this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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I've known for a while but Linux really isn't newbie friendly. I've tried several times over the years. Most recently I tried Mint and within a week or two the GUI software update stopped working. I switched to Ubuntu because I have a little familiarity and quickly realized the only way to stay updated is apt. Firefox will work for a while and then have days where almost every tab is crashing constantly. Sometimes you can get a page to work with reload or two, other times not. So I installed chrome under protest as a backup. Mostly it doesn't crash although sometimes it does the same thing as Firefox (but usually not at the same time). Those are really my only complaints at all.
I will say, though, that gaming has come a long way, especially with Steam. I don't think SteamVR is there yet, but otherwise I haven't found anything that wouldn't run (but I play AAA on PS so I'm not really pushing it hard). I thought I was giving up gaming when I moved to Linux, but not at all.
I left a big partition free in the expectation of dual-booting windows, but I really haven't had any reason to at all.
Not saying you are wrong, but I made other experiences. Installed Mint 3 months ago and Firefox and also the GUI updater work like a charm.
I think maybe it was when I started installing things other ways? Like there's apt and snap and ... one other thing I can't remember. But not all the software I needed was available through the GUI.
So it could be that's related to the breakage. Or maybe not, but that was my experience. If it's working well for others that makes me happy because I'd like to be able to recommend Mint to some of the less demanding users I know.
I totally understand, "user-friendly" is a system that let's people install things in different ways without breaking, the user should not have to care too much about it.
I have been attempting to use Linux for 20 years now. It has found its niche used for me over the years. For example when my kids were toddlers they had a old machine that defaulted to PBSkids. Before that I used it to run a gaming server.
Currently I have a old laptop that I dual boot with win 10 and whatever Linux distro I feel like trying at the moment.
The win 10 on the laptop barely meets the minimum hardware requirements and takes 10 minutes to load.
I have tried a few different distros and always had a few issues with the setup. All sorts of different ones - screen orientation, WiFi connection, printer hell, keyboard layout etc. Takes me days to fix the bugs or give up.
Mint takes 2 minutes to load and so far is working seamlessly. It's apt manager is the easiest I have used in a Linux distro. It found my network printer automatically. It runs smoother than windows 7 did on my laptop.
With Microsoft ending win 10 for the shitty win 11, I imagine many people are looking for alternatives. If Mint continues to work to make setup and usage easy, it will gain market share rapidly. It's not all the way there yet, but it's a hell of a lot better than before.
Completely agree. It's getting very close for consumer grade. I just fall in the niche of Linux-novice-prosumer. But fixing problems is how we learn more.
Try VanillaOS or Fedora Silverblue. They are immutable distros so breaking them are harder than usual. (OpenSUSE was also making one iirc) If you just want something that works out of the box, try them.
I played with Fedora many years ago. That might be familiar enough to try again.
I'm a bit of a power user so if anyone can manage to break an immutable distribution, I probably can.
Anyway, thanks!
Just a word of warning, Windows may fuck your dual boot plans up with an update. I lost all the data for my filesystems on my main drive with a Windows update. It decided to delete grub and the partition data. I recovered a lot of it, but I was never able to get Windows to boot again. That's why I'm 100% Linux now. I just decided Windows wasn't required anymore and installed everything fresh, and gave 100% of the drive to Linux.
Yeah, I think I'm just going to repartition that space to grow
/homeand call it a day.