, because I accidentally installed the us English default and in the end it was easier to reinstall, because changing the local here doesn’t automatically changes the local there, and for this the locale gets baked in when installing and then your off chasing details and suddenly needing systemctl commands or editing system.d config files or stuff like that. (Again, for something that is literally one klick in a drop down menu for win). I have never seen someone who uses Linux without ever needing the terminal, while doing more than webbrowsing and emails (while for win it is the default to never need the cmd) So if you didn’t study IT for 6 semesters you come to the point where GUI is not working anymore and you don’t know what to do REALLY fast. In this case you are of to either fail if you don’t want to spend hours tinkering and learning about internals of Linux or you have the aur, where its not that unlikely that someone has already written a package to accomplish the task.
“You can do the same things with the aur as without” is the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard (sry) Its like saying you can do the same thing with a guitar as with a CD. Sure, if you are skilled enough you can produce similar results, but for 90% of humanity its either you have the CD and can hear Elvis Presley or you can tinker with the guitar for hours and in the end get something that doesn’t even vaguely resembles Elvis Presley. --> you can’t hear Elvis Presley.
For btrfs: OK, give me the Debian bookworm installer where you can select ANY enrcrypted format that is not luks–>lvm–>ext. I looked lastime I installed there wasnt an option for encrypted btrfs on Debian, but there was on arch Maybe I could customize filesystems and install drivers/libs etc afterwards, but from what I’ve read its not that easy to get it working and it for sure didn’t work out of the box. But please correct me if I am wrong.
For flatpack: I avoid it, as people who are far more deep into the topic than me said its basically snap with extra steps, bloated, insecure, against the Linux philosophy of interlocking FOSS software blah blah. Didn’t understand most of it but followed the advice.
part 1/2
If I want to have glassy themed desktop for example on Ubuntu I need to understand kvantum, which folder need which permissions, download themes from a website, kvantum from the terminal and install them, while on arch I type yay glassy-themeXY
But yeah, the large repo + AUR do make some things easier. Although the additional package managers are quite close, while allowing for a more dependable base system.
When installing teamspeak for Ubuntu I need to understand how to make my own desktop entries, mark files as executable, how to install .deb packages etc, while on arch I type yay teamspeak, done.
flatpak search teamspeak->flatpak install com.teamspeak.TeamSpeak-> done (I’ll get to flatpak later)Sure aur is not the most secure source, but better (and easier) then blindly copy pasting commands from some forum or manually downloading dubious python scripts from github.
Sure, and that’s why you can use something like flatpak in any scenario. I prefer nix, but that’s still not user friendly.
For the customization at the time Ubuntu only had gnome,
They have flavours for each DE, same as Fedora has spins. It’s an easy way to ensure default apps go with the correct DE.
I don’t know what you are talking about with everything in the same place regardless of distro
Most packages follow FHS and XDG, but there are still plenty of them that just drop it in ~ and call it a day.
The FHS ones (
/etc,/usr/share,/usr/local/etc) are where you’re supposed to find default configs. But,/usrshould be read-only and only ever copied from, while/etcis for system wide configs.The XDG configs are tied to your user, and only located at your ~. Usually in ~/.config but there are some cases where you might want to use ~/.local/
On Linux, the steam installation via snap has another file structure than via apt, and another for flatpack and another for appimage and another for the aur version which is different from the selfcompiled version.
Yes, but that’s got nothing to do with the distro.
Apt and pacman follow the FHS, AUR just provides instructions to pacman.
Appimages contain everything they need to run in a single file that you execute.
Flatpak, snap, nix, guix, distrobox, etc. don’t save in the exact same directories because it’s much safer that way, but they still roughly follow FHS. For example nix symlinks everything into ~/.nix-profile and provides you with the same structure as apt (/etc, etc.)
When you don’t know about this stuff and don’t have the time to watch tutorials or read man pages when wanting to do anything, the difference between this and “yay teamspeak” was like day and night, a matter of usable vs. Unusable.
GUI stores like discovery allow you to install and update packages from different stores at the same time. You can search for teamspeak and chose to install the deb or flatpak. Can’t get more user friendly than that.
In win you have all your settings in the settings app (and the values stored in registry) EVERY file of the program you would need to accsess is in the program folder (or roaming).
No, you have the available windows settings in the settings apps. KDE approaches it the same way, and is far superior IMO. The difference is that if you want to change something that’s not covered by the settings apps, windows forces you to blindly copy-paste regedit commands, while linux has a text file.
For packages there is no FHS, they might or might not include default configs if they support text configs in the first place (a BIG part of the UNIX philosophy), or they might generate them when needed. It might be in one of the program files, in multiple locations in my documents and app data, or you might need to once again blindly copy-paste regedit commands. Hell, a windows program might use different 5 location for different configs.
The “why would a beginner need those” question always strikes me as odd, because it always sounds love me people wanna deny use cases. I tried changing my local one time, …
It’s more because Linux has come a long way. For example I can just use MX Date & Time and use a gui to adjust my local and hardware time without ever touching the terminal.
part 2/2
“You can do the same things with the aur as without” is the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard (sry) Its like saying you can do the same thing with a guitar as with a CD.
Nah, that’s coming right up:
For flatpack: I avoid it, as people who are far more deep into the topic than me said its basically snap with extra steps, bloated, insecure, against the Linux philosophy of interlocking FOSS software blah blah. Didn’t understand most of it but followed the advice.
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Argument from authority is a logical fallacy, and I don’t think basing your entire argument on willful ignorance requires further comment
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People have issues with snap due to following reasons, and none of them apply to flatpak:
- snap is forced on ubuntu users and apt randomly installs snaps instead of deb
- snap slows down boot times because it mounts virtual FS’
- snap store and packages are closed source, and while snap is open source, the snap store is hardcoded
- Additional package managers are bloated in the same way cars are bloated for having seatbelts and airbags. The only way to reliably prevent dependency mismatches is to have a separate set of dependencies.
For example: you want to install the newest obs, but it requires a higher version glibc than your KDE. Installing the newer glibc in the exact same location as your system could possibly break your system. Pacman simply errors out, on the other hand flatpak provides the correct version to each of the packages it installs. And that’s possible because:
- Everything is isolated, and generally not only more secure, if the package is published by the developer, but could be even further improved:
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each package gets its own private sandbox with a filesystem, libraries, dependencies, runtimes, etc.
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there are built in systems to further isolate packages from each other and your system
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you can use tools like flatseal to control permissions on top of whatever the base system uses (AppArmor/SELinux).
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no sudo privileges required
Pacman can only use AppArmor/SELinux, and AUR is the riskier version of community flatpaks.
- The thing is, you can’t get better security and reliability without breaking FHS a bit. You also need to consider that they still try to follow it within the additional restrictions imposed on them. You get the same structure, but in respectively consistent places. It’s a pretty good trade-off in my regard.
For btrfs: OK, give me the Debian bookworm installer where you can select ANY enrcrypted format that is not luks–>lvm–>ext.
The default one, and therefore essentially everything downstream: guided partition -> change from ext4 to btrfs and set to mount to / -> run the encryption wizard. Do read the maintenance section though, there are reasons why stable distros don’t default to it. Besides that, rsync does the job more than well enough. You can use the timeshift gui to have it periodically take snapshots, or easily automate it in different ways.
Honestly, monthly snapshots are going to be just fine. That’s the whole benefit of this kind of a setup. Your base system almost never changes, while everything you need to be up to date is completely separate. Half of my packages are nix unstable and just as bleeding edge as on arch, but my system is not at real risk of failing to boot due to an update because it’s still Debian, and quite close to vanilla at that. You don’t need btrfs and snapshots on every update because both flatpak and nix support rollbacks, and that’s the only scenario where updates could be risky.
There are downsides, and possible complications during setup though, but I’d say the trade is more than worth it, especially if you depend on your device and can’t have it break down because you ran a system update or installed a package without updating the whole system. Working abroad with bad internet really drew it home for me, and caused me to finally drop arch.
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Kvantum was choosen arbitrarily to make it tangeble what I mean, I don’t know what specific customization option is was missing I. Ubuntu gnome 5 years ago exactly.
I guess you misunderstood my point, Its not that the specific team speak package is not in the apt repo (but available via flatpack) its again only chosen for illustration. My point is that in my Ubuntu experience I came acroos many different packages only available in certain stores/repos/as sourcecode/flatpack/snap/appimage/wine/bottles/lutris etc. Pp. Which package is available in which formats is secondary, my point is that there are a lot (especially coming from win where there is 1 [plus the win-store]).
Those behave very differently under the hood and in the beginning it feels like for every second program you need to learn about a new format/store/manager/package, which is exhausting quickly, because while appimages are quite close to .exes and easy to understand, flatpacks, snap, apt wine etc. Are not. Nearly All of those are available in one place if u use arch: the aur. It really doesn’t matter if the aur package really only also installs and configures bottles for you, the fact that you need one command and one command only to get all your stuff (yay xyz) instead of 5 [to be honest maybe less or more, I still haven’t found how to configure bottles, wine, lutris etc. Myself for things like league, on Debian I just download lutris, the league install script fails and I have no idea what to do and just play other games, and even if I would know how to do it, there’s a chance it would break every league update and I would need to get Into it again, while on arch I type yay league-lutris or smithing like that, and it works ]
I didn’t know kubuntu was part of Ubuntu, I thought its more or less another Debian derivative made by different people… or is there literally an Ubuntu with kde (which is not kubuntu) I have never heard of?
I think your description of the file structure proves my point of it being hard to grasp for a beginner and some programs just handling it differently because they can. And you didn’t even touch on program files, custom temp directories or trying to install a programm to a different location (like an HDD instead of an the main ssd etc.) Stuff like symlinks doesn’t make stuff easier but harder for a beginner in my opinion.
With your descriptions of the different stores/package managers/packs/etc. I again think it proves my point of being difficult, especially when just coming from win where you just double click on the .exe Not needing to know any of this and just typing yay xyz is a huge bonus on terms of ease of use and low starting threshold.
For discovery: it frequently crashes on my system so I tend to use apt, but sure with flatpack you could get team speak there, but again for league you would need lutris and understand wine settings and so on. Its not about the specific package, its about needing to understand many different installation methods and background systems, and even when understanding most, its not enough to get all programs.
I agree with you that the config file approach might be more customizable friendly for experts than the registry, but for a beginner? On win I never ever in over 10 years needed a setting which wasn’t in the settings (at least before the hyper enshityfication that is win 11) On Debian you can’t even change the fucking input method without using commands. (There is an option in the kde settings but it just displays “cannot connect to fcitx dbus” which is like Chinese for me and would require an evening of tinkering and reading docs or more to fix. I also ran into stuff I could not find in the settings (in like only some months of usage) and needed commands for, but can’t remember what it was. But IF KDE settings would cover everything and work reliable, it would be as good (and better) than windows. This just isn’t the case.
Sure the win programs may don’t have configs for everything, but every intended function works. In 97℅ the time it is just available from the gui of the program, and even If someone tells me to run the forge installer and select the Minecraft mods folder, its at least the same on every win system. With every second guide for Linux the (official) website tells me “locate foo under /usr/foo/bar and append allow online = true” and the file just doesn’t exist in this location for me. For an intend function of the program I never ever in 10 year of windows needet to open the console. Its always just in the GUI which makes the underlying system and its complexity irrelevant for the casual user. With Linux half of the stuff I can only do from terminal so I need to understand the folder system, config files, fhs etc.
Its not that fhs and having multiple locations which get used more or less consequently in more or less most of the cases is a bad thing in general. I am sure a lot of smart people have had very smart thoughts about this, but from a user perspective learning about all off it is way harder than not needing to know about it at all.
For the datetime thing, I don’t wanna make it look bad or be ignorant and say there is no reason for it to be complicated. Of course you can’t have the same expectations for a Foss project as for a commercial project, I am just stating, that there is stuff like this and that it is way harder from a user perspective so there are no wrong expectations set. That the local stuff from KDE settings won’t work (at least for me) because of some fcitx dbus I already told you, but also other stuff like trying to change the username won’t work as expected. I did it without knowing you should never change the username on Linux… It didn’t tell me that the option is experimental or won’t work for some stuff so I expected it to just enter new name and that’s it, like on win or Mac, but it wasn’t and stuff broke all over the place (desktop entries, file locations, automatically generated vs code scripts, default locations, some programs entierly,) and I still haven’t got my taskbar panel to acknowledge the new path, it was always trying to open from the old path, even after regenerating the shortcuts and uninstalling and reinstalling panel. Maybe if I would understand fhs better I could know the place where some cofig lies where I need to change the path in line 253 and it would be clear to me that this isn’t regenerated when reinstalling the programming, but as a casual user, I (didnt know (and still dont know) how i could have fixed it and just gave up at some point and reinstalled Debian fro scratch with The correct username.
Sure, I theory thing could be a lot better, but for someone without an degree in IT stuff like this is far from trivial, especially when you just wanted to correct the typo In your username before starting to work and instead spending one day trying to fix changing the name and two days reinstalling and reconfigurating Debian after giving up. Sure, a texfield in the windows settings might not give you the same freedom, but it does what you expect and works (again, at least before win 11).
Dude writes code, that makes me a lot more comfortable recommending an arch install of some kind. Endeavour especially, as it sets you up at a very good starting point without doing messy shit like Manjaro.
Agreed on flatpak, it’s fine.
Dude writes code, that makes me a lot more comfortable recommending an arch install of some kind.
You drive trucks for a living, so you should commute in a rocket car that breaks down randomly. Or are you going to be a chicken and choose something slower, but far more dependable?
Agreed on flatpak, it’s fine.
It’s pretty counterproductive to suggest something that requires significantly more maintenance if the features are not required. So if flatpak is fine, there’s no need for arch, unless the OP is FOMOing for plasma 6 or something.
Whoa.
You seem to be a lot more vehement about this than I am. Not to mention confidently uninformed on arch.
I don’t think this is worth getting into further. You’ve already decided I’m some kind of elitist, deserving of insulting analogies thrown at them.
You seem to be a lot more vehement about this than I am.
No, I’m simply standing behind my initial statement, and pointing out why your counter argument is bad.
Not to mention confidently uninformed on arch.
Wat is arch? I only used it and its derivatives on multiple devices for multiple years in my 15+ years of Linux
I don’t think this is worth getting into further. You’ve already decided I’m some kind of elitist, deserving of insulting analogies thrown at them.
How I’m imagining this response in real life
If you think a hyperbolised analogy is an insult, take care of your delicate constitution and don’t risk maladies by entering discussions on the internet.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
How I’m imagining this response in real life
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
No, I’m simply standing behind my initial statement, and pointing out why your counter argument is bad.
It’s not though.
Wat is arch? I only used it and its derivatives on multiple devices for multiple years in my 15+ years of Linux
Good for you.
If you think a hyperbolised analogy is an insult, take care of your delicate constitution and don’t risk maladies by entering discussions on the internet.
I mean, if my assumption that you were being mean-spirited before was strenuous, this and linking that video makes it a sealed deal.
You can’t get under my skin, but that doesn’t mean you’re not being shitty by trying.
Fedora or opensuse are better options, stable and reliable
I approve of both of those options. Personally I simply find the AUR the most convenient community driven way to install software.
I use Fedora and I don’t remember what ever having trouble installing software, if it’s not in the repos, there’s a flatpak or appimage
Good. Did I claim otherwise?
Updates break shit on EndeavourOS too. You’ve just been lucky.
Ask me how I know.
Linux is made from thousands of interlocking programs, scripts, services and libraries, made mostly by some guys or gurls in their free time.
That’s not entirely true: Most work is paid for in some way, eg. by foundations, employees of companies which need a feature or freelancers commissioned to do some work.
OK, point given What I meant was, that most distros and programs depend on some level on code written by individuals or at least without profit incentive --> therefore for those bits of code the developer isn’t liable in the same way. Sure, the core of libre office is written by programmers payed by the document foundation, but it nevertheless uses libs which are not, and therefore have not the same level of customer support or liability as Microsoft word would have, where they build most stuff in house and get played handsomely
if you have weird double monitors
Is having more than one monitor “weird” to most Linux distros? I guess I’m a huge weirdo for having 3 then…
Nah, but it sounded like its integrated in his notebook somehow AND having double touchscreens, which could have proprietary drivers or some dumb caviot. Normally having multiple monitors is not a problem (if you don’t mind windows spawning with their top bar out of frame and stuff in wayland kde)
I really miss ableton too
Not going to push Ardour if your brains are wired for Live, but have you tried Bitwig?
(Tho Ardour has Clip Launchers now, wink wink)
I had a look at it, but after paying 200€ for ableton, paying for another program which doesn’t natively integrate with my push and doesn’t have as good standard librarys, instruments, effects and sounds was to hurtfull
If you want to test several Linux distributions Ventoy can be useful. You can have 10 or more different Linux distributions on one USB stick depending on the size of the stick. This will also save you time “flashing” an image iso to the stick each time because with Ventoy you’d simply copy the image iso files to the stick, quick and easy.
Ventoy has changed my life. No more having to find a unused usb key to format then flash.
Just drop the ISO, boot on the key and choose whatever you want to try/install.
I just discovered it last week and feel frustrated with the time I wasted sleeping on it
Huh I always thought ventoy was just another iso to usb writer. I’ve been totally sleeping on the fact it can hold a bunch of isos and installs them directly. That’s so handy
Or try them for a while in a VM, VirtualBox may not provide the best performance out there but it’s very easy to set up. This way you don’t have to commit and install the OS over your main machine or anything like that.
In all honesty, you should decide between Debian and Fedora. If you’re new to this, stay away from Arch Linux, Gentoo, or Manjaro. Simplicity is key. The two systems I mentioned are known for their reliability, so you should be fine with either one.
- Affinity Designer can be run under Linux with Bottles translation (forum post how to set it up)
- Canva does not support Linux
- GIMP is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
- Adobe is not supported on Linux at all
- Blender is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
- DaVinci Resolve is natively supported on Linux (offical website)
- VSCode is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
- almost every DE has a file explorer
- no ads included 😀 👍
If you are made out of matter stay away from manjaro. Other than that I agree, and would recommend debian slightly over fedora but that is just personal preference. Also I feel like opensuse deserves an honorable mention. Maybe not tumbleweed, but leap could be suitable for a new user and yast rocks.
Edit: Also vscodium can be good alternative to vscode. It is vscode without Microsoft’s tracking, but an exact copy otherwise.
Indeed, I use VSCodium on my Fedora system every day, but since the question was about VSCode, I provided information specifically related to VSCode.
Debian rigorously tests its packages over an extended period before they are released in the official version, ensuring a very stable system. This approach means the software is generally older, but it’s been thoroughly vetted. Fedora, on the other hand, provides newer software while still maintaining a good level of stability.
On the other hand, Arch Linux — and its sub-distributions like Manjaro and Gentoo — releases software much more quickly, sometimes almost immediately which can kill your system during updates.
I’d go so far as to say that Arch Linux is less stable than Windows.TL;DR: If you don’t want to find out five minutes before an online meeting that your system won’t boot — avoid Arch Linux.
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I use Canva in the browser, but I gotta say that it works better in Microsoft Edge than in Firefox. I think it may be a Chromium thing, but I haven’t tested other browsers.
Microsoft Edge works great on Linux. It is my second browser after Firefox.
Imagine switching to Linux and installing Microsoft Edge 💀
Just grab yourself some Linux Mint, and try to ignore Arch and Gentoo crowd here.
Half of the apps you mentioned have Linux version right in the system package manager. Davinci has Linux version on their website.
CorelDraw might be a problem, WineHQ lists it’s compatibility for the latest version as garbage, so you will probably need to switch to Inkscape.
Anyway, I heard about this new company called Linux
Pedantic explanation about GNU/Linux is coming in 3… 2… 1…
Here you go ;-)
What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
I second your advice against Arch, EndeavourOS, or Manjaro as I would not call them ‘beginner-friendly’.
Wooo yeah! Now waiting for the explanation how half of mobile phones on the planet and every smart TV in existence runs some variant of Linux kernel.
I mean, it’s always nice to know more. I’m not here pretending to know linux or kernels in details.
Arch user here (by the way). I agree - ignore us.
What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
That’s not necessarily true any more. There are distros built without the GNU tools.
I know, Android is probably the most prominent one, but also e.g. Alpine.
Linux is not a company lol I hope that was a joke. Also Linux is not new.
Now to the software: it will likely run everywhere. Davinci resolve is a bit picky but also fine.
You have quite some Windows-only software. Check https://alternative-to.net or try running it through WINE with Bottles
To the Distro: this is complex. Many people will recommend Linux Mint and it is easy to use but very restricted. I dont think it is great really.
There are many many parallel efforts, so on Linux Distributions (Linux + packages + desktop + …) you can get very different software.
For a painfree experience running Windows software and Davinci Resolve I recommend to try Bazzite
It is very different from others:
- it updates automatically in the background. But completely different from Windows. Updates always work and are efficient and stable. No 10 times rebooting
- updates finish and you can reboot any time to apply it. Literally a week later, nobody cares
- the reboot takes just as long as any other reboot, no downtime
The system is way better and more stable than “traditional” ones. This is quite complex but lets say while on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora etc. you will have an indivudual system, with individual packages and in the end some strange errors only happening on your setup, with Bazzite you will have exactly 1:1 the system that the developers create.
It is based on Fedora Atomic Desktops which are pretty great. But for your use case I dont recommend them.
I recommend the Bazzite Desktop version with the KDE Plasma desktop. This will be Windows-like in a very good way, but incredibly more efficient, faster and also more powerful. Like a Filemanager with tabs and extensions, that is not written in whatever bloat Microsoft uses (their Win11 stuff is so slow…).
To sum it up, on Linux you have to decide:
What Desktop environment?
- I recommend KDE Plasma a lot
- GNOME is also good but veery opinionated and minimalist
- I dont recommend others like Linux Mint’s Cinnamon yet, as they dont support modern standards (Wayland)
What Distribution family?
- Debian, Fedora, Arch, OpenSUSE
- they are all a bit different but basically doing the same
- Ubuntu stems from Debian and became popular as “the beginner Linux” but they do very controversial stuff nobody else does (like the Snap store) and have tons of bugs. I used it a lot with bad experiences and dont recommend.
- Linux Mint and others also use Ubuntu or Debian under the hood
- Arch is very manual and difficult for new users, dont use it
- OpenSUSE does whatever they do, not recommended
- Fedora is pretty modern in their software, has a nice community and a big variety of options. They are not allowed to ship restricted media codecs for stuff like h264 video though
- uBlue (Bazzite, Bluefin, Aurora) is a project using Fedoras versions and adding nice stuff to it, making them usable out of the box. This is their goal, and they do it really well.
Wow, thank you for all the info in details! I need to start testing some of distros I guess and see how it goes (sounds fun too). UBlue project looks very very interesting.
Ublue also has Asus-specific variants which I assume probably has some compatibility fixes added in that would have to be installed manually in most other distros.
Since you use VS Code I’d strongly recommend the developer variants of ublue, which are only available for Aurora and Bluefin, as it gives you a preinstalled VS Code which will be a better experience than trying to install it after the fact. (if you go to the download page for them, answer “yes” to “are you a developer?”)
For minimum learning curve, use Aurora over Bluefin as the UI is more familiar. Also, make sure you pick the Nvidia option for the GPU question.
True, but Aurora/Bluefin dont have WINE preinstalled.
I wouldnt run WINE stuff on the system, but that is likely less complicated, as using Bottles means you cannot really use a Windows program to edit stuff on your system by default.
I started using Linux 2 years ago or something. Linux Mint, Kubuntu, MX Linux (wtf Distrowatch), Manjaro, KDE Neon, Fedora KDE…
broke all. On Fedora Kinoite since then, switched to uBlue Kinoite, no complaints.
Currently using secureblue but many things I disagree with, planning a fork.
The good thing is that most distributions have live images that you can basically put on a USB stick and run without installing anything. It won’t give you quite the same experience as an installed instance but will at least let you play around with things (especially Gnome or KDE etc.)
I would stay away from Fedora based anything if you want stability. Linux Mint is is as flexible as you make it.
Fedora has 2 versions supported, the current release and the old release. It is pretty modern in packages, but this is normally not a problem at all.
I never used the old release but that would give more stability. On the atomic variants this means though that you dont get automatic updates, as using
latestwill auto update when upstream sets the new version as latest.
Yeah, well just go ahead and see if it works for you now. I doubt much has changed, but some bits are probably more polished these days.
Most distros support some kind of LiveCD, so you can try it out without having to reinstall your machine, it’s painless and quick to evaluate before you take the plunge.zenbook duo pro
A quick search reveals this. Might be helpful. https://davejansen.com/asus-zenbook-duo-and-fedora-linux/
I didn’t find this link before, thanks! Yes, i was in doubt between maybe mint, fedora or popos, but my knowledge of linux stops about here ahah
Nothing against Fedora, but generally I’d steer a noobie to mint or popos before Fedora. It has been some time since I tried Fedora (years) but not very long since I’ve seen someone complaining about dependency/repo issues (which is where I always ran into problems with Fedora eventually)
Having said that, folks who don’t run Arch tend to say it breaks far more often than it actually does, so my opinion on Fedora may be just as uninformed. (I don’t run Arch BTW, but I do run a derivative.)
Try Kubuntu as a Distro. Any KDE Plasma Distro would be good as well. -Sincerely The Linux Company
Or the new Ubuntu Cinnamon
Or how about no
For people coming from windows i think linux mint is the best choice.
Gimp, blender and vscode works well on linux
U can code dart/flutter with no problems on vscode on linux, android studio also works fine if you need to export to android.
For file manager i use nemo (default on mint cinnamon).
Other software mentioned i have no idea.
Fedora will always be my go-to, and the KDE spin should be pretty familiar layout wise for former windows users.
Since you have an nvidia gpu, Pop OS will probably be your best bet if you need it working immediately.
I wouldn’t recommend Ubuntu anymore, as it’s been pushing snaps (package manager) MS-style, and it’s gotten some shit from the community for various reasons over the years.
Linux Mint is also good, too. It’s very easy to just get up and going, perfect for people who aren’t familiar with Linux, too.
The worst part about snaps isn’t the fact that their packaged like Windows files, it’s that it makes updating everything on your computer confusing as fuck when you don’t really want to ever think about it.
Me updating my system then updating Flatpak because the gpu driver difference breaks everything
I generally have 2 recommendations for beginners who don’t want something specific, one of which is a community favorite, the other is my own favorite.
The community generally recommends Linux Mint for new users. It’s based an Ubuntu, so it had a lot of great support, but it has the enshittification of Ubuntu (snaps, tracking, pro subscription ads, etc.) removed. It’s a great, simple distro for beginners that generally works all around without tweaking. It’s basically the #1 recommendation for new users, and I gladly support that recommendation.
My personal favorite recommendation is Fedora, through I understand why there may be frustrations for those with Nvidia graphics cards who need to install their drivers. The process to do it on Fedora isn’t very complex, and can be looked up easily, but new users tend to feel intimidated by the command line, and I must admit that the installation of Nvidia drivers and media codec are more difficult than something like Linux Mint (for Fedora, this is a copyright issue, since their main sponsor is Red Hat, a private company). In every other area, I’d say Fedora is great for beginners, and provides a great way for users to get new features quickly without having to worry about any of the instabilities or quirks of something like Arch.
You couldn’t go wrong with either, but you’re certainly going to see more recommendations for Linux Mint in general (especially on Nvidia hardware).
Just stay away from Manjaro, Gentoo, and Void (there’s a long list of complex distros, but it really isn’t going to help to list them all). Gentoo and Void have their place, but are not a great place for a beginner to start. Manjaro simply has no place, just avoid it like the plague.
You could also recommend the Linux Mint Debian Edition!
My personal pick that is gonna get downvoted into oblivion: Manjaro.
Manjaro is an actual “Arch for your grandmother”. Combining rolling release with two-week checking period, taking the speed and customizability of Arch and wrapping it in a noob-friendly, everyday system - it’s Arch that just works, is sleek, welcoming and easy.
What else to ask for?
Arch already just works, Majaro breaks more (at least for the one month I tried it while getting into Linux).
Arch includes the setup process (not just installing the OS, but like adding literally every piece of software), which is super not noob friendly.
New users should just use an installer and get ready-to-use system. Manjaro, Fedora, Mint do exactly that. Arch does not.
Also, Arch may break in very unpredictable ways due to the way the updates work. You’re essentially always in a beta - price of a very bleeding edge.
I had a better experience with Manjaro, and generally the advice for Manjaro users goes as “do not abuse AUR, and you’ll be fine”.
If you want easy Arch, recommend EndeavourOS. Manjaro is a pile of steaming garbage just waiting to break itself. EndeavourOS is easy for beginners, doesn’t break itself constantly, and gets all the features of Arch from mainline Arch, not the Manjaro repos. I strongly suggest you revise your recommendation to EndeavourOS; there’s very good reason behind why this community dislikes Manjaro.
Nope, EndeavourOS to me is a useless project from the start that doesn’t really simplify everyday operation of Arch and just cuts corners on installation and minimal quality of life.
If someone needs pure but accessible Arch, I’d go with Garuda, though it has all the issues of pure Arch as well.
Manjaro is still my choice. A good majority of Manjaro haters just hear about AUR issues and never go there, although they are fairly rare and can be resolved, or you can rely primarily on extensive repos that probably do have what you need. Some others just blindly use solutions for Arch, and while Manjaro does allow for it, it shouldn’t always be done, as devs themselves warn. If you won’t treat Manjaro like mainline Arch, it will not break. But as any Linux system, it does allow you to shoot yourself in the foot.
The difference is - in Arch, noobs destroy their system and power users (kinda, usually) do not. In Manjaro, it’s the Arch power users that don’t know the difference and blindly apply their experience that get rekt, while noobs do just great without even knowing stuff that can break it.
Also, backups and snapshots are a must for absolutely every Arch system, that is just the reality of it. Arch does break, as anything bleeding-edge. Manjaro helps with that - granted, by introducing another issue that can easily be circumvented.
If anything, I’m a happy Manjaro user for 1,5 years, and I’m just alright.
I used Manjaro for about 6 months, never used AUR or made any real modifications to my install (except for troubleshooting), and had to fully reinstall 2 times and fix config issues on files I’ve never touched a handful of times in that 6 months because a standard update broke everything. I then went on to use EndeavourOS for a year and never had a single issue the entire time I used it, so my problems were not related to Arch, it was Manjaro. Similar stories are constantly echoed about Manjaro, and I have a hard time believing that the entire Internet is astroturfing a Linux distro for no reason. I, as a quite experienced Linux user of over a decade, have never tried any distro that has been anywhere close to as bad as Manjaro. I’ve had an install brick itself once outside of Manjaro, and that was due to an obscure hardware bug that got through QA. I’ve never had to spend as much time fixing a distro as I did with Manjaro, and it was on a laptop that I only used for browsing and schoolwork. I didn’t even bother to change the wallpaper because I only had it there to try out. So no, nothing that happened was related to the packages I installed, the (nonexistent) changes made to configs, or the use of the AUR. That was a perfectly normal Manjaro install breaking itself for absolutely no reason. You can feel free not to trust my anecdotal evidence, but almost everyone I’ve seen in this community who has said they’ve used Manjaro has echoed similar stories. This isn’t a unique or rare experience.
EndeavourOS has great value to users new to Arch that don’t want to set everything up from scratch. It is basically vanilla Arch without the setup hassle of vanilla Arch. I don’t see why that wouldn’t have value, and I don’t really understand why you’d recommend Manjaro over it. The 2 week freeze that Manjaro does on packages doesn’t actually help stability. It does nothing at best, and makes things worse in most other cases.
Guess we have very different experiences.
Wonder if it could be in some way hardware-related.
I’ve previously looked into and tinkered with EndeavourOS a little, and I don’t get the reason for its popularity and existence.
Archinstall+minimal tinkering for 20 minutes=equal system but without relying on some obscure distro.
Again, Garuda at least adds something to it. And Manjaro adds a lot.
Isn’t Google dismantling the flutter team?
It was supposed to be the react-native killer!
Doesn’t mean your company didn’t bet on the wrong horse. Luckily we stay far away from anything Google touches, but I have friends in other companies who weren’t as lucky.
So far we’ve been lucky. But, we are concerned with some of our stack. We help where we can, but it’s a bit of an unknown. The google graveyard basically screams to keep away from any of their tech.
I’m still recovering from the news.
I ran Linux on a Zenbook Pro Duo. Fedora’s KDE distribution was the only release I ever found that worked out of the box with both touchscreens as I’d expect. You’d think a big release like Ubuntu would work, but whatever they have set up for touchscreens is slightly out of whack. For example, touch and drag would select text instead of scrolling the page.
By default, your laptop might try to stay awake all the time. The second screen is treated as an external monitor, and there’s a setting you can find in the configuration menu that forces the laptop to stay awake when an external device is connected.
Some other things to note. If you’ve got an older model, you might be able to find a third-party software suite such as this one that will allow you to use your laptop almost normally.
However, if your laptop is new enough, you might be unable to find any software (third party or otherwise) that supports the built-in features such as quick screen swapping, numpad, or turning off the lower screen. The lower screen is LCD anyways, so you won’t get burn in. If you’re worried about power, I’ve found that despite the lower screen being on full-time, Linux still doubled or tripled my battery life compared to when I ran Windows. I think the biggest immediate drawback is that you may not have any on-board audio due to a lack of drivers, though that might have been fixed in Fedora 40. I know they were working on that in the newer version of upstream Linux (which may not have arrived yet), but I haven’t been following it. And finally, you won’t be able to adjust the brightness of the lower screen without some configuration. Again, some of that might be mitigated if you can find some compatible and reliable 3rd-party software for your laptop.
I will say that despite all the limitations mentioned above, I still vastly preferred Linux to Windows. The battery life alone was enough to warrant the switch.
Thanks, I was hoping to find someone who did this before. And apparently not the first time I read that fedora is my best/only option for the type of laptop. Great tips!
Hey OP, I just installed Fedora KDE as dual boot on my desktop (slowly transitioning from Windows) and I can vouch for what the person above you is saying. Good luck, and feel free to ask anything. I’m no expert, but I can at least listen.
Visual Studio is not available on Linux and not really working in Wine, sadly. You can use IntelliJ IDEA as a good alternative, it supports Linux officially and has a Flutter plugin.
For a beginner, Linux Mint is perfect. It is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian, so you can follow most tutorials written for either distribution (like the installation instructions for IntelliJ IDEA or other software that is not available from the APT package manager).
Sorry, I honestly didn’t know it was that different Visual studio from visual studio code. I use the VS CODE and it seems available on linux, but I’ll check also Intellij IDEA.
Visual Studio is meant for C/C++/C#, IntelliJ is made for Java (as the name might suggest). JetBrains has IDEs for C (CLion) and C# (Rider) though. All JetBrains IDEs are available for Linux. Visual Studio isn’t, Visual Studio Code is. I recommend using an optimized version of Visual Studio Code called VSCodium.
What? VS Code is available on Linux and that’s what they’re using
The post was edited
For a beginner, Linux Mint is perfect
Mint for Mint then maybe the Debian Edition (LMDE) instead the the common one based on Ubuntu, which again is Debian just LTS.
Also, if OP is tired of Microsoft enshittification imagine him finding out Ubuntu’s company Canonical decided that apt command should sometimes install snap packages instead of deb binaries, because “reasons”(NVM lucky us at Mint there are sane people). Or that it tried to put ads in their OS even before Windows even tried.I have a native Linux version of Visual Studio Code on my Tumbleweed system and everything works fine so far for me
VS, not VS Code
Why anyone outside the Microsoft ecosystem would want to use Visual Studio though, idk
I know, I feel very bad for this, but I needed Github Copilot, because I’m too stupid to code on my own
I think you’re mixing up Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio is a massively bloated IDE mostly used for .NET development, but supports other things too. It’s proprietary, massive, slow and a pain to work with, and doesn’t run on Linux afaik
Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, is an Electron app and therefore runs almost everywhere, and is (partly or totally, I’m not sure) open source. Nothing wrong with coding in VS Code, it’s a decent IDE
Telemetry, licensing and proprietary extensions in VS Code is the whole reason for VScodium to exist.
https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodiumVisual Studio Code […] is (partly or totally, I’m not sure) open source.
Visual Studio Code is like Android is relative to the Android Open Source project. As far as I know, VS Code comes with an additional Microsoft layer of telemetry and closed source additions in its binary form. Not to mention the license which basically assumes the right to do almost anything to the underlying system. That’s why projects like VSCodium came into existence.
Please anyone, correct me if I’m wrong.
Ah, thanks for the clarification -
I don’t use VSCode(ium) myself, I’m usually quite content with Helix + LSPs, and if ever need a full IDE I usually go with the Jetbrain products
Tbf I think OP is also mixing up VS and VSCode because the dart/flutter recommended setup is all based on VSCode and VSCode extensions.
Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code is not the same thing at all 😂
And Microsoft really sucks at naming things. Windows 10 wasn’t the 10th Windows version, the Xbox One wasn’t the first Xbox, there are many more examples.
I heard about this new company called Linux
I thought it was funny at least, so you gave me a good laugh.
I’d say Linux Mint or Ubuntu (you’re familiar with this one) would be good “Out of the Box” options. They run an environment known as “Debian” so they’re super similar and are pretty similar to what Windows offers in all honesty. You just burn them to a USB, run them from your desired computer’s BIOS, and the rest is through a GUI interface you can follow along with. I have no experience with a touchscreen as I’m running Linux Mint XFCE (lightest weight version) on a laptop from the early 2010’s with an Intel N2820 in it, but I’m assuming some workaround can exist to implement that. You also seem somewhat familiar with the alternative programs for different purposes, but rest assured both Ubuntu and Mint come with file explorers (Mint XFCE uses one called Thunar which is pretty effective) and you can easily swap out/install a different file manager to get jobs done as needed.
Plus - any programs you used with Windows which may not have Linux alternatives or versions - can be run through Wine. I’ve encountered a few hiccups when doing this (like a program I needed for school which was unable to pass the initial installation and actually run the program).
I’ve run Linux Mint XFCE as my daily driver for work and school tasks on my laptop for about 2-3 years at this point and it’s been pretty great. Full disclosure: I still run Windows 11 on my main PC at home and have Windows 10 on a HTPC/Server with docker on it (though I’ve been debating switching to Ubuntu for this as well) so I still know there are benefits to a Windows system (while working to remove any and all advertising and AI garbage) but if I were to recommend someone a distro it would be as I’ve said above.
Good luck! Hope you find one that works for you!
Thanks, I feel like Mint could be already a valid one but maybe Fedora kde could be more useful. I’ll check both for sure asap. It’s crazy how bad windows is honesty and still so necessary for some jobs.
Can Mint read files from a Windows partition or is it a different filesystem?
I’m waiting until there’s a good sale on Hard drives to set up a dual-boot.
Reading filesystem is not about which distribution you have but drivers on disc. If you have FAT the defaults should work, for NTFS you might have to install the ntfs driver. I don’t use mint but it’s the linux way so either it’s already there or you can install it. Once you have driver just mount it like a normal drive and it’s done.
Good to know. Thank you.
I’m at the point whe recommending distros fir new comers its Debian, Arch, Fedora and Linux Mint.
Debian is my go to. Stable, I love the apt package manager. Desktop environment is a bit irrelevant with recommendations because you can easily install any desktop environment or window manager. You will figure out what environment you like along the way. Installation is simple, you can do minimal installs as well and it’s what many big name distros are based on.
I really like Arch. Minimal, great package manager, AUR extends application availability even when you have flatpaks, snaps and app images and the repo. You can use the archinstall script these days so you don’t have to worry about installing the old-fashioned Arch way. It will also teach you what to do when updates fail because it’s a rolling release.
If none of those are appealing then I would advise Fedora. Great package manager, get newer packages if package versions are important for you and a solid distribution that is the upstream for Red Hat. It’s the best of both worlds of Debian and Arch in my opinion.
The last one is Linux Mint. I’ve found myself avoid recommening forks. This is my exception. I can’t say a lot because I haven’t used it much. But I’ve installed it 2x to different family members who never used Linux before and use it and love it. I did it because they are forks and I can give support because I’m familiar with what it’s based on and the high recommendation from the online community. It’s great for beginners and veterans alike from what I can tell from the online community. Great team of developers.
I would not recommend Arch for beginners. I like it, but it’s best for someone a bit familiar with Linux already. Yeah, the install is pretty simple now that Archinstall is a thing, but it’s not the method recommended in the Arch Wiki and if there’s something wrong with your install and you complain on the Arch Forum they might not be super helpful.
More generally, the mood on the Arch forum and Arch communities at large isn’t super beginner friendly, and thay’s understandable: In a distro meant to be user friendly and aimed at general user, if the user does what seems natural to them and the system break, the community will feel a responsibility towards them, because the system wasn’t stable and user-friendly enough. In a distro primarily aimed at power users and devs, if the user does what seems natural to them and the system breaks, then the user is a fool and should’ve read the wiki.
Because it is a very fast rolling release, some updates can break stuff. It doesn’t happen often, but it can happen at a bad time and be a big problem for someone who doesn’t know how to deal with it.
Debian is more stable, and easier if you go with a D.E, but you still have to make several choices during the install, which might be a bit complicated for a beginner who doesn’t know what any of these options mean… Tho of course, it’s possible to go with all the defaults and it’ll be alright.
But my prime recommendation would be Linux Mint.
I will not debate your thoughts on Arch though I personally have more problems on other distros. What I will say is that the EndeavourOS forums are pretty friendly. EOS is Arch for non-elitists.
Generally speaking, I have nothing to really argue against that…but I can only recommend based on how I have learned Linux. I have found myself only enjoying the base distros and not forks because no matter all the time I wasted distro hopping, I felt like I was using the same thing over and over again beyond the package manager or installer.
One thing I would add is, when I used Arch, I avoided the Arch forums…specifically because of what you mentioned. In one way, one should expect that of the Arch forums. If you choose to use a distro that forces you to build the system yourself, you should expect to fix your problems yourself. So the forums I found useless and never posted there. The fact there is even an Arch forum that offers supports, beyond the wiki, I find funny. I would just use the wiki and search engines.
What about popos?
I’ve never used PopOS. I’m not into forks and it is based on Ubuntu. This isn’t to say I think it’s bad. I just don’t recommend forks. If you want to try PopOS, go for it.
