Noooooob here: As title said - I don’t know what distro I should choose. My needs are student stuff like Libreoffice & Videoconferences but also creative things, photo-management and cutting videos. Does it matter at all? Do I have to check for every single program I use or is there a distro that is recommended?
I was planning on getting a Tuxedo with Tuxedo OS, but my neighbour recommended another “no os”-seller and now I’m not sure. I was opting for Tuxedo mainly because of the support since I’m leaving windows after many years^^
(Picture shows the lilac and blueish ports that we had for mouse and keyboard back “in my days” with the words “How old are you” - “Me:” on top - just because this community semmingly requires a picture added)
How old am I?
That’s how old I am.
Whats that? 👀
Slide rule.
It’s the calculator that existed before we melted rocks into sheets of little squares and made them think using controlled lightning.
ubuntu studio, then swap to whatevr after, it has all the apps preloaded to learn aboit
Laughs in AT
(Why tho?)
I have a cutting board I made in shop class that is 43 years old.
It is older than I am 🫠
https://endeavouros.com/ is my goto recommendation for a first-time linux user.
I’d also recommend trying it out in a VM first, like VirtualBox.
I love that the colors match (except for blue USB 3 and the yellow one that you can use to power stuff when the PC isn’t on)
I’d use a major distro that’s been around a while. Avoids having them vanish.
Does it matter? Well, different package system. Some different conventions. Some different defaults. You can make an Arch Linux machine look identical to a Debian machine look identical to a Fedora machine if you want.
Tuxedo OS is Ubuntu LTS with some minor modifications and some drivers from Tuxedo pre-installed. I use a Tuxedo laptop running Debian just fine. You’re probably fine with Tuxedo OS if you’re happy with it.
Younglings.
The keyboard should be twice the size!
And that mouse port is all wrong, it should be 9 pins arranged in 2 layers…
What is this… “mouse” thing? The only user input device I’ve ever used was a keyboard.
Do you work with a touchpad then? So I guess you’re smart Gen Z? ^^
Personally, I would recommend, if you’re doing a lot of different things, just switching to a distro that is user friendly and not specialized* like Linux Mint and building up from there. I would hazard a guess that if a program works on a different Linux distro, it’s probably gonna work on Mint, especially if it’s something bigger like Flowblade, KDENLive, or others since a lot of companies tend to focus on development for Ubuntu ( which is what Mint is based on ) if they make Linux ports of their software.
I don’t know the state of the software repositories they use, but if it isn’t in there, it’s probably gonna be available as a flatpak¹ or appimage² ( and probably be more up to date than the default repository something like Mint will use ) if it’s available on Linux. If you went through Tuxedo, the chances of the hardware not working for most modern distro that isn’t some obscure, niche distro is low, so I don’t think that matters as much.
*Specialized as in a distro making a distro with mainly one thing, like playing games, in mind.
¹ Flatpak and AppImage are kinda universal. For flatpak, to start, I’d recommend going to the flathub website to find what you need if you aren’t comfortable with a command terminal. Copy the command they give to install into a terminal and it should do a default installation. Most distros should have it installed and enabled by default at this point.
² AppImages are more like self contained programs containing everything it needs to run and will take up more space for the convenience of not needing to use the terminal to install or run.
Specisl thanks for the footnotes 🙏
use Bazzite, or any other distro that calls itself “immutable”. That’s Linux speak for “it just works, and you won’t be able to break it even if you try”. There are other immutable distros, but Bazzite is the one most likely to have everything you need out of the box.
Also, look at flathub.org and check if the software you need is on there. If it is, then congrats, you’re on the easy path. If not, you might need to use the command line to install what you need from another source.
I theoretically support the sentiment behind this advice, but I - a fairly experienced Linux user both at home and at work - tried Bazzite. I installed it, configured my accounts, ran a system update and rebooted. After a reboot, it was broken.
I’m sure I did something wrong there and likely the situation would have been recoverable, but I didn’t do anything complex, so I challenge the claim “you won’t be able to break it if you try.”
Otherwise it seemed like it would have been a positive experience.
I said you won’t be able to break it, but an update can. Bazzite is an open source project with limited resources, and shit happens from time to time.
However, in cases like that you can always fix it by either doing a rollback (one liner:
sudo rpm-ostree rollback), or by simply choosing the previous working version in grub while the machine is booting using the arrow keys.
I can second the recommendation.
Irun Bazzite on an HP Victus laptop and SteamOS on the SteamDeck.
Both are immutable, although based on different distros.
Sadly an update a few days ago broke the desktop mode on the SteamDeck: the whole desktop was unusable and it wasn’t even possible to properly shut the OS down. Gaming mode was working flawlessly at the same time - huzzah!
Gladly the last update fixed it again.
In all fairness I need to admit that I don’t run the most stable release channel, because I want to have encryption on my SteamDeck.
Bazzite has been running like a charm ever since I installed it.Seperating the OS from the apps by putting the apps in containers instead of having them install files resolves the issue of dependencies for good amongst introducing security benefits. And the OS won’t get borked by apps doing strange things or introducing dependencies that can’t be resolved easily.
Haven’t heard of immutable Distros yet, that’s a good advice! I’ve got a Steam Deck - but has it Steam Os by nature or did you tweak smt?
SteamOS versions 3.x are immutable and based on Arch. Here’s a lot of info about SteamOS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteamOS
The only thing I did tweak was enabling encryption (https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/holo/dirlock/-/wikis/Enabling-disk-encryption-on-the-Steam-Deck), because I use the desktop mode heavily and didn’t want my personal data unprotected in case of loss or theft.
I recently got a Tuxedo machine, and besides their US keyboard layout being weird (two \ keys, one of which should be part of left shift, and I turned it back that way using keyd), I really like it.
The OS is great because it’s (K)Ubuntu but with Snaps disabled by default. Most software I want that wasn’t already installed is available on Flathub through the same program (Discover) that can install from the traditional repository.
Ok since they are in germany and I am as well I hope they can get the german keyboard to work properly^^ Would you mind sharing which one u got?
Idk what “snaps” is - should I learn about it now or later?
Snaps are a software package and distribution format invented by Canonical, which is the company that makes Ubuntu. Most people here (myself included) don’t like them for a few reasons, such as the server side being closed source, and the user having less control of updates than something like Flatpak.
I got a TUXEDO Stellaris 16 - Gen7 (Intel, because they didn’t have the AMD one when I placed the order. Oh well.)
The keyboard is “ENGLISH US ISO (EN-QWERTY international)” which was the closest English option. Note that every other keyboard I’ve ever used has been ANSI instead of ISO, but in Europe I assume ISO is the standard, since the A in ANSI is “American”.
Thanks for sharing all that info! As far as I know I have an Iso Keyboard so you might be right about it being standard over here in europe. I want to have an AMD one too, but can’t decide right now what model because of decision anxiety ^^ I am looking for a desktop pc tho (at least rn, mood might change back to laptop option)
Slackware, just for shits and giggles. I guess I’m old.
Alt text. Picture is a AT keyboard jack.
Like slackware, that port somehow survided, only the keyboard changed.
This was a bit before my time, but while I’ve heard “AT keyboard jack,” I’ve always heard them called five-pin.
Distros are like trying to find the right hat for yourself. At the end of the day, you just need to
poopput on a hat and see how it looks.I recommend something mainstream and kept relatively up to date since you’re trying out both Linux and a number of other open source apps at the same time.
I’d start with Manjaro, Debian, Fedora.
Be sure to try out some different desktop environments: GNOME, KDE, MATE, etc. The desktop environment you use will have a big impact on your overall experience of Linux.
Edit: I’d save pooping on a hat for when you’re comparing Windows versions.
At the end of the day, you just need to poop on a hat and see how it looks.
I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time!
What vendor did your neighbor recommend?
I do think getting a Tuxedo is a good choice, if you have the money for it. New users typically struggle either because they need programs that are only available on other OSs or because their hardware doesn’t work well with Linux. And getting a dedicated device for it, rules out the latter.
If you do go with Tuxedo OS (or another distribution with KDE Plasma as the desktop environment), then kind of the obvious, best-integrated choices are:
You can try these out on Windows or macOS, too.
I guess, it should also be said that you can try out Linux as well, without installing it on a piece of hardware (or making an expensive purchase).
Probably the easiest way is websites like https://distrosea.com/.Hmm, have not heard of One before, but their webpage doesn’t particularly scream at me that they test for Linux compatibility. Did your neighbor say that they use a PC from there with Linux?
I mean, there is a good chance that these do work perfectly fine with Linux. Lots of hardware has support these days and particularly desktop systems don’t have a ton of problematic hardware (a.k.a. hardware which isn’t found in servers, where Linux is dominant).
But if there is something that does not work, then that’s pretty frustrating. So, if you are buying new hardware, I would still recommend getting something that’s also sold with Linux, just to rule that possibility out…
Ja, you’re right. I got all confused when I looked at that site. But as I reconsider my neighbour only said I could get a Linux Pc from them, not that he has one 🤔 Tuxedo makes a much more stable hardware&software setup impression (tho a bit expensive), I thinl I’m gonna go with that, thank for your advice
A PS/2. No, not the fun thing that plays games, it is just a connecter.
If you just want things to work I would suggest a Debian based distro like Ubuntu Studio. I have heard good things about these immutable systems, but I don’t really have much experience with them.
On a side note, keyboards used to have a return key where the enter key is nowadays. It was for a carriage return which went to the new line. It was not for entering data into a field as there was a separate enter key for that.
How old are you? ^^
