My opinion on Linus and Luke's Linux challenge

[flindeberg]

29 minutes ago, hngaminguk said:

Anyone who daily drives Linux could you provide some suggestions or things to research before I start? 

What hardware do you have, roughly, and how up-to-date hardware do you buy?

 

I would put Fedora before PopOS, and you do not have to worry about things breaking. Compared to Windows all Linux distros are stable, even Arch. I've daily-driven Arch on my personal laptop for approx 3 years, and haven't had any issues at all.

 

These are my thoughts on distros:

• Are you likely to tinker?
  • Yes, from the start, all the time
    • Arch, install Arch and read up as you go along. Very very steep hill if you have never used Linux before, but the end-game is very good. I personally love pacman (and the logic behind the buildsystem) much more than I love debs or rpms. pacman fixes many of the tinker-unfriendly things of debs and rpms and provides a good balance between compile everything yourself and being forced to use pre-compiled binaries.
  • If yes, but maybe not from the start, try something easy to install but tinker-friendly
    • Here I would recommend Manjaro. It is easy to install and maintain, and when you feel like it you can enable AUR and a bit later switch repositories to Arch, remove Manjaro-specific packages and suddenly you have to most tinker-friendly Linux installation known to man. Manjaro is here a very good stepping stone.
  • If no, try something which focuses on user friendliness
    • Fedora. Good packaging, good function. RHEL (the commercial sibling of Fedora) is rock-solid and, as I've been taught in this thread, provides backports of central improvements of the Linux-kernel which otherwise are just accessible if you compile your own kernel. You can tinker, but due to the way rpms are handled tinkering, or custom compiling packages you want to put in the package manager, is harder and more convoluted.

I would avoid distros such as Ubuntu or PopOS, sure they are user-friendly, but I have always felt like they have striven too much to provide a Windows-like experience on Linux, rather than being the best possible Linux experience.

[hngaminguk]

1 minute ago, flindeberg said:

What hardware do you have, roughly, and how up-to-date hardware do you buy?

 

I would put Fedora before PopOS, and you do not have to worry about things breaking. Compared to Windows all Linux distros are stable, even Arch. I've daily-driven Arch on my personal laptop for approx 3 years, and haven't had any issues at all.

 

These are my thoughts on distros:

• Are you likely to tinker?
  • Yes, from the start, all the time
    • Arch, install Arch and read up as you go along. Very very steep hill if you have never used Linux before, but the end-game is very good. I personally love pacman (and the logic behind the buildsystem) much more than I love debs or rpms. pacman fixes many of the tinker-unfriendly things of debs and rpms and provides a good balance between compile everything yourself and being forced to use pre-compiled binaries.
  • If yes, but maybe not from the start, try something easy to install but tinker-friendly
    • Here I would recommend Manjaro. It is easy to install and maintain, and when you feel like it you can enable AUR and a bit later switch repositories to Arch, remove Manjaro-specific packages and suddenly you have to most tinker-friendly Linux installation known to man. Manjaro is here a very good stepping stone.
  • If no, try something which focuses on user friendliness
    • Fedora. Good packaging, good function. RHEL (the commercial sibling of Fedora) is rock-solid and, as I've been taught in this thread, provides backports of central improvements of the Linux-kernel which otherwise are just accessible if you compile your own kernel. You can tinker, but due to the way rpms are handled tinkering, or custom compiling packages you want to put in the package manager, is harder and more convoluted.

I would avoid distros such as Ubuntu or PopOS, sure they are user-friendly, but I have always felt like they have striven too much to provide a Windows-like experience on Linux, rather than being the best possible Linux experience.

Currently hardware specs are:

 

AMD FX-8350 CPU and 2060 Super GPU

 

I would plan at some point to upgrade and when I do upgrade I go for the newest at the time. I think my main worry for Fedora was the ability to game. Although I barely game anymore due to having a child and just generally being busy I would like the ability to play new games that come out. Prime example being the new Life is Strange

 

As a Linux SysAdmin I'm not adverse to tinkering, but generally when it comes to my personal PC I just want it to work. 

[Georgi Valkov]

I agree that starting from scratch is impractical, there is actually a better way: use a second disk or partition to test another distro.

 

Regarding your options, I've been using Ubuntu server for many years to develop software and I am comfortable with Ubuntu, because there is a very good support on the forums, I'm used to what packages I need. I also have Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio on my desktop. I like Xfce and Thunar which come with Ubuntu Studio, though it's quite buggy and lacks many features. The default Ubuntu environment is stable, but I don't really like it, because I want to be able to see all windows. You know when an app has multiple windows and you want to activate a specific one, but they are merged into one button, that's very unproductive. It's also something I hate about macOS. I remember testing Pop long time ago, and I really liked it. So my recommendation: definitely go for it. As plan B, try Ubuntu, and replace the shell. I haven't looked into that, hopefully there's something better than the default, that is also stable. Fedora is definitely not for me, and neither is KDE, but everyone has their preference.

 

My desktop is a time machine with many installed OS: Windows 2003 x86 and x64 R2, Windows 2008 R2, a couple of Windows 10, Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio, and I also had Free BSD, which apart from being hard to setup works pretty good once you get everything in place. To complete the missing part my laptop has macOS which is very comfortable, and I can install all GNU based tools for software development. On the negative side, I spent 36 months on 6 repairs, and I would not recommend Apple, they are very bad towards their customers.

 

Good luck and let me know about your experience when you try it!

[DaftBlazer]

I would love to see Anthony do a video on installing Arch, but I wouldn't want to see Linus or Luke jump into daily driving linux with Arch. Arch is something you work your way towards, starting on Arch would give people the wrong idea that linux is really complex and deter people from giving linux a shot as a daily driver. In my opinion there are 3 "levels" when going down the linux rabbit hole. 

 

Level 1 - Beginner Friendly Distros

Super simple, easy to find community solutions, package support

• Pop!_OS - My Preferred, Has better Quality of Life features over Ubuntu
• Ubuntu 
• Linux Mint

Level 2 - Intermediate Distros

These aren't necessarily harder to use, they just aren't debian based so finding solutions online might not be as common, and they may use other package formats (ex. rpm)

• Fedora - One of my favorites, could arguably be in level 1, idk why its not more popular tbh
• Manjaro
• OpenSuse
• Debian Unstable - Better for desktop usage imo, debian stable is better for servers

Level 3 - Advanced / Power User Distros

For those who want a distro specifically designed for their system and needs, love tinkering and customizing literally everything. 

• Arch - Every linux users "rite of passage"
• Gentoo

 

Everyone is going to have their own opinions, but this is what I've seen and experienced. If you're a linux enthusiast it's worth trying out each of the major branches. 

 

[flindeberg]

2 hours ago, hngaminguk said:

AMD FX-8350 CPU and 2060 Super GPU

I would have a look at Manjaro due to nvidia-all (https://github.com/Frogging-Family/nvidia-all) so you easily can keep your drivers up to date (with pacman, the Arch package-manager), and downgrade with ease if needed. You essentially need to clone the repo, run "makepkg -si", select the version you want and DKMS (https://github.com/dell/dkms, DKMS helps you with managing messy kernel modules, i.e., a step towards "just work".), and you are ready to go.

 

There is an auto-installer for nvidia for Fedora (https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/t0xic0der/nvidia-auto-installer-for-fedora/) but I have heard mixed things about it. 

 

The strength of pacman / makepkg and the AUR is that the line of closed and open source becomes a bit blurred, which is good for the user in most cases, even if the more principled Linux-users might consider it a "bad thing".

2 hours ago, hngaminguk said:

As a Linux SysAdmin I'm not adverse to tinkering, but generally when it comes to my personal PC I just want it to work. 

I think "just want it to work" is not that far off, but the big "use-wayland-as-default-on-nvidia-without-issues" is a bit away, and once that hurdle is clear the "just work" part becomes way easier.

 

(AMD / Radeon cards pretty much just work with the lastest Mesa-stack, and Nvidia cards kinda do as well, but the open source nouveau nvidia driver cannot clock Nvidia cards, so even though the nouveau driver works well enough on a performance per MHz-basis you need to use the proprietary Nvidia driver to make the graphics card go out of what is essentially power save mode.)

[Willa]

3 hours ago, Georgi Valkov said:

I agree that starting from scratch is impractical, there is actually a better way: use a second disk or partition to test another distro.

 

Regarding your options, I've been using Ubuntu server for many years to develop software and I am comfortable with Ubuntu, because there is a very good support on the forums, I'm used to what packages I need. I also have Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio on my desktop. I like Xfce and Thunar which come with Ubuntu Studio, though it's quite buggy and lacks many features. The default Ubuntu environment is stable, but I don't really like it, because I want to be able to see all windows. You know when an app has multiple windows and you want to activate a specific one, but they are merged into one button, that's very unproductive. It's also something I hate about macOS. I remember testing Pop long time ago, and I really liked it. So my recommendation: definitely go for it. As plan B, try Ubuntu, and replace the shell. I haven't looked into that, hopefully there's something better than the default, that is also stable. Fedora is definitely not for me, and neither is KDE, but everyone has their preference.

 

My desktop is a time machine with many installed OS: Windows 2003 x86 and x64 R2, Windows 2008 R2, a couple of Windows 10, Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio, and I also had Free BSD, which apart from being hard to setup works pretty good once you get everything in place. To complete the missing part my laptop has macOS which is very comfortable, and I can install all GNU based tools for software development. On the negative side, I spent 36 months on 6 repairs, and I would not recommend Apple, they are very bad towards their customers.

 

Good luck and let me know about your experience when you try it!

Regarding the "see all windows" issue:

 

Same as on macOS, while using Ubuntu if you press Alt + ~ or Option + ~ (this is the tilde key, ~) it'll open a window switcher based on which application you're in. I use this frequently, it's quite helpful!

 

Furthermore, you get a Windows like window switcher by pressing Alt + Tab or Option + Tab on Ubuntu. For a macOS application window switcher on Ubuntu, that'll be Meta + Tab (Windows key if you have that kind of keyboard, or Command key if you have that kind of keyboard).

 

Note that I'm using the same GNOME shipped with Ubuntu by default and haven't customized those keyboard shortcuts, those should be the same on default Ubuntu.

 

I had issues with Ubuntu Studio's stability due to using a low latency kernel, my computer kernel panicked fairly often and it was annoying. I now only run default / stock Ubuntu. Though I have modded the theme to look like macOS Big Sur and use plank as my dock for that macOS dock-like experience.

[JustinBeaird]

A customization challenge would be a great inclusion..

here is the way I like my Ubuntu desktop.. 

To make Ubuntu look better;
go to appearance move sidebar to bottom, make icon size like 28..
     Use dconf editer, go to: org shell extensions dash-to-dock..
turn on autohide,
   go to click-action change to "focus-minimize-or-previews",
  turn off extended-height,
  make sure intellihide is on,
  turn off require-pressure-to-show...
than get shell extension "Applications Menu" from gnome site.. and you are good to go..

[10leej]

5 hours ago, flindeberg said:

What hardware do you have, roughly, and how up-to-date hardware do you buy?

 

I would put Fedora before PopOS, and you do not have to worry about things breaking. Compared to Windows all Linux distros are stable, even Arch. I've daily-driven Arch on my personal laptop for approx 3 years, and haven't had any issues at all.

 

These are my thoughts on distros:

• Are you likely to tinker?
  • Yes, from the start, all the time
    • Arch, install Arch and read up as you go along. Very very steep hill if you have never used Linux before, but the end-game is very good. I personally love pacman (and the logic behind the buildsystem) much more than I love debs or rpms. pacman fixes many of the tinker-unfriendly things of debs and rpms and provides a good balance between compile everything yourself and being forced to use pre-compiled binaries.
  • If yes, but maybe not from the start, try something easy to install but tinker-friendly
    • Here I would recommend Manjaro. It is easy to install and maintain, and when you feel like it you can enable AUR and a bit later switch repositories to Arch, remove Manjaro-specific packages and suddenly you have to most tinker-friendly Linux installation known to man. Manjaro is here a very good stepping stone.
  • If no, try something which focuses on user friendliness
    • Fedora. Good packaging, good function. RHEL (the commercial sibling of Fedora) is rock-solid and, as I've been taught in this thread, provides backports of central improvements of the Linux-kernel which otherwise are just accessible if you compile your own kernel. You can tinker, but due to the way rpms are handled tinkering, or custom compiling packages you want to put in the package manager, is harder and more convoluted.

I would avoid distros such as Ubuntu or PopOS, sure they are user-friendly, but I have always felt like they have striven too much to provide a Windows-like experience on Linux, rather than being the best possible Linux experience.

Wait...

Have you ever used windows before?

[mail929]

On 10/4/2021 at 3:43 AM, flindeberg said:

For setups with multiple displays you would be stuck on 60 Hz with X11 (in practice, the problem is quite complex).

Only true if your displays have different refresh rates.

[finest feck fips]

On 10/2/2021 at 3:00 AM, Conan Kudo said:

I wish they would consider using Fedora Linux, because I think we've done a stellar job trying to make an awesome easy to use Linux desktop and I think they'd love the stuff we've done to make gaming on Linux awesome.

Fedora is a really nice, lean, modern distro, with great system management tools (dnf is a much better high-level package manager than apt, for example, and probably the most feature complete aside from zypper). The ‘problem’ historically is that it doesn't come pre-loaded to the gills with proprietary shit, which is what migrating Windows users demand because they tend to be installing on random assemblages of hardware they've brought with them, which require a bunch of proprietary drivers and firmware blobs to function.

Imo you can't expect Windows users in a hurry to appreciate Fedora's strengths, because they have nothing to compare the tooling to, they probably don't want to learn the tooling (at first— not all at once), and having to manage repositories before you can play videogames makes newbies feel like something was broken and they had to fix it.

(A newbie with the benefit of about 20 minutes to an hour of initial support from an experienced user and a little bit of guidance could enjoy using Fedora for a long time, though. Even a total newbie could enjoy it if, e.g., they went to an InstallFest at their local Linux users group in order to get up and running.)

[Georgi Valkov]

6 hours ago, Willa said:

Regarding the "see all windows" issue:

 

Same as on macOS, while using Ubuntu if you press Alt + ~ or Option + ~ (this is the tilde key, ~) it'll open a window switcher based on which application you're in. I use this frequently, it's quite helpful!

Alt ~ looks indeed very helpful! Thank you!

6 hours ago, Willa said:

I had issues with Ubuntu Studio's stability due to using a low latency kernel, my computer kernel panicked fairly often and it was annoying. I now only run default / stock Ubuntu. Though I have modded the theme to look like macOS Big Sur and use plank as my dock for that macOS dock-like experience.

Hmm, I remember the system reporting about crashing services, but I never had any kernel panic or issues with the latency kernel. But I didn't use Studio much. Were they perhaps related to using any specific software or driver?

5 hours ago, JustinBeaird said:

To make Ubuntu look better;

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extensions
go to appearance move sidebar to bottom, make icon size like 28..
     Use dconf editer, go to: org gnome shell extensions dash-to-dock..
turn on autohide,
   go to click-action change to "focus-minimize-or-previews",
  turn off extended-height,
  make sure intellihide is on,
  turn off require-pressure-to-show...
than get shell extension "Applications Menu" from gnome site.. and you are good to go..

These changes made a big difference, and I'm feeling very comfortable now! Thanks Justin! I inserted a couple of mising details in bold in the quote.

Here is my workspace after the changes:

 

Advise to Gnome, and other shell developpers:

With dozens of open windows, being able to see the name of each window and use musle memory to activate or minimize makes context switching instant. Taskbar on the side has benefits: our eyes naturally follow the beginning of each text line; we get more vertical space for reading; a far mouse move is more precise horizontally than vertically, because we move only the wrist, while the hand is anchored. Gnome 3 handles grouped windows in the taskbar way better than Windows or macOS.

 

[Conan Kudo]

4 hours ago, Patrick C. said:

Fedora is a really nice, lean, modern distro, with great system management tools (dnf is a much better high-level package manager than apt, for example, and probably the most feature complete aside from zypper). The ‘problem’ historically is that it doesn't come pre-loaded to the gills with proprietary shit, which is what migrating Windows users demand because they tend to be installing on random assemblages of hardware they've brought with them, which require a bunch of proprietary drivers and firmware blobs to function.

Imo you can't expect Windows users in a hurry to appreciate Fedora's strengths, because they have nothing to compare the tooling to, they probably don't want to learn the tooling (at first— not all at once), and having to manage repositories before you can play videogames makes newbies feel like something was broken and they had to fix it.

(A newbie with the benefit of about 20 minutes to an hour of initial support from an experienced user and a little bit of guidance could enjoy using Fedora for a long time, though. Even a total newbie could enjoy it if, e.g., they went to an InstallFest at their local Linux users group in order to get up and running.)

This shouldn't really be as much an issue these days, at least with Fedora Workstation. Fedora ships almost all drivers and firmware needed to leverage PC hardware on the media. Offhand, the only two we don't have are:

• Broadcom b43 firmware for Intel Macs (we can't find the right people to fix the problem, and this affects all distros)
• Proprietary NVIDIA drivers (we ship an easy enablement method in GNOME Software for this)

The folks at Red Hat work tirelessly to try and resolve these issues to the best of their ability. Ben Skeggs (who works there on the Red Hat Desktop Graphics team) is the main developer of the nouveau driver (an open source replacement for the proprietary driver) and does his best to make something work while NVIDIA stonewalls him on getting GPU firmware that would make it work properly. If we had it, then the proprietary NVIDIA driver wouldn't even be needed in most use-cases. Even with this problem, nouveau works enough to get you to the point you can install the proprietary driver and have it take over.

 

[JustinBeaird]

1 hour ago, Georgi Valkov said:

Alt ~ looks indeed very helpful! Thank you!

Hmm, I remember the system reporting about crashing services, but I never had any kernel panic or issues with the latency kernel. But I didn't use Studio much. Were they perhaps related to using any specific software or driver?

These changes made a big difference, and I'm feeling very comfortable now! Thanks Justin! I inserted a couple of mising details in bold in the quote.

Here is my workspace after the changes:

 

Advise to Gnome, and other shell developpers:

With dozens of open windows, being able to see the name of each window and use musle memory to activate or minimize makes context switching instant. Taskbar on the side has benefits: our eyes naturally follow the beginning of each text line; we get more vertical space for reading; a far mouse move is more precise horizontally than vertically, because we move only the wrist, while the hand is anchored. Gnome 3 handles grouped windows in the taskbar way better than Windows or macOS.

 

Well this was like my 4th draft. someone on YouTube asked about making a more Mac style dock on Ubuntu. I had it all typed out nice and alot more clear than this, but YouTube kept auto deleting it so I kept editing it in hopes it would stay up but it didn't..so I just thought I would share here. lol

[Willa]

@Georgi ValkovI'm glad that Alt ~ is helpful

 

"Hmm, I remember the system reporting about crashing services, but I never had any kernel panic or issues with the latency kernel. But I didn't use Studio much. Were they perhaps related to using any specific software or driver?"

 

I'm not really sure, wasn't as good at tracking down issues and debugging back then. I think I also had issues with my audio device not being recognized periodically, so maybe some issue with USB drivers and/or device recognition was going on. I have an old mixer which I use for my sound system that connects via USB. Haven't had issues once I moved off of the low latency kernel to the standard kernel.

 

Here's my Big Sur themed Ubuntu

[finest feck fips]

1 hour ago, Conan Kudo said:

Fedora ships almost all drivers and firmware needed to leverage PC hardware on the media. Offhand, the only two we don't have are:

• Broadcom b43 firmware for Intel Macs (we can't find the right people to fix the problem, and this affects all distros)
• Proprietary NVIDIA drivers (we ship an easy enablement method in GNOME Software for this)

Broadcom and NVIDIA were the biggest problem children 10 years ago, too! It's been a long time since I dealt with either for this very reason, even though in the Broadcom case good open-source support usually arrives sooner or later (no thanks to Broadcom).

I didn't mention it, but I also had in mind things like media codecs. The most jarring of those (MP3) is happily a non-issue thanks to the expiration of the patents on the format. Even then, I don't think the issue is that setting up rpmfusion is hard, if that's something users want to do. I just think folks coming directly from Windows tend to have a very particular view of their desired OOTB experience and little concern for the distribution constraints that distros may legally be under (or commit themselves to on principle).

I didn't know about the enablement method for NVIDIA drivers in GNOME software. That's a good approach.
 

1 hour ago, Conan Kudo said:

Ben Skeggs (who works there on the Red Hat Desktop Graphics team) is the main developer of the nouveau driver (an open source replacement for the proprietary driver) and does his best to make something work while NVIDIA stonewalls him on getting GPU firmware that would make it work properly. If we had it, then the proprietary NVIDIA driver wouldn't even be needed in most use-cases. Even with this problem, nouveau works enough to get you to the point you can install the proprietary driver and have it take over.

What I've seen on the AMD side is that the friendly competition between different driver stacks from AMD and the open-source community has been good for both, and the compatibility situation is awesome to the point that it's more convenient than on WIndows. I really wish NVIDIA would sort their strategy out so that they didn't perceive alternative drivers or documentation of their GPUs as such a threat.

Anyway thanks for updating me on the current state of affairs on Fedora with respect to firmware inclusion and driver enablement. It definitely sounds like a smoother experience than ever on what's always been a thoughtfully designed distro, and definitely not something that warrants an offhand dismissal.

[Firecatmon]

I think that the user friendly distributions will have to be the entry points of linux unless the user is really devoted to try and understand how to do things around linux.
If they install something like Arch they'd probably need Anthony to give them some pointers. (honestly it's basically just partitioning and then letting pacstrap do all the work but it will probably be overwhelming)

feral's gamemode really doesn't do much anymore for newer CPUs (like zen2 and newer)

Also how do you reply to people on this board?

[Spotty]

4 minutes ago, Firecatmon said:

Also how do you reply to people on this board?

If you highlight text it will give you a "Quote selection" button which will quote what has been highlighted, or you can quote the entire post by clicking the arrow below the post.

 

[Georgi Valkov]

Hi Justin, YouTube may block you comments if you include a certain word or abbreviation. I remember channels can choose to allow all comments, filter or manually approve them. The odd thing is that we don't see these words as offensive, yet the algorithm does. I suppose that's why you tried removing gnome from the path. It certainly blocks replays to comments that already have around 400-500 replays. It might also block external links (just guessing). I'm glad you came here.

 

Hey Willa, if your switch from low latency to generic kernel also moved to a new version, especially LTS, it is very likely that this fixed you sound issues. You may give it another try if you have a spare disk, partition or Live USB for testing.

 

How do I install your theme and everything else? It looks nice.

 

Back in the days of Ubuntu 18 and older I always had a lot of issues setting up drivers for the GPU, Creative Xfi sound, Wacom tablet, and Wi-Fi. It usually took me a few days after each new install, and by then I lost any desire to use the system without basic features. On the bright side, this period helped me learn a lot. Yet my biggest progress came when I ported all my programs from Windows to Ubuntu Server, then FreeBSD, OpenWRT and finally macOS and iOS. The good thing about Ubuntu Server is that it's very simple to manage, just SSH and Samba, no desktop, and no drivers. At some point I also switched to LTS, and while many features are old or missing, it works well and is more reliable. Ubuntu 20 made a huge progress: all my hardware works, even the new USB Impacto DAC which I use with a pair of studio headphones. Steam pushed Linux to a point where Microsoft and hardware vendors need to support it and now it has become an environment suitable for both novice and professional users. I'm glad to see Linus showing this to the world, because we don't have to be tied to companies that don't care about the experience of their users. Companies that did their best to discourage users from improving the free Linux, and want us locked in their ecosystem.

 

The Linux terminal is by far the best. FreeBDS can be very powerful, but requires a lot of tweaking. macOS is an interesting situation. With Homebrew, a bit of setup, and GNU utils, it is very good. Yet often something fails to build because the built-in tools are older than 2004 and there is no way to update them due to licensing. So that environment is slowly falling apart. On Windows, advanced tasks are hard. 

[OldTweaker]

16 hours ago, Patrick C. said:

dnf is a much better high-level package manager than apt,

citation needed!

 

A bit more serious, traditionally what drew a lot a people to apt based distros as obviously Debian and a bit later Ubuntu and all of its derivatives over rpm based distros is exactly apt. And I have had no issues with it in the 15 years that I use apt based distros.

I have no personal experience with dnf. From what I've read it seems to be a big improvement and . But to state that it is much better to me seems unfounded. From what I read on the features the two are very much alike these days. They caught up with apt  

[Conan Kudo]

16 hours ago, Patrick C. said:

I didn't mention it, but I also had in mind things like media codecs. The most jarring of those (MP3) is happily a non-issue thanks to the expiration of the patents on the format. Even then, I don't think the issue is that setting up rpmfusion is hard, if that's something users want to do. I just think folks coming directly from Windows tend to have a very particular view of their desired OOTB experience and little concern for the distribution constraints that distros may legally be under (or commit themselves to on principle).

Fedora has an arrangement with Cisco to provide an open source H.264 codec with Cisco's patent grant. For AAC, we ship a codec implementation that doesn't include the currently-patented stuff. MP3 has been included in Fedora for years. MPEG1 and MPEG2 are also included, I believe, though we (obviously) don't have implementations of DVD/Blu-Ray decryption in our repositories as those are in a gray area. And naturally, royalty-free codecs such as FLAC, Ogg Vorbis/Theora, Opus, Dirac, AV1, etc. are all supported.

 

We also ship an easy enablement method for Steam and Google Chrome in GNOME Software. 

[norgaladir]

They can distro hop for maybe a week or two, but after that it's better to just stick with one. Like they said, they'll learn how to solve a problem in one, but then give up on a second problem and hop to solve it, but then there's a different set of problems, which may be fun if you like tinkering and have time, which I did when I was in school, but now I've found it much more practical to just stick with something and get comfortable with it. For me that's Windows and Ubuntu based distros, and slowly branching out to Arch based because of the convenience of the AUR saves enough time it's worth the investment to get familiar with, plus the new Steam OS using it sounds promising.

 

Every OS has it's fair share of problems, you just want to minimize the ones that affect you, and then you learn fixes and workarounds for the rest. After a while some of the workarounds are so ingrained in you, that you tend forget about the problem in the first place (you notice this the most in the Apple fanboys, but everyone is guilty of it).

 

In my opinion they should try should each try a few first, but settle on one of the mainstream ones in the distro family they're familiar with.

 

For Luke since he mentioned liking Mint (which I think has stagnated and uses pretty outdated packages), I bet he'll pick Pop since it already caught his interest, and IMO Pop is what Ubuntu/Mint should/could have been if they kept innovating like they used to. For me Pop has fixed everything I didn't like about Ubuntu in recent years, with no downsides compared to Ubuntu.

 

For Linus, I think there's also a strong chance of him choosing Pop, but if Luke does, to try something different he'll go with Manjaro, which is a much more user friendly version of Arch (which is what Anthony uses), and one they've also featured before in one of their videos. Also with the AUR making it much easier to install software, since nearly everything is in there and up to date, including obscure and proprietary software, it is much easier to use than the so called "Beginner Friendly Distros" which are mostly just pretty shells with small/outdated repos, and basically only easy for people who just use their computers to browse the web.

 

As someone who loves tech, works in a tech related field, and uses their computer to do a lot of different stuff, but has no time to tinker any more, and only switched back to daily driving linux a couple years ago due to convincing from my coworkers after a 10-year hiatus, my top recommendation is Pop if you want an Ubuntu based distro, otherwise Manjaro for something stable and user friendly installation of anything you need. I also really like the Pop-shell which is also installable in Manjaro (I have not tried this yet), however the shell is more to personal taste so it's harder to give a recommendation for, and probably harder to decide on than distro.

[Kilrah]

I've just tried Fedora 35 beta and as a daily user of Windows the UI is frustrating, it seems closer to MacOS concepts.

Since the default UI is what gives the first impression and the main thing a "normal" user interacts with all day that probably is a significant hurdle for a former Windows user that could eclipse anything else good the distro could have. 

[Neffscape]

Here are my recommendations:

 

Ubuntu based distros

• Zorin OS 16 Core (Polished and modern. Designed for switchers coming from Windows. It's perfectly preconfigured and works out of the box)
• Mint Cinnamon edition (Looks a bit dated out of the box, but it's very powerful and easy to use and ready out of the box.
• PopOS: it's 95% ubuntu, with an ugly theme and some useful tweaks for gamers. Best option for hybrid graphics
• Ubuntu budgie: most underrated option, but it's actually the best if you want a mac like experience (with global menus, dock etc) perfectly working out of the box. You just have to install it, choose the "cupertino" layout and apply the Whitesur makeover. You can do all of this from the welcome screen with a couple of clicks.

Arch based distros

• Manjaro GNOME: one of the best GNOME experiences you can have and the best overall compromise between stability and bleeding edge. It's my distro of choice and current daily driver.
• Manjaro KDE: it's probably the closest Steam Deck experience you'll have. Arch based, with KDE Plasma and semi rolling. I think Linus should go for this one.

 

[10leej]

13 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

I've just tried Fedora 35 beta and as a daily user of Windows the UI is frustrating, it seems closer to MacOS concepts.

Since the default UI is what gives the first impression and the main thing a "normal" user interacts with all day that probably is a significant hurdle for a former Windows user that could eclipse anything else good the distro could have. 

Well even switching windows to MacOS you will likely to have some frustrations.

 

That said of course Linux is different, difference causes frustration. I advise that you however rather than complain take a moment to think why the Linux UI is like that. Do they just hate you, or do they think there's a better way?

The answer to that is almost purely subjective, and THAT is the frustration. But, Linux has a solution. For one thing never expect a good time with beta software, even if it's a release candidate due for turn around in a week or two.

• You can change the desktop environment on almost every distribution.
• You can build a DE from scratch slapping tools together (this is how LXDE was made actually)
• You don't have to use Fedora.
• You don't even have to use Linux, GNU Hurd exists and does work, but an alternative is are the BSD distributions.

The Gnome desktop's workflow is clearly described in their Human Interface Guidelines.

 

So what alternatives are then?

 

KDE's Plasma

 

Plasma is the second most popular desktop environment, and probably the second most integrated, it gives users the ultimate ability to customize the look of the Desktop and opening system settings can give someone a heart attack with all the options, but for the most part it works and default tries a windows like work flow.

 

XFCE

 

Is the desktop and honestly my most favorite, it's built modularly so the XFCE desktop is a collection of tools created by the XFCE developers, it's greatest claim to fame is it's speed, and trust me it's FAST. As many of it's applications actually run as backround daemons. It heavily aligns itself with the Unix philosophy as well, so the File manager (Thunar) is just a file manager, and it's a greta one because all it does is... manage the files. And, so on.

 

LXQT

 

Is designed for older machines that need a lightweight desktop, personally if I were to boot a GUI on a Pi, this is the Desktop I would run.

 

Mate

 

Mate traces it's roots back to earlier versions of Gnome, it's a great DE built on the ideas of ten years ago. But that's not a bad thing IMO. It's lightweight, fast, and the panel navigation system for menu's is actually brilliant and it's the only one that doesn't have a search feature, because it doesn't need one.

 

Enlightenment

 

Enlightenment is the least popualar DE, but it's extremely opinionated in it's workflow. But it's compositing is outright amazing as the DE is almost completely written in C so it's super lightweight and quick as a result.

 

Window Managers

 

WIndow managers technicallly exist on all DE's even on WIndows and Mac OS, they're the things your windows exist on, and on Linux, it's possible to run them alone. This offers a tinkerer, or DIYer to built their own desktop, almost any way they want. You can run a tiling window manager like i3, awesome, xmonad, dwm, the traditional stacking window manager like openbox, compiz, or a tabbed one like Notion

 

Personally I use and enjoy the Gnome desktop, even though I have some disagreements with the development teams decisions.

 

 

How do you go about changing the desktop environment?

 

Well the same way you install packages, usually on Linux it's done via the terminal or a gui software center (though some seem to filter out desktop options) usually just call them by name.

 

Debian systems
 

apt install xfce
apt install mate

and so on

[norgaladir]

23 minutes ago, Neffscape said:

Here are my recommendations:

 

Ubuntu based distros

• Zorin OS 16 Core (Polished and modern. Designed for switchers coming from Windows. It's perfectly preconfigured and works out of the box)
• Mint Cinnamon edition (Looks a bit dated out of the box, but it's very powerful and easy to use and ready out of the box.
• PopOS: it's 95% ubuntu, with an ugly theme and some useful tweaks for gamers. Best option for hybrid graphics
• Ubuntu budgie: most underrated option, but it's actually the best if you want a mac like experience (with global menus, dock etc) perfectly working out of the box. You just have to install it, choose the "cupertino" layout and apply the Whitesur makeover. You can do all of this from the welcome screen with a couple of clicks.

Arch based distros

• Manjaro GNOME: one of the best GNOME experiences you can have and the best overall compromise between stability and bleeding edge. It's my distro of choice and current daily driver.
• Manjaro KDE: it's probably the closest Steam Deck experience you'll have. Arch based, with KDE Plasma and semi rolling. I think Linus should go for this one.

 

Those are all good options and I mostly agree with you, however differ slightly on shell. Ubuntu budgie was my first daily driver a couple years ago as I was getting back into linux, but personally the Pop-shell and theme are my favourite of the bunch, and what I'll install on Manjaro (also my distro of choice and soon to be daily driver when I have time to switch). I haven't tried Zorin but the shell also looks nice and it appears to be based on the most recent Ubuntu version, like Pop.

 

I would also eliminate Mint as the packages are too old, it looks like the most recent version that just came out a few months ago only just upgraded their base to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, which is fine if you're only interested in browsing the web and other common computing tasks, or need the stability for a server, but would not recommend it as a desktop for tech enthusiasts. If you like cinnamon, use it on one of the other choices.