Need reccomendations for distro. Old laptop from like '10 (shipped with windows 8, not even 8.1), touchscreen needed so no Mint unfortunately. No linux experience whatsoever beyond using tails and I know what the terminal is but have NO clue how to use it.
Need a daily driver for light tasks (just gimp, handbrake, internet, qbittorrent, and libreoffice type stuff, no games), would prefer security and privacy, but idk if Whonix can run on my old machine and with my nonexistent linux exp idk if it is a good one for me yet, may need exp with something else first? Idk, y’all tell me!
Was reccomended Fedora, has touch support and supposedly good for the light tasks and will run in my old laptop, but figured I’d ask what y’all think because you guys seem knowledgeable.
It is my only computer besides my phone so I can’t afford the time to fuck around lol.
Oh please not another threat about — what is best … or what should I use xyz. There is no best. Stop spreading Mint is beginner distro, almost every other distro can be beginner distro too. Also some hardware and configuration works better or worse on Distro + Kernel xyz. There is no generalization, just try and see how it acts for your configuration.
Down-vote for wasting our time because if you need other people to tell you, what you like then Linux is not for you.
I like blue better than red … btw, as useful as this entire thread here.
Boot into VM is probably not the right advice for a newbie like op
Flashing a live-USB is easy and thé same process than thé install.
live usb is barremetal and op wanted touchscreen support, not sure a VM will providd a good expérience to maje this work
Yeah it is up to a debate + how experienced the user actually is. But there are basically VMs that work in Browser like DistroTester. However I agree that you might need to be aware of this + this might be tricky anyway. Touchscreen support is often critical, even for mentioned distros in this thread, at the end you usually need to do some testing yourself so or so.
The problem which I have with such threads here in general is that you end-up to test things for yourself anyway because we do not know the exact configuration and how the chosen Distro, or the tested VM reacts. I do not see why we shall support spoon-feeding, when all of those questions are answered many many many many times already and you anyway end-up with testing it yourself.
It’s worth it to reduce the field of possibility. But I agree nothing beat trying it out yourself and iv’e been distro hopping for several years before understanding what I wanted as a DE and os.
My bad dude, didn’t mean to offend. Got an i5 with 4gb ram, don’t know if can VM, iirc you need ok hardware to reliably run, but again, don’t know. Would like input from people who know shit, for instance I asked a friend and that is how I knew Mint didn’t support touch, instead of “try mint, no touch, try manjaro, no touch, try arch, no touch, hey fedora got it.” Sue me. At least I can cut out “No’s” easier even if I must take up space in your precious eyes with my questions. Fuck “your good will,” you have none, these other people were nice, don’t speak of what you have not exhibited. Spare me your tears, go on hxclinuxforum if you need hxclinuxusers, this is lemmy my guy, cool your jets, restrict posts if you don’t want questions. “Down vote” oh no pwees sir, don’t downvote me owo. Idgaf my guy, thankfully other people helped and you were ununnecessary. “Tell me what I like” fuck off dude, you may have the time and resources to dick around with this shit all day but some of us have jobs and lives, and recognize the benefit of experienced advice. Also it’s all about green or purple you fucking pleb.
Edit: and while I’m on this, you say “stop with the which one is best” reread my post my dude, did I ONCE ask which linux is best linux, or did I ask for reccomendations on what would be good for beginners concerned with privacy to use as a daily driver with touch screen support? Distros can certainly be classified, nobody would have said tails or kali or arch here, for instance, because they for various reasons do not lend themselves well either as “daily drivers” or “for beginners” (at least I am under the impression arch is for experienced users but guess what, I don’t know for sure, and THAT is exactly why I’m here.) You are what keeps beginners out of linux my guy, keep your tears to yourself.
4gb ram probably isn’t enough for virtualization, but with those specs you should be fine with Fedora and Gnome desktop.
Fedora you can do all the basics without command line and it should be fairly intuitive. You will want to learn command line eventually - it makes certain tasks much easier and faster
Awesome thanks! Yeah I definitely want to learn to use the CLI (did I use that right? Lol) it seems very handy after you know what you’re doing! The only time I have used it as of yet was to give myself admin permissions to change my password on tails lol.
Apparently the issue is not the Distro, the issue here in this case is the touch-pad driver. This is known to be a problematic topic in the Linux Kernel. There exist some alternative touchpad drivers you can manually install. The reason they do not come with several popular Distro is that they are not well maintained and can cause additional problems.
Laziness and spoon-feeding others is not really an excuse because all of this is nothing new. Just randomly guessing a distro until it works has no learning effect for us as reader or for those who want to help and als not for you. Others who just read … oh hey Fedora works, do not learn why and how they can fix their own distro to make it work.
Self-acceptance is hardest lesson. I get that. Abusing others and their good will is easiest way, isn’t it…
See, THAT is useful, thank you.
Hey, then maybe they should post, with specifics about what they need to run, and see if anyone has advice regarding similar hardware. You suggested I “search” and presumably find a thread and see “oh hey mint works” and not learn why and how I coukd fix my own to make it work, and then you’ve used it here as some sort of “gotcha.” So should I ask for specific advice or should I search and see what worked for others? Which piece of your directly contradicting advice should I follow? And seems so, because nobody asked you to be rude which prompted my rude response. I believe you’ll find I got along fine with everyone BUT you in this thread, so I’m gonna go with my theory of I was abusing you because you were a dick and deserved it. We can be cool if you wanna be cool though but I see the snarky unnecessary bullshit continues so far.
You’ve never once asked a question on a forum? Yeah I believe that, sure lol.
“Oooohhhh society, muh linux sublemmy!” Cry harder lol, is this really worth removed (insert explitive for complaining) about? I’m gonna make sure to ask ALL my questions here just to spite you.
True, and I appreciate THEIR help in narrowing down the first one I will try.
You were indeed rude, whether or not you see that is irrelevant. I was ruder, because I am better at it when instigated. You were insanely condescending and dismissive, as well as sardonic, that is rude even if you lack the social skills to tell. Idgaf about your answer, it would have been better had your “blue” ass not posted at all frankly.
“Report back” to what? The post you are saying I shouldn’t have made? The guy saying “fedora will probably support touch with GNOME especially since you said it works on tails” definitely helped me whether you want that to be true or not, sorry guy. Before the other guy told me what DEs were I didn’t know they existed (though I had heard the word GNOME in the context of linux before) so I learned a lot despite your protests.
Power use your own butthole, I don’t care about you, and the internet isn’t your personal thing, other people get to use it too, sorry.
Claiming I would be rude, insulting me like 2 times already. Hope we are done now with off-topic or you want to continue humiliating yourself with your nonsense.
Never seen such aggressive discussion because people refuse to do, explore or report their findings back, instead they insist in getting spoon-feeded. Beyond anything.
Now back to the topic.
Thanks, the second useful thing you’ve said so far, I’ll check it out! But to answer your question, with the comments you unnecessarily made to complain about people asking questions.
Sure bud whatever you have to tell yourself. Need some ointment for your butthurt because “someone made a post you don’t like?” Ask an adult to pop that safety cap on it for ya. Btw it isn’t due to my competence or lack thereof which has you being insulted, it’s the fact that you are a dick and now I’m having fun at your expense.
Well, helped me more than you have so far, so deal with it. I’m dubious if your claim though being that they all seemed to offer better advice on terms, what DEs are more likely to fit my needs than others, what DEs even are, the fact that you can live boot Fedora (which you can’t easily do with mint though supposedly it can be done), I learned a lot. YOU may not have because you’re a mega 1337 haXXor, Crash Override, but for someone who is figuratively day one (maybe day two) into this shit it was indeed helpful.
You can express your opinion without being rude, which again, you were, by being condescending, dismissive and sardonic. Do you know what those words mean?
My intolerance is for condescending pricks dude, your opinion is worthless if it comes at the price of having to deal with your “I’m better than you” attitude, get off your high horse dude, though you’ll probably need a ladder way up there.
I did get that, but with some it seems to work “out of the box” like tails and supposedly fedora, whereas some require MORE EXPERIENCE which is the exact thing I do not have, so again I fall back to the reccomendations you are mad I got.
Again, I told you I am better at being rude when instigated, which you did, because again, being a condescending prick IS rude, which you did. Also I’m damn proud of that line lol, you know it was funny. “I’m a power user, look ma, I’m so badass with linux!” Lol.
Again with this “report back” shit. First of all, to the post you say I shouldn’t have made? You just BURNING to know if touch worked off dick in fedora for me? Well second of all you’ll have to wait until I actually can get around to DOING it before I can report back because I had shit to do today and work for the rest of the week, again not everyone can sit around hacking into Ellingson Mineral Company supercomputers all day, some people have to leave their parent’s house sometimes Cereal Killer.
It is not about questions, it is about that we have those questions a million times already answered on the internet.
Ask an adult how to work with a wrench, he will not tell you use xyz or you guess until it fits. You need to learn the skill to observe, test and research yourself. With is the lesson you refuse to accept. Instead you want others doing the work for you, getting the result or in this case the correct wrench. This is not how a community is supposed to work and if I confront you with that you insult me. Making things up like that I am rude, when its the opposite. Maybe observe what you said here, and what I said, rethink about the statements you did here again.
All of your words, not mine, the one who insults others is you, which means you are the one who is intentional rude here because you cannot handle valid input.
I never claimed that, never made this about me. Just said you could use a VM and use it for yourself, instead you now waste my and your own lifetime making things up. Which only humiliates you, not me. You do this all by yourself. And it shows that power-users like me should never help unthankful people like you, if that is what you want. Alrightly.
First you said you have no time, now you argue constantly about your incompetence and try to even explain that, which makes it even more sad. Instead of just accepting it, using the feedback I and others gave you.
I said you can research yourself, not sure what is there not to understand. I burn nothing here, this is once again you making things up now.
Hope we are finished now. If you do not like my input on things, there is a block function, feel free to use that.