Linux
Welcome to c/linux!
Welcome to our thriving Linux community! Whether you're a seasoned Linux enthusiast or just starting your journey, we're excited to have you here. Explore, learn, and collaborate with like-minded individuals who share a passion for open-source software and the endless possibilities it offers. Together, let's dive into the world of Linux and embrace the power of freedom, customization, and innovation. Enjoy your stay and feel free to join the vibrant discussions that await you!
Rules:
-
Stay on topic: Posts and discussions should be related to Linux, open source software, and related technologies.
-
Be respectful: Treat fellow community members with respect and courtesy.
-
Quality over quantity: Share informative and thought-provoking content.
-
No spam or self-promotion: Avoid excessive self-promotion or spamming.
-
No NSFW adult content
-
Follow general lemmy guidelines.
view the rest of the comments
Linux Mint is quite popular amongst beginners. But the main thing I want to say is: I recommend you to try the KDE desktop if you're used to MS Windows. It has a tray, start menu, icons, scortcuts and everything. And it looks kind of familiar to Windows users.
I really think we need to stop recommending mint to beginners, not because mint isn't great, but because immutability is extremely important for beginners.
I really do hope they release an immutable mint variant at some point, but until then, bazzite is my top pick for beginners.
Thanks for the input. I'll have a look at it. I'm usually a bit hesitant about immutable distros. Since they work a bit differently. And someone starting out with Linux, administering their own machine and following a general tutorial will inevitably run into issues. They often have to follow special procedures, learn about the differences and it's just a steep learning curve. A lot of that will be blamed on Linux, and it's an additional hurdle we put in their path. Even if they're willing to learn and try to get their esoteric document scanner working on their own. I think we're better off with something like Mint. Even if that's not completely indestructible, I think it's better in some aspects that are important to a newcomer. It's a trade-off.
Plus we have a few issues with Flatpaks, like themes not applying and Linux looks like it's stuck in the early 2000s when all your desktop is in dark mode and one application will be bright white with completely different look. Or the password manager not working due to the sandboxing of the browser Flatpak...
All of those issues add up and they're not trivial to solve. And kind of unnecessary in my opinion.
And I really like the concept of traditional distributions, where people get maintained packages by the distribution's team. With updates pretty much guaranteed, everything tied into the system and desktop and tested to work there. In case of Debian also with tracking libraries removed etc... I think that's what beginners want instead of pulling Flatpaks directly from upstream, whatever that project does behind the scenes.
I'm really not sure if I want to recommend immutable distros to beginners at this point. They're a valid thing, but come with downsides. But I'm willing to have a closer look. I've yet to try most of them, including the one you mentioned.
I think you overestimate how different the procedures really are, honestly, I think you'd need to give a set of situations in which this would happen and really think about how different it is. The vast majority of usecases are just open the app store to install stuff and use the browser. Most people won't run into anything that needs special procedures.
I've been giving people immutable linux for a while and this has actually been a complete non-issue, the closest thing to a problem was telling them to use rpm-ostree instead of the normal linux fedora commands, but that's only if they need to use the CLI for something, which is extremely rare on bazzite. This has only happened once and it was to install keyd.
I recommend people use bitwarden, there's a firefox extension so this is a complete non-issue for people I help.
As for the themes, most people just use the default breeze in bazzite, themes being weird has also not been something i've seen there, your information may be out of date. Maybe if they're trying out weird custom themes, sure, but again, most people just stick to the default and this is a non-issue. I consider this a feature only really necessary for advanced users.
I think this might've been true a few years ago, things have progressed. The benefits of never having a linus tech tips moment where your entire desktop is destroyed because of a simple package management mistake is much more massive than you realize.
Beginners don't care where their packages come from, they want a system that's rock solid and "just works". You might want that as an advanced user, sure, but I don't think you know what being a beginner is like anymore. I encourage people who care to step out of their comfort zone, but they haven't even once since i started recommending fedora kinoite/bazzite.
I would've completely agreed with this a few years ago. I don't think you're up to date honestly!
Fair enough. Thanks for the nuanced perspective. I'll try it. Though I occasionally really get support requests for old printers, scanners and whatever people have around. Or they have their accustomed workflow and they don't really want to change a lot and also migrate their data to several different programs... I'd like to accomodate for that. I'll see how it is today. I think one thing won't change though and that is the big selling point of Linux having a big package repository. That just has a lot of advantages, also for the beginners. And the maintainers invest a lot of time so everything works smoothly. And it makes it stupidly easy to do a lot of things.
I mean ultimately the details don't matter. My mom doesn't need the latest Firefox or some specific operating system design. She just needs something that gets the job done and is maintainable and maybe not a hassle to operate and maintain...
These work fine on immutable distros if they work on normal distros, for fedora atomic you can install just about anything with rpm-ostree, in these cases, i just send them a message with the command for the thing they need to install.
If they're completely unwilling to do this, linux is probably not a good idea for them in the first place, tbh.
You can install any normal packages in fedora kinoite/bazzite, actually, because of rpm-ostree, this isn't really a disadvantage of immutable distros, and in fact, the largest, most up to date distro is nixos, which is immutable too!
Precisely why I recommend immutability, things being absolutely rock solid, and easily being able to rollback mean there's no downtime where things are just broken.
The downsides are all for hardcore users, in my experience.
Hehe, yeah my experience with Linux doesn't reflect the beginners perspective anyways. So I sometimes struggle to empathize. But I'm trying to keep up to date.
I don't think I really agree with the graph and it's implications on the real world. I've recently switched from Debian to NixOS on my private VPS. And while I now have access to NixOS unstable... I must say the number of services I had to package on my own and had to mess with... hasn't really gone down substantially. I mean it certainly has a lot of packages. But you end up doing a lot of packaging and installing anyways. At least in my experience. So I think that graph is a bit misleading if you try to infer how easy it is to install some random software.
And yeah, if something like a printer/scanner combo is supported in Linux, it's usually easy to get it going on any Linux distro. Issues start to arise once it's some old device from 2010 with bad drivers. Up until now my relatives either threw them away after some Windows update made them unusable. Or I convinced them to use Linux and that has support. Or you need to mess around with some old driver packages that depend on old and conflicting libraries, libc versions etc. I think it's a shame to waste some good printer/scanner. And usually if you replace a device that has done a good job for 10+ years, and your relatives replace that with a recent consumer printer, they're not always better off. These things have been enshittified constantly and the new printer will just have random quirks, refuse to print or scan or do other shenanigans. I'd rather not make this call. And instead keep using the printer that has proven to do it's job very well.
But as I said, I'll have to try. Not using a traditional distro should offer some advantages for those use cases. Maybe it'll get easier to install conflicting (old) library versions for some half proprietary crap. Because that's something Debian based distributions aren't really made for...
For Mint and Windows users, Cinnamon is a pretty smooth transition too.
I switched from Windows to LMDE and Cinnamon a bit more than a year ago, and I enjoy it.
Yeah as a new penguin Cinnamon Mint has been dirt easy to get used to. I'm thinking about trying other DEs for the fun of it but Mint has worked great out of the box.
I second Mint. (This is aimed at OP, not you, Hendrik). Not because I like it, myself, but because it's a really easy transition from Windows.
I saw someone recommending Nix. That must have been a troll, because they may as well have suggested starting with Linux From Scratch. Don't start with Arch, either - not even the EndeavorOS flavor. Arch is my preferred distro, but I've been running Linux since the late 90's and it doesn't feel like Linux to me if there's nothing I have to fuss with by hand.
Just start with Mint. It'll give you a really easy, mostly familiar environment with few surprises and - most importantly - everything will just work out of the box. It's stable and solid. You can always change later after you get comfortable with The Linux Way - or not! I gave my octogenarian dad a laptop with Mint on it 5 years ago; earlier this year he bought himself a new laptop and - without booting into Windows - installed Mint by himself, with me on the phone for moral support. He's perfectly happy with it.