The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Ahriman]

Can't say I've ever had issues with Flatpaks, if anything, I was worried for a moment that the Flatpak version of Steam wouldn't work properly but nope, 0 issues.

 

[Admin Dissipate Swordfish]

Hi,

I'm looking for a newbie Linux distro that's very point-and-click and mouse accessible. I'm fairly new to using the CLI, and while I'm not averse against getting into it, it does feel very intimidating, and I'd like to dabble in something that is close enough to Windows in generic daily computing stuff.

Unfortunately I havent had luck with Linux Mint as for some reason, everytime I'd try to install it, it would just get stuck in the copying files section. Under the behest of @Ahriman , I've downloaded Fedora, but I'm yet to try it

I'm very enthusiastic to dip my toes in Linux, but I dont think Im autistic enough just yet to dabble in anything not too normie friendly.

 

[Blue Miaplacidus]

Hi,

I'm looking for a newbie Linux distro that's very point-and-click and mouse accessible. I'm fairly new to using the CLI, and while I'm not averse against getting into it, it does feel very intimidating, and I'd like to dabble in something that is close enough to Windows in generic daily computing stuff.

Unfortunately I havent had luck with Linux Mint as for some reason, everytime I'd try to install it, it would just get stuck in the copying files section. Under the behest of @Ahriman , I've downloaded Fedora, but I'm yet to try it

I'm very enthusiastic to dip my toes in Linux, but I dont think Im autistic enough just yet to dabble in anything not too normie friendly.

I'm surprised you're having trouble installing linux mint, is it extremely old hardware or damaged at all?
I'd suggest trying to install it or figure out why it's not working, linux mint is a nice distro. Pop!OS is another "I'm a windows user who wants to try linux" distro. Honestly, most distros are perfectly fine for a new user. If you can't sort out getting mint installed try pop, manjaro, ubuntu whatever it really doesn't matter. Using any distro with something like Cinnamon or MATE as the desktop environment will give you that familiar windows point and click experience.

Either way it's worth making the switch, Linux is great and if every game I owned ran flawlessly on Linux I would never boot up my windows partition

This was way too hardcore for me, I only got into Linux around 2000, when you could have free SuSE CDs in magazines.

Check out what Debian looked like, in 1999. Again, you had to be an enthusiast to go out of your way and try out any of these mysterious Linux distros, but holy fucking shit, we've come such a long way.

I've been using slack for the last 2 decades, they just released 15 recently and I still have the slack 4.0 install CD's my friend who introduced me to linux from germany sent me in the snail mail in 1999. I remember it took me like a week to figure out how to install it back then as I was a child, and stupid. Anyway I've used both slack and debian since then almost exclusively and both have been very stable and reliable, I've tried to switch a few times but I always go back to slack, it just works.

 

[Admin Dissipate Swordfish]

I'm surprised you're having trouble installing linux mint, is it extremely old hardware or damaged at all?
I'd suggest trying to install it or figure out why it's not working, linux mint is a nice distro. Pop!OS is another "I'm a windows user who wants to try linux" distro. Honestly, most distros are perfectly fine for a new user. If you can't sort out getting mint installed try pop, manjaro, ubuntu whatever it really doesn't matter. Using any distro with something like Cinnamon or MATE as the desktop environment will give you that familiar windows point and click experience.

Either way it's worth making the switch, Linux is great and if every game I owned ran flawlessly on Linux I would never boot up my windows partition.

The hardware isnt particularly old--an old laptop from 2010 with a mediocre AMD processor, a desktop with an old second gen i3, and a more modern 6th gen i5. I've managed to make the live version of Linux Mint run flawlessly, but installing it using the default method to a hard drive/SSD would be futile, as it would get stuck in the "Creating file systems".

Honestly, I've tried different versions of Linux Mint ISOs, whether XFCE or Mate; I've tried manually making partitions in Mint's version of the disk manager; I've tried leaving it for an hour or two; I've tried disabling the box to install multimedia codecs; I've tried offering it scented candles and some cotton swabs from around the house, and it never progressed past that point. As of right now, Im weary of trying to install Mint, which is a shame since I can see how its user experience must be good to warrant its common popularity, Maybe Ill try again in the future.

Either way, I think I'll also download Pop and Ubuntu. Maybe I'll look into Manjaro, but I've heard that word be thrown around by some deep nerds in my circles, so Im both excited but wary.

I'm installing it on a spare computer, and I'll try to use it as my primary system for a week to see how I like it. Maybe I can try those emulation or NAS things or Docker applications that all the cool kids are talking about...

 

[Blue Miaplacidus]

The hardware isnt particularly old--an old laptop from 2010 with a mediocre AMD processor, a desktop with an old second gen i3, and a more modern 6th gen i5. I've managed to make the live version of Linux Mint run flawlessly, but installing it using the default method to a hard drive/SSD would be futile, as it would get stuck in the "Creating file systems".

Honestly, I've tried different versions of Linux Mint ISOs, whether XFCE or Mate; I've tried manually making partitions in Mint's version of the disk manager; I've tried leaving it for an hour or two; I've tried disabling the box to install multimedia codecs; I've tried offering it scented candles and some cotton swabs from around the house, and it never progressed past that point. As of right now, Im weary of trying to install Mint, which is a shame since I can see how its user experience must be good to warrant its common popularity, Maybe Ill try again in the future.

Either way, I think I'll also download Pop and Ubuntu. Maybe I'll look into Manjaro, but I've heard that word be thrown around by some deep nerds in my circles, so Im both excited but wary.

I'm installing it on a spare computer, and I'll try to use it as my primary system for a week to see how I like it. Maybe I can try those emulation or NAS things or Docker applications that all the cool kids are talking about...

If your hard drives aren't damaged you could try using the live boot to partition your drive with GParted and then re-install. Manjaro is a great distro and it's a lot more newbie friendly than those "TOP 10 LINUX DISTROS FOR WINDOZ USERS" websites claim, honestly give it a shot.

or you can try booting the live install, go to settings manager, de-select "Mount removable drives when hot-plugged" and "Mount removable media when inserted." and then install. making sure you're in UEFI and not legacy mode, secure boot disabled, UEFI is enabled, set SATA mode AHCI, and you boot from UEFI and not legacy.

 

[PFM]

The hardware isnt particularly old--an old laptop from 2010 with a mediocre AMD processor, a desktop with an old second gen i3, and a more modern 6th gen i5. I've managed to make the live version of Linux Mint run flawlessly, but installing it using the default method to a hard drive/SSD would be futile, as it would get stuck in the "Creating file systems".

Honestly, I've tried different versions of Linux Mint ISOs, whether XFCE or Mate; I've tried manually making partitions in Mint's version of the disk manager; I've tried leaving it for an hour or two; I've tried disabling the box to install multimedia codecs; I've tried offering it scented candles and some cotton swabs from around the house, and it never progressed past that point. As of right now, Im weary of trying to install Mint, which is a shame since I can see how its user experience must be good to warrant its common popularity, Maybe Ill try again in the future.

Either way, I think I'll also download Pop and Ubuntu. Maybe I'll look into Manjaro, but I've heard that word be thrown around by some deep nerds in my circles, so Im both excited but wary.

I'm installing it on a spare computer, and I'll try to use it as my primary system for a week to see how I like it. Maybe I can try those emulation or NAS things or Docker applications that all the cool kids are talking about...

Verify the ISO checksum and all that to make sure the download isn't fucked up. The place you're stuck is an odd place to get stuck without the actual ISO being corrupted. If the ISO is fine try flashing it to a different USB stick.

Once you get the install figured out there are a lot of resources to learn the command line. Here are a few to get you started:

https://ryanstutorials.net/linuxtutorial/

https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide

https://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse

The best thing to do is figure out something you'd like to accomplish and do it using the command line. Getting a cheap PC or a raspberry pi and get to work administering your own file server for example.

Hope this helps!

 

[DavidS877]

I, too, prefer Snaps and think that Snaps are superior to Flatpaks.

The first thing I run on any new system is "dpkg --purge snapd" I also don't like Flatpak since it needs a runner. So I just use AppImages... they're horrible too, but at least they're usable without (most)external dependencies. Heck, even managed to repackage something that was in deb or Flatpak.

Oh, Flatpak is from the Gnome people, no wonder I don't like it.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Universal packages are kinda meaningless if they require even more steps to be compatible than distribution packages...

 

[Kosher Dill]

I'm waiting for some major application to unironically start packaging itself as Docker or VM images.

 

[PFM]

The first thing I run on any new system is "dpkg --purge snapd"

Eventually I don't think this will be possible on Ubuntu systems without breakage

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Eventually I don't think this will be possible on Ubuntu systems without breakage

On Ubuntu for ARM, I've noticed you can't delete one of the core libraries for snapd but just render it useless. If you go further, it breaks the system... As I've found out the hard way.

 

[hhaergenreyt]

Hi,

I'm looking for a newbie Linux distro that's very point-and-click and mouse accessible. I'm fairly new to using the CLI, and while I'm not averse against getting into it, it does feel very intimidating, and I'd like to dabble in something that is close enough to Windows in generic daily computing stuff.

Unfortunately I havent had luck with Linux Mint as for some reason, everytime I'd try to install it, it would just get stuck in the copying files section. Under the behest of @Ahriman , I've downloaded Fedora, but I'm yet to try it

I'm very enthusiastic to dip my toes in Linux, but I dont think Im autistic enough just yet to dabble in anything not too normie friendly.

What makes a big difference for new users is the desktop environment, rather than the distro as such. Try a distro with KDE Plasma, it's quite Windows-like. I recommend Kubuntu, it's basically Ubuntu but with KDE instead of GNOME. The majority of technical documentation that applies to Ubuntu will also apply to Kubuntu.

 

[DavidS877]

Eventually I don't think this will be possible on Ubuntu systems without breakage

Yea, this contributes to why I tend to just install Debian now. But Testing, since I do sort of need drivers from within the last 5 years.

What makes a big difference for new users is the desktop environment, rather than the distro as such. Try a distro with KDE Plasma, it's quite Windows-like. I recommend Kubuntu, it's basically Ubuntu but with KDE instead of GNOME. The majority of technical documentation that applies to Ubuntu will also apply to Kubuntu.

Maybe it's me... it probably is. I've been running XFCE for a while now. If you can figure out how to click on the little picture to get a menu of apps I don't really think it's that hard. But to be fair that applies for pretty much everything except Ubuntu Unity, which is just shit.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Speaking of XFCE, Zenwalk has an absolutely beautiful XFCE configuration that's inspired by windowmaker:

 

[hhaergenreyt]

Maybe it's me... it probably is. I've been running XFCE for a while now. If you can figure out how to click on the little picture to get a menu of apps I don't really think it's that hard. But to be fair that applies for pretty much everything except Ubuntu Unity, which is just shit.

I recommend KDE because it has more devs working on it. It's more polished than XFCE, which has a lot of annoying bugs in my experience. I still use XFCE myself because I can't be bothered to change it, but if I were choosing a desktop environment now I'd go with something else.

 

[DavidS877]

I recommend KDE because it has more devs working on it. It's more polished than XFCE, which has a lot of annoying bugs in my experience. I still use XFCE myself because I can't be bothered to change it, but if I were choosing a desktop environment now I'd go with something else.

The problem is that KDE started as a clone of CDE. CDE stood for the Crappy Desktop Environment. Which makes KDE the Krappy Desktop Environment. Admittedly XFCE has a similar lineage. I should really call it a day and just switch back to FVWM. My requirements are: a bar with my windows and a button to click for a new window(Terminal or Browser or other App).

 

[Knight of the Rope]

The first thing I run on any new system is "dpkg --purge snapd" I also don't like Flatpak since it needs a runner. So I just use AppImages... they're horrible too, but at least they're usable without (most)external dependencies. Heck, even managed to repackage something that was in deb or Flatpak.

Oh, Flatpak is from the Gnome people, no wonder I don't like it.

Sounds like you need to stop worrying and learn to love the Snap.

I'm waiting for some major application to unironically start packaging itself as Docker or VM images.

Docker/LXD serve pretty much any purpose that I'd want a Snap for anyway. At least in my work, it's less "can we get this 'sandboxed' software running on every machine with as little work as possible?" and more "can we get this exact configuration of sandboxed software reproduced perfectly across multiple machines, and who cares how much work it takes if most of it is in a script anyway?"

 

[teriyakiburns]

he problem is that KDE started as a clone of CDE. CDE stood for the Crappy Desktop Environment. Which makes KDE the Krappy Desktop Environment.

Kool Desktop Environment, according to the original dev. It was only a play on the CDE initialism, not a clone of DE.

 

[DavidS877]

Docker/LXD serve pretty much any purpose that I'd want a Snap for anyway. At least in my work, it's less "can we get this 'sandboxed' software running on every machine with as little work as possible?" and more "can we get this exact configuration of sandboxed software reproduced perfectly across multiple machines, and who cares how much work it takes if most of it is in a script anyway?"

Don't forget the part about "Why does this container have 72 layers and weigh in at 17GB"

 

[DavidS877]

Kool Desktop Environment, according to the original dev. It was only a play on the CDE initialism, not a clone of DE.

Totally not a clone...

To be fair, they did put the date and time at the other end of the bar.