- cross-posted to:
- pcgaming@lemmy.ca
- technology@beehaw.org
- linux@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- pcgaming@lemmy.ca
- technology@beehaw.org
- linux@programming.dev
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Linux comes in a million flavors but most people should start with Mint. That sounds like a pun, but it’s also true.
Mint is a nice, safe, up-to-date, simple, Windows-like choice that won’t unnecessarily complicate the transition to an entirely different operating system. It has good hardware support and good defaults. Most things will feel very familiar and be very accessible. It is popular enough to find plenty of help on the internet and answers to almost every question you could have. It mostly just works and when it doesn’t it’s usually not a deal-breaker.
It’s not my favourite distro, but you aren’t ready for my favourite distro. Honestly I’m barely ready for my favourite distro. It’s not elitism, it’s just practicality. You’ll learn as you go, and you’ll eventually want to try other distros, but start with Mint, and keep a Mint system around for when you break everything else. Which you will if you start playing with other distros.
I use Mint and I support this message.
it’s just practicality.
I have “enough” years under my belt with Linux and I still prefer Mint on majority of my “daily driver” type machines. I already spend my working hours messing around with all kinds of different systems, figuring out problems, installing new ones and so on and I’m old enough that tweaking system just for the sake of it isn’t really what I’m after anymore. I just want something which doesn’t crap the bed, stays out of the way and lets me run whatever software I happen to need. At least for me Mint checks most of the boxes and the ones it lacks it’s pretty trivial to beat it back into submission.
Specifically Mint Cinnamon. It has a UI that is very similar to what people are used to in the Windows world.
I honestly couldn’t agree more. From 2011 to about 2017, I was always distro hopping, trying out different things. And then for the longest time, I just stayed with Ubuntu. And now I’m like, you know what? I’m just gonna fucking use Linux Mint, because it just fucking works.
That is your opinion
Ask 100 Linux users and you will get 100 different distro recommendations for newbies.
It is one of the main reasons Linux wont be going mainstream. Not until the Linux community get their shit together and finally agree on one “good” distro.
More than 100 presumably-Linux-users seem to have upvoted my comment, so, that seems more like 100 people all actually recommending the same thing. Your assertion doesn’t seem to hold water.
Yeah there are (and always will be) a lot of people who will shout noisily about their (current) favourite distro and how great it is and assert that everyone should use it, but the world is full of people like that. If you don’t learn to ignore them you’ll never be able to get a useful recommendation for anything.
Tried to install Mint on my laptop, wouldn’t work. Googled the issue, had to rename a file in the boot directory for some reason.
Tried again, wouldn’t work. Googled issue, had to turn off secure boot in bios.
Tried again, installed, okay now we’re cooking. Connected to WiFi, updated packages and drivers. All good, reboot. Install Steam. Login via QR code, it begins loading user data.
Loading… Loading… Loading… Okay it’s clearly stuck. How do I kill a process on Linux? Google it, okay that’s not too hard. Try launching Steam again, same thing. Google this issue, get a lot of different potential causes, involving delving into some obscure directories.
I consider myself technologically competent, more so than the average person/consumer. I am a lot of people in my social sphere’s “computer guy”. Way more than most people are not going to figure this stuff out for themselves.
I’m really sorry to say but Linux is still not ready for mainstream consumers and users if this is the experience of the most recommended stable distro for the average person.
