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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • I think Debian is close to new user friendly IF they pick Gnome or KDE with all the default stuff there, and has getting closer with non-free firmware enabled by default now, but still isn’t quite there as a plug and play new user friendly distro. Things like flatpak w/flathub or snap out of the box isn’t there, and it’d be hard to get a full Debian setup without using the command line (especially for a non free software zelot who wants Spotify and discord out of the box)

    Something like mint is just a tad easier, and that might be the different between an easy install and an unexpected set of hiccups that a new user might struggle with. The mint installer is also a lot more intuitive, at the cost of being less universally compatible (a big goal of Debian).







  • My understanding is that it’s not really the disrto, but the software running on it that’d effect battery life and performance. Both Debian and Arch can come pretty bare bones on a blank install (Ubuntu and derivatives tend to come with a fair bit of stuff bundled out of the box).

    I’d personally reccomend trying a Debian installation (I’d likely say use stable, but testing or sid are also options if you need quicker updates and don’t care for flatpak/snap/appimage/distrobox). The installer plays nice with Windows, and you can skip installing a desktop during installation then CLI install a tiling window manager to really minimize ‘bloat’.


  • Assuming you’re fine with non-free drivers I don’t think there’s too much to worry about nowadays (at least that’s what I’ve gathered from personal experience & the lack of hearing other scomplain).

    That said, I’ve never had any issues with HP devices, and even an HP Chromebook worked without too much hassle.

    Thinkpads are also a classic Linux machine, and I doubt you could go wrong with those either.