wHiCh DiStRo ShOuLd I uSe FoR gAmInG??
10mon 29d ago by lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/dataprolet in linuxmemes from lemmy.dbzer0.com
I think the whole works part is the most important part, Linux can be janky (and by that I mean obsolete information and deprecated or outdated packages are often recommended and there are a thousand different ways to do anything with only one of them actually working (don't have an aneurysm)) on the best of days, If something just works you can change what you want later.
This is why I switched to Mint. It just works. It's broken less than vanilla Ubuntu did. So thats what I use.
Yeah. Generally when I'm using a Linux PC to work on something, I don't want to be fixing the PC itself too. And we make an embedded Linux product at work, so it's not like I miss out on the fun, lol.
I use Mint everywhere. It works great. Being easier for newcomers to use and having an extra layer of polish does not restrict my use of the command line or scripting.
I haven't seen this classic in a long while...
I recently scooped up a pack of rage faces and old memes and threw them into my Immich instance. Now searchable classics ondemand.
anything but Ubuntu tbh.
I won't use Ubuntu Desktop now, but I used it for 6 years: 16 to 22, and loved it for many reasons. I left it for two reasons:
- Snaps
- Trying to get bridged networking going for VMs in Boxes ended up wrecking my network settings and I couldn't get them back to normal. With more expertise I could have probably fixed it, but I realised it's too easy to do things that I can't fix.
So, I went to NixOS for the declarative setup. It's not always easy especially for niche cases , but at least I always have a working backup. Yes, there are other options, but I like NixOS so I plan to stick with it for now.
My kids use Bazzite and I like that too.
This is crazy. You shouldn’t use Ubuntu for anything desktop related. There’s nothing vanilla about vanilla Ubuntu.
(Custom Gnome extensions, patches on top of Gnome, custom sandbox packages that don’t always work, custom apt that refuses to install the real packages in place of snaps, paywalled security patches, should I keep going?)
Except I have no trouble replacing snaps. I only replace them when there is a need. I always add gnome extensions to mine. I like a little extra and I get it easily with ubuntu. If you are a individual user you can get the ESM updates for free and I do.
When one of the other distros demonstrates anything that I cant get with ubuntu I will move on. Until then I'll keep using it because it keeps working.
When one of the other distros demonstrates anything that I cant get with ubuntu I will move on. Until then I'll keep using it because it keeps working.
You can’t get vanilla Gnome on Ubuntu. There are tons of other distros that will give you vanilla Gnome (they don’t put any of their own patches on top of Gnome).
But I think you were pretty clear that you don’t want vanilla Gnome, so if Ubuntu’s working for you, more power to you. I just wouldn’t recommend it to anyone new to Linux.
I don't like vanilla gnome. Like I said the first thing I do with any debian installation I work on is install extensions.
Extensions are one thing. Even if a distro comes with some Gnome extensions, you can just disable them. Ubuntu puts custom patches on the Gnome packages they ship. Those can’t be disabled, and they could potentially interfere with extensions that don’t expect them to be there. That’s my problem with Ubuntu’s approach to Gnome.
I understand that you don’t like vanilla Gnome, but I still wouldn’t recommend Ubuntu to anyone, especially noobs, as a desktop OS, because of the myriad issues with Canonical’s approach to modifying the source of the packages they ship.
It’s the same reason if anyone reports a bug to any of my software, and they say it happens on Ubuntu, I’ll disregard it unless they can replicate it on an OS that doesn’t patch their packages that way. Canonical is responsible for fixing the bugs their patches cause, and they’ve added tons of extra triage work to devs who have to determine whether Canonical fucked something up or there’s actually an issue with their code.
I totally get you don't like it but once again you are not giving me any reason why what you prefer is somehow better.
I’ve given you quite a few reasons, you just don’t care.
Let me put this really simply. Canonical fucks shit up with their patches. Users experience this as buggy software. Users file bug reports to the software. The bugs aren’t valid because the problem is with Canonical’s mess of patches. That is bad for me as the dev, because I have to triage that bug and determine that it’s Ubuntu, not my software. That is bad for you as the user, because software that works perfectly fine on any other system doesn’t work on yours. This is also bad for you because the devs that build the software you use have to waste their time tracking down Ubuntu bugs, instead of spending their time improving the software you use.
Maybe you don’t consider this a problem, because you’re used to how buggy Ubuntu is, or maybe you don’t use any software that Ubuntu has fucked up, but that is a problem that people experience, and if you don’t see that, that’s a you problem.
Also, I specifically didn’t mention “what I prefer”, because it doesn’t matter. Canonical is the only big Linux company that does this to an extent that devs waste their time on it. Any other big name distro is better than Ubuntu.
Your right I don't care. Fanatics care about things no one else does. I don't have many bugs with ubuntu and any that I do are usually trivial. You keep saying its bad but its not my experience. My experience started with Slackware. I still have a Slackware box that I still compile my own kernel on from time to time to keep in the know on kernel changes. I'm not by any metric an amateur. I'm sure some of these bugs seem unique and are a major problem for you.
I've tried mint and wasted my time with arch. I'm installed them all. I've even created my own. None of them have ever brought anything game changing to the table. I've seen bugs with every distro. Somehow to you these bugs are worse. I can clearly see they are similar to other distros and the bugs they have.
In reference to what you prefer. Its clear you don't prefer ubuntu and you have continually mentioned it. So don't pretend you don't have a preference. Disguising it as some general disdain on how canonical operates doesn't negate its clearly your preference. You will not change my mind and I don't want to change yours. You seem like you just can't take I don't care about how you see it any other way than personally.
Other linux companies? Of which I really only know of three in total all do things that people don't like
Red Hat(IBM) killed centos and I moved all my servers over to straight debian the week after their announcement. I didn't like it but I didn't foam at the mouth about it. They also clamped down on their sources so fedora is going to become increasingly obscure. Kind of like SCO became. They wont die that death but I look at Red Hat as a dead end.
SUSE has never been a distro I've used. No reason really. I always had other options. Their decisions were business ones and therefore unpopular to some.
Canonical is doing it their way and they are doing a good job. You can't deny that but Its clear you don't like it. I would really like you to stop generalizing and give me a specific bug they have out of the box that isn't tied to some specific hardware. I don't pay for ESM but I use it since I only have two Ubuntu machines that I use personally.
In the unlikely event anyone else bothers to read this. I will speak to you what I've said elsewhere in this thread. Find something you like and stick with it and don't let someone elses problem become yours.
I must have mistakenly given the impression that I’m a fanatic, or that I care about what other users (like yourself) use. I really don’t. To the extent that I care, it’s only because Ubuntu is a headache to me, even though I don’t use it. My problem with this conversation is that you keep asking (or more accurately, challenging) me to provide you with specific details, then when I do, you pretend like I’m trying to convince you not to use Ubuntu.
I’ve given you the reasons why I and other software developers don’t like Ubuntu and what you can get from other distros that you can’t get from Ubuntu, because you asked me to provide those details. I completely understand why those details don’t matter to you, because I’m assuming you’ve not experienced their negative effects. You asked me for details, and I figured that was because you wanted to learn someone else’s perspective. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
So no details just a vague dislike.
Take any topic about anything and you can find people who dislike it. You have given no details and only offered generalizations while never mentioning any other distros problems. Absolutely nothing I could go look at and confirm. I'm sure it seem definitive to you but the rest of us want something other than opinion. Specific doesn't mean the same thing to the rest of us.
Good day.
Serious question. Have you read anything I’ve said?
My partner is a luddite and needs help setting up a new cell phone, and had been avoiding linux because he thought it was just for programmers. I put Ubuntu on his machine back in '10, and he hasn't run into problems with it because he only uses Firefox and LibreOffice.
I do a lot on this machine. The last three days I've been compiling openwrt for a extreme ap. They are a cloud ap and eol. I've compiled a firmware for them and put in a custom initial config so they will be in ap mode and will work when they are plugged up at a router with no config. We have thirty of them at work and are donating them. I am almost done since I'm changing the ssid and passwords for each of them. I do a lot with ubuntu and it just works. I have little time for people that insist that its somehow garbage.
Kubuntu LTS (--minimal-install; no snap fuckery from the start) has been wonderful.
You could also just use Fedora KDE
The only thing that stops me from recommending Fedora and OpenSUSE more often is that there are still so many niche packages that are only offered as .deb (like Unreal Engine). Being forced to use unofficial community Flatpaks makes me uncomfortable and new converts aren't going to want to hear how they can compile something themselves, assuming that's an option.
You should not install random package files. That is a bad idea in general and creates instability and introduces security problems.
Um, acktually some of us went from vanilla Debian to Nobara to vanilla Debian.
I use arch, btw
A vegan, crossfit, arch user walks into a bar. Which do they tell you about first?
Their favorite IPA
And then which number of teeth they have on the cogs of their fixie.
But bro this one has a floral citrus flavor, and texture like water.
Fuck off. If I wanted lemonade I'd drink that.
What's with the arch user meme? Is it good or bad?
Somewhat bad. For bragging rights users have claimed that Arch is hard to install, which is actually easier than ever and only ever really required reading the installation guide. It's also known to occasionally break due to updates.
Kubuntu for modern systems, Xubuntu for older systems, Lubuntu for older, low-end systems with limited RAM, Ubuntu server for headless servers.
Stay mad, Ubuntu haters.
I'm fairly new to using Linux, is there an Ubuntu for every letter of the alphabet?
It depends on the desktop environment.
Ubuntu is the base version and uses GNOME.
Ubuntu + KDE (the most superior of all DEs) = Kubuntu
Ubuntu + XFCE = Xubuntu
I will now refer to base Ubuntu as Gubuntu
Gayness + Ubuntu
LGTBuntu
Not to be confused with LGBuntu, which is specifically for model railroading.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Gubuntu, is in fact, Gnome/Ubuntu, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNUbuntu. Ubuntu is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning Gnome system made useful by the Gnome libs, utilities and vital system apps comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the Gnome system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of Gnome which is widely used today is often called GNUbuntu, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the Gnome system, developed by the Gnome Project.
There really is a Ununtu, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Ubuntu is like he 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 Gnome desktop system: the whole system is basically GNU with Ubuntu added, or GNUbuntu. All the so-called Ununtu distributions are really distributions of GNUbuntu!
"Ubuntu GNOME" was a real thing for some time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_GNOME
And Lububtu for LXDE.
Which I used, before switching to dwm. Then dwm on Gentoo. Btw.
Gnome is honestly just kinda ass compared to KDE these days
honestly xfce is peak
XFCE is not good with a touchscreen like GNOME, it's peak with a mouse though. Still love you Xentucky Fried Cursor Environment.
No, just for different desktop environments.
Kubuntu is KDE, Xubuntu is XFCE, and Lubuntu is LXQt.
If that was a serious question: no, there isn't, there aren't that many desktop environments and many flavors of Ubuntu aren't named like this at all: https://ubuntu.com/desktop/flavors
No, it’s based off the DE used.
I quite like Kubuntu with the Snap-free minimal install. That said, Snaps are so bad and Canonical’s repos are so dangerous that I cannot recommend it to anyone any more. It’s a shame how greed has ruined Ubuntu.
Snaps do suck, but from a usability standpoint, you really can't ignore the fact that 99% of documentation assumes deb, and Ubuntu is generally more up to date than pure Debian. I don't like it myself, but it works and it's better than Windows.
Snaps are awesome, I need to be on 20.04, or 18.04 for humble, for ROS noetic and so being able to install generic snaps which are fully up to date with modern software is awesome.
I really like the concept of snaps and flatpak. I hope we keep improving them.
I use Ubuntu for ROS and work specific tasks, but I get the fuck out when I want to game. Ubuntu looks like a job to me. Just like Windows looks like a job to me.
But the thing is, that's just me. Can't imagine being mad at someone else for using it, but Ubuntu makes me irrationally mad because it's associated to work.
What is ros
Robot Operating System maybe? Might be an acronym for something else too, though.
Robotics OS, more like a subsystem to fit controlling sensors and motors
Where does fluxbuntu come in?
It was based on Fluxbox window manager, but pretty sure it's been discontinued for a long, long time.
I loved Fluxbox, which was over 20 years ago. I had completely forgotten about it.
New set of memories unarchived, thanks!
I still use Fluxbox today, it's great. So is Kamen Rider. ;)
Kamen Rider will always be great.
Henshin!
Edit: I started rewatching the series a few months ago and can't stop listening to the soundtracks again. l always loved Shunsuke Kikuchi's music and hadn't listened to it for far too long.
I actually started a personal project in June to watch the entire franchise in order, including the main movies and specials. Not sure about spin-offs yet, but I'm only 2/3 of the way through Kamen Rider X so I have a lot of time to decide, lol.
The original series's opening song is absolutely S-tier. I keep waiting for something to top it.
I use templeOS btw
A man of God surrounded by heathens
Our GNU which art in Linux
Hallowed be thy name
Thy source code run
Thy git pull done
On Localhost, as it is in the Cloud
Amen.
Licensed under the GPL-3
What does the Oracle say today?
Subscription price is increasing this autumn.
Surfs up
Yip but in greek-girls
I use fedora because I dont feel like waiting 6 years for new features ;P
Same. Tried bazzite, works fine, but immutable was annoying me for things like getting openvpn3 working (or anything involving more direct kernel stuff). Still use bazzite on my kid's pc and my laptop but switched to fedora for my desktop and it's been just right.
Ubuntu and Canonical can fuck allllllll the way off. If I had to go back to a dpkg based distro it'd have to be Debian bleeding edge... and honestly I'd probably bite the bullet and try Arch instead just because of Debian's release lag.
Ive tried Arch before and it wasn't for me. Having to find all the packages that work for my setup was a bit of a pain. I was 6 months in trying to print something, not realizing I didnt install CUPS and that was my breaking point lol. Its great for those who want it. Real on canonical tho.
Debian since 1998. No reason to change.
that should be their mission statement.
Use Debian. No good reason to change.
“You’ve done a lot of work to make this work. Do you really want more work?”™
I'm okay with it.
Consistent branding over multiple decades!
Debian gaming wasn't great when a lot of the landscape was changing (around 2016?) and even one of my very Debian friendly colleagues switched his gaming machine to Arch back then because getting the new stuff like AMD Vulkan drivers and DXVK running was really hard on Debian. Don't think he migrated that particular machine back since then.
Prior to bookworm making non-free easy and nvidia driver opening one could make some arguments.
These days, though, nothing compelling can be said to walk past Debian.
Yeah, but the post I replied to said "since 1998". That is prior to bookworm.
Personally, I don't care for it too much. Every time I try it (which is rare) something annoys me. "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE"s, deviation from upstream that renders official documentation less valuable. With Arch (which I don't use anymore), you can be pretty sure that what's on your machine is what's currently released by upstream. This refers both to version and the software itself. Remember cdrkit? xscreensaver? The weak OpenSSH keys? Sure, these must notable examples are from long ago, but there were just so many issues over the course of my "career" that the distribution for me is somewhat burned. Also because all of this could have been easily avoided.
Anyhow, use what you want, but it's for sure not my favorite distro.
What about Debian's inability to run Proton 10?
News to me. I'm running GloriousEggroll with proton 10...
With nvidia
Yeah, actually. The proprietary drivers unfortunately.
That's what beta is for right?
I've always enjoyed the tinkering. My gaming habits pretty much grew up with WINE. DXVK was very exciting!
Never been a stranger to compiling my own kernel or mucking about with DLL overrides.
The thing is, back then, for the stuff to work on Debian, you needed to
- compile your own newer kernel
- compile the new mesa that depended on that kernel
and with how frequent updates were, this was something you'd probably do multiple times per month – at this point, why bother with Debian when you need to compile all the packages yourself? Remember that was a gaming machine… so why bother with Debian and spend hours each month when with Arch, it was just a pacman -Syu followed by a reboot and you could try out all that fancy new stuff?
That really was not my experience. I didn't game much. WoW mostly. Some StarCraft. Minecraft. Online games. Debian unstable worked fine and I don't think I had to compile my own kernel (for gaming) at any point past 2005 or so.
The discussion was implicitly around the changes brought by Vulkan and DXVK which enabled playing Windows Direct3D (this part is important) 11 and later 9 games without performance penalty. You could previously play Windows Direct3D 9 titles using Gallium Nine if you had an AMD card, though this was a bit iffy.
WoW mostly.
That's OpenGL, so not affected.
Some StarCraft.
Not 3D even.
Minecraft.
Neither Windows nor Direct3D, but Java with OpenGL.
True, if all the games you played were OpenGL-accelerated, these changes didn't matter. But about 95% of games on the market weren't.
I'm glad you're here to tell me how my experience the last 30 years was. Thank you for enlightening me as to how my choices were wrong and how I was silently suffering.
I gamed on Debian. I was so wrong.
Not sure how you can read my comment that way, but you do you.
Consider not responding with all the reasons someone's lived experience is impossible in future.
Ubuntu sucks
You choose the worst option
It's not that bad but I feel like fedora's probably a better option
Installed 24.04 this week. On the second day my graphical interface was completely borked. Bare in mind I only installed the usual things I need like neovim, appimage support, compilers, etc.
I've used the same installation of Arch, Fedora and Suse on different machines for years in a row without an issue
Why was is borked?
It seems 24.04 is not compatible with the FUSE package provided and you should instead install libfuse2
Why?
Canonical is focused on servers and the cloud. Ubuntu lacks quality controls and does things differently than many other Linux systems which leads to instability. I've seen people complain about gnome but in reality they are complaining and Ubuntu gnome not stock. Ubuntu also uses netplan instead of network manager and doesn't have as much systemd integration.
Snap is also it's own special form of hell. It runs as root as daemon and is slow to do anything. It also forces auto updates and takes control when you try to do anything with apt. It is much heavier than Flatpak and you are forced to get your apps from it.
The sad part is that 15 years ago Ubuntu was actually pretty solid. They have just slowly lost relevance as they move the focus to things that make actual money.
Thanks for explaining! I am currently on kubuntu, because after some testing different distros, it had the best kde plasma 6 experience with less bugs then the others. Iam not really an ubuntu fan, but it just worked best as an kde distro.
As for snap, I don't know any backgrounds of it. But I had several problems with flatpaks and the same program in snap worked. It was mostly random small stuff like, Signal does not show notifcation bages or copy paste that did not work in remmina. In Both situations lots of debugging didn't help, but switching to the snap package did. Could be a kde/flatpak/kubuntu issue of course. Auto update (for some specific) applications can be good I think and I can understand thats not the vibe that the typical linux person wants. As of the overall anti snap hype I started with just flatpaks, but they aren't as golden as they are sold.
Fedora on the right tbh. Even when you chill and get wisdom Canonical and Snap are just a bit too far.
Fedoras where it's at!
Mint, because Ubuntu Cinnamon sucks
Ewbuntu
Legitimate question as I'm gonna move from Windows 10 within the next couple months. Is there something wrong with Bazzite or Nobara? I had narrowed my decision down to those two since they seem to be an easy transition, they do the things I need, and they're popular enough that I can probably find fixes to any issues I experience. I pushed off my plan to build a desktop, but I still have an aging laptop that is losing security support in a couple of months.
Also, my wife needs Excel specifically for school. Can Excel work on these distros or are there just good alternatives? She might need to keep a Windows 10 partition just for Excel stuff if she can't run it in Bazzite or whatever she picks.
Edit:
Thanks everybody for responses! School is not flexible about using Excel specifically, and she has to share her screen during exams to show that she's just using regular Excel. It's not a hill we're willing to die on lol.
We aren't super interested in doing anything beyond gaming and basic browsing type stuff with our computers, so I'm not sure that Bazzite being immutable really means anything to us. There were some good tips like a /home partition to easily swap distros when needed without losing everything, plus some people pointed out that some of these distros come and go over time so it would be harder to find fixes and continue getting updates if we get too entrenched in something that won't be around much longer.
Overall, I don't think we'll be too picky. We just want a pretty simple process to get something that's like an unbloated Windows, and we don't want to rip our hair out looking for a new distro and starting over every six months. Most people are not power users. I can do pretty much all of my computer stuff on my phone and all of my gaming on my PlayStation, so I really won't notice the difference between most of these recommendations probably.
I landed on Mint because it's a simple no fuss distro that feels familiar to Windows refugees. I game on it just fine and use my computer for a lot of things so wanted something general. I bounced off Ubuntu because it has some decisions that are trying to protect you from actually learning Linux, which is a priority to me.
As a professional spreadsheet pusher, I can confidently say that LibreOffice (the Linux version of MS Office) has been able to do everything I needed that word/excel can, and then some.
But really any distro will be able to install the software you need, and it's easy to switch. Just try it and have fun.
Nothing wrong with them, surely better than Ubuntu, despite the meme.
I went from Nobara to Bazzite and it feels way more polished, although the immutable thing may not be for everyone
Bazzite over Nobara, IMO.
Those distros are fine, I haven't heard anything bad about them. The only distros I wouldn't recommend are Ububtu and Manjaro (I can explain why if you want).
About Excel, it doesn't work on Linux unfortunately. But you have some options. You can try LibreOffice and OnlyOffice (you can install them on Windows to try them out before switching) and see if they're enough for your needs. There's also a web version of Excel which you can use in your browser but it doesn't have all the features. If you really need Excel, you can also try using a virtual machine with Windows and run it inside of that but dual booting might be easier for you at that point.
OpenOffice has been effectively abandoned. All of the original devs work on LibreOffice now.
I meant to write OnlyOffice 😭
But thanks for pointing it out, I fixed it
Another option for Excel is running it using Wine. A lot of Windows games run on Wine, which also means that things like Excel run well too.
From what I understand MS Office is notorious for not working well at all in Wine. The only ones thst I have seen evidence of running consistently in Wine are older ones like Office 2000-2007. 20-some year old products are probably simply not current enough to be useful.
I think the better bet would be dual booting or better yet virtualization.
From what I understand, it's still an excellent choice. It's well supported and decent for new users.
Can you look into if the online version of Excel works for your wife? That might simplify your install. Libre Office and OnlyOffice are decent alternatives, but they might not map 1:1 with the instructions she gets from school.
Bazzite is fantastic, but because the system is immutable, you can’t just install packages like you can with other distros. This makes it very stable and very secure, but it also means you need to take extra steps if you want to get creative with your system. If you are already familiar with Docker and containers, then you can do anything you want that way, if there isn’t already a flatpak available. As a last resort, you can also use rpm-ostree to create new layers, but if you go that route you need to understand how to use ostree since eventually you will need to fix those layers manually.
Bazzite is an immutable distro, and it expects you to install all your programs through containers. Not all software works with these containers, but like 99.9999% does. I'm a weirdo who wants the deepest of hardware monitoring tools and many of them don't work with these containers. I haven't used Nobara yet but it doesn't appear to be immutable and based on regular Fedora so it shouldn't have those issues.
excel
It may run through wine, and I'd test that out before fully committing. Worst case if that's the ONLY thing you need you could do a VM. But would the cloud (web) version of office work for her? If you're already paying for office 365 then I believe you get it included.
The main reason why I would steer newcomers away from the likes of Bazzite or Nobara is because I don't think they're going to last long. CachyOS has sprung up just as I was starting to hear less and less about Nobara. They get trendy as THE distro for newbies to install because it has a gimmick or two aimed at newcomers, which will inevitably get rolled into the mainstream, fixed, rendered obsolete or otherwise dealt with in the mainstream within a couple years anyway, then it's off to the next one.
Who here remembers PeppermintOS being the hottest thing?
Staying power is an important and under-rated consideration for sure. Particularly as they get popular and the team behind it needs to be more serious about updates and such (if they aren't already).
I've had a much better experience with OnlyOffice compared to LibreOffice in terms of MS compatibility, and it's a Flatpak so it should have no issues running under Bazzite.
Both are great, as is Fedora, the one that both are based on.
Nobara had some issues updating correctly for me, but I haven’t seen anyone else express that, so I don’t think it’s a common thing.
Bazzite is really gaming focused, so it’s harder to do general purpose computing on it than a desktop OS.
But they are both great OSes, and really you should just try out a bunch of them and pick the one you like the most. They’re free after all.
Nobara had some issues updating correctly for me, but I haven’t seen anyone else express that
This is why I stopped using it. I could never find anyone else with the same issue or any advice on it either. Glad to find out it wasn't just me after all
I usually get downvoted for this since it's not open source, but WPS Office is free and basically an exact ms office clone. I use it regularly moving files between my work laptop with windows
I'm not familiar with the above distros, but I'm pretty certain there's more people on Ubuntu which helps a lot with troubleshooting and finding solutions online. One option is, when installing any Linux OS, is to create a separate partition for "home/". that way, you can reinstall any other Linux based OS, and keep most of your files installed.
Excel doesn't work on Linux, but LibreOffice and Google sheets do.
Honestly, most people keep a Windows partition anyway. I have one for Fusion 360 which intermittently stops working in Bottles.
Most people? Is that true?
Definitely not. Source: trust me bro, same as op
Setting up qemu is easy, vm that opens the apps as windows so it seems native while running off a vm works well with cpu based stuff
I went with Nobara because it's pretty much Fedora + gaming related fixes. Meaning every Fedora guide out there works and Fedora on its own is pretty user friendly.
Excel, as in Microsoft Excel might be a problem. If she needs something Excel-like, the default LibreOffice stuff is very capable, but it's not 100% compatible, really depends on what she needs. The online Office 365 thing might also be enough.
As for the Windows partition, a simple virtual machine might be enough and you don't have to reboot the PC every time you need to open an Excel file.
I've had Bazzite break its own update utility such that it needed manual intervention at least 3 times now. I see no point in a "just works" distro that doesn't actually just work.
Was this caused by layering?
One of the breakages was caused by an expired signature or something from Universal Blue, which hit all users. I'm surprised that one doesn't get talked about more. One of them was caused by Bazzite changing how Steam itself is handled and not transitioning my system over properly. Can't remember what the third one was caused by.
Thanks for clarifying!
One of the breakages was caused by an expired signature or something from Universal Blue, which hit all users. I'm surprised that one doesn't get talked about more.
Yeah, this was a big one. Though, I have to give them credit for how they handled the situation. I believe a lot of other projects got a lot to learn from them in that aspect.
One of them was caused by Bazzite changing how Steam itself is handled and not transitioning my system over properly.
Was this the transition from the (so-called) bazzite-arch distrobox to layering Steam into the image?
It likely was. Can't remember the details unfortunately.
Alright, but you seem to be a (relatively) early adapter then. Do you still use it? Or have you pivoted since?
Hell no, I switched back to Arch so my system would stop breaking!
Makes sense. Thanks for enlightening your stance. FWIW, it has definitely been better since. But of course; however good it may have become right now, it does not take away your experience. Thankfully, you found your refuge in Arch 😜.
I thought I saw something that the bazzite project might end once Fedora moves away from the 32 bit packages:
Mint users make it sound like the distro will literally suck your dick. It's a cult at this point. Forums are filled with issues (which is normal obviously) but nope, "it just works". When it doesn't then that's too bad because as easy as it is to find a vocal Mint user it's much harder to find one who knows anything about Linux.
They should have named Fedora something like "red hat personal" or anything else that doesn't sound like only smelly neckbeards use it and maybe that would be more popular but here we are.
I believe Fedora was named that before the association with neckbeards was a thing. It's hard to believe, but back before the 2010s fedoras were mostly known as the cool hat Indiana Jones and old timey detectives wear rather than the stupid looking hat slobby idiots trying to look cool wear.
fedora is IBM and I kicked them to the curb for good when they killed centos.
Yeah I have found driver issues with mint (particularly with WiFi cards) where Ubuntu doesn't have a problem
Bit of selection bias.
Car shops are full of cars that have problems. Why would you be at a shop if you didn't? Same with forums.
I mean, LMDE is working out pretty nuke proof for my (humble) gaming rig.
I had a couple of minor issues when it was new, but it's been rock solid for months. The only issue I had recently turned out to be a major bug in Steam that is currently being fixed.
Any rolling release will do, doesnt actually matter the flavor.
Steam has been investing into Arch (btw) which is nice but really all you want is quick updates. Graphics drivers on other distros may not be updated quickly enough for you to enjoy the newest releases.
Mint because the name is fun
Using pop OS for 5 years. Never tried any other, never seen the need to. I picked at mostly random and don't really understand the differences.
That is the thing of it. I started with Slackware. Then Debian and moved to ubuntu. I'm still using ubuntu. I've loaded up some other distros but they bring nothing definitive to the table. I've installed pop os and it works. If it had existed when I moved away from slackware I might have picked it. If you are using it and its working for you why bother changing.
I went Ubuntu > Mint > Ubuntu > Pop_os. The only difference I've noticed is Pop breaks less often.
I used Mint for a good long while, but went to Fedora KDE for better Wayland support. KDE is quite different to Cinnamon, not sure I have the words to articulate how. It's fussier. The main difference about Fedora is package management, DNF is slower than APT, a lot less software is packaged as RPMs, and a lot of "we don't package it, you have to compile it" software offers no instructions for Fedora, and trying to translate the Debian/Ubuntu instructions practically always fails because the library they want you to install isn't there. So Fedora is Linux with less software.
Ubuntu. The only distro I was able to kernel panic. Multiple times. It just doesn’t like power users.
Use whatever the fuck you want, you fucking weirdo cultists.
This. I'd better use windows then listen to another round of debate Ubuntu vs Arch..
spoiler
I use arch btw
I use Kubuntu LTS (--minimal-install; no snap fuckery from get-go) btw.
Garuda is also performing nicely on an older laptop.
I read it as clits. Just saying.
What other than what you just said are you "just saying"?
Arch?
Never Ubuntu. Kubuntu is as close as I am willing to get, and even then I'd rather go for Mint or Debian.
But then I'd have to deal with snap.
Oh no. Anyways.
Ubuntu is just Debian with extra steps.... and snaps
Which is reason enough to go with Debian (I have an unreasonable issue with snaps).
yeah, snaps.... they should have just gone with appimage I don't like them either, but at least we can all settle on one bag of pain.
Same but with plain Fedora on each side.
TL;DR: I'm a true Linux noob, and now love and appreciate Linux thanks to openSUSE Tumbleweed. :)
In all seriousness, as a Linux noob, openSUSE Tumbleweed made me actually start to really enjoy using Linux as my main OS. I've fucked up plenty of times, and at that point I would've had to reinstall most other distros, but Snapper came in and saved the day. I'm sure there are plenty of other distros that do snapshots just as well, but this is coming from someone who last tried running Linux 5-6 years ago, and was still fucking my shit up somehow. I've never had the best of luck with Linux, which is why I always stayed on Windows.
Then came Microsoft's ever increasing enshittification, and I saw openSUSE Tumbleweed on the distrowatch website, downloaded it, and here we are 8 months later, and openSUSE has remained my main OS. I only got a desktop for gaming, and it fit the bill almost perfectly. I had to learn some things, that's for sure, but what got me to stay was the stability! I had never used a Linux distro up until that point that made BTRFS and system snapshots the default. This was crucial for someone like me who only dabbled in Linux because I love the idea behind it, I could just never get too far into using it before fucking my shit up!
There are plenty of options that are similar, or maybe even better than openSUSE, but they won my interest and respect for getting a noob like me to truly envelope themselves into Linux.
I'm still nowhere near anything that might resemble your common Linux user, but damn do I really love my computer again now. It's like when I was kid again, and first started using computers, fascinated by what I could do.
Out of curiosity, do you have an Nvidia graphics card? I tried migrating to Linux at the beginning of this year, but I couldn't get my favorite games to run, like Cyberpunk 2077 and Kingdom Come Deliverance, so I ended up bailing.
As someone with two separate computers that have nvidia cards, I can only recommend hopping distros until one works.
(I'm not going to admit that manjaro worked out of the box on both of them and I ended up staying on it out loud on the internet)
EDIT: I don’t recommend using the flatpak version of Steam, because it gets buried in folders that aren’t human-readable. I installed the openSUSE version, and chose a sane folder name like how it is on windows where all my games are stored.
Yes! I had a 2080ti that I replaced with a 5080 two months ago.
I had no issues whatsoever when I first installed openSUSE, because the graphics card was probably old enough to be supported fully by the time I made my way into this OS.
When I upgraded from the 2080ti to the 5080… I did not have a good time for a few days as I had to learn (the hard way) that nvidia switched from whatever drivers I was using to some “open-driver” that they are going with moving forward (I think, don’t quote me).
I messed up plenty of times trying to get this new graphics card working, but let me tell you, thanks to snapper and BTRFS, I felt confident that no matter how many things I tried, I would always have a snapshot to return everything back to “before swapping cards” is what I named the snapshot through YaST System Snapshots.
After I found the correct terminal commands to install the new open-drivers on the openSUSE website, I was good to go again!
Since then, I’ve played and beaten DOOM: The Dark Ages (came with my card, had to sign into Windows and use a fucking chromium browser for whatever god awful reason…), System Shock Remake, and just a few days ago, Prey (2017).
When playing games through Proton (or even on windows!), I highly recommend going to pcgamingwiki.com, finding your game you want to play, and reading some of the great tips they have on there (ini config, for example on System Shock, because enemies were appearing way way to close to me instead of being able to see them from a distance) and the most important bit to me since I like to edit my saves or back them up to my own server, is the location of your save file in proton compatibility prefix. So, on KDE, I can copy whatever prefix number (System Shock being 482400) and copy that number, open up KDE Runner (windows key+spacebar for me) paste the number in, and go into the compatdata folder.
Needless to say, I’m almost positive that your nvidia graphics cards will be supported in some way, but you just may need to study up a bit before you have it working. Once it is working though, it is working great! :)
Same bro, Nvidia and Linux don't play very nice together. I had horrible framerates in browser animations for example, so even videos ran at 3fps or so with audio glitches.
Not to mention 3d gaming. I'll try again in a few years, see if it changes.
My laptop has an nvidia gpu. It never really worked right on Bazzite, basically could not game unless the igpu could run the game. I switched it over to Garuda (which I had been running on my desktop for a couple of years) and the gpu drivers all just worked. It now plays games just as easily as my desktop. The above comment could basically be exactly my experience, just replace openSUSE Tumbleweed with Garuda. I am unlikely to hop distros because I (luckily) found one that "just works" for me.
Honestly, that is kind of the beauty of Linux to me, and why I hate all of the "distro recommendation" threads. If someone only tries one distro, they might never stay because they got unlucky. I'd love for them all to truly work just as well as any other, like so many posts claim, but it just isn't the case (out of the box, at least). We all have so many varied experiences that drive those recommendations.
This meme but with Mint Cinnamon IMO.
I consider myself to be 'techie' for lack of a better word. I have custom janky solutions for everything. I have in the past written down a blue screen and troubleshooted it to give the IT team notes... Hell, I used to be the guy IT would call if they received a ticket from my office (anyone in my office) because I could give them more details and such... So, I like computers and shit, right?
And holy fuck I don't get the Linux world. I used Mint back in '13ish and it was fine but in a different place back then. I use Pop_OS! on my laptop and I like it just fine. I use Ubuntu on my secondary computer and I like it just fine. I don't get what I'm supposed to prefer about all these different distros/environments. I can't wrap my head around it. Do y'all change OSes that often? Am I missing out on something? Am I wrong or are y'all the kids who are wrong?
I feel like a lot of it is from new-ish users excited to talk about it and in the process of forming often prematurely strong opinions on this versus that within Linux. After 15 years of daily driving Linux desktop environments i settled on the one that gave me the least fuss and havent given it a second thought since. I suspect there are many with a similar story, but it's a boring conversation start if people are looking to debate it.
i settled on the one that gave me the least fuss
Debian?
Lol, yep.
I use big sur btw
Certified UNIX for the win.
You mean Certified UNIX 03 operating system, and only when you modify the system so much, that it becomes unusable.
Still more certified than Linux.
big slur
That's my racism company. We export eastern European racism to your door.
Something running Wayland on plasma for me.
If we listen to protondb apparently its Tumbleweed
Fuck yeah! Tumbleweed made me love Linux for real! :)
I will never not use the aur, CACHYOS was my first distroand, tried others, I'm good. Missing nothing with flatpaks + aur + debtap, i like max options, install all except snaps, no appeal
I've been using Pop-Os for about 2 years now. It's Ubuntu based and great for gaming.
I find having something based on Ubuntu is really great for anything I would need a tutorial or any kind of support for.
Really excited to see what the Cosmic DE looks like when it goes into live or later betas.
Ubuntu was my first foray into Linux via Ubuntu server in school. I didn't care for it and several years later realized it was because I just don't like Gnome.
Just checked my Mint. Why Cinnamon uses so much VRAM? I have over 1GB idle, without anything running. In my Windows i usually have 400Mb with all things closed.
I remember this site
https://www.linuxatemyram.com/
But honestly, although I can't check it, 1GB idle is still far more ram than what I get idle, so you might have some weird program auto-starting and actually eating your ram.
RAM is ok, i have plenty of it. VRAM (Video RAM) is the problem. The RAM of the GPU, used for showing graphics, UI etc.
Oof sorry my bad lol
Can confirm. I use Vanilla Ubuntu.
Thing is, I think we're already past that weird transitional period where there exists a good solution for X common problem in linux gaming, but is only shipped in some nieche gaming-oriented distro, instead of any general purpose distros. Most desktop linux distros are already "bloated" (in a sensible way) so it's not like they would lack whatever components we need for gaming. Sure there can be nice extras, but that's mostly only useful for the miniscule cross-section of people who consider themselves powerusers but are afraid of installing programs from the package manager.
If you're a programmer: NixOS.
Define your OS config, which programs to install, and dotfiles in one repo. Install a fresh OS, pull in the repo (nix-shell -p git, because NixOS doesn't come with git >_> ) and run the command to install the whole thing (sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#wodan for me. wodan is just the name of a config - I have multiple all combines into one repo, so I can share configuration between machines).
Took me 17 minutes to set up my laptop exactly the same as my Desktop. Same configuration, applications, and OS settings. It's so fucking nice.
With Windows, that used to take 2 days to download and install everything manually.
Only downside: You'll need to learn Nix-the-language, nix-the-os, and nix-the-terminal-program, which took about a month of deeply digging into the Vimjoyer and LibrePhoenix channels.
Wouldn't you want something more bleeding edge like Arch? Or at least Fedora, or something like openSUSE Tumbleweed?
(I understand it wouldn't work for the meme, so let's say Fedora.)
Secureblue.
Non-corporate users use Ubuntu? Last time I tried it, I have encountered bugs on day one, and I nearly instantly switched to random distro with KDE (openSUSE, which also I dislike btw).
Also I have very 'fond' memories of using it in about 2011-2013 where the program crashing message is burnt into my mind, because how often it appeared, and sometimes even the error reporting tool was crashing for some reason.
I also tired a random distro, I could not get HDR to work, so I went back to windows
nobara has working hdr, any kde plasma desktop using distro should...
I... I just heard of cachy OS yesterday for the first time and i like it...
I used pop!_OS before btw. and i hated it.
CachyOS user here. It was the only distro+KDE that worked with my GeForce flawlessly.
linux Mint
I really wish they would bring back an official KDE flavor. Cinnamon is fine, but nothing really comes close to KDE in terms of user experience and flexibility.
where's nixos on the graph?
GPT: "first, I'm gonna need you to drop a hardware.opengl.enable = true;"
Me: "GPT, you fucking slut! They changed the opengl option to graphics in 23.11!"
no one uses nixos for gaming. its mostly ricing and home servers.
I use NixOS and play games on it
ok call me "no one" then, you someone
Is there any reason not to? I was thinking of using nixos whenever I switch to linux on my desktop just for the sake of 'doing it properly'. I've mostly used archinstall before (home server and laptop) but it seems fairly breakable because I have no idea exactly what's doing what.
I have a nixos machine with Steam on it. It works great 🤷♂️
no reason not to but nixos isnt gaming-marketed
Haven't done much in the desktop space, but Ubuntu seems solid for noobs. Tons of tutorials out there to get a new person on their feet. Go Ubuntu, learn, change it up later. Not like this is a life defining moment. Go with what works out the box and has idiot-proof help out there.
My go-to for servers is headless Debian. Am I wrong? Serious question.
I went with Garuda. It’s pretty. Steam games are hit and miss a bit still tho :/ I have Nvidia and intel stuff. I9-9900k /RTX super 2070.
Give me a reason to change. It needs to be something real not something perceived.
I use gentoo out of elitism and I want the Linux to be taken over by corps so I can move to a real is called freebsd
Mint all the way.
Look, I know that there will never be consensus with this topic, but I genuinely believe Mint has the potential to become posterboy for the Linux boom.
It's not just about the path of least resistance (i.e., ease of use and learning with safety wheels), but it's also about setting the fundamentals strong and limiting them to maintainable manageable levels. Which I felt Mint walks the line pretty succinctly.
There's a song called 'No More Fucks to Give', all time banger (you should listen to it if you haven't), it made me have a small realization that you have only a limited amount of Fucks you can give in life, and I feel like same should be a good soft rule any distro to adhere to.
Ain't no one using Ubuntu on the right side. Would have been funnier with arch. Also missing the NixOS nerds in the middle.
Nixos do be nice though. I'd consider LFS is for the true neckbeard nerd.
I use cachyos and aurora, if any Ubuntu user wants the laugh at me be my guest. 😀
Having out of the box settings doesn't hurt though. If you set Mint correctly it's almost the same.
Every bit of pain I've had since installing Ubuntu is to do with Snap.
I can't even get Firefox to play videos smoothly.
I actually wanted to run Ubuntu and then Fedora, but they both kept breaking out of nowhere. I don't know get why people have a more stable experience than I do with these, I don't even fucking tinker and fuck with shit.
If there is one that runs SF6 I want that one.
Any, then. https://www.protondb.com/app/1364780
Usually distros don't affect game compatibility
AFAIK the anticheat was the problem right?
https://areweanticheatyet.com/?search=street+Fighter&sortOrder=&sortBy=
I mean everyone on protondb seem to say it works well so idk
The link you sent is for ESL, it concerns a third party client
Oh ok thanks for the info I think I'll try.
Windows