Took my first steps last night, I flashed a USB stick with Mint Cinnamon and gave it a spin. Looks like it’ll handle everything I need to just fine, so imma start partitioning and backing up the next couple evenings and just go for it. I’ve installed Linux before, but only really as temporary solutions. I’m looking forward to making it my daily driver and learning the system.
Welcome aboard! Linux Mint was the first distro I daily drove, so it still has a special place in my heart even though I haven’t used it in years. One quick tip, check out SaveDesktop It’s not a proper backup utility, but it makes it very quick and easy to restore all your apps, settings, and layouts if something ever breaks / you switch distros / you want to experiment with multiple desktop layouts.
OpenSUSE is hardly what I would consider noob friendly, but it certainly beats remaining under Microsoft’s oppressing thumb.
I use it at home just because I wanted to try something different on my laptop, I really don’t understand what some people love about it so much. It’s bot terrible or anything, I just find it a bit clunky and there’s nothing remarkably good.
opensuse was my shortest experiment when i used to distro hop because of how old their software seemed to be. (ie old like debian stable).
this was almost 20 years; has it gotten better?
My first experiment with openSUSE was also not ended well back then but nowadays it’s in my top 3 list when I’m suggesting distros to people.
… nowadays it’s in my top 3 list when I’m suggesting distros to people
same here; but only because of the support like red hat’s and canonical’s
how do they do regular updates? how do they do major version upgrades?
I think both of these is a big pain point.
They’re fine for a stable release I think. Nvidia is on 550 for example. For Major updates, ping me next year since I’ll try it then, when new Leap arrived.
I mean YaST is kind of snazzy, though not enough to pull me from Debian for the moment.
Why did we all collectively choose mint?
It’s polished and easy to use, it leverages all the work that goes into Debian and Ubuntu, but it’s still Linux under the hood and doesn’t forbid you from getting into the weeds.
I run Mint Cinnamon on my work machine, developing software for embedded Linux products, and I haven’t had any regrets.
Longtime every OS user. But have been using Linux since the days of Mandrake in ‘96. Switched to Debian shortly thereafter though mostly as a server/SDN device. Then a long spell on Ubuntu starting with 8.something. While I don’t use Linux on the desktop as my primary work OS, I do use it daily.
Recently, annoyed with windows, which I only used/booted up for gaming, I gave gaming on Linux a try. It’s been mostly flawless even when the games aren’t Linux-native. Hilariously Ubuntu was awful and I couldn’t get it working so I’ve switched to something more gaming specific and couldn’t happier.
What are you using now? I’ve been thinking of switching to popos but I’m keeping my eyes open for options.
Garuda.
I’d never used Arch or Arch derivatives but if this is the experience I understand the memes a little more.
The package management is easy and very up to date. I like the BTRFS snapshots, and it had everything game-related available right out of the box. My Nvidia graphics card, which was the thing I couldn’t get working on Ubuntu, performed as well or better than under windows.
The only thing that didn’t work for me was ZFS - but because everything else was working well, I just went another route.
I upvote for a non-AI thumbnail.
God I am tired of them!
