this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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I need some advice regarding which distro to choose. I tried installing fedora workstation on my laptop as test and it seemed quite annoying to get the user interface right.

I dont mind the technical differences, in fact i'm looking forward to them as linux is more secure and better designed.

The problem i'm having is that i want the good things from windows desktop. for example; tray icons, being able to control filesystem easily with gui, shortcuts on desktop.

Every distro i have tried or seen has been really basic regarding this out of the box with very little customization options. I prefer not having to download million extensions for every little feature that might stop working at every major update or if developer doesnt feel like continuing.

I also would like to be able to easily backup customization settings so i dont have to do everything again if i need to reinstall. I like being able to easily customize everything so having a lot of settings is good thing for me.

I read somewhere about kde plasma and screenshots seemed promising and downloaded kde fedora. Haven't installed it yet but am I on the right track for what i'm looking for? Are there other even better choices? I'd like to nail this from the start so I dont have to reinstall later. I really dont want to wade through every possible distro.


Thank you all, you have been big help

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

I use gui more for file management. I dont like using the terminal for that since I have to remember everything constantly.

Why isnt the /home separate from /root by default? Frankly I dont see any benefits from it being in there.

Also, what is your opinion on kubuntu vs fedora regarding this? I'm quite torn between them, kubuntu seems nice and easy to use but I fear its developers might do stupid decisions if they are already annoying people with the snaps. Fedora seems more secure but it might require a lot of tinkering to get things to work and might be more prone to problems that need troubleshooting.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

Why isnt the /home separate from /root by default?

Because then you either waste free space for root or completely fill it up and can't install any native packages easily.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

I use gui more for file management. I dont like using the terminal for that since I have to remember everything constantly.

Well of course. The only time terminal is really useful for file management is when you want to do mass operations (e.g. find all filenames that match a pattern and rename them with another pattern) or when you're managing a remote/headless system.

Why isnt the /home separate from /root by default? Frankly I dont see any benefits from it being in there.

It complicates the setup process to make multiple partitions. Generally speaking I wouldn't want an automated process to mess with partitioning a drive for me, I would either be satisfied with the basic single-partition setup or else set up the partitions manually.

If you do set up your partitions manually, make sure you create a swap partition of at minimum 2GB, though if you plan to use hibernation you'll need enough swap to store your entire RAM contents, plus additional space for the swap itself.

Your OS partition doesn't need to be all that big, Linux tends to be pretty efficient. 30GB is probably enough to provide room for growth.

Also, what is your opinion on kubuntu vs fedora regarding this?

I used Kubuntu for many years, but I don't really like the recent changes in Ubuntu, especially the move away from standard repository package management in favor of snaps.

Fedora is a solid choice, and may be particularly useful if you plan to do anything career-wise with Linux. There's a lot of RedHat/Fedora/CentOS in industrial and enterprise computing.

Personally I've recently started using EndeavourOS, and I'm pretty happy with it so far. It's an Arch variant, but designed to be useful out-of-the-box. The only thing I miss occasionally is Synaptic, there really isn't anything comparably competent for any of the non-Debian distros unfortunately.