hey nerds, I’m getting myself a new personal laptop as a treat, but I very much do not want windows 11 shitting it up. Is there a linux distro with caveman-compatible instructions for installation and use? I want to think about my OS as little as possible while actually using it.
I’ve got one friend who uses mint, but I’ve also seen memes dunking on it so who knows. I actually really only know what I’ve seen from you all shitposting in other communities
Go with Mint, it’s my daily drive on both my laptop and HTPC. If you choose the regular edition Ubuntu based you have also hardware enablement (hwe) kernels which could be useful on newer hardware.
Linux mint, Debian, Fedora
PopOS if you are into gaming
You can go with mint. It’s a solid choice. I prefer opensuse tumbleweed since I find it easier to work with. It also has a great selection of desktop enviroments witch is the thing you interact with and what you use to manage your open programs. If you want something like modern windows you can go with KDE or cinnamon and if you want something more minimal and windoes XP like you can use xfce.
ITT: 100 people naming their favourite distro and making that fit whatever OP needs.
HolyOS, Hannah Montana linux, AmongOS
Generally I agree with everyone else, Linux Mint is great.
However, if you really want to not worry at all, you could just buy a laptop from e.g. Tuxedo or System76. They come with Linux preinstalled (I think in the case of Tuxedo at least, you even have a choice of which Linux Distro?), and are guaranteed to have no hardware “difficulties” with Linux, i.e. even if you put another distro on it, you won’t encounter driver issues.
(Those have become very rare anyways, but do put a damper on the “Firsttime Linux Experience” if you do encounter them…)
You can also buy from novacustoms and get Linux installed and you get to have coreboot as the bios
https://ultramarine-linux.org/ Linux ultramarine is based on very popular fedora distro. Let me quote some fedi post:
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Just like Microsoft Windows, you do not need to configure your firmware, drivers, media codecs, and sources. That is already taken care of for you.
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Just like Windows, you can have automatic update, update notifications, or choose not to update. By default, update notifications is the default, allowing you to choose when and what to update. And you can update with a click of a button (point and click), just like Microsoft Update.
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Installing, updating, and removing apps through the app store is point and click easy.
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Go ahead and download an RPM setup file, and double-click to install, just like you would a Windows setup file. Updating and removing that program, can also be done through the app store, which doubles as the app manager.
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Point and click settings. No matter if you want to add users, manage a VPN, add a printer, etc… etc… A simple-to-use control panel is what is offered.
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Friendly support - Based on Fedora Linux, means you have 20+ years of documentation, live help, support forums, and chat groups, both from Fedora and Ultramarine. Source: https://kitty.social/notes/a12bji4hf8zb0332
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Personally I would recommend Fedora, most distros people have recommended here works.
I had less issues installing Fedora on a new laptop than I did with the win11 and win10 attempts, I’m never switching back to windows
The process for installation is more or less the same for all of them.
Linux Mint and PopOS are the “go to” suggestions. I really don’t like the way either of them look. I’m partial to GNOME for aesthetics and ease of use.
Bazzite comes with most of the stuff you will want pre-loaded, and also the cool Steam Deck Gamescope interface. It’s the only one I’ve used with seamless background updates like you might be accustomed to on Android or iOS. That’s my recommendation.
Currently using Bazzite as my main OS on my laptop, and it works pretty good, the ostree setup has prevented me from manually installing several things though :/
What’s this ostree setup thing please? Was thinking of trying Bazzite but am not yet a super experienced user so trying to understand any issues beforehand…
I’m partial to GNOME for aesthetics and ease of use.
At that point just get a Mac. Gnome has the same “we know better than you do. If you want to do something outside of our extremely specific use cases, you’re using it wrong and should figure something else out” mentality that Apple does.
Except on Linux you’re not obligated to use GNOME, with it being simply a choice between many, and that just so happens to fit into it’s users specific needs. It sure has it’s issue like any DE has, and if it bothers you then you’re completely free to use whatever else you want, that’s the beauty of open source.
Mint or Zorin
Thanks for the input ya nerds. Much love from the geek side of lemmy. I’ll be taking the advice of poking around with multiple distros before committing to one, because it sounds a whole lot less painful than I was imagining.
Quick question though, what the hell is a gnome? Or a KDE for that matter?
This is a GNOME: https://www.gnome.org/
This is a KDE (Plasma): https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/If you’re going to test multiple distros, my advice is that you should take a look at a software called Ventoy. It basically let’s you have multiole iso’s inside a single USB Drive, without the need to reformat it everytime. Also, many distros got beef with a function called “secure boot”, which you can diaable in your BIOS in case it generates issues booting Linux.
About Gnome and KDE, they are simply different Desktop Enviroments (DE).On Linux, DE’s are a slftware category, much like how browsers are a category with many different alternatives (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, …) on Linux we got DE’s such as: Gnome (a more tablet-like DE. You either love it or hate it) KDE Plasma (by default it’s windows-like, but it is very customizeable but can be kinda overwhelming to some) Cinnamon (the one that comes with Mint, very simple, very light, very user friendly and has a familiar layout for Windows users) And many more, Cosmic, Pantheon, XFCE, Sway and so on…
I discovered Ventoy a week ago and it’s fucking amazing. So much time and hassle saved.
Desktop Environments (DE), or the Graphical User Interface (GUI) you use with it. Essentially you can choose the graphics set and layout of your computer. The underlying functionality of your computer doesn’t change too much, but how things get displayed does. Ubuntu by default uses GNOME. but you can install Kubuntu instead of or alongside it and use the KDE environment. I used to have both installed and just chose which one I wanted to use at the login screen. Eventually I moved to the i3 environment as well and would switch to that sometimes because it could be fun to play with. If you’re new to this and use Ubuntu I’d just start with that (GNOME) and then you can branch out from there when you feel ready. KDE runs a bit more efficiently but looks a bit simpler, last I used it.
Gnome and KDE are two different “desktop environments”. Each distro has a default desktop environment (DE for short), but it’s like a regular application that you can swap out for a different one that does the same thing. The DE is (roughly, I think) the graphical interface to the operating system. So it can feel like the DE is the operating system (especially on Windows or Mac, which don’t have options to change the DE).
Most Linux distros, and certainly all of the beginner friendly ones, make it relatively easy to switch to a different DE. (Or, so I’ve heard. I’ve been using Linux as my daily driver for I’ve a decade, and I barely understand what’s involve in installing a new DE.)
GNOME and KDE are different desktop environments. Basically they are the software that provides you a graphical user interface. Gnome is more simple, but KDE is more customizable and windows-like. There are more options to choose from than these 2
Linux Mint. I’m a pretty hardcore Linux person, used a dozen different distros, Mint is by far the closest I’ve experienced to #JustWorks.
It’s reliable and simple enough that earlier this year I switched my tech-illiterate parents from Windows to Mint. Works great for them so far.
Yeah Mint being the “Just works” distro is why I use it these days. Debian is best for servers/low maintenance systems, Mint is best for desktops IMHO.
I’m very impressed by the work by the Elementary OS team. Linux is a beast to figure out, and while I’ve used Linux for 35 years, I remember how frustrating getting started was. I use Pop!_OS on my desktop machines today and Debian or Ubuntu for other machines and I’ve used dozens of desktops, but Elementary really does just work (and also also happens to be Debian / Ubuntu based).
It has the easiest install process, trouble free device support, and it starts you with guardrails that keep from breaking things, but can be turned off as you figure it out. Very Mac inspired experience, so not completely intuitive from Windows, but the reality of Linux is that you are going to change distros over time, or even use multiple as each do a better job at dealing with niche requirements. Certaintly not the one size that fits no one that is the current Windows 11 debacle.
Linux isn’t even 35 years old …
You used Linux two years before it was released?
Why did the hipster burn its tongue?
Mint is the best distro for the average user who doesnt want to tinker with their OS or doesnt want to waste time fixing issues.
IF Mint doesnt go well with your laptop, I would try out Fedora, which is more up to date with stuff and also very user friendly choose Fedora Workstation if you’re feeling adventurous. choose Fedora KDE if you want a Windows like experience.
To add, if OP is looking to use the laptop for gaming, I can recommend Bazzite. Built upon fedora with some quality of life things and very stable as it’s immutable. Very hard to fuck up.
It’s hilarious how uncool it is to suggest Ubuntu but it often just works, including very recent hardware if it’s from Canonical partners like Lenovo or Dell. And the kerfuffle about things like snaps are way overblown.
I came here to say this as well. Ubuntu “just works”™ and was my entry into linux 15+ years ago.
you’re right, but the issues with ubuntu crop up later, when you have to update or after you install enough incompatible stuff that it breaks your system. which is a shame bc ubuntu is the most user friendly distro there is imo
I don’t recognize this myself. I’ve never had trouble with incompatibilities or degradation etc.,
Especially these days my OS can remain very vanilla, as many complex things can be containerized. E.g. I run syncthing and an nfs server and sometimes torrenting over vpn, through docker-compose; I’d never install all that on the host with all the extensive dependencies. Same with some heavyweight apps like darktable - spin them up from Flatpak.
Ubuntu does it very well with minimal fuss. I see little to dislike.
my last personal anectode with ubuntu is this: my company decided to setup our office as a remote-onsite hybrid workplace, so our working machines were moved to a rack elsewhere to be accessed remotely and the local machines were supposed to act as basically dumb terminals that can be used interchangeably by us
we develop on rhel, but since the local machines are just to access our dev machines remotely, support decided to install ubuntu because it “just works”. turns out, since ubuntu does a lot of stuff its own way for no good reason, it broke under our network configuration (it’s complicated) and no snap application could run – so, no slack or firefox. not a great scenario for a workplace. in the end we decided to replace ubuntu by rhel and no longer had any issues
you’re right that ubuntu might work flawlessly for you and that it might never break. but, it also might break in unexpected ways. i cannot reliably recommend ubuntu to a beginner because this risk might forever put someone off of linux
is it user friendly if it’s so prone to breakage?
i mean… when it doesn’t break, it works better than anything else. 5-minute installs, supports a ton of configurations and peripherals out of the box, makes gnome a little more usable, etc, etc
…but it breaks, eventually
Is it though? I’ve found it rock solid for years on end - been using it for 14 years, and Debian before that.
i mean idk, i was just asking about what that other poster was saying. i fuckin’ hate ubuntu for other reasons and i generally don’t speak on it in the negative or positive in threads like this. i only chimed in because what was being said struck me as odd. “it’s the most user friendly distro there is, it just breaks a lot”
it made me wonder what user friendly meant to this other user. i wanted to hear their perspective because i thought i could learn something, especially as i help my mom, an inexperienced linux user, use linux on an old laptop for the first time
Fedora tends to “just work” too. Some manufacturers that support Ubuntu also support Fedora for customers that need a “RedHat-ish” distro instead of a “Debian-ish” one.
More specifically Ubuntu LTS, since interim releases are now expectedly beta quality and require upgrades a few months after release. Ubuntu LTS, enable unattended upgrades, register and activate Ubuntu Pro for them and you won’t have to touch it for the lifetime of the hardware.
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A decade and a half ago I used Ubuntu exclusively for a couple years. I only stopped when a scanner I needed for work would only work with windows. That’s still my only experience with Linux but it was pretty rewarding. I was particularly proud of getting past issues with dual screens and using a projector as my primary monitor. I imagine it’s even more user friendly now.
Especially because it’s to a newbie, who stands to benefit the most from using an OS with more user share and more available online resources.
