I guess it’s time to leave Ubuntu as a new user and switch to a new distro. Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Mint were my choice, but their base, Ubuntu, is becoming “bloated”, and turning to a latest computers’ OS. And I think it will affect its derivatives. Which distro would you suggest to switch to. I aint rich. I’m already aware of Fedora and its xfce, kde spins, Opensuse Leap and Tumbleweed, Debian and its derivatives, and Void. Are you planning to switch too.
Your
least frictionoption to switch to assuming you’re already on Mint, will be LMDE.i went from Mint to LMDE,
by bloat I assume you mean it installs software you don’t want ?
Linux Mint is generally less bloated than Ubuntu. For instance, is comes without snap (at least it used to. I’m not aware if things changed). If you want to discard Ubuntu totally, there is Mint Debian Edition. That’s it. You don’t want the struggle with getting used to fundamentally different distros like OpenSUSE or Fedora. Trust me.
You’ll be fine with Mint. Even the Ubuntu based one. Just keep a separated partition for /home, then jumping ship to LMDE becomes trivial.
People were moaning about bloating with Breezy Badger back in 2005. And yet…
CachyOS is what Mint thinks it is, and could be if they didn’t go the debian route. It’s practically as easy as Mint, infinitely more performant, and likely runs whatever you want (though switching to appimage packages instead of deb packages for random internet software does indeed feel worse.)
I hate when people here complain of “bloat” since often it just means “there’s this one thing I don’t use and it irrationally offends me by its existence”.
You can uninstall just about anything you don’t want. So very much not like Windows in that regard.
Are you running out of space? Out of memory? Or simply offended that some functionality you don’t like exists?
Give us some examples of boats. My laptop runs Ubuntu 24.04, and it has been running smoothly, using only 1.2 GB of RAM after booting.
Catamaran, schooner, big ole pirate ship, ferry boat, fishing boat
… What?
He just can’t understand little typos :)
That was obviously a joke though, and it wasn’t even OP.
Very clever. Seems like a typical Ubuntu hater ;)
So the bloat is on the disk, ISO file size, not on ram or performance or something?
The ISO is big because it contains programs that you can install only if you choose to during the installation process. You can opt for a minimal installation.
Ok, I see, thanks for the info, man. That’s very helpful.
Can you give some examples of the bloat?
GNOME desktop and background processes others distros don’t have?
Classifying gnome as bloat is a good one :D
When I first switched to Linux 18 months ago everyone raved that mint is the easiest most user friendly windows like operating system and I would be best of using that one.
I hated mint, and having now done 12ish total Linux installs I have enjoyed everything else I have used significantly more. Anything running kde plasma seems to actually be the most windows like for new users, best I can tell.
it’s not like i can’t do a distro without plasma, i just refuse to xD
When I started using Linux i knew that i didn’t want Gnome for it’s style so i went with a distro with KDE. I’ve since tried using WM’s or other DE’s but always fall back to Plasma. Best desktop I’ve used in 30 years and i barely change the defaults 🤷
Its funny, I hated plasma on kubuntu. Felt slow and seemed like constant bugs. But on Bazzite, now Cachy, its amazing.
The number one culprit of undesirable cornering behavior is incorrect tire pressure.
You can use Linux Mint Debian Edition instead
I have little love for Canonical, but I wouldn’t go that far. What makes an OS ‘the Windows’ of something is in my eyes the heaps of useless surveillance, which ubuntu lacks.
I’ve been using opensuse tumbleweed for quite some time on my systems, and been pretty happy with it, in case you need an endorsement.
You only noticed recently?
Yes, just recently, as a new user.
I understand why people choose to leave Ubuntu and of course am OK with it. I for example don’t like Snaps, too.
I have been visiting and leaving Ubuntu for 15 years and now I’m back again (coming from years of Fedora).
I wouldn’t say it’s more bloated, nor does it require more resources. But I prefer the adapted Gnome version where you can minimize windows and everything is a little less hassle (in my case configuring the printer).
In your case, I’d try out Fedora. Its installation is quite minimal.
