Running options are: Linux Mint Cinnamon & Fedora Workstation

I’ve worked a bit with Linux in the past but it’s been years now and I’ve started to learn some python again plan to learn some c languages as well

I’ve read fedora comes with programming tools pre installed and assume I’d need to install the tools myself for mint which I’m familiar with

But based on peer experiences what would you recommend to someone getting back into learning some Linux & programming

Recently bought a t490 and am wanting to dual boot between win10/11 and Linux. My go to daily drivers for the past few years have been ubuntu and pop_os (as well as rhel and ubuntu server) but am also debating EndeavorOS. Any real advantage going one way or the other? Primary use is just going to be for homelab management/development and remote access while traveling

It's really popular for some reason and I don't know why, I've used it myself once but can't you just install those tools on top of debian? It just seems like a script kiddie distro to me but so many people talk about it and use it.

Hi, I’m currently using fedora and have done for 5 months, it’s the only distro I’ve used. I’m planning on doing a clean install to remove some stuff but was wondering about changing sides I like stability, I need it for uni, so probably not arch? I plan on using hyprland Any thoughts? Thanks

Just as background, I have been using Ubuntu and Debian (and derivatives such as Raspbian) for many years now, but only as a user, in other words I have never had any desire to "learn" any operating system. I prefer using a mouse to the command line, and I have a very bad memory so keyboard shortcuts are useless to me because I can't remember them. And I am old, I won't say how old but I started using my Reddit nickname probably about a decade ago and I haven't gotten any younger. :(

What I dislike about Ubuntu is first that they keep trying to herd users into doing things their way (snaps being the big one, they just seem hell-bent on forcing users to use them) and that Ubuntu is not as configurable as I'd like. Basically it's boring, and not in a good way. What I do like about Ubuntu is that once it is up and running I rarely have weird problems with it, but they can't be the only distro where that is true, right? It is one thing if I am tinkering and break something, that's on me, but when a distro does weird stuff "out of the box" that requires hours of problem-solving and searching the Internet, that distro won't last long on my system. I don't want to have to constantly solve problems to make a distro work.

So, I have been searching for a distro that is reliable, that is familiar (as in, based on Debian or Ubuntu but does NOT use snaps), that is somewhat lightweight (will run on older hardware and that by default does NOT install everything but the kitchen sink), but that also is configurable, especially with regard to appearance. I keep hearing about PopOS (no I will not use their ridiculous punctuation) and the Cosmic desktop, which I suspect I might like if it were actually finished, but it's not. So I keep looking on DistroWatch to see what is popular now, and lately MX Linux is always at the top of their list. Ubuntu is only #5 and it is probably only that high because the new stable release just came out. Mint (which I just don't like, I feel it is too bloated) is #2, EndeavourOS is #3, and Debian is #4 (those are the six-month rankings; if you look at the last 7 days it is the same except Debian and Ubuntu are flipped, with Ubuntu at #4 and Debian at #5).

Now I realize that DistroWatch does not and cannot measure actual use of a Distro; I don't think anyone really can. I have at various times in the past downloaded a distro, tried it for 20 minutes, realized I hated it, and then blew it away, yet just by doing that I was probably counted as a user of that distro, or at least a downloader. But still, if MX Linux is at the top of they list over that period of time, SOMEBODY must be using it - either that or a LOT of people have at least tried it. But it doesn't seem to get much love on Reddit, and I am wondering if there is a reason for that. And also I see a lot of people saying they don't like the changes Canonical is making to Ubuntu, yet at least on Reddit it seems like people keep using it anyway. I kind of get sticking with something that has always worked for you, but if you kept buying the same brand of car every few years and every time you did it seemed shittier, eventually wouldn't you consider switching to another brand? And it's a whole lot easier to try a new Linux distro than it is to buy a new car!

Hey guys,

I bought a T430 with i7 in excellent condition. Unfortunately it fails to install various distros. Windows, Arch & Debian work, everything else does not. No matter if stick prepared by DD, or as Ventoy, in the BIOS everything always back and forth, does anyone know a solution?

I have been distro hopping and really keep having an itch to keep trying.  I have always been a Debian user due to all the IoT, CNC, and other hardware projects.  Then the gambit of things like Pi-Hole, HomeAssistant, Klipper development.

But for my main laptop (Lenovo Yoga 730-15, with GTX1050) I have been hopping through distros like crazy.  I really thought I was happy with Pop_Os, then Garuda, then Mengaro, the list goes on and on (tons of ubuntu variants).

I think I settled on a DE for now KDE Plasma.

I have Manjaro running great, but everytime i hit the forums I see something bad about it.

I was thinking of either going to openSUSE, Fedora 40 (KDE Spin), or Zorin. (Specially since all the hype with Fedora 40)

I am unbiased on package managers, while the UI is nice.  I don't mind CLI.  APT, PacMan, DNF, does not really matter to me.  But I do like to just browse repos for things.  Currently using AUR alot and I know some people who have do not like that.  Honestly I don't do a ton that security is top most priority.

Its important to me for nvidia simplicity.  I like being able to run prime-run ./xxxx

one of the main reasons I prefer the Arch distros is due to I just feel I get a better bump in GPU performance.

I primarily use this machine for general everyday use, emulation gaming, maybe some AAA like Fallout.  But I mostly use it for 3D modeling, 3D printing, CNC Tool Path planning, and Laser cutter/engraving.  Not a huge demand on any distro there.

Right now I am dual booting with windows 11 also.. but honestly I really dont need windows, just had it as a backup for games that did not run good with wine. or kinda that backup plan when something like Lightburn is being dumb with the COM ports and i cannot get it running right on Linux.

Any suggestion I am open to hear from fellow addicts

I have a rasberry pi running kali linux. I want to be able to remotely access pi from any machine while being outside of network. So I could eg Be at coffee shop and access my pi from their using a windows PC. Any help or suggestions for doing so?

Currently I'm running Debian with a tweaked install of GNOME to make it more useable as a tablet, but I'm having issue with battery life and cooling, so I'm looking for something more lightweight. I mainly use this machine for schoolwork (using Xournal++ for notetaking, coding in Vim, and Firefox for most everything else) and have maxed it out as much as I can short of a custom motherboard (16GB of RAM, SSD, upgraded wifi card, i7 processor, fresh battery, etc.). I'm mostly used to Debian based distro's but I have a little experience with Arch so I'm not opposed to learning something new. Any advice is greatly appreciated <3

Best Distro for a musician/Creative??

I love linux ive been using Ubuntu Studio for years but, I'm going to need to wipe and reinstall so it caused me to ask the question to all you creatives out there. what distro do you like for music/visual art or just art in general?

Ubuntu Studio? What else??

I really appreciate the insight very much!!

My performance on Ubuntu and Pop_OS is much lower than on Windows 10, which distro can I use to have the closest possible performance to w10?

I’m currently trying to choose a first linux distro for my wife and as a long term unix user myself whose first distro was Ubuntu 9.04 I struggle a bit with a variety of newbie friendly options nowadays + with my experience screwing my perception of what “newbie-friendly” even is. So I decided that asking others is a wise thing to do.

Despite the fact that I left Ubuntu family long ago, I lean towards some ubuntu-based distro (if not Ubuntu itself) because of the big user/knowledge base, good maintenance, historically being The newcomer distro(s) and my familiarity with the ecosystem.

I already have a positive experience switching my mom’s computer to Linux Mint long ago which would do nowadays just as well I guess. However I would like to avoid distros that mimic windows, like Mint or Zorin (just a personal preference as it makes them feel secondary and without a distinct character). I looked into Pop_OS and it looks interesting and visually nice, but I’m afraid that it is something that I liked because it might suit me (I’m a tiling fan) but might not necessarily be a good choice for my wife.

Another difference with my mom’s case is that my mom is much more of a basic user: showing her how to open a browser was 80% of the teaching work I had to do. So honestly any modern linux would work for her. Which is obviously not the case with my wife (however she also doesn’t do anything too specific: some documents for university and work, basic media stuff etc). In the days when I switched to Ubuntu it had its tradeoffs (e.g. limited microsoft office formats support). I don’t even know if there are any today (except for gaming maybe).

So I would like to hear from you guys:

• what is the best newcomer distro in your opinion and why?
• if you switched from windows more recently, what was your experience like? Any struggles? Anything you wish you knew beforehand? And also what made you stay?

Which distribution uses the least memory and has the highest performance on the GNOME desktop?

My father-in-law has been a Mac user for a long time. His old ass Mac can't go beyond El Capitan 10.12 so he can't even get newer mail apps and he lost most of his email when Rogers changed something (removed Apple mail support maybe?). It's also as slow as molasses in January. He is also fidgety so the less things he can poke at that could trigger effects that might be bad seems like a real benefit.

I've noticed in most other areas of life, we've done a crappy job at having simple devices with safety in mind (failures: stoves, TV remotes, software, OSes, UIs/UXs) so if I can't get everything I want, that's just how the world is. Maybe somebody with money should throw $$$ at a distro builder to build one very specifically for old folks. But I digress...

I'm the IT person in the house, but I'm android/Windows/Linux sometimes at work (RHEL) or at home (Xubuntu). Every contact I have with the old Mac makes me break out in aneurysms. I like Ubuntu, but I dislike snaps. I also hate Gnome (Hence Xubuntu for the XFCE).

So I'm looking for a linus distro that has:

• An easy UI (no keyboard shortcuts, ability to limit what shows on drop down menus, no gestures, and large enough text and icons without having having to run at 1024x640 or the like - want to have a 24-27" LED monitor)
• Most actions will be mouse other than writing emails.
• Needs a real IMAP mail client (if there's a Thunderbird build for Linux or the like, that'd be fine).
• Has to have a decent browser (He's been using Chromium but maybe there's a better one - he also has a Gmail account and we're involving him into Goggle Calendar - and we have a Skylight).
• Mostly I expect: Gmail (with the IMAP for bringing down the mail for archiving), Facebook, YouTube, some sent videos, he should have an itunes account somewhere, and he can draw from our storage array that has a lot of music he'd like, software for pulling pics and music from an android phone, audio player (I loved WinAmp back when, but maybe there is something as good now), and some sort of picture roll for a background. Ability to handle PDFs and Word docs are necessary - people send him that stuff.
• Printer drivers for Canon EcoTank printers
• Drivers for 2.5G ethernet
• Backup for networking is some kind of BT or Wifi dongle with driver
• For updates, I'd like an easy approach - I don't want to get stuck in update hell.

Some of what I need is hardware, but I need to be sure the hardware has drivers in the distro I pick. FWIW, I'm in Canada if that has any aspect.

Thoughts?

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Well, I have an old computer that I want to bring back to life and use as a work computer. I want to choose a Linux distribution for it, so that it looks good and works well enough

Specs: Core 2 Duo E4600 3 GB RAM GT 9400 SSD 120GB

I'm doing video editing and 3D stuff for clients and my daily driver has to be stable.

Linux mint worked great for two months but suddenly video editing became choppy in all softwares and Blender UI choppy as well. I figured it probably an update or some configuration that screwed my setup and I have no time to sink into fixing that.

I made sure it's mint issue by installing a clean fedora os and video editing worked great but I had problems with the NVIDIA proprietary driver. Then I tried regular Debian and couldn't install it because it comes without support for my wifi adapter.

So now I'm looking for the most stable and polished OS for noobs lol. I'm thinking maybe Zorin?

Some people also suggested Pop! OS but I would like to hear your opinion about it.

The only things I need:

• Stability
• Nvidia drivers good support
• Flatpak support or a rich repo

Now I'm on Arch Linux, I used to be on elementary. And I would continue to use it, but there were a lot of problems immediately after installation, and I don’t really see the point in understanding Linux, I just want to download it and immediately use it for everyday needs. I liked absolutely everything about elementary, but there were several problems during the installation, for example, the elementary laptop wouldn’t turn off normally, after installing the Nvidia drivers, everything started to slow down, etc. So I switched to Arch, but I’m still in my heart... I don’t know what should I do

I have a spare laptop (ThinkPad T470, 6th gen i5, 16 GB ram, SSD) with Windows 10. I've tried a few distros and I'm having trouble narrowing it down. The laptop only sees occasional use, mostly Firefox, Chrome, and LibreOffice. Good battery life is pretty important.

The laptop has dual batteries and I would to easily see both batteries separately. Plasma does this if I click on it. Gnome makes me open the power settings. Cinnamon will show both at the same time. However, when I tried Mint Cinnamon, it won't display the information correctly. When I unplug a charger, it will say its still charging or show a ? in the battery.

Elementary offered a great experience. Both batteries displayed, looks good on the lower res display, smooth gestures. I'm concerned about dated software though and the community seems to have a disdain for it now.

I like Kubuntu but the 24.04 release is having problems. I couldn't install downloaded Debs like Chrome because everything "is missing dependencies."

I don't especially care for the dated look of LXQt or XFCE. Gnome doesn't easily display both batteries. I narrowed my options to mostly KDE Plasma, I think. My main laptop is on Ubuntu 24.04 but I'm good using non Ubuntu as well.

That's where I tried some other distros. Tuxedo seems fine aside from random German in the menus. Fedora KDE was a little laggy and I've heard complaints poor battery life with Fedora. The openSUSE Tumbleweed live session worked well but I don't think I want to keep up with updates on TW. Slowroll doesn't seem quite official yet and Leap is really behind.

I need help deciding between Fedora KDE, MX KDE, openSUSE, Tuxedo, or whatever else you all might suggest.

Hi everyone! I've been doing distro hopping for quite some time now. As a windows user im quite used to its touchpad gestures and so far none of the linux distro i tried has smooth gesture experience especially with KDE DE. Any recommendations?

I’m considering a full move to Linux from Windows 11.

I use my laptop for digital art and gaming- predominately solo-gaming, occasionally online.

Would anyone have reccs for which distro to go with? I’m new, but willing to learn if I need to gain some programming skills.

Machine specs I’m working with:

• AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10 Ghz

•8 GB

•64 bit

Edit: I forgot to mention I use a pen and tablet for art, specifically a Wacom Draw model. I’m hoping to switch to a Huion or XP soon.

Edit #2: Thank you everyone for the advice! It helped me narrow down my decision for my first foray into Linux. I feel pretty confident in my decision to dual-boot an Ubuntu or Fedora distro.

Thank you for reading and any advice you have to offer.

I'm still using windows 11 on one laptop (an ASUS TUF F15 FX507ZC4) and between the ads, telemetry, AI push and possibility of a transition to a subscription model I'd say it's time to abandon ship. I already use apps that work on Linux, so all that's left is to pick a distro.

Specs are: Intel core i7 12700H, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050, 16GB RAM and what I'm pretty sure is a Mediatek MT7921 WiFi card and a Realtek RTL8168 Ethernet card/controller (whatever you call it)

I want a distro that will work well with my hardware, (particularly the Nvidia GPU), and is stable, since I'm planning to do some development/content creation. I'm familiar with Debian and its distro family, though I'm afraid that might be a little out of date, EndeavorOS, which I'm not sure is stable enough and Fedora, which doesn't support TLP as well, though I'm not sure if TLP is better than power-profiles-daemon for battery saving.

What's up people, anyone around here has experience using Linux for networking? I'm starting to study Computer Networking and the truth is I'm undecided in choosing a distro that will make it easier for me to install what I need to study the above mentioned, I have experience in Linux so can you recommend anything or give some tips, thanks.

Sparky Linux Vs Linux Lite

I've been trying different Live OSs on an old HP Pavillion P7 (dual core 1.9GZ 4GB Ram) laptop.

I really like both of these options and I'm struggling to decide which to install. If anyone has any input on which they prefer and why I would be greatful.

Specifically I'm mutli-partitioning Distros to show people unfamiliar with Linux, and who may have old hardware like mine they would like to resurrect.

Choices are: Sparky KDE / Sparky LXQT / Linux Lite 6.6. Note: I don't have a KDE distro to show people yet, so even though KDE may be slower I'm tempted to use it just to show an example of this kind of DE. Same with LXQT however. I have 2 partitions left; one to be decided between the afformentioned Distros, and the last I'm saving for a super lightweight OS (currently thinking mini OS). Feel free to put a super lightweight OS in your suggestions. However I have tried Bodhi and excluded for installation (I will have a live USB to show of it however).

Thanks for any input.

I'm looking for a distro with a fairly simple encrypted install option - I need to install Linux with an encrypted filesystem from the beginning.

And I also need it to not use systemd at all, and also work well with my Nvidia CUDA GPU.

Let me know what you're thinking! I was looking at PCLinuxOS but it does not have the encrypted option, and I couldn't even install it unencrypted. It wouldn't even boot after the install.

I was looking at MX Linux but it does have traces of systemd, so that's no good.

Hello. It is often said that in Linux there is a great diversity of distributions, but in reality most distributions are derived from Debian.

How many distributions with a large community do you know apart from Debian, Arch, Fedora or openSUSE?

Which one could you recommend for an average user who wants to use the system, which is secure as soon as it is installed and is moderately updated and prefers not to use derived distributions?

My work laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad P1 Gen 5 (12800H, intel GPU). I have been dual-booting Ubuntu 22.04 LTS for a while, but a few things have made me consider switching:

* I needed to do a lot of tweaking to bring the "task bar" to bottom center position and auto-hide the top bar. This is quite important for me when working on a super-ultrawide screen.

* Installing a recent Podman version turned into be a nightmare (try googling podman 4 or 5 on 22.04)

* Using the official Ubuntu .NET packages was a major annoyance making it impossible to use the newest versions, so I ended up with dotnet-install.sh instead.

* Stability of thunderbolt dock connectivity is not great (works better under Windows).

* Hardware accelerated full disk encryption was not exactly plug-n-play

* Screensharing in MS Teams PWA took some research to get working

* Bluetooth headset requires too much manual intervention

Example of important tools for me:
* Jetbrains Rider
* Latest .NET SDK
* VSCode
* Warp terminal
* kubectl/helm/k9s/kind
* Edge and Chrome Browser

I am trying to decide if I am better off upgrading to Ubuntu 24.x or if Fedora might be a better fit going forward? In general, I don't want to spent time fiddling and researching to fixing soft and hardware compatibility, but I also need access to the newest developer tools going forward.

Any input appreciated :)

I'm wondering if the source of my incessant distrohopping is some level of dissatisfaction with everything in computing in general? Maybe I'm just tired, I don't know.

I have hopped through 10 different distros this week, and the thing is that I hate doing it each time. I don't like KDE Plasma 6 (I have had lots of issues, mainly bug related), but I also find GNOME missing some key elements I get from KDE Plasma.

I love Debian based distros, but I don't like what you have to do to get more up to date packages. Then again, I don't want brand new bleeding edge packages because I desire stability and thorough testing. Add to that, I really like Arch for how up to date it is, and how the community has just about everything you could possibly want a few clicks or terminal commands away, but that also means using the latest thing that hasbeen a bug ridden mess for me (KDE Plasma 6, for example).

I will never go back to Windows, I despise it. I used it for 30 years and watched it go from a powerful, flexible operating system to a kludgey ad infested, privacy abusing nightmare. It is absolutely out of the question, and yet Linux, something I love to use, just feels... inadequate, despite it being a hundred times what Windows used to be (IMO, of course).

I'm already aware no one distro can be everything, and so I keep hopping and hopping and hopping. Some people say DE matters more than base distro, and I agree, but so many DEs are in a state of flux right now, and even distro bases are in a state of flux.

I switched to Kubuntu 24.04 this week, only to find out that Ubuntu 24.04 and Mullvad VPN's app are not working well together. My VPN is an essential component of everything I do, so the OS needed to support it without issue. I used Fedora 40 with KDE Plasma 6, and had many issues because for me KDE Plasma 6 is still a mess, and I know they'll get it worked out, the devs are very capable people, but for the moment things are kind of shifting, and I don't know where to go.

I've been using MX Linux the past few days (KDE version), and it works fine, but I'm still deeply unsatisfied to be here, because I already know it's just a placeholder for something else. I don't WANT to distro hop. I've installed the same apps a dozen times over this week, and you get sick of it after a while, or at least I do.

So what do I do? I doubt highly there's a distro out there that can assuage most of these issues, something that has recent packages but doesn't have Snap, works with my VPN app, has a DE that is customizable but not overtly buggy and, and I cannot stress this enough, has an option to change the lock screen wallpaper (that's for those of you sweet folks about to recommend Cinnamon to me). Hell, I even used Tuxedo OS, and it had a lot going for it, but is using Plasma 6, and I had a lot of graphical issues, even with AMD hardware.

I'm so tired of hopping, I dread it, but I know I'm going to do it.

The thing is, this wasn't an issue a few years ago. I happily stayed on Kubuntu for years, and then over the next year hopped until I landed on Fedora KDE, and I enjoyed it and stayed a long time.

People say "you can use Kubuntu without Snap" and yeah, but Canonical has reached the point where they're integrating it so much into the operating system that removing it and putting it back becomes a chore, because each new update might install it again. I got away from Microsoft for that kind of thing, and Canonical's push of Snap goes against what I believe in.

As for Fedora, I just don't like DNF, I don't like having to install RPM Fusion just to get codecs and the option to install Steam from the repos. I don't like the smaller application options (one of my favorite renamer programs is Bionic Batch Renamer, which doesn't work for me in Fedora, but Krename is awful, just awful for me).

If you've read this far, then I give you forehead kisses.

SO, any suggestions, or am I doomed to keep hopping out of unrest and exhaustion?

UPDATE:

Wow! Thank you for so many thoughtful responses! I've been thinking on them and I've taken a few suggestions:

1. I made a list of all the things I absolutely need, and focused on that.
2. I curbed some of my itches to hop by installing a VM and playing with distros there.
3. I pretend the distro I've chosen as the only one there is, to keep me more likely to focus on it.
4. I went with a distro I feel comfortable with, and work with it rather than moving on.

So the end result? I went with Kubuntu 23.10

Here is my reasoning:

1. I don't like Snap, but I can ignore it as long as most of what I need is available via Flatpak and repo.
2. I really love KDE 5.27.x, and Kubuntu is going to be on that until October, giving the KDE devs time for polish.
3. Ubuntu at its base is Debian with all the easy options toggled, so no need to hunt around for codecs and such.
4. Ubuntu uses Debian's massive libraries (Bionic Batch Renamer, et al) that just install and work.
5. Kubuntu integrates KDE and Ubuntu so very well, and it has my favorite application theme: Oxygen.
6. I used Kubuntu for years in the past, and I feel very comfortable with it. No learning curve.
7. Packages are reasonably up to date while not being bleeding edge.
8. I can switch between Wayland/X11 if I encounter any issues, but Wayland on Kubuntu is well developed.
9. My VPN app works without issue on Kubuntu 23.10

So thank you to everyone who offered me advice, tips, and helped me focus. I'm sincerely hoping this helps me curb the distrohopping. Kubuntu scratches a LOT of the itches I had, and I believe I can live with Snap.

Thank you again, you're a great community!

I was a hobbyist with Linux back in High School/College. Heck, I threw Ubuntu on my old iBook and took that thing to class. Found a way to make OpenOffice save in .docx format and told MS office to get bent.

I played games like Battle for Wesnoth and had a great time.

Then I stopped because... Reasons? I don't know. I got a new computer and it came with Windows 7 and I just didn't go back.

Now I'm thinking of giving it another shot with all the new stuff like Proton. It got back on my radar with the whole Game Guard drama. All of my games are on an external drive, and all the important documents are backed up on my Google Drive, so I was thinking of dual booting because, why not?

I'm not nearly as tech savvy as I once was, but I hope I can just point my Linux to the external drive for game installs once I get steam up and running. I have a few games outside of steam, so I'm going to read up on Wine and see what's up. They are also on the E drive.

I know I've got a few options for distros. Ubuntu is officially supported by Steam, but it's more "commercial" than other distros. Doubt it will matter much, but it's fact. Linux Mint and vanilla Debian also exist. Nobara also can up when searching.

I'm not afraid to go get what I want, so "gaming distros" aren't a must since you can generally make your OS what you want.

I'm just looking for some tips on where to start. My main concern is my Nvidia GPU.

so, i bought some old laptops from a garage sale and they are really old like 10-15 years old, i'm looking for xfce distros that, preferably, don't contain anything except a app store so i can download just browser, simple apps like spotify, vlc, discord, i'm a real noob with linux and i'm still learning, i got base debian with xfce but i still think it has a lot of clutter, maybe there's a lighter weight distro that the gui itself is pretty beginner friendly and i don't have to mess with much? ty for the help in advance, laptops are hp g42, samsung rv415 and a acer aspire 4740

Gentoo is the flavor of the day. I'm confident as I've been through the LFS system recently. Any tips for a never before Gentoo user?