Thank you for the answers and the screenshots so far, friends. I'll have to carefully look into it. For comparison, this is how my desktop looks like currently. My deepest apologies for any eye cancer you may suffer.
The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice
- Thread starter tehpope
- Start date
Shoggoth
kiwifarms.net
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- Aug 9, 2019
Regarding GNOME, it usually looks like a piece of hot burning shit but Pop managed to make something decent out of it
So PopOS is GNOME-based? What are its major advantages and flaws, if I may ask? I'd rather hear them from someone who actually has first-hand experiences with the system, rather than read some dry, often copy-paste article.
Shoggoth
kiwifarms.net
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Pop comes with GNOME by default but even on their website you can find clear and simple instructions on swapping out the desktop environment to all the big ones. The default DE doesn't mean much on Linux since it's easy to change.
The biggest advantages of Pop are Nvidia drivers, better gnome defaults, and the company which maintains it isn't owned by a big corp or driven by greed or pozzed like some committees and foundations. Shortcuts are also slightly better. Generally, I haven't decided if I like gnome and I've been using it for a few months now (I'm more of a KDE guy myself but giving it a try)
The biggest flaw is that if System76 goes down tomorrow, I'm not sure who supports Pop anymore, although it can probably be turned into a regular Ubuntu.
A possible pro or con, depends on your position, is that Pop is based off Ubuntu, so if you dislike it for some reason, there's that.
I can report a very smooth experience, all in all, in making the switch to pop. Don't know how other distros play with dual booting, but it was a good girl. If for some reason you boot back into windows and then your linux installs loses networking connectivity shut the computer down completely, disconnect it from a power cord (only way to make sure) reconnect and restart. Looks like the windows network drivers don't release the IP assigned to the network card by the router, then when linux boots it can't start identifying itself to the router and initiate a connection.
Dual booting is not an issue for me, fortunately. If I'm changing my Operating System, it'll become my exclusive one. Also, I never used Linux in my entire life, so I have no biases towards one "distro" over another. How is the experience with PopOS in comparison to Windows 10?
Shoggoth
kiwifarms.net
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Both Just Work.
Installing software on Linux is easier, since you have a package manager. You don't have to go online and search for an installer, you either go to the GUI software center and search for whatever you want, or if you know what you're looking for, just "apt install whatever".
Linux won't update itself and restart whenever it feels like.
All my games work.
If you need stuff like photoshop, I know it doesn't work natively on Linux, you'll have to figure something out.
I do use the CLI, but there's no real need for it on modern distros so don't feel pressured to.
That's all there is to it. It's nice, amenable to both the daily and power user, feels like it respects you as a user.
If all you do is brows the web and use steam, maybe do some light word processing you won't notice any change to your work.
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- Dec 1, 2018
@7he47r0n
Don't use Manjaro, Antergos, or any Arch based distro unless you want to become a mechanic for your computer. The design philosophy means that shit will break and it will be up to you to fix it, which is not an inherently good or bad thing but a big part of why Arch is often referred to as a timesink OS.
I don't know Pop but I know it has a good reputation except for GNOME which is generally notorious for being very bloated and getting in the user's way constantly. However it's also one of the most feature-rich and well suited to edge cases. When I put *nix on a touchscreen I had to use GNOME because it has the best Wayland support and touch-compatible programs. For my money, MATE and Cinnamon are everything GNOME wants to be, but desktop environments are the pinnacle of >opinions
For vidya, check out Lutris and PlayOnLinux, but mostly Lutris. WINE will run pretty much anything, but it can require some arcane configuration to get what you want and a lot of the documentation is garbage. What I like to do is if I can't install a game on either because I don't own it or some bullshit I'll grab the json install script for a game from the Lutris site, configure a wine prefix manually according to the script, and it works flawlessly. Fortunately json is pretty human readable and you usually don't have to make many tweaks, but that's not the point. The point is that when a game or software doesn't work on Windows and no one's created a magic .dll or fan patch installer to fix it you're just fucked because the whole thing is a black box. When it doesn't work on *nix, you almost always have multifarious workarounds.
P.S. To start off with I recommend anything Ubuntu based except Ubuntu itself because if it has a native *nix port, it has an Ubuntu port guaranteed. You can't say that about any other distro.
Don't use Manjaro, Antergos, or any Arch based distro unless you want to become a mechanic for your computer. The design philosophy means that shit will break and it will be up to you to fix it, which is not an inherently good or bad thing but a big part of why Arch is often referred to as a timesink OS.
I don't know Pop but I know it has a good reputation except for GNOME which is generally notorious for being very bloated and getting in the user's way constantly. However it's also one of the most feature-rich and well suited to edge cases. When I put *nix on a touchscreen I had to use GNOME because it has the best Wayland support and touch-compatible programs. For my money, MATE and Cinnamon are everything GNOME wants to be, but desktop environments are the pinnacle of >opinions
For vidya, check out Lutris and PlayOnLinux, but mostly Lutris. WINE will run pretty much anything, but it can require some arcane configuration to get what you want and a lot of the documentation is garbage. What I like to do is if I can't install a game on either because I don't own it or some bullshit I'll grab the json install script for a game from the Lutris site, configure a wine prefix manually according to the script, and it works flawlessly. Fortunately json is pretty human readable and you usually don't have to make many tweaks, but that's not the point. The point is that when a game or software doesn't work on Windows and no one's created a magic .dll or fan patch installer to fix it you're just fucked because the whole thing is a black box. When it doesn't work on *nix, you almost always have multifarious workarounds.
P.S. To start off with I recommend anything Ubuntu based except Ubuntu itself because if it has a native *nix port, it has an Ubuntu port guaranteed. You can't say that about any other distro.
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I feel like a retard because I've been "thinking about dual booting Linux" lately but now I realize I've been dual booting windows for years and just didn't think of it like that because I rarely use the other one.
Stasi
kiwifarms.net
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+1 to not using Manjaro as a beginner, I've had it kill itself just doing an update from the software centre. If moving from windows, can't really go wrong with Mint. The look will be familiar and its rock solid overall.
BootlegPopeye
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Recommending new users go straight to Arch is a good way to get them turned off to Linux very fast. That is more for someone who has been using Linux for a few years, a lot of repositories are not going to be is easy to do for novice users unless it is Debian based.
malt ipecac
kiwifarms.net
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I'm one of the "straight-to-Arch" recommenders, but these are fair points. I should caveat that:
- I installed Arch on a desktop, but I also have a laptop, which makes it much easier to obtain help than if I only had one machine to work with.
- I kind of went into this wanting to become a mechanic for my computer.
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I just dual boot so I can still play games on windows but I use Ubuntu gnome as my daily driver. It's my first linux install going on 3 months, thinking about trying other distros soon but ubuntu seems fine enough.
malt ipecac
kiwifarms.net
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- Jul 9, 2020
Once again, delicious friends, thank you for all the thorough advice you've provided me. I'm humbled by the detail of your answers, as well, though I must admit I'm receiving very mixed messages from the various users. Either way, keep the flow of information coming, for I am a complete "noob" when it comes to Linux, a virgin as pure as snow. Rest assured that I am carefully reading every single sentence, often more than twice.
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Shoggoth
kiwifarms.net
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Whatever choice you make, godspeed.
In your position, I'd consider the three beginner friendly options, in no particular order of importance:
- PopOS: comes with Nvidia drivers out of the box, probably best fit for gaming without having to mess around with anything
- Linux Mint: probably most normie friendly, very windows-y desktop
- Manjaro + KDE: also friendly, had no issues with it myself, I have it on a laptop. Since Manjaro is a rolling release, there's always a chance things will break, though. KDE is also similar to windows in its general feel.
Kinda sorta fake news, but still fuck 'em. Red Hat dropped financial support of the FSF before Stallman was kicked in 2019. The recent happening has no bearing on that.
Sammy
Exhibits no Islamic behavior once given McNuggets
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True & Honest Fan
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I tried to read a couple of different articles and the way they all were written it sounded like the financial support pull was in response to his recent reinstatement. I admittedly haven't looked back to any statements or articles from 2019 to see what Red Hat's response was at the time.
Red Hat withdraws from the Free Software Foundation after Stallman’s return
Corporate sponsors and board members alike are retreating from RMS-gate.
Basically Stallman was reinstated to the board of the FSF and everyone's angry, including Red Hat, which by reading recent articles sounded like they just recently pulled funding from the Free Software Foundation since Stallman's back in charge. I'm not an expert on these matters though, so if I'm spreading misinformation or its a nothingburger my bad, but I wondered what this community thought of it.
Any opinions on the PinePhone, by the way? I must admit I'm desperately searching for a phone disconnected from both Google, Apple, and Huawei.