Goddam that almost killed me. π€£
TwilightKiddy 10 points 6 days ago
Sorry to break it to you, but Gentoo is a penguin.
TwilightKiddy 4 points 6 days ago
A quick search did not yield me a Hannah Montana penguin, I'm severely disappointed in this community.
klymilark 7 points 6 days ago
Ehh, having used all 3 Arch and Nix are about the same level of difficulty, Nix just doesn't have documentation (or at least didn't when I was using it). Flakes make it more complicated, but those are 100% optional, and I didn't use them
Gentoo is a notable step up. Shit actually breaks there, horrendously. Still love it tho.
HMLinux does, in fact, scare me. I'm debating doing LFS, but I don't think I could handle the difficulty that HML would offer
lemmyvore 3 points 6 days ago
LFS is actually a pretty good learning experience. But that depends on whether you're interested in topics like kernel configuration, filesystem organization, the boot components and boot sequence, init system, common app resources, compiling apps, and generally how a Linux system comes together. It gives you a solid grounding that's applicable to any Linux distro (not super-specific like Arch/Gentoo/Nix tend to be). But it's pretty dry stuff and you have to be really fascinated by Linux to dig into it.
On the cool side once you get through LFS you should be able to put together your own mini Linux distro and see how small you can make it and still boot and do something useful.
klymilark 2 points 6 days ago
Yeah, I'm very interested in the user side of Linux, less so what's under the hood. There's some degree of it there, I do use Gentoo, which is more manual than any other distro I've come across, but that's about as deep as I want to go for a daily driver. I am a little tempted to do LFS on a VM once I have a computer that can handle it again
deathmetal27 1 point 5 days ago
Buffalo = GNU
psycholocomotor 1 point a day ago
ExOS is the most dangerous game.
spirinolas 1 point 6 days ago
Here, have your downvoted. We both know you wanted it.
imeansurewhynot 113 points 6 days ago
Really? i get handheld terminal command lines with embedded copy functions when i search for solutions to my Mint problems. It's a pretty kind and helpful community.
imeansurewhynot 37 points 6 days ago
There's a misguided imagination cloud about Linux, then in reality the incredible wealth of help and support Linux users invest and receive.
It's the FOSS "lone-wolf" thing. If you feel like you're on the outside, each Linux user sounds like a crazed wasteland wanderer.
Meanwhile, we're using comfortably customized environments curated and supported by our community, updating in the background, and enjoying stable 20-second boots.
FuglyDuck 26 points 6 days ago
!Itβs really fun when they start arguing and blowing each others minds.
And I bet theyβd introduce the kitty to the power of sudo pretty quicklyβ¦ though giving the new murder hobo the power of sudo seems less wise than teaching Microsoft support peeps the power of grep.
I mean, look at that little guy. Heβs totally gonna take over the world.
(Fuck it. Canβt be worse than the current assholes)
zaubentrucker 9 points 6 days ago
You can indeed use sudo in kitty: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
TeaWithDani 3 points 6 days ago
Mint community's first solution is always "have you tried just not doing that?".
imeansurewhynot 4 points 6 days ago
Never got that one before, I always get multiple solutions and workarounds until a problem is solved.
NateNate60 -3 points 6 days ago
That gets a lot of people in trouble and I really advise against giving people terminal commands when it can be avoided. Unless the person already is familiar with the terminal, they're just typing magic words into a black box and it reinforces the stereotype that Linux is this complicated and arcane thing.
MyNameIsRichard 26 points 6 days ago
It's more complicated to describe how to do something in a gui and it will only work for one environment if it's set up the same way.
tal 5 points 6 days ago
Yeah, the terminal is much more universal on Linux distros.
People will have wildly different GUI environments. I have no idea how to do thing X in all of KDE Plasma or GNOME or Xfce or Cinnamon or whatever. But outside of package management and some systemwide config, most Linux distros work pretty much the same way at a bash prompt.
Honytawk 4 points 6 days ago
Yes, but at least they will understand the solution.
You can also just compile a script that they just have to execute, but they will understand even less and are way more likely to install malware.
MyNameIsRichard 8 points 6 days ago
One simple command vs:
Go to your start menu
Search for program name
Click on it
Scroll down about half way
Click the
Enter
Click the
Click the in the popup
And if that's done in Gnome, does it help a KDE user, Xfce, Mate? I think not. And that's if the gui handles the problem at all.
Of course, the command comes with an explanation of what it does.
Ghoelian 6 points 6 days ago
What if the person you're helping has a different UI language? Or when buttons get hidden based on available screen space? Or when you need to get an older person to use a dropdown menu with hover and click options?
Sure it's doable, but it's so much easier to just copy and paste a command. Of course, whenever I tell someone to do something like this, it comes with a lot of warnings about the shell. If they're close enough I just tell them to never run a random command without consulting me first.
rtxn 4 points 6 days ago
That's nice, right until you have to troubleshoot why the other person is having difficulty following the instructions. My not-entirely-but-still-mostly-strawman scenario (specifically with the RPi Imager) where that approach fails:
Run the application. If it asks for a password and then nothing happens, then you'll need to use
pkexecto launch it with root privileges, runpkexec env $(env) DISPLAY=:1 /path/to/application. The main window will look like a wizard utility with the steps on the left and input fields on the right. Follow the instructions until step 4. Then complete step 4, but DO NOT click "next". A gear icon should appear.No, not the gear icon on the top, the large gear icon on the bottom right. It didn't appear? Okay, go back to step 2 and make sure the "full" option is selected. Now go to step 4 and reenter everything. Still nothing? Send me a screenshot. Okay, the "hostname" field must not contain a hyphen, replace it with an underscore. Wait, which version of the app are you running? Go to the small gear menu, click on "About", and send me the version number... okay, nevermind, that version doesn't support this specific feature, you'll have to update.
I had to have this conversation with myself. Conducting it over an internet forum with a stranger of questionable technical skills is my definition of hell.
Geth 0 points 6 days ago
Command line is easier for the person giving it but it teaches nothing to the person using it and I agree with the previous poster, just reinforces the idea that Linux is this mysterious non-understandable os. Many knowledgeable people in the community love to gatekeep so it works out in their favor and no one else's.
scathliath 4 points 6 days ago
Does this one have a soul?
imeansurewhynot 14 points 6 days ago
After all, what use are detailed instructions and explanations?
Bluewing 2 points 6 days ago
And that's OK. It does get them to open the term and see it and use it a little - copy/pasta is how we all started out. (Truth is, I still copy/pasta after more than 20 years should perhaps need) But that does not negate the GUI experience. I like and use the GUI every time I can.
But I understand the need for the Cli too. I can often use it to better see where a problem is. Something my GUI lovin' lazy butt doesn't always do.
Australis13 80 points 6 days ago
The landscape has changed a lot.
When I first was trying to get into Linux 15-20 years ago, this is pretty much how it was. I can remember being very frustrated that very few people I encountered seemed to be willing to assist at an entry level; there was all this presumed knowledge which I didn't have (and if I'd had it, I wouldn't have been looking for help in the first place).
Today there is a lot more entry-level help and assistance. There are more user-friendly distros and a lot more information online that is accessible to the average user who hasn't memorised every GNU/Linux man page.
That said, there are still situations where getting help or advice is a real challenge.
Wildmimic 28 points 6 days ago
Yeah, i had a similar experience. I was messing around with a small Media Center/NAS hybrid running Debian, and it really, really wasn't happy with the integrated GPU of the AMD A4 i was using, causing instability and tons of graphical glitches especially in video playback, which were not acceptable on a potential media center. My attempts to get help from the community as a linux noob that did not even have enough knowledge to know what commands i could use to get relevant information to add to my cry for help got me a lot of harsh replies before someone was nice enough two days later to help me out. We got it fixed together after a few rounds of replies, but my first impression was not very good.
Nowadays there are so many online resources available, and support boards often have basic information available about what information should be attached and HOW TO GET IT, which reduces friction a lot, and also makes the community a lot more accessible for new users.
dan 10 points 6 days ago
causing instability and tons of graphical glitches especially in video playback
Flashbacks to me struggling to get the fglrx drivers working.
If you never got to experience the "joy" of that... There was a time long ago when getting graphics acceleration working with ATI/AMD GPUs on Linux needed proprietary drivers. It was a struggle, significantly worse than dealing with the Nvidia drivers today. Things improved so much when AMD released and upstreamed their modern open-source driver, around 10 years ago now.
Wildmimic 4 points 6 days ago
Yep, that was exactly the case back then, and getting the drivers to work was an awful experience, especially since they really didn't play nice with the iGPU. I for sure was way out of my depth at that time, with just enough linux experience to know that instead of "dir" i have to use "ls".
tal 2 points 6 days ago
I'm pretty sure that most Linux environments that I've been in have had dir for a long time.
checks
Okay, I'm on my phone right now, so Termux does, and it's not an alias. The manpages say that it's part of GNU coreutils, so it's probably like that on all the distros.
checks the git mirror
The dir manpage file was added to GNU coreutils in 1998. Could be that it even predated that---I didn't go see whether the repository layout changed at that point. But it's at least that old.
Buffalox 10 points 6 days ago
Not at all my experience, I started using Linux in 2005, and Ubuntu was part of an explosion in available help for new users,
but also many smaller distros had it, like for instance PC Linux which I think back on fondly.
Beginner friendly distros was as much a thing back then as it is today.
The biggest difference is more that Linux has become better, and some things are a lot easier today.
Even Arch has an easy installer now!
TeaWithDani 1 point 6 days ago
Ubuntu Forums have solved all my problems, past, present and future.
Asfalttikyntaja 62 points 6 days ago
I canβt understand why thereβs so many people suggesting newbies something really complicated distro, when all they need is to start with a something really user friendly, like Linux Mint. User can then move on to other distros if they want to when their skills improve. I use Arch BTW.
Honytawk 36 points 6 days ago
Because otherwise you don't have the "true linux experience", whatever that means.
I work in IT support, and you can't imagine how completely computer inept the average user is. Like, they start crying when a button has moved 2cm to the side.
These will never be able to use a command line, let alone install their own operating system.
Yet some of these Linux evangelicals think everyone was born with a UTP cable up their arse. So they recommend what they see as "easy", but don't understand that it only looks easy to them because of the decades of experience they already had.
As long as the Linux community can not decide what distro is the best for newbies, it will never be the year of the linux.
chiliedogg 28 points 6 days ago
Gatekeeping is a big problem with anything - especially as it becomes easier.
Film photographers balked at people going digital and about color grading and retouching with lightroom and photoshop.
Car people talked shit about how using an automatic transmission wasn't really driving.
PC gamers got pissy at console gamers in the 90s and 2000s for just wanting a game to fucking work without having to chase down a conflict caused by a random printer driver that made their game crash in any map with water (my actual lived experience with Battefield 1942).
Lots of old-school 3D printing enthusiasts get upset when new users don't know when to adjust their pressure advance or can't read gcode.
Doctors who worked three 30-hour shifts a week in their residency think new doctors should go through the same rite of passage.
Football players who were taught to lead into a tackle using the top of their skull think new rules implemented to prevent neck injuries and TBIs make new players pansies.
We need to understand that part of making the world better is that the next generation of professionals, hobbyists, and people in general will have it easier than us, and that's a good thing.
Sonotsugipaa 9 points 6 days ago
Car people talked shit about how using an automatic transmission wasn't really driving
... we stopped doing that? D:
angstylittlecatboy 4 points 6 days ago
PC gamers got pissy at console gamers
This is also stupid because before the tail end of the 2000s, the types of games you'd buy a PC for were different than consoles. Not to say there were no platformers on PC, but you were going with console if that was your biggest interest.
Simon_Shitewood 4 points 6 days ago
When I recommend Linux I always recommend Mint because it can be installed and set up by anyone who can read and follow half a dozen instructions. I don't often recommend Linux though, because the average user won't even read an error message before giving up.
Simon_Shitewood 2 points 6 days ago
When I recommend Linux I always recommend Mint because it can be installed and set up by anyone who can read and follow half a dozen instructions. I don't often recommend Linux though, because the average user won't even read an error message before giving up.
nitrolife 9 points 6 days ago
because it's pretty hard to recommend anything you don't use. Seeking advice on a distribution in geek forums, therefore, is a losing plan right from the start. It's smarter to install whatever you want and then come to the forums with your problems.
psx_crab 6 points 6 days ago
"I heard distro xyz is really beginner friendly, i didn't use it though so i can't give you much advice on that." is pretty simple.
Maybe adding "...i'm using distro C btw" at the end if you truly want to feels important.
SaharaMaleikuhm 2 points 6 days ago
That's alright, I've used them all. Don't ask me about Fedora cause I will shit on Red Hat for the rest of my life. This also includes stuff like Bazzite by extension.
psx_crab 2 points 6 days ago
It gives people place to start with, and since you're in that comminity you would very likely heard some recommendation. There were a time Google will recommend people PopOS where they're undergoing changes that makes the OS so buggy to use and not user friendly at all, as a human person that participated or heard discussion about it, you will most likely tell new comer to steer clear from it. Google won't do that.
"Just google this" is definitely the worst way to treat people who just want an easy recommendation in a sea of choices.
Sordid_Seraphim 1 point 4 days ago
How about "I personally use this distro but it's probably a bit much for you to handle. I hear Mint is beginner friendly so maybe consider checking their forum for advice."
Asfalttikyntaja 2 points 6 days ago
Nah, adding βI use Arch BTWβ is something youβre seeing in Reddit all the time. I found it hilarious, didnβt realize how literally it was taken here. I would add that actually I have used Mint for ages, but I donβt want to make you think that I want to feel important.
TeaWithDani 3 points 6 days ago
Because most Linux users online are posers who only use their computers to run update commands.
mobyduck648 2 points 6 days ago
Nah, poser was my teenage self installing it on my first gen iPod nano despite not knowing so much as what cat or mv does.
TeaWithDani 1 point 6 days ago
Played lots of Tik-Tac-Toe. Ai played nearly perfect games everytime.
psilotop 2 points 5 days ago
Yeah, I totally agree. The only thing I can guess, aside from people just being assholes, is that someone with many years of experience is only thinking of what they liked after gaining that experience.
For example, if someone learned with Debian and then moved on to Arch, they think Arch is "better" and I think they are telling others to not waste their time on Debian. They are totally ignoring the fact that they spent quite a bit of time learning before they moved on and they are advising that a newcomer skip to what they perceive as "the end."
Asfalttikyntaja 3 points 5 days ago
I think you overestimate skills of the average computer user. Most of them donβt even know how to install operating system, even that Windows which came with their own computer. Thatβs why you shouldnβt recommend them any distro which is easy for average Linux user. They need something very simple and easy for the start up.
perviouslyiner 2 points 6 days ago
Even Debian is a lot harder to use than Mint if you want things like the login page recognising your external monitor and realising that it should be your primary monitor before logging in, especially if a KVM means that it wasn't attached when you first booted. Or wanting that setup to persist after an nvidia driver update. There's just so much stuff that a user-focused distro can make easy that most distros don't make easy!
psycholocomotor 1 point a day ago
And the cat computer the tiger has.
skisnow 55 points 6 days ago
In the mailing list and usenet days, people would tell you to RTFM if your question was answered anywhere in the documentation, and Linux was a thousand times harder to install back then. Never mind DMAs and IRQs, you had to manually write config files specifying the geometry and refresh rate of your monitor.
UnderpantsWeevil 21 points 6 days ago
people would tell you to RTFM if your question was answered anywhere in the documentation
Modern day internet techies will snear at you for using AI assist tools when setting up an environment. But by god, do these agents not save me endless hours of trying to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls of system configuration.
RTFM only works when the documentation is high quality and easy to follow. Better yet, if you know the manual so well, just link me to the damned chapter I'm supposed to focus in on. I'm trying to set up an *arr stack, not become a sysadmin team lead at a Fortune 500 company.
Never mind DMAs and IRQs, you had to manually write config files specifying the geometry and refresh rate of your monitor.
In fairness, a lot of those config files were relatively easy to write. I'll take that over hunting through forty different nearly-identical screens in a custom configured BIOS.
Sabata11792 17 points 6 days ago
You can search the ancient scrolls for an eternity or consult the all knowing shoggoth that may melt your brain or lie.
UnderpantsWeevil 13 points 6 days ago
Listen, I'm not saying Ya hai kadishtu ep r'luh-eeh Nyogtha eeh, s'uhn-ngh athg li'hee orr'e syha'h. But I get it.
Sabata11792 8 points 6 days ago
K'yarnak li llll kadishtu, ngnah ah'lw'nafh Iiahe azathoth?
percent 5 points 6 days ago
I've been using a local Qwen3.8 model as a NixOS sysadmin lately for a non-critical VPS. So far, it has been working surprisingly well! I guess it's easier for AI agents to gather context when the whole system and apps are defined in code, and immutable when applied.
TehWorld 1 point 5 days ago
I've been wanting to do this, even as a testbed. I just want computers to do cool shit, and am getting tired of being a Linux sysadmin in my free time. How large of a model do you have assigned to this?
percent 2 points 4 days ago
Just Qwen3.8-27B. That little model is surprisingly smart.
NixOS also gives you the ability to roll back to previous config versions. I have not needed to do that (yet), but it reduces some risk.
IjonTichy 11 points 6 days ago
Later you had to uninstall pulse audio so sound worked. And recompile WIFI drivers with every Kernel update. Today though I can very much relate I don't want my OS to need more attention than maybe rebooting for updates once a month. That's what made macOS successful. Linux Desktop has become usable in that regard, now even vsync sometimes works.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA 4 points 6 days ago
wait you did? aww writing bootdisks was my favorite part of the 286 era.
EuroNutellaMan 3 points 5 days ago
A little while ago I observed a discussion between some GhostBSD user and some FreeBSD user and I genuinely couldn't tell if they were being assholes to each other or if that's just normal way to handle communication for them
wols 30 points 6 days ago
Ok, hear me out.
It's obvious that not everyone has the same needs and that new users are likely to be overwhelmed by instructions/tools that are highly technically involved, BUT
I think it's actually quite valuable for others to question whether you actually want what you think you do, especially if you're inexperienced. You know, the whole "you don't know what you don't know" spiel?
It's still usually most helpful to get answers to the question you actually asked, but there's a decent chance you will learn valuable context from suggestions that are only tangential and you might even realize that there are much better solutions to your problem, you just didn't have the framework to even imagine them.
Nosavingthrow 18 points 6 days ago
There is a solution. Tell a person the answer to their question while also calling into question if they actually need what they are asking for. This cat wants to start hunting Mice. So that could go something like, "It's great that you're getting into hunting. Mice are an excellent place to start if you're a house cat. Have you tried waiting outside of their hole? When I hunt elk, I creep up slowly on them when they are unaware. Mice are quite small game, but this might work for them too. Have you considered hunting elk?"
InputZero 8 points 6 days ago
Dude that's not how I was brought up in the Linux community. If you don't discourage the kids today how will they respect your authority tomorrow? No better to destroy their egos now so they won't be competition later. The LINUX community really died when we stopped being jerks to n00bs.
tl;dr - You're too dumb.
/S
onlinepersona 25 points 6 days ago
The Arch and NixOS users feel attacked.
rozodru 2 points 6 days ago
I use the dendritic approach for my NixOS configuration. put everything in individual modules. then I go back and further cut up those modules to be even more specific. It's gotten so bad I even have modules for almost every individual WM/DE to just turn them on and off within the flake. They're just so fun to build. it's addictive. I need help.
dihutenosa 3 points 6 days ago
Migrating the rest of my boxen to flakes rn. Kindly keep it quieter out there, folks, you're making it hard to hear the HDD to see if the nixos-rebuild actually uses the cache.
MystikIncarnate 21 points 5 days ago
This isn't limited to Linux. There's a ton of "why would you want to do that?" Type unhelpful comments everywhere.
ZILtoid1991 9 points 5 days ago
When I wanted to write my own game engine in 2015, people just directed me to Unity. Some people even said that unless I want to work for some company that actually develops the engines, I don't need to learn API or anything like that. It took a while to people to point me in the direction of SDL for input and displaying a framebuffer (back then I used CPU rendering, as almost no one cared about pixel alignment, hence why my engine is called PixelPerfectEngine).
DaGreenGobbo 18 points 6 days ago
Tbf hyaenas do a lot of their own hunting. I believe I've read that lions more often pillage from hyaenas than vice versa.
Down with lion propaganda, I say!
Nowtayneicangetinto 15 points 6 days ago
Reddit fucking blows
AnimalsDream 12 points 6 days ago
I've been meaning to give PikaOS a try cause I'm generally a Debian preferrer, but one thing we really need is a Mint that's been given the Cachy-style treatment. Most new users right now are doing it for the games, so combining the most user-friendly distro with gaming optimizations would be pretty much ideal.
megopie 1 point 4 days ago
I mean, my main machine that I play games on runs mint and I donβt have any real complaints about it. Like, maybe I could squeeze a bit more performance out of it, but most things are running smooth enough for my taste.
Plenty of people are more picky and insist on running things at 240 FPS at 4k for a title that just came out, but, I think most people probably wouldnβt notice a significant difference between games on mint or games on catchy. Maybe a few cases where something peculiar about a specific game makes it chug.
AnimalsDream 1 point 4 days ago
In my experience there is a pretty noticeable difference, but it probably has more to do with my specific setup. I was running Debian 13 with Gnome previously, and kept noticing weird performance hiccups in Final Fantasy 16. So I gave Cachy a try with Plasma, and the performance was a night and day difference.
I probably could have tinkered with things and gotten the same results in Debian, but the point is that I didn't have to.
iuseasahibtw 11 points 6 days ago
Install Gentoo, it's easy and updates are simple
selokichtli 10 points 5 days ago
I'm glad I often see people recommending Linux Mint for newcomers. Maybe I didn't understand the OP.
AnimalsDream 10 points 6 days ago
It's too bad Ubuntu went to shit, because there is one thing that's nice about choosing it as your first distro: their version numbers are the date, which makes it really easy to remember exactly when you first started using Linux distros. April 2010 in my case.
But no, just go with Mint these days. Everything good about Ubuntu, none of the bad.
FjordDan 7 points 6 days ago
Another nice thing about Unbuntu was that searching for "Ubuntu your-problem-here" usually gave good results. Sometimes it could be a 10 year old forum post that was still relevant.
Searching for "Linux Mint your-problem-here" is more likely to give less relevant results.
AnimalsDream 7 points 6 days ago
True, but Mint is close enough to Ubuntu that what solutions work for Ubuntu will likely work for Mint as well with little or no modifications.
SpatchyIsOnline 5 points 6 days ago
Mint might be easier to recommended in their next major release, but being stuck on x11 when all the optimisations are being made for Wayland (not to mention features a lot of new users might expect like HDR and fractional scaling). They've also recently had a problem with shipping outdated packages and leaving the repo/support links as is, leading to users reporting bugs which were fixed months or even up to a year ago.
They're working on all of that to their credit, and their next release should fix most of those problems, but I'm hesitant to recommended Mint right now
ZILtoid1991 9 points 6 days ago
Nowadays:
"I'm about to start hunting mice, any tips?"
"Ask HumanGPT to do it."
"Bro, you need to start agentic hunting by yesterday, if you don't want to be part of the permanent underclass. Sign up to our webinar on prompt hunting at , the first few classes are free."
TankovayaDiviziya 8 points 6 days ago
For a normie like me, i stick with Bazzite.
Bluewing 5 points 6 days ago
I've been at this Linux thing for maybe 20 years now. I've tried more distros than I can remember.
And after running Kinonite and Aurora for almost 2 years now, I tend to recommend any Atomic based distro or spin for newbies. They are stable and solid. While still allowing for users to easily choose their own software and install it with very little worry of burning the house down.
And Bazzite fits right in there. Easy install and it works well for gaming. Or choose Aurora if you are looking for a "regular" desktop experience, (that's me). And they take care of your video card drivers because you choose your video card when you download the ISO.
Mint is nice and I will recommend it also, but Atomics are the way forward for newbies and those that either don't want to tinker anymore or those that aren't at that "Lemme see what it takes to break this" point.
bilb 2 points 6 days ago
Same here! I started with Lycoris back in 2003, I'm very experienced with many different distros. The universal blue distros (Aurora, Bazzite) are my preference these days. You get the benefits of the atomic host and they aren't actually restrictive at all once you get comfortable using containers for software that you can't easily install with flatpak or brew.
utnapishtim 5 points 6 days ago
Bazzite is the best
manuremy 4 points 6 days ago
Yeah I just booted my main PC first with Gnome Bazzite (oopsies) and then again with KDE version.. Works well, no notes. All my games, musics, discs, whatever, works. LMDE is great on my old-ass laptop tho.
gera 3 points 6 days ago
I don't really want to be the tiger but what do you do on immutable distros when you want to e.g. compile a C program from source (say, an SDL game). I always thought being able to easily install popular libraries from package manager a huge advantage of Linux over windows and mac.
gera 2 points 6 days ago
Well I can see a newcomer finding a program they want to run on github and there are instructions for compiling the program for e.g. Ubuntu which if they were Fedora user they would be able to adapt to themselves without much trouble. But since they are using a distro that decided that installing packages globally is bad for some reason they are very much on their own. Sure I think it's possible and there are methods documented somewhere (and maybe it's even better practice than installing dependencies from package manager), but it seems unlikely that anyone in the program's community can help unless they have experience with immutable distros.
I just wonder what are the benefits for which people are chosing distros that so deviate from what most other Linux users use.
Simon_Shitewood 1 point 6 days ago
It's easy enough, it's just a pain in the arse to update anything once changed. The simple answer is that most users never run into that situation. The average Bazzite user would still be on windows if it didn't actively get in the way of just playing videogames, so they're not even exploring the Bazaar, never mind compiling something from source. Steam and Firefox come preinstalled, they might install Discord and Heroic, and that's them set. Immutability means they can just play their games without disturbances.
Bazzite users that do have problems with its immutability just move to a mutable distro, but most computer users who need a mutable distro are already on Linux. The new wave of OS migration is coming from Linux being easier to engage with than ever before and Windows being the worst it's ever been, not people with a particular interest in the OS and computing. They want something that Just Works without the Apple price tag.
lightnsfw 1 point 6 days ago
I chose bazzite because it had all the gaming shit included and I wanted to get some experience with a known good configuration before I tried starting from scratch. So far I haven't ran into any problems other than the install script someone made to get my 3d printer working with cura doesn't work. I think I can manually put the files where they need to go but wasn't able to figure it out when I tried a few weeks ago.
Macaroni_ninja 3 points 6 days ago
Bazzite can provide a full user experience for 99% of the user base, who just want to get rid of Microsoft. Probably most of them would need to search the web to find out what it means to compile programs.
bilb 3 points 6 days ago
It's a good question, and it has a definitive answer: Distrobox.
You can also run applications from within the container. I have a Debian based container (but you can use whatever you prefer, I just happened to find a guide for getting jetbrains IDEs working well with a Debian one) with the Jetbrains suite installed and all of the development tools I need.
Since getting comfortable using distrobox, I prefer to use it for dev environments even when I'm not using an atomic distro. It doesn't add any additional friction.
the_riviera_kid 2 points 6 days ago
Bazzite really does "just work", it's so awesome.
TheRagingGeek 1 point 6 days ago
I wish I had that experience, but I suppose it serves me right by being a complicated dude, Iβm used to my stream deck software and I just got myself an xlr microphone, setting up all the broken out streams of audio was a bit of a mess and some of it I have to repeat every time, like Everytime I launch overwatch I have to replumb it to push audio to the game sink instead of system, while all other apps generally know their place on restart, then there was a bunch of work I put towards trying to read from my xlr stream using some plugin off of GitHub but the sandboxing is giving me nightmares because it needs hardware access to the audio stack. I just left that part alone for now because it already cost me an entire evening wrestling it when I was looking to have fun, Iβll get back to it eventually. Meanwhile my Gentoo server, my 2 Ubuntu servers, and my Linux mint machine(for my wife) all were fairly no muss no fuss.
the_riviera_kid 2 points 6 days ago
I had the same complaint about auto mounting internal drives and the stupid KDE wallet system, both of those things got fixed at some point. Given enough time I'm sure your issues will be figured out as well. I will say that audio support does really suck at the moment though. I gave up on using my surround sound system for the time being.
LucidNightmare 8 points 6 days ago
I've had more bad experiences trying to enjoy new things in new communities than good experiences. I think that is more to just how shit my luck is, but it still sucks when I'm just trying to enjoy something with others online. :-/
LucidNightmare 4 points 6 days ago
Thank you. It seems so hard to find like-minded people on the internet for me. I've tried and tried and tried over the years and just never felt welcome anywhere online with others who might share my interests.
Couple this with IRL issues finding those people, and it can be lonely at times.
Thank you for your comment, it's hard to not feel like a "me" issue, but comments like yours help to alleviate that feeling. :'-]
LucidNightmare 3 points 6 days ago
Thank you!
I have been here on Lemmy since Reddit killed Apollo (3rd party API fiasco), and for Linux I have been using it mainly for gaming since 2024 I believe?
I moved over to Linux when I saw how good the Steam Deck was running emulators and thought "Why the hell not try it out on my desktop?".
I started with openSUSE, but learned last year near Christmas that maybe it was a little too bleeding edge for a newbie like me who just wants to game as their only real use case for the gaming desktop.
I'm on Fedora now almost a year in, and am enjoying it more that it isn't as bleeding edge as SUSE, but still more updated than Debian for my more modern games that I like to try out.
How about you? If that's okay to ask? I realize a comment section on a meme page may not be the ideal place, but conversations are always welcome. :-]
pyr0ball 2 points 5 days ago
Oh I've been self-hosting since 2009, switched to Linux in 2011, finally ditched Windows as a daily driver last year when I picked up a Legion Go and got it loaded up with steam OS.
I've distro-hopped quite a lot between then and now, but funny enough I ended up landing where I started when recommending a newbie friendly distro: mint with kde plasma. That's my desktop daily driver now. I've tried bleeding edge in many different flavors and always end up finding I can start from a stable baseline and customize the kernel and modules as needed. Now I've got all my favorite emulators and recompiled games working flawlessly, and I've started working on a decomp of my own for an old Windows 98 game. I've already successfully ported it and fixed a few runtime bugs, trying to get it fully stable before I start remastering it in godot.
Server-side, I tend to stick with either Debian or Rocky and build on top of those.
LucidNightmare 1 point 5 days ago
How was Linux back in 2011? I first tried Linux in about 2012 or so with Manjaro (LOL) and then moved over to ElementaryOS as the laptop I was trying Linux on was old and thought it would run better. It still borked eventually as did Manjaro, but that was probably more to do with me definitely not understanding anything I was doing!
I think Mint will be my next distro if anything goes wrong with Fedora, which again, would probably be due to my newb skills with Linux more than the software itself. If I wanted to game on Mint, and play games such as the new Witcher 3 remaster or say the upcoming Fable game, how would I make sure it is capable of playing those games with the kernel and modules you mentioned? Just for future reference!
I'm intrigued by the Win98 game! What game is it? I think it is VERY cool that you are decomping and then remastering on the Godot engine. :-]
ian 7 points 6 days ago
This is partly down to human nature. Some people make it easy for newbies and listen to them. And others get off on talking down to people. For them, a newbie is a great target. Worse if that newbie is not there to learn to be an IT pro. Just wants to use Linux as a user.
For example, just ask for a GUI solution to a problem, and you will see some CLI pros rush to answer. Even though they have no clue about the relevant GUI nor about usability. Thank them and say you really are looking for the GUI solution, and you will sometimes get a diatribe about that Linux is all about the power of the CLI, and it goes on to get quite tedious and gatekeepery. For some, the rejection is a trigger.
If you are an IT pro, you might not encounter this if you don't specifically ask for the GUI way. And maybe come to believe the community is all wonderful.
LucidNightmare 1 point 6 days ago
I'm someone who just prefers a GUI. I can do CLI for small things, but when it comes to ease of use, GUI all the way.
aSaabD00d 7 points 6 days ago
I'm a beginner with linux but intermediate/advanced with windows and so far I've got limited experience with bazzite, cachyos, and linux mint. I think any of those 3 are easy enough for anyone to start with.
Grail 7 points 6 days ago
Chat, I need help. Since a couple updates ago, CaxhyOS isn't focusing on Proton applications properly. If I click on a Proton window, it doesn't actually focus it unless I first minimise all applications, or then minimise another application. It's super annoying for alt-tabbing fullscteen games, since I have to go to the desktop before going into a game.
Curiously, I don't think it happens with Bitburner, which lately I've had running all the time. So maybe it's only happening with the second game I launch at a time? Not sure.
Turret3857 4 points 6 days ago
What WM/DE are you using?
(i have no idea if I can help you but this is probably a helpful question for someone who can)
rtxn 0 points 6 days ago
Didn't KDE just start accepting vibecode?
Try running the applications inside Gamescope. It uses a separate toplevel window that shouldn't be affected by whatever Proton is doing.
You could also try either enabling or disabling Wayland in Proton: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Wine#Wayland
It could also be a quirk of whatever Proton version you're using. Try GE-Proton, Proton-EM, or an older version.
tal 3 points 6 days ago
Long shot, but Steam games, including Proton games, will typically have the Steam overlay up. I don't know how they implement the overlay, but if it's via some kind of floating transparent window, maybe it could interact oddly with focus in Kwin. Maybe try toggling the Steam overlay off, see if that does it?
JustAnotherKay 1 point 6 days ago
Is this all proton applications or have you only been playing one or a few games lately?
Sordid_Seraphim 5 points 6 days ago
I hunt Mice.
pressanykeynow 7 points 6 days ago
Ah xfce user
tal 1 point 6 days ago
!nya@piefed.blahaj.zone was leaking
quediuspayu 5 points 6 days ago
I'm thinking of trying something different from Mint, any tips?
quediuspayu 4 points 6 days ago
Not really missing anything, I just had a lot of stability issues lately and since I'm about to reinstall everything I feel like trying something different.
BurgerBaron 1 point 6 days ago
Depends why you are having stability issues to begin with. My issues with anything based on Debian with a specific computer were always hardware related for example. A problem I do not have with Fedora or anything Arch based.
quediuspayu 1 point 6 days ago
My main suspicion is that is SSD related, that poor thing is old, but I don't know, those crashes are quite random.
Ephera 12 points 6 days ago
In hopes of this question not being a practical joke π :
The desktop environment makes more of a difference than the distro. Switching distros will also give you a different desktop environment (because not much else uses the Cinnamon desktop environment that Mint uses), but yeah, you'll probably care the most about the desktop environment.
So, instead of choosing between distros, I would recommend choosing a desktop environment, for example look at KDE Plasma and GNOME Shell.
And then you can either:
- install it on Linux Mint in addition to Cinnamon. You will be able to switch between them from the login screen.
- Or you can pick a distro that offers your chosen desktop environment out of the box and switch to that distro.
I will say that option 2 is kind of 'cleaner'. It will be better tested and integrated, if it's officially supported by the given distro + you start from a clean slate where Cinnamon isn't also installed.
But yeah, I would actually recommend starting with option 1. You won't have to learn both a new desktop environment and distro at the same time. And it's less big of a step in that you can easily switch back, if desired.
As per usual, do make a backup whichever option you go with. Sometimes, it can cause problems to have two desktop environments installed, because they might edit the same config files, so it's good to be able to revert...
quediuspayu 5 points 6 days ago
Thanks, it was only a partial joke. I discovered years ago that the best support comes from meme communities. Whatever the issue is, make a meme or wait for a relevant one.
I'm having a lot of stability issues on Mint and Cinnamon lately and if I have to make a clean reinstall why not try something very different. I'd just like to reduce the distro hopping period as much as possible.
LucidNightmare 1 point 6 days ago
I switched from openSUSE to Fedora because SUSE was a little too bleeding edge for me.
If you're coming from Debian, Fedora will be right in the middle of bleeding edge and Debian stable.
I think. :-P
dan 6 points 6 days ago
The Debian version of Mint. :D
Most Linux distros have live DVDs that let you try it out without installing it... Try a few of the major distros and see what you like best? You could also install a few and dual-boot (multi-boot I guess?)
kolmaskommentoija 2 points 6 days ago
Same, I had a lot of performance issues with Mint, for some reason. It was using tons of memory, and then freeze crashing (it is an old laptop), no matter what I tried. I switched to Zorin, and now I do not have many issues, the memory consumption is a lot less even with fancy interface grapchics. I feel like Zorin also runs Windows-stuff a lot easier, with Mint I had complicated (for a beginner) wine issues from the start. It really boils down to, what ends up working for you, and your machine, in the end.
rockerface 2 points 6 days ago
I've been using Bazzite on my desktop PC for a little over a month now. I'm mostly using my PC for games, so it was a logical choice. It's also pretty stable because it's based on Fedora and has atomic releases, so you can easily roll back updates if they break something.
Bluewing 1 point 6 days ago
Look at Fedora perhaps. It's often the first steps into the wider seas of distro hopping, (if your into that sort of thing). You will get a stable distro with a good number of spins to try out and up to date software with regular upgraded versions every 6 months. The Atomic spins are super stable. The "regular" spins can be a good gateway to advance your skills a bit.
If you are a gamer, checkout Bazzite maybe. Bazzite makes gaming easy.
trashman 1 point 6 days ago
As a longterm ubuntu user, I lately dared to try cachyOS and so far it has been smooth sailing. I "just" had to learn how use pacman instead of apt (the package software manager).
One advantage of Mint: more drivers from third parties are available as deb packages, but my printer/scanner works with open drivers, too. Also there is AUR as a last resort (to my understanding).
MyNameIsRichard 3 points 6 days ago
Be careful with the AUR. Anybody can upload anything and there has been a lot of malware attacks of late. The best advice is to learn to read pkgbuilds and always check them before installing or updating something from the AUR. If in doubt, ask in the forum.
klymilark 1 point 6 days ago
Personally when I stopped using Ubuntu (this was years ago), I hopped around different Ubuntu distros for a long time. Probably a good place to start, especially since Mint is based on Ubuntu.
After that I used Garuda (fairly user friendly, does require some terminal usage), then Arch, then NixOS, back to Arch, and now I'm pretty happy with Gentoo.
My main piece of advice when doing this: Set up the install to use a separate /home partition. It makes things way easier. You keep all of your configurations and such, just have a different OS under the hood.
the_riviera_kid 4 points 6 days ago
Entirely inaccurate, there wasn't near enough baseless insults and wild assumptions.
Yaky 3 points 6 days ago
I usually see the opposite (on reddit of course):
"I want to run Kali on my phone, plz help".
"I am a Linux noob and went with Arch because I heard all the cool kids use it, now something bork".
"Which distro???" (same question was last asked 4 hours ago)
diaphragmwp 6 points 6 days ago
I can help.
First, install it. This depends on your distribution and package manager. apt, pacman, you name it, just search for "yt-dlp". Epic tech tip: do not install from flatpak or snap, because if you ever run into an issue the maintainers will hate you for it, and because it will be annoying (slightly different) to use in the former case. Important to note that sometimes your distribution will put some technically-optional component (that you probably still want) into a different package like yt-dlp-ejs. Regardless, you will probably want to install ffmpeg, curl and curl-cffi (sometimes called curl-impersonate) for all of the features.
If your distribution allows using pip (most don't), you may do python3 -m pip install -U "yt-dlp[default]" to install it (do the same to upgrade later).
Navigate your shell to the directory you want to put your video in (some file managers have "Open in {some terminal emulator}" in the right click menu, which does as it sounds).
Now, yt-dlp --embed-metadata -- video_id some_other_video_id (--embed-metadata is optional, it's so that someone who downloads the video will be able to read the description). Note the --, it tells yt-dlp that your options have ended and IDs have started, to prevent it from thinking an ID is an option. In extremely rare cases, the video ID may have an exclamation mark or an ampersand, which will fuck everything up. In that case, put \ in front of the symbol, right in the ID (like "dwQ&smshIt" turns into "dwQ\&smshIt"). If you are downloading from a service other than YouTube, paste your URL (with the same precautions) instead.
Welp, this is the basic usage. You can stop reading if it already did what you want.
This may sometimes save to an MKV file when it's impossible for it to be WEBM, which is good for video editors. Most web browsers don't understand it, however. So, if you want to share it online, you may want to instead do: yt-dlp --remux-video mp4 -- video_id to forcefully shove it up a .mp4 file. If you have only noticed later, you can also do: ffmpeg -i "video.mkv" -c copy -movflags +faststart "video.mp4" (and delete the old one).
This picks and downloads the highest quality format it detects. You can see the available formats for a given upload with yt-dlp -F -- video_id. It is a table with format numbers, video resolutions (and if HDR is present or not), audio frequencies and so on. Note that most only have video OR audio, but some have both. For YouTube, the objectively best audio is 251, and is present in basically all videos (and music!) since 2014. Available video depends; apart from resolution there's also the video codec. My ranking from best quality per filesize to least resource heavy to decode (for old phone users...): AV1, VP9, VP8, H264.
Now, you can specify the formats you want to put into your video like: yt-dlp -f "251+699" -- video_id. That's it. If you want to download from YouTube Music without the pointless video tracks, you may also do: yt-dlp -f 251 --embed-metadata --remux-video opus -- your-amazing-id-here.
Downloading age and/or account gated content, and content from some picky sites, is a little more tricky. Login to the service from Firefox, default profile and no containers (it's possible to use other profiles and containers but the syntax is annoying and you will have to dig around directories). Now, do yt-dlp --embed-metadata --cookies-from-browser firefox -- id. This will download using your account. Although this may also make the site refuse some formats and give you a piece of shit video. If it's not doing anything still, try adding --impersonate firefox. If you are really desperate, you may try installing Chromium, then logging in there and using --cookies-from-browser chromium --impersonate chrome.
Bonus tech tip: there's some basic support for the Wayback Machine. Try: yt-dlp --embed-metadata -- https://web.archive.org/web/0/https://youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc https://web.archive.org/web/0/https://youtube.com/watch?v=_jZXbhe6-rg.
tal 1 point 6 days ago
If your distribution allows using
pip(most don't)
Either create a venv for the python package in question ($ python -m venv venv in the package build directory) and activate it ($ . venv/bin/activate in the package build directory) before running the program or running pip commands, or use pipx instead of pip).
diaphragmwp 2 points 6 days ago
Or --break-system-packages, then never run as root and run rm ~/.local/lib/python* to clear.
BladeFederation 2 points 6 days ago
This isn't entirely wrong, but sometimes you should just do the thing you want to do in the first place. For example, MOST distros are "new user friendly" these days. Mint is cool, but you don't need to go to Mint first if you want to use, say, CachyOS. Rolling distros I've found to be actually EASIER to deal with. Literally just update regularly and you're good. Don't have to reinstall for an upgrade, or have outdated software with bugs that were patched 2 years ago. Obviously yeah, there are distro where you have to do or customize everything like Arch, Gentoo, or LFS, but most people don't ever want to build up to that in the first place. If it has the featured you want, just try it. Nix is maybe one of the exceptions, but at the same time it's so different so you're not going to get a ton of transferrable skills from an easier distro anyway.
bumblefumble 1 point 6 days ago
How many lions and buffalo coexist? Surely it would be more likely to hunt an antelope or similar.
tal 1 point 6 days ago
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
Hunting by male lions: ecological influences and socioecological implications
The main prey species of all male group types, but particularly nonterritorial males, was buffalo. By contrast, females preyed more frequently on the most abundant medium-sized ungulates, such as wildebeest,Connochaetes taurinus, and zebra,Equus burchelli.
bumblefumble 2 points 6 days ago
Fair enough, I was thinking of bison, not true buffalo. That's on me.
reksas 1 point 6 days ago
at least with llm one can always get some help. not necessarily good help and maybe even be misdirected by ones own misconceptions that the llm could reinforce. But with little things like what some obscure thing that is obvious to experienced users is, or how to do something not too complicated.
But i wouldnt rely on it to troubleshoot arcane problems, did that myself and later it turned out the problem was somewhere completely different i thought and it "suggested". I think it proposed at some point the problem could be where it actually was but i was convinced it couldnt be that and i thought i had ruled it out myself earlier. Then i noticed much later that i missed something when i tested things to rule out that particular source of problem. I guess one could still use it to get information on how to gather information yourself, that might be relevant to someone who actually knows something. And it could do some analyzing on logs and other system information files to find patterns human couldnt find without a lot of expertise.
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