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An OS should GTFO and let you get on with the business of doing shit on your computer, Linux Mint does that nicely. 🐧
I’m a relative basic bitch, I don’t want to spend forever in terminal. Mint has been a god send and I’m so happy I left windows for it. A special shout out to steam for being the goat and making what little gaming I do easy.
I use Debian as my daily driver for at least a decade, but I still recommend Mint because it has all the good things about Debian with extra.
Debian developers just push out kernel updates without warning you about any possible system incompatibilities, so for example if you have an Nvidia GPU you might get a notificaton to “update” and a normie will likely press it only for the PC to boot to a black screen because Debian pushed out a kernel update that breaks compatibility with Nvidia drivers and does nothing to warn the user about it, and then a normie probably won’t know how to get out of the black screen to the TTY and roll back the update.
I remember this happening before and I had to go to the reddit for /r/Debian and respond to all the people freaking out explaining to them how to fix their system and rollback the update.
Operating systems like Ubuntu, Mint, PopOS, etc, will do more testing with their kernel before rolling it out to users. They also tend to have more up-to-date kernels. I had Debian on everything but my gaming PC that I had built recently because Debian 12 used such an old kernel that it wouldn’t support my motherboard hardware. This was a kernel-level issue and couldn’t be fixed just by installing a new driver. Normies are not going to want to compile their own kernel for their daily driver, and neither do I who has a lot of experience with Linux.
I ended up just using Mint until Debian 13 released on that PC because my only option would be to switch to the unstable or testing branch, or compile my own kernel, which neither I cared to do on a PC I just wanted to work and play Horizon or whatever on.
Desktop? Debian with GNOME. Laptop? Debian with GNOME. Tablet? Debian with GNOME. Server? Believe it or not, Debian without GNOME.
Debian is my favorite as well. I prefer KDE, though, because it is pretty. I also don’t get the GNOME hate, I just don’t love it as much and at this point KDE is way more familiar.
:s/GNOME/KDE/gOne small change and we could be twins. My Debian server also runs Proxmox though, that’s where I distrohop. In VMs.
Okay, I’ll bite:
Why GNOME? I personally find it very limiting, especially when attempting a Vanilla GNOME config.
I don’t know how long I’ve used Debian at this point.
I’m still waiting for a useable screen reader :(
My first choice. Currently my only!
Solid first choice!
For me it’s been Arch for the last several years. It’s the only distro that can deal with the weird things I do while still working well for daily use.
can you explain a few of those weird things?
I like to edit configs, which can break apt, and build projects from source, which requires bleeding-edge versions of many libraries that most distros don’t ship with, which also tends to break apt when I manually install them.
Arch’s pacman gracefully handled modified configs and the Arch repos ship very new packages, so I don’t find myself fighting the OS.
Why bother with distro hopping when you can desktop hop?
I hopped from Debian to Manjaro and kept KDE Plasma. Main reason: Debian is stable, but I had to wait too long for some updates.
Went back to Mint a few times but ultimately I like Plasma over Cinnamon, so Debian it is!
You do know that you don’t have to change distros to change DE right?
I absolutely loved the release of LMDE, it’s just what I like though, the simple intuitive interface of Mint, without dealing with Canonical’s bullshit (really sour about snaps, ignore me lol).
Edit: picked back up my phone and reread what was on the screen when I realized you probably meant desktop environment and not Debian Edition when you typed DE.
Yep. I was using Plasma on Mint for a while but the consensus was you’re best off using a DE officially supported by the distro.
Never encountered any issues personally up to that point, but seemed to be the majority opinion when I researched it.
But my most recent switch was from Endeavour, so made much more sense to install Debian 13 than to Install Mint and then immediately switch DE.
Mint has been glazed since the beginning of time. Not a single laptop or computer I have ever owned has worked out of the box with it. As opposed to alternatives like Ubuntu or Fedora. I must be the single most unlucky person in the history of Linux.
In the past 5 years I’ve only ever had minor issues*, like a power button light not being on. But as a developer, I’m aware my hardware choices are more likely to be popular with other developers who would have already noticed and fixed issues.
* excluding on niche distros, like Puppy ones.
Sorta same, but my problems expand beyond just Mint… I had a lot of problems with Ubuntu several years back, so I was convinced to switch to Manjaro. That was an absolutely unabashed fucking nightmare. I thought I was either cursed or just too stupid for Linux for a while. I still don’t know if I just got very unlucky or if I was/am too stupid for the distros that everyone shouts praises from the rooftops for… I stumbled into Garuda Linux and it has been a dream come true.
I’ve had 0 issues with mint OOB… less than Ubuntu. Guess I got lucky regarding hardware compatibility.
Same. Works everytime without special modifications, configurations, etc.
I’ve had the opposite experience. Mint has just worked on literally every piece of hardware I’ve ever owned.
I’ve had the exact same experience.
Is it always a new laptop/computer?
I’d be suspicious of Mint on anything brand new (and hence only recently fixed in a lot of packages).
Is there any company out there that sells PCs with Linux pre-installed? I make a ton of money selling custom built PCs that have Linux pre-installed and tested.
Several. System76 (the cosmic dev) is a major one, literally making the distro just for their laptops.
They’re mostly white boxes though. I don’t any and manufacture their own hardware (except Framework possibly???)
You can find Linux models from dell lenovo and I think even hp but you gotta search for them
There are also some specialty companies that make Linux desktops and laptops but you also gotta really seek them out
I used it on an HP elite X2 and everything worked, touchscreen and it’s specific screen cover/keyboard
It’s weird tho because I didn’t expect that at all.
Most distros works out of the box with that weirdly enough, only one I’ve had issues with was debian and the pen, but that worked itself out straight away after updating it
Limewire?
Linux Mint
/j
Yup, I do regular distrofuckery on my spare pc but Mint is just a rock solid option for me, great distro, feels good.
Fedora
Yes.
From the bottom of my heart fuck rolling releases. Never worked for me (nobody get worked up please, ymmv).
lol it’s funny how proactively defensive everyone is about their distro choices
I use a Mac for my server 🤓
I’ve been living with fedora (ultramarine) kde for a while now because people praised fedora so much, but i think mint still wins. and i chose ultramarine because am a noob, don’t sue me.
there are many little things that just don’t work and i seriously can’t figure out. here’s a few: discover fails to update the system and i always have to do it manually from the terminal. wine is broken, it literally can’t run anything i throw at it that worked on mint. plasma theme customization is somewhat broken (also custom themes prevent updating…). using alt key in games run with wine causes some annoying notification sound (not in system keyboard shortcuts). often keyboard leds stay on when system suspended, system can’t be woken up from keyboard. can’t use flameshot with kb shortcut.
this isn’t a hate comment though, a lot of things are better than i had with mint cinnamon. i do like how it’s a lot faster than mint when under heavy load, autosuspend actually works, no issues with screen not waking up. currently my media pc with mint can’t update because all sources are unavailable and it has some conflict with python3 which it won’t let me uninstall (which i suspect would be unwise, idk)
I can only recommend regular Fedora because I have a feeling you just wouldn’t have those issues but I am not a doctor.
Kinoite Ride or die
FOR ME it does the things I need it to do; and it works; and hasn’t blown up my house yet so 🤞
I never left!
I think I’m just old enough, have fiddled with my PC enough times in the past, have enough other shit to do, and get enough coding and troubleshooting experience at work that I look at the quest to find my spirit distro and think “that’s a youngster’s game.”
Or, you know, maybe Mint is already my spirit distro and I am experienced enough to not fix what isn’t broken!
Ah that explains it, I no longer understand a single thing about computers or what people do with them anymore. You’ve explained it perfectly.
And here’s the thing: I don’t even want to know. It’s not like I’m trying to understand but can’t, I just don’t care. I don’t get it.
People with 100TB home servers, people with 3D printers and boxes filled with trash, endless upgrades for no visible change, etc
I don’t have a single need or want that ends with “I need a new computer”.
I completely understand the sentiment!
I am still into some tech and “new computer” type stuff. I am about to install a bigger/faster drive in my PC and set up my Home Assistant server. That PC is already my Jellyfin server. I am also in the middle of building a brand new PC for my kid, which will also run Mint, lol.
But I spend time only on the things that I’ve learned really matter to me, and not on all the things you’re “supposed to” mess with in your home lab that you obviously have.
You know the meme (or meme category) where it’s a resume or linkedin profile where the recent work history goes something like Senior Network Architect, then Goose Farmer?
I may literally have a 3D printer still in the box, and PC & networking parts all over the house, but my daily routine is embedded linux C/C++ sr developer by day and animal tender on the evenings and weekends, lol.
