All the times where we narrowly avoided nuclear war.
Always eat your greens!
All the times where we narrowly avoided nuclear war.
For me, Mint offers everything good about Ubuntu without any of the bad.
That being said, I don’t hate it, but I also don’t recommend it ever to people. The pitfalls that can come up from Snaps, plus the default layout of Gnome, are reasons why a brand new Linux user might struggle with it unless they are already somewhat of a techie.
For ex-windows users like my parents who aren’t tech savvy, I just install Mint, set up their shortcuts and desktop icons, and away they go, happy little penguins.
Fair points. yeah, there’s a reason I use KDE on my main gaming rig, I love the look and feel, and it’s super customizable.
That’s my only complaint with Cinnamon, is it looks kind of dated. Not bad, but dated for sure.
Like I said, if you already like something else and it’s working for you, no need to switch. But, if stability and out of the box functionality are your top priorities, Mint with Cinnamon is a great choice.
I might have missed it, but why isn’t Mint on there? From what I read on your list of requirements, it fits in. I will say this, Mint with the Cinnamon desktop has become my workhorse distro of choice.
It’s the most stable and no-fuss distro I’ve used, and I’ve tried many.
That being said, I personally use Nobara for my gaming PC and it’s been really good. It’s not as stable though, and that is partially my fault, I’m a tinkerer on that system. Part of it is KDE Plasma though, especially on Wayland.
Don’t get me wrong, it still works great and plays everything super well! But there are several little annoyances that happen. Menus not popping up in the right place. Windows sometimes opening completely off screen so I have to manually drag them back into view, some recent flickering with certain games in the menus. Once every 4-6 weeks, my mouse will stop responding when I unlock the PC., and I have to unplug and re-plug it in.
Again, nothing game-breaking or super frustrating, just little annoyances. Comes with the territory of tweaking your systems and using newer tech like Wayland.
If you like Kubuntu and it’s been working well for you, stick with it, it’s a solid Ubuntu spin for sure. Don’t fall into the grass-is-greener trap.
Awesome
For another useful resource, this site is really helpful for decoding what cronjobs are in plain language.
Been 100% Linux for over 3 years. All my servers, my fancy gaming PC, my personal laptop, my side business laptop, my work laptop, my Steam Deck, all Linux.
No dual boot, I have a single Windows VM on my work laptop to test Windows apps because my workplace is a Windows shop.
I don’t miss Windows even a little bit. I am so much more free and enjoy computing way more now.
I doubt this is a real post, but on the off chance it is, sorry you’re having issues, but Linux probably isn’t for you.
You’re obviously very enraged and not really interested in actually getting help for any issues you’re having. You started your post screaming at Linux for not making sense to you, you haven’t described what hardware you are trying to use.
You only described your issues with Debian and Manjaro, neither of which are beginner-friendly distros and aren’t often suggested to brand new Linux users.
If you want to describe your issues in more detail, one at a time, with info about your hardware, your distro and version, and what the exact errors you are getting are, you might get some folks chiming in to help. But coming on here, posting a rage-filled wall of text ranting about how angry Linux has made you, that’s not productive for anybody.
If that seems like too much work, then sad to say, Windows will be your home for the time being.
That’s a pretty weak machine. Linux Mint is my #1 recommendation for new Linux users, especially former Windows users. It’s what I moved my parents to on their very old computer and it works great.
Try the default Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop first, but if it seems really slow, go with the XFCE version.
You really need to use an SSD in that laptop if possible, it will speed things up to a usable level. Also, if the RAM is upgradable, you should put 8GB minimum in it. DDR3 laptop sticks are dirt cheap, you can get them online for $20-$30 for 8GB sticks.
Same with SSDs, get a 1000GB brand new SSD for $50-$60, it will make everything much more responsive.
Hard lesson to learn, I’ve been taught the same myself.
Some others have said it already, but I will repeat the gospel, use Timeshift!
I did nearly the exact same thing you did on my Debian laptop at a tech conference right at the beginning of an important session.
I decided to mess around with my wireless drivers. IDK why I thought that was a good idea, I don’t remember what I was trying to do, but I borked my networking stack completely.
couldn’t get it to reconnect, couldn’t get the settings to revert or anything.
I quickly ran Timeshift and selected my most recent automatic daily restore point. 5 minutes later I was back 100% Internet was working perfectly, nothing funky, and I was able to catch up and follow the lecture again.
Timeshift is awesome too because it runs from the command line if you need it to. So even borking your GUI isn’t a death sentence, you can still run Timeshift from the terminal and restore your system.
I had a cheap automatic in college, sadly lost it in a move.
But I loved it so much, kept itself wound up without issue, and it was amazing to look at all the tiny parts that made it work.
If you eat meat, the breakfast crunch wrap supreme is made by angels.
If Taco Bell ever releases a Breakfast crunch wrap supreme with impossible sausage, I will eat it 5 days a week and balloon to 400 pounds.
when they are available, the nacho fries are incredible also.
Depends on the pizza. If you are eating a traditional pizza just like mamma mia made back in the old country, skip the Tabasco.
If you’re eating greasy sloppy pizza from a dirty little place called, “Joe’s” load up that Tabasco and the chili flakes, and add some of that artificial Parmesan powder that comes in little packets!
So you’re a user that tinkers with your system, breaks it, can’t get it working correctly again…and that’s Linux’ fault?
And you consider yourself an example of a “regular user?”
Try using Tailscale, it’s an overlay network that acts similar to Hamachi. It’s totally free for up to three users and you can just use your Minecraft Microsoft email to sign up.
It works on all platforms and is fast, easy, and secure. And you don’t need to do anything sketchy with your router like opening ports.
Really sad about this, because Rust Desk has been the absolute best remote access tool I’ve ever used in the IT world, and that includes many different professional tools like Ninja& Teamviewer.
It’s so clean, easy to install and run, fast and low latency, handles multi-monitors great, runs on mobile, Linux, Windows, etc.
Such a shame that it is mired in controversy.
The process of enshitification is what I was referring to. Discord got super popular by providing users with lots of value for zero cost.
Now, in order to increase profits, they are reducing the scope of features they offer, and increasing the cost of the features that remain.
This will continue to slowly get worse, as users are more locked into Discord’s ecosystem and userbase, they will be further pressured to upgrade and pay more money for less stuff.
Discord’s enshitification continues.
lol, fixed it now :P