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- Hacker News
- I was running Ubuntu everywhere until they started locking security updates behind a login.
Now I’m Debian for servers and whatever comfortable Debian based user experience is popular for a laptop. I played with zorin recently. It was fun.
by tim-tday - Yes Ubuntu felt very Windows-like to me. I’ve heard lots about Zorin, did you use that with KDE?by addajones
- I'm usually running Debian everywhere, and currently running OpenMandriva on my desktop PC. I work in the refurb department of an e-waste recycling company, where I install Linux Mint on most of what I sell. (If it has a touchscreen, it gets Debian with KDE.)
- Give Linux Mint Debian Edition a try (https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php). I am in Latin America (Colombia) and I have been installing LMDE on 5-10 year old computers (former POS systems - old Dell Optiplexes and Latitudes), and its amazing how much it brings them back to life - fast & stable.by dv35z
- Fedora with KDE as the DE.
OS is solid, everything works, I'm happy.
The older I get the more I feel myself thinking like Linus. The OS should just get out of my way.
by arkwin - Sounds like a solid ideaby addajones
- Fedora. Pretty much everything works out of the box and synergizes well with the stuff I handle at work.
Only thing that ever broke was a nVidia driver thing, once. Flawless with AMD, and Proton means Steam runs AAA games out of the box. Windows VMs work fine.
Also had good experiences with the Ubuntu / Mint family, and liked Manjaro (Arch) until pacman stopped working for some reason
- Depending on the machine I use. My laptop is one of the few machines that can run entirely on open source from Firmware, drivers all the way to the top. Thus I run Trisquel. Definitely not for everyone.
But on other machines, I just run Mint. It is just a nice and comfortable thing. The base Cinnamon desktop is basically just Windows 7 locked in place with a few quality of life improvements. Not too ambitious but that ends up keeping things simple and mostly just works. For those that want more power and tweaking it isn't the best choice.
by ColdStream - Ubuntu, because I don't want to think about the OS too much. I expect that I'll someday try out more distros either to get away from snap or to get faster updates for different fractional scaling on multiple monitors.by ktrnka
- NixOS which is a curse because now I weep each time I have to use a distro that is not declarative.by n3t
- Been on NixOS for 3 years full time. I can never go back.
- Ubuntu because I don’t want to make researching distros a hobby and because I can use X-windows and because I know from experience I can use X-windows.
For completeness: I use Windows too because I use some commercial software and can buy used Thinkpads for about $100 any time I want another laptop.
by brudgers - Picked up Mint this summer and it has been a joy to use. The progress they've made in the last three years is astounding and opposed to every other time I've used Linux there have been zero moments of needing to run ten terminal commands from stack overflow to get sound to work.by spcebar
- Pop OS, combined with "Toshy" for using Mac keyboard shortcuts. I find this is a really comprehensive translation of Mac shortcuts, even cmd+shift+{} works for moving between tabs. I use my Keychron keyboard in Mac mode retaining all the same muscle memory.
https://github.com/RedBearAK/toshy
It was working quite perfectly with 22.04 but there are some caveats with the recent Pop OS "Cosmos" version, I can't find the shortcut to cycle between instances of the same application (cmd + `) and in general the OS is a little buggy and functionality can be quite sparse in some applications like you can't rearrange tabs in their terminal yet and it didn't even have "open new tab to the same folder I'm in" until recently. However the trajectory they're on is a Mac-like system-wide consistency and thoughtfulness, it's just early-stage.
by benoau - I really like being able to map the Mac key bindings.
I run Zorin on an old Mac and I am pleased with it.
by tim-tday - Awesome, I'll take a look at Toshy, too. I was looking into PopOS or CachyOS (with Cosmic). There seems to be such a vast amount of Linux distros and window managers than I remember from a good 5-10 years ago.
Everything seems to be tied to a subscription now on the Windows/Mac side in some way, its been very off putting for me.
by addajones - I wouldn’t get too caught up on distros. So many people end up distro hopping for years and never settle. The grass is always greener somewhere else, or there is always something new to try.
I’d just get one of the mainstream ones which will have the most community support available, and go with it. Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora most likely. I’ve had good luck with OpenSuse in the past, but not too many people use Suse outside of the enterprise, which can be an issue if you’re just starting out.
Curious what you’re doing for hardware. That’s always the biggest hurdle for me when looking to do anything outside of macOS.
by al_borland - That’s great advice the main distros tend to have tons of support for much longer and easier to maintain I’m sure. I currently have a Mac mini m4 so I’m thinking a similar sized box with an AMD setup inside, those small mini PCs.by addajones
- I am running - and strongly recommend - Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php
For the past several years, I was running Debian stable & XFCE. It is a great combination. However, I started teaching technology (programming, Linux, and maker-space tech, like laser cutters & CNC routers), and I wanted to see how close I could get to an "easy button" interface, paired with a principles-driven, highly stable base. I gave LMDE a try, with an open mind, and was seriously impressed.
Linux desktop environments have come a long way, and Mint - with the "start" button (with application quick search), window management, "sane" defaults - it just works.
I will also mention that the Software Manager perfectly blends Debian source packages, and FlatPaks. From my experience, nearly all software that I want to install on it "just works" by searching for it. Those that aren't available there, it seems that downloading a .Deb to install it "just works" as well.
As background context, I have used Linux for 20+ years (Mandrake, Gentoo, RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, and now LMDE) - LMDE gets my roaring endorsement, and I think more people ought to check it out.
by dv35z