so i've decided to take the jump and go full linux on my laptop, tired of botnet 10 and its bloatware. I want something easy to use out of the box, fast, not too demanding in ressources, secure, stable and aesthetical. i've read about different distros and i decided to start with manjaro + gnome. i'll be installing everything this weekend so what should i know before starting ? what are some must have softwares and extensions ? where can i learn about customization since i'm gonna be ricing to have a minimalistic yet aesthetic look?
If you don’t mind having a completely unproductive laptop for a while, a very good way to learn about Linux is to install arch manually (fuck installers) and learn about everything you’re installing and customising as you do it.
For E.g: As you configure WiFi, instead of just running wifi-menu, actually take a look at how it all works in the man pages and arch wiki.
Manjaro is technically interesting, but it requires you to use this king of application installer with tens of thousands of packages with names you know nothing about. Usually Debian-land is more beginner friendly so I'd recommend you Mint or Ubuntu derivative of your choice.
isn't there a way to understand which are important and what should i install first ?
Carson Turner
If you're coming from windows and still feel compelled to use gnome, you should definitely look into the budgie desktop environment instead. It's built on top of gnome but it's actually sane. Gets rid of the need to use extensions. Ubuntu budgie implements it pretty well, but the DE is available on most distros now. Current gnome is just a big damn headache.
Jace Parker
when you isntall gnome make sure you get the dash to dock extension it makes it way better
Linux Mint. Either Cinnamon or Xfce. >manjaro + gnome Manjaro is ok, but stay the fuck away from GNOME.
Ethan White
You linux ricers should just kys. The man said EASY TO USE OUT OF THE BOX
Parker Powell
Fedora Silverblue, the indestructible distro
Xavier Rivera
Based, this is actually how I learned. I started with mint for two weeks, then went straight for arch. Learned a lot, then moved on.
Cooper Perry
>I want something easy to use out of the box, fast, not too demanding in ressources, secure, stable and aesthetical >manjaro + gnome
??? just install ubuntu bro lol
Julian Martin
Most of those packages are actually dependencies. Just like Windows games usually require you to have DirectX, VC, .Net and other components so their respective installers are bundled with the program you want to install. In Linux it looks similar, you actually only need to search for a program you need (i.e. Firefox, mpv ) and rest of the work is resolved automatically. But new users usually don't feel comfortable operating on such huge list of strange names, so it's recommended to start with a distro with a more friendly installer.
I don't agree with him but installing really does help with knowing how to setup all the misc stuff like audio, systemd, xorg etc...
t.used antergos for two weeks and i thought i knew shit, realised i didn't know shit after installing arch
Matthew Barnes
Op, gnome is better implemented in fedora. It's a great DE and werks out of the box. Don't get tempted by extensions, only use minimal stuff. Doing ricing in gnome is missing the point, it exists to let you do your shit without ricing or tweaking stuff. Don't listen to the larp of , the average Jow Forums citizen hates anything good and successful
Austin Miller
>hello Jow Forums I want to switch from productive os to nerd shit nobody takes seriously on desktops and then get assblasted when I need to run 50 terminal commands to fix a permissions problem preventing me from opening a file
unironically just get ubuntu if you want desktop linux, everything else is just worse in practice
or stick to windows like a sane person
Henry Gonzalez
dont use mint or manjaro theyre security threats
Henry Allen
ok i might start with ubuntu then, what about Fedora though ? and why should i avoid GNOME ?
ok thanks for the info.
Mason Edwards
since you dont have nvidia fedora is good too
Nathaniel Nelson
>why should I avoid GNOME? You clearly havent been reading enough about Linux, if you haven't encountered any GNOME hate yet.
Ubuntu is defintely the place to start. It is by far the "it just werks" disto. With it, you can get a feel Linux, while actually being able to use your system
Zachary Ortiz
my laptop comes with a mx150
Aiden Lee
gnome is a bloated piece of shit. doesn't work well with applications from literally every other DEs. toddler-tier touch UI, yet doesn't work at all on touchscreens. single-threaded javascript crap on desktop. memory leaks everywhere. took almost a decade until it became barely tolerable. the devs are all mactards who don't actually use it, and genuinely thinks it should be a separate 'ecosystem' instead of being well-integrated like all the other GNU projects. what the fuck. just install cinnamon/xfce/kde, they're similar and easy to use.
Because GNOME is heavy as fuck and the worst DE. Unless you have a 10GHz CPU and a dedicated GPU it will stutter like crazy because it's single threaded and written in Python. Don't listen to retards shilling for GNOME. Use Xfce, KDE or Cinnamon since they're all significantly better. GNOME is basically for tablets yet it fails being for tablets and low power devices because it takes as many resources to render at 60fps as any 3 DEs combined. You'll literally lose IQ by using it on a desktop. If you want a GNOME experience without any lag then just use i3 or dwm.
Jack Howard
>xorg is broken
Since Broadwell integrated gpus, xorg freezes in a ton of laptops. So you only can to use GNOME as of it is the only DE with decent Wayland support. xorg as a Wayland client (XWayland) works fine. Try Debian 10 + GNOME (Wayland) and you will have not any problem.
Henry Hughes
This is a great example of why he should start with Ubuntu
Benjamin White
I gtfo'd the Windows 10 botnet about a year ago. I would recommend starting with Ubuntu. While you're using it, back up anything worth a damn to an external drive, because at some point you will either: -fuck up your OS beyond repair or -get comfortable with linux and move on to something like arch/manjaro
Adam Brown
It's easier to simply learn manual Linux partitioning and create separate home partition. Then you may change your distro however you like without moving your data.
Jace Sullivan
i tried gnome like an hour ago and i ended up removing it i can't tell you why it sucks, just boot into a live environment to see why it sucks, actually i was mistaken. look into kubuntu, xubuntu and lubuntu before trying ubuntu, they are basically ubuntu but without gnome
To be fair, Mint Xfce is better than Xubuntu and should be what a new user tries out first, especially coming from windows.
Aiden Morris
Ubuntu or mint are the way to go, OP.
GNOME, while visually pleasing, is heavy on resources and can give problems with some programs. The big complain though is their philosophy and how they break everything for the rest of the comunity every fucking 6 months. Cinnamon, MATE, are great options if you come from windows. My personal favorite is xfce, which is light, modular and just works. I would recomend you mint xfce, which is basically a polished ubuntu with visually pleasing defaults.
Also, learn in some minutes how to put your /home in a different partition, if you fuck your OS you will be happy to have your data separated
why? i haven't tried Xubuntu nor mint, not even ubuntu. but both distros just use Debian so why would mint xfce be better? genuinely asking btw
Michael Torres
More polished, the graphic package manager is better, themes are better... Is a tight comparison, but mint wins. Also canonical (ubuntu's creators) are doing all kind of stupid decisions latelly as they want to go to a mostly pro/server OS.
Many people recomends Manjaro too, which is a great option, but their package manager is a little more complex, so I'd start with mint
Ryder Gomez
Kubuntu is far easier for a first timer
Noah Hernandez
Meh, KDE still shits the bed from time to time, scaring newbies. XFCE or MATE is the way to go
Joseph Hill
>not too demanding in ressources >Kde
Elijah Turner
I started with ubuntu in 2013 and used it for about 2 days and forgetting about it. I then just recently tried mx linux but considering to choose between opensuse and mx linux. Avoid Arch, you won't learn shit when you first try it out, only tinker with it after learning the ropes on a previous distro.
Austin Stewart
Not that guy but the point of linux is not graphical package management, it's a bit of a crutch to be honest.
Lucas Evans
>new to Linux Fuck off, and install Gentoo.
Benjamin Mitchell
It's just more polished and Mint team actually puts an effort into making a desktop OS. They fixed the screen tearing issue which EVERY Xfce distro had for years, while Xubuntu left it unfixed because "muh fix it yourself, we're just a stable Xfce showcase not a usable desktop OS". Mint has a few very useful packages while Xubuntu is just debian+Xfce. Not to mention Mint looks far better and the super key opens the whisker menu while on Xfce/Xubuntu it does nothing. I don't know, it just feels more ready to use out of the box and needs no dicking around to make it work other than maybe changing your default software. The list of what Mint does better than Xubuntu has been posted on 4ch before.
>graphic package manager is better I'm pretty sure both just use GNOME Software. If not then Mint's package manager looks a lot like it and I can't feel any difference.
Anything that isn't GNOME or based on GNOME won't demand too many resources.
Nicholas Collins
He will use it the first 2 times, untill he learns how to type "sudo apt update". Problem is, many people come from windows, see that nothing is similar, and go back to the old piece of shit. Personally I use i3wm, but thinking of newbies would help people with the transition
Joseph Hill
what about ubuntu with budgie ?
Evan Turner
This is the worst place for a noob to ask for help, maybe go on reddit and ask on linux4noobs
Leo Flores
Non meme answer: Ubuntu or Mint. Once you're comfortable with linux basic standards, you can move from those bloated distros and install Debian which they're based on. You don't need anything else, unless you work or hobby requires new packages on a monthly basis, you can go with Debian Sid, or Arch, etc. No, it doesn't. You can learn about Linux in any distro, from Gentoo to Mint. Arch forces you to do simple tasks when installing it like setting the filesystems and partitions, installing the base system, etc. This is something you can learn in 10 minutes in any distro.
Landon Allen
> (You) dont use fedora
Oliver Martin
No you didn't get it, of course you can learn Linux from any distro but there's a clear line between mi*imal distros and normal distros like ubuntu. in these minimal distros the distro forces you to actually learn it
Logan Parker
Budgie is literally GNOME that doesn't lag, but it's still shit.
Juan Nelson
Ubungo and if that gives you problems try xubungo.
Parker Baker
NVIDIA isn't in any way problematic to use with Fedora. The Workstation edition literally has an option to install the proprietary drivers from RPMFusion in GNOME Software.
Luis Stewart
>Gnome I'm sorry, user.
Kayden Ramirez
Most newb distros have that option now.
Thomas Ramirez
try Pop!_OS. It's Ubuntu tweaked by System 76. I'm running it now.
Connor Hill
Yeah, so why explicitly rule out Fedora on that if it's the same as the others?
Brayden Flores
I'm not the guy who said don't use fedora, but one of the reasons is that almost everything normie related still targets debian distributions. So I couldn't recommend a distro that doesn't open .deb files, just in case.
Luke Sanders
I started with ubuntu and stayed there, all documentation is available online and in the manual
Adam Brooks
using a third party repo yeah no thanks ill stick to debian sid
Austin Hall
I mean, there's enough stuff available in RPM format, plus RPM is the LSB standard package format, Debian created alien to comply with that, so that shit better work.
Connor Cox
>easy to use out of the box A DE like gnome or KDE have graphical interfaces so you can use the menu's to figure out how do things. KDE is really good in this aspect as it makes the most sense throughout. >fast I haven't seen anything that isn't fast, but if there are animations, you can control the speed of them. >not too demanding in resources You have to figure out how important this is for you personally. You can take something heavy and remove bits and you can start with something barebones and add stuff as you need them. >aesthetical Look at screenshots and videos to figure out what is right for you. This is not important to me, so I don't have the answers for this.
All these things are basically a question on which DE you want. The fast method is simply installing all of them in virtual machines and test them. You could also put them on different thumb drives and test them as a live environment before committing.
>stable, secure Stability with software means lack of change, it has nothing to do with wether it works or not. If you think a program crashing means it isn't stable, you have the wrong idea.
Ubuntu for example is what they call a stable distro. Most applications are frozen when it comes to features, and is only updated if there are security patches. The idea is that major changes only happen when you upgrade the OS once every other year.
On the other end of the spectrum is arch, where every application is updated as they happen. This mean your DE might update one month, the key application you use everyday update the next month and so on. This is really great when you just care about 1 machine and you have the technical skills to deal with things if they don't work. This means it is not for everyone and you should only do this after everyone has told you how bad an idea this is and you still think it is a good idea.
Hope you figure it out.
Josiah Reyes
>fast, not too demanding in ressources >gnome You fucked up.
