this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Hello community!

I come to you for advice. Using an m1 macbook air since 2020, I installed popos on my old 2013 macbook pro and I was quite happy with it but... I bought a steamdeck two weeks ago and exploring its desktop mode made me reconsider some choices. Using distros based on different systems, with different commands, desktop environment, etc. gets a little confusing for someone like me, who doesn't use linux as my main machine. Do you have any advice for me? From what I understand, steamos is debian-based while popos is ubuntu-based: is that the biggest part of how a distribution works, ie commands, etc.? Good ui/ux is important for me so i should maybe use nitrux or deepin, that are debian-based, or is it a bad idea to choose a less common distro for a amateur like me?

Thanks in advance, I'm a bit lost.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I get what you mean, when you're starting those 10% feel like a lot because it's one of the main things you do when you first grab a system, but over time you install less and less stuff. Even if you're not using Arch, the documentation there is really good, for example they have a Rosetta Stone for package managers, so if you know the command you want to do on one you can check the equivalent on other https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Rosetta so for example if you know in Debian based distros you would do apt-get install you'll see that in Arch is pacman -S .

At the end of the day once you're familiar with Linux the way you install packages is not that relevant to how you use your system. I currently have 3 machines, with 3 different distros, 2 of them look exactly the same and you wouldn't be able to tell which is which, except one is Ubuntu (company issued laptop) and the other is Arch (Personal computer), sometimes I run Pacman on Ubuntu or apt on Arch and get a command not found error, but other than that they're completely interchangeable.