Yo linux team, i would love some advice.
I’m pretty mad at windows, 11 keeps getting worse and worse and I pretty done with Bill’s fetishes about bing and ai. Who knows where’s cortana right now…
Anyway, I heard about this new company called Linux and I’m open to try new stuff. I’m a simple guy and just need some basic stuff:
- graphic stuff: affinity, canva, corel, gimp etc… (no adobe anymore, please don’t ask.)
- 3d modelling and render: blender, rhino, cinema, keyshot
- video editing: davinci
- some little coding in Dart/flutter (i use VS code, I don’t know if this is good or bad)
- a working file explorer (can’t believe i have to say this)
- NO FUCKIN ADS
- NO MF STUPID ASS DISGUSTING ADVERTISING
The tricky part is the laptop, a zenbook duo pro (i9-10/rtx2060), with double touch screens.
I tried ubuntu several years ago but since it wasn’t ready for my use i never went into different distros and their differences. Now unfortunately, ready or not, I need to switch.
Edit: the linux-company thing is just for triggering people, sorry I didn’t know it was this effective.
First of all Linux isn’t a company, but the name some dude named Linus gave his code he put for free on the internet.
Most modern Linux distros are still not run by companies, that’s why they don’t force the data collection, ads, ai etc down your throat.
That said: Linux is made from thousands of interlocking programs, scripts, services and libraries, made mostly by some guys or gurls in their free time. So with a lot of stuff you need to fit it to your needs, as granular customization is to troublesome to have working out of the box for every different usecase there could be. So with most stuff you should not be afraid to learn the basics of terminal commands (packet manager, editor, foldermanagment)
Some OS like Ubuntu and manjaro do a lot for you, but if you have weird double monitors, you may need to manually do some stuff.
If you want as much as possible easy install options I would go with manjaro - then you can install everything where users made an AUR (arch user repository) package. Check if they have all programs you want, if not look for alternatives.
If you want a more stable system but with a bit less possibilities, go for Ubuntu, debian, popOS or something like that.
Some things may never run, for example for my music daw(ableton) with low latency and not native support on Linux or the htc vive wireless (where there isn’t a driver for the PCI card for Linux) I keep a win machine around. Day to day use is on debian on my side
No sorry man, it’s my british humor coming out. I needed to bait some linux users :) I’m one of those evil people who works in marketing. But thank you for the tips, I do appreciate it!
Don’t be sorry, the joke was funny, it’s just that you’re talking to this kind of crowd
I’m one of those evil people who works in marketing.
Yet here you are, complaining about the ads in Windows. Are you sure that you can go without them? :-D
Ahah correct! But in all seriousness, i believe ads are drastically changing right now (ai is just fuel on the flame). Good advertising is great, fun and builds community, which is the end goal in my humble opinion.
If you force me to use/install a product without telling me why, just because “trust me bro I’m Microsoft”, you are just pathetically insecure about your product and deserve 0 users.
I’m sure you’ve seen it many times, but I love Bill Hick’s take on marketing.
I would swap out Manjaro for Endeavour.
I started off with Manjaro, and updates kept breaking shit. Only reason it was usable for me, was that I kept timeshift going so I could recover from an unbootable state if updates borked something.
Especially if OPs system is unusual, I wouldn’t trust Manjaro. I’ve yet to need timeshift on my Endeavour install, while setting it up to do the same things was no more difficult.
Dude is just starting out, no matter what arch derivative you’re suggesting, it’s a bad idea. Flatpak is perfectly fine for installing fresher versions of those packages AFAIK.
My first experiences were Ubuntu and and pop OS and i t really drove me away from Linux, because especially with Ubuntu lots of the promised customizability and deep control wasn’t there (if you are a first time user who don’t know about the 4-5 places config files can be located, often differing between distros so google doesnt always hekp, you have no idea what sysctl is, how compiling works, how to manage dependencies), instead with gnome you get an Apple/mobile like minimalistic look, where nothing of the ui just says what it does and most things can’t be changed in the gui which I really hated.
When I got manjaro for the first time, I was blown away about how much you could do with Linux even when not a programmer, because smart people on the AUR have paved the way. Also you had things like btrfs which are just plain better then win NTFS or linux ext.
Im not a programmer and don’t work in IT, but man arch was making me interested in Linux.
But you are right, it broke way to often, that’s why I settled for debian after all, as it has the right amount of stability and options imho
Also when coming from win OR having some technical skill OR wanting a highly customizable, good looking feature rich desktop envirment: GO FOR KDE PLASMA!!! THE NEW VERSION IS SO GREAT I FUCKING LOVE IT
Dude writes code, that makes me a lot more comfortable recommending an arch install of some kind. Endeavour especially, as it sets you up at a very good starting point without doing messy shit like Manjaro.
Agreed on flatpak, it’s fine.
I approve of both of those options. Personally I simply find the AUR the most convenient community driven way to install software.
Linux is made from thousands of interlocking programs, scripts, services and libraries, made mostly by some guys or gurls in their free time.
That’s not entirely true: Most work is paid for in some way, eg. by foundations, employees of companies which need a feature or freelancers commissioned to do some work.
OK, point given What I meant was, that most distros and programs depend on some level on code written by individuals or at least without profit incentive --> therefore for those bits of code the developer isn’t liable in the same way. Sure, the core of libre office is written by programmers payed by the document foundation, but it nevertheless uses libs which are not, and therefore have not the same level of customer support or liability as Microsoft word would have, where they build most stuff in house and get played handsomely
if you have weird double monitors
Is having more than one monitor “weird” to most Linux distros? I guess I’m a huge weirdo for having 3 then…
Nah, but it sounded like its integrated in his notebook somehow AND having double touchscreens, which could have proprietary drivers or some dumb caviot. Normally having multiple monitors is not a problem (if you don’t mind windows spawning with their top bar out of frame and stuff in wayland kde)
Not going to push Ardour if your brains are wired for Live, but have you tried Bitwig?
(Tho Ardour has Clip Launchers now, wink wink)
If you want to test several Linux distributions Ventoy can be useful. You can have 10 or more different Linux distributions on one USB stick depending on the size of the stick. This will also save you time “flashing” an image iso to the stick each time because with Ventoy you’d simply copy the image iso files to the stick, quick and easy.
Ventoy has changed my life. No more having to find a unused usb key to format then flash.
Just drop the ISO, boot on the key and choose whatever you want to try/install.
Or try them for a while in a VM, VirtualBox may not provide the best performance out there but it’s very easy to set up. This way you don’t have to commit and install the OS over your main machine or anything like that.
In all honesty, you should decide between Debian and Fedora. If you’re new to this, stay away from Arch Linux, Gentoo, or Manjaro. Simplicity is key. The two systems I mentioned are known for their reliability, so you should be fine with either one.
- Affinity Designer can be run under Linux with Bottles translation (forum post how to set it up)
- Canva does not support Linux
- GIMP is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
- Adobe is not supported on Linux at all
- Blender is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
- DaVinci Resolve is natively supported on Linux (offical website)
- VSCode is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
- almost every DE has a file explorer
- no ads included 😀 👍
If you are made out of matter stay away from manjaro. Other than that I agree, and would recommend debian slightly over fedora but that is just personal preference. Also I feel like opensuse deserves an honorable mention. Maybe not tumbleweed, but leap could be suitable for a new user and yast rocks.
Edit: Also vscodium can be good alternative to vscode. It is vscode without Microsoft’s tracking, but an exact copy otherwise.
Indeed, I use VSCodium on my Fedora system every day, but since the question was about VSCode, I provided information specifically related to VSCode.
Debian rigorously tests its packages over an extended period before they are released in the official version, ensuring a very stable system. This approach means the software is generally older, but it’s been thoroughly vetted. Fedora, on the other hand, provides newer software while still maintaining a good level of stability.
On the other hand, Arch Linux — and its sub-distributions like Manjaro and Gentoo — releases software much more quickly, sometimes almost immediately which can kill your system during updates. I’d go so far as to say that Arch Linux is less stable than Windows.
TL;DR: If you don’t want to find out five minutes before an online meeting that your system won’t boot — avoid Arch Linux.
I use Canva in the browser, but I gotta say that it works better in Microsoft Edge than in Firefox. I think it may be a Chromium thing, but I haven’t tested other browsers.
Microsoft Edge works great on Linux. It is my second browser after Firefox.
Just grab yourself some Linux Mint, and try to ignore Arch and Gentoo crowd here.
Half of the apps you mentioned have Linux version right in the system package manager. Davinci has Linux version on their website.
CorelDraw might be a problem, WineHQ lists it’s compatibility for the latest version as garbage, so you will probably need to switch to Inkscape.
Anyway, I heard about this new company called Linux
Pedantic explanation about GNU/Linux is coming in 3… 2… 1…
Here you go ;-)
What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
I second your advice against Arch, EndeavourOS, or Manjaro as I would not call them ‘beginner-friendly’.
I mean, it’s always nice to know more. I’m not here pretending to know linux or kernels in details.
What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
That’s not necessarily true any more. There are distros built without the GNU tools.
Linux is not a company lol I hope that was a joke. Also Linux is not new.
Now to the software: it will likely run everywhere. Davinci resolve is a bit picky but also fine.
You have quite some Windows-only software. Check https://alternative-to.net or try running it through WINE with Bottles
To the Distro: this is complex. Many people will recommend Linux Mint and it is easy to use but very restricted. I dont think it is great really.
There are many many parallel efforts, so on Linux Distributions (Linux + packages + desktop + …) you can get very different software.
For a painfree experience running Windows software and Davinci Resolve I recommend to try Bazzite
It is very different from others:
- it updates automatically in the background. But completely different from Windows. Updates always work and are efficient and stable. No 10 times rebooting
- updates finish and you can reboot any time to apply it. Literally a week later, nobody cares
- the reboot takes just as long as any other reboot, no downtime
The system is way better and more stable than “traditional” ones. This is quite complex but lets say while on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora etc. you will have an indivudual system, with individual packages and in the end some strange errors only happening on your setup, with Bazzite you will have exactly 1:1 the system that the developers create.
It is based on Fedora Atomic Desktops which are pretty great. But for your use case I dont recommend them.
I recommend the Bazzite Desktop version with the KDE Plasma desktop. This will be Windows-like in a very good way, but incredibly more efficient, faster and also more powerful. Like a Filemanager with tabs and extensions, that is not written in whatever bloat Microsoft uses (their Win11 stuff is so slow…).
To sum it up, on Linux you have to decide:
What Desktop environment?
- I recommend KDE Plasma a lot
- GNOME is also good but veery opinionated and minimalist
- I dont recommend others like Linux Mint’s Cinnamon yet, as they dont support modern standards (Wayland)
What Distribution family?
- Debian, Fedora, Arch, OpenSUSE
- they are all a bit different but basically doing the same
- Ubuntu stems from Debian and became popular as “the beginner Linux” but they do very controversial stuff nobody else does (like the Snap store) and have tons of bugs. I used it a lot with bad experiences and dont recommend.
- Linux Mint and others also use Ubuntu or Debian under the hood
- Arch is very manual and difficult for new users, dont use it
- OpenSUSE does whatever they do, not recommended
- Fedora is pretty modern in their software, has a nice community and a big variety of options. They are not allowed to ship restricted media codecs for stuff like h264 video though
- uBlue (Bazzite, Bluefin, Aurora) is a project using Fedoras versions and adding nice stuff to it, making them usable out of the box. This is their goal, and they do it really well.
Wow, thank you for all the info in details! I need to start testing some of distros I guess and see how it goes (sounds fun too). UBlue project looks very very interesting.
Ublue also has Asus-specific variants which I assume probably has some compatibility fixes added in that would have to be installed manually in most other distros.
Since you use VS Code I’d strongly recommend the developer variants of ublue, which are only available for Aurora and Bluefin, as it gives you a preinstalled VS Code which will be a better experience than trying to install it after the fact. (if you go to the download page for them, answer “yes” to “are you a developer?”)
For minimum learning curve, use Aurora over Bluefin as the UI is more familiar. Also, make sure you pick the Nvidia option for the GPU question.
I started using Linux 2 years ago or something. Linux Mint, Kubuntu, MX Linux (wtf Distrowatch), Manjaro, KDE Neon, Fedora KDE…
broke all. On Fedora Kinoite since then, switched to uBlue Kinoite, no complaints.
Currently using secureblue but many things I disagree with, planning a fork.
The good thing is that most distributions have live images that you can basically put on a USB stick and run without installing anything. It won’t give you quite the same experience as an installed instance but will at least let you play around with things (especially Gnome or KDE etc.)
I would stay away from Fedora based anything if you want stability. Linux Mint is is as flexible as you make it.
Fedora has 2 versions supported, the current release and the old release. It is pretty modern in packages, but this is normally not a problem at all.
I never used the old release but that would give more stability. On the atomic variants this means though that you dont get automatic updates, as using latest will auto update when upstream sets the new version as latest.
