side note i like the use of calvin over that other guy
yeah fuck crowder
don’t fuck him tho
not unless you want to be a victim of abuse i guess
Crowder’s one of my favorite musicians… Oh wait, different Crowder.
Music Crowders’s good. Who’s this other Crowder?
The louder one.
Wdym? I legit don’t know (I’m not exactly up-to-date with the current (presumably american) news)
Steven Crowder, the assshole from Louder with Crowder. If you don’t know about him you’re lucky.
That Covfefe got cold a long time ago.
Not a hot take at all. Asking someone to go from a GUI heavy operating system to a command line heavy one and be just as productive is lunacy. Like all major changes it is important to ween off the old thing.
My biggest hurdle with the switch has been permission related issues, and you can’t deal with those cleanly with a UI, and every help thread under the sun throws out a bunch of command line commands giving a solution without explaining why those changes are needed. It may seem like Unix 101 to experienced Linux users, but it is really cryptic to newcomers coming from operating systems that are…cough more lenient with their permissions.
There is also a mentality that UIs are much more idiot proof than command line. UIs are written by people who actually know the OS so we can’t accidentally delete our home folder because of a typo. It is a very legitimate concern.
Yesterday morning i installed Mint xfce on an old laptop.
I wanted to install synaptics drivers for the touchpad because i use the trackball as mouse but need the touchpad for clicking. Something that isnt configureable in the default driver.
When i copied an example config file and added my line, i rebooted the computer.
The GUI broke because in the example config file, there were “…” To indicate writing further options, but xorg couldnt interpret or ignore it, so i had to figure out how to edit textfiles in the command line.
No fun times, and definetely a risk for new users.
This story is literally every experienced Linux users first horror story.
I still remember the first time I broke my xorg config on my shiny new slackware 10 install in early 2005.
It’s so common there’s an XKCD about it.
Not really, the vaaaast majority of PC users don’t need the linux commandline.
Great take. But you know the real sneaky one that trips you up? File system.
I wouldn’t call myself a beginner, but every time I install a Linux system seriously I see those filesystem choices and have to dig through volumes of turbo-nerd debates on super fine intricacies between them, usually debating their merits in super high-risk critical contexts.
I still don’t come away with knowing which one will be best for me long-term in a practical sense.
As well as tons of “It ruined my whole system” or “Wrote my SSD to death” FUD that is usually outdated but nevertheless persists.
Honestly nowadays I just happily throw BTRFS on there because it’s included on the install and allows snapshots and rollbacks. EZPZ.
For everything else, EXT4, and for OS-shared storage, NTFS.
But it took AGES to arrive to this conclusion. Beginners will have their heads spun at this choice, guaranteed. It’s frustrating.
I did NTFS because both windows and Linux can read it. Do I know literally any other fact about formatting systems? Nope. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to, I’m normie-adjacent. I just want my system to work so I can use the internet, play games, and do word processing.
I once tried to install my Steam Library in Linux to an NTFS partition so I wouldn’t have to install things twice on a dual boot system. Protip: don’t do that.
Oo! That’s definitely a gotcha. Good tip!
I once heard that the trick to this is you need to let Steam “update” every game before you switch OSs. If it doesn’t get to finish this, it will bork. That’s also highly impractical I feel though.
So yeah on my dual boot Linux is for making things and doesn’t see my main Steam library. Win10 is just for games. :p
EDIT: Win11 or 12 won’t be a problem because I’m confining them to a VM for only the most stubborn situations, and doing everything including gaming with Linux. :D
chkdsk -f (or r or whatever the third option is), reboot twice, but do it multiple times because steam on linux asks you to reinstall the games in the exact same spot and you accidentally do it because you’re not paying close attention due to the mild panic windows threw at you?
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Using-a-NTFS-disk-with-Linux-and-Windows
There is a guide here that says you can do it, but my experience was that I installed the games in Windows on my D drive, mounted the drive in Linux (Mint, I think), and when I tried to play them The system locked up. Rebooting into windows, Steam said the game files were corrupt and I had to reinstall them. I’ve always just kept two separate game libraries on any dual boot systems ever since.
Lending my voice to this as well for most, my thought is EXT4, without LVM, deferring to the preferred FS for the distro. It is a mature, stable, and reliable choice and logical volumes complicate things too much for beginners.
If dual-booting, yeah, definitely an NTFS partition for shared storage (just be aware that Windows can be weird with file permissions and ownership).
Yes, I listened to a podcast about that recently. Linux was far with XFS or something, but then Apple came, improved their HFS and actually made tools for it and it got better.
BTRFS is just as established as etx4, just not as damn old. It also just works, and it has advanced features that are crucial for backups. But I have no idea how to use btrbk and there is no GUI so nobody uses that.
But as a filesystem that just works like ext4, plus the automatically configured snapshots in both regular and atomic Fedora systems and OpenSuse, BTRFS is awesome.
Only outdated Distros that fear change stick with ext4, at least thats my opinion.
I’m still figuring it out. I know ExFAT works across all desktop OS’s, NTFS works with Linux and Windows, and ext4 only works with Linux.
But it took a half hour of googling to figure out you can’t install Linux on NTFS. I planned to do that to ease cross platform compatibility. Oops. I’m also attempting a RAID 1 array using NTFS. It seems to work, but I’m not sure how to automatically mount it on boot. I feel like I might have picked the wrong filesystem.
Hey there friend! Sorry to hear about your woes. From my understanding in practice, ExFAT is usually better as more of a universally readable storage system for external drives. Think, using the same portable drive between your PS5, friend’s mac, and whatever else. Great for large files and backups! Maybe not as much for running your OS from.
My approach and recommendation would be that you don’t want OS’s seeing each others’ important business anyway. Permissions and stuff can get wonky for instance.
So your core Linux install can be something like EXT4 or BTRFS. I like BTRFS personally because you can set up recovery snapshots without taking tons of space. It does require a little extra understanding and tooling though, but it’s worth looking into. (There’s GUI based BTRFS tools now though. Yay!)
EXT4 is nice and reliable and basic. Not much to say, really! Both can do RAID 1.
Next, a /home mounted separately, this COULD be NTFS if you really wanted that sharing. (BTW there’s some Windows drivers that can read EXT4 I think?)
BUT I feel more organized using a different way:
What I do personally is keep an NTFS partition I call something like “DATA” or “MAIN_STORAGE” and I mount this into my /home on Linux. It’s usually a separate, chunky 4TB HDD or something.
On Windows this is my D:\ drive, and it’s also where I store my project files, media, and whatever else I want easily accessible. Both OSs see those system-agnostic files, but are safely unaware of each other’s core system files.
In Linux, you can mount any folder anywhere, really! You can mount it on startup by amending your FSTAB on an existing install or setting the option during installs sometimes.
So the file path looks something like /home/MonkeMischief/DATA/Music
It’s treated just like any other folder but it’s in fact an entirely separate drive. :)
I hope this was somewhat helpful and not just confusing. In practice, it’ll start to make more sense I hope! The important thing is to make sure your stuff is backed up.
… Perhaps to a big chonky brick formatted as ExFAT if you so choose. ;)
I am experimenting with Linux on two devices: My daily driver laptop and a desktop.
The laptop is set on a dual boot from 2 SSDs. The first SSD contains Windows and has one 2TB NTFS partition. The other SSD has a 250GB partition for ext4 where Ubuntu lives and a 750GB partition for ExFAT.
The desktop has a 500GB SSD with ext4 for the OS, and has two 4 year old 2TB HDDs for data. This is why I’m trying to run them in RAID 1. For cross compatibility (and what they were already formatted as), they are in NTFS.
What do you think of that? Am I using adequate filesystems?
Ext4 is the safe bet for a beginner. The real question is with or without LVM. Generally I would say with but that abstraction layer between the filesystem and disk can really be confusing if you’ve never dealt with it before. A total beginner should probably go ext4 without LVM and then play around in a VM with the various options to become informed enough to do something less vanilla.
and then play around in a VM with the various options to become informed enough to do something less vanilla.
This part is skippable, right? Any reason a user should ever care about this?
(note: never heard of LVM before this thread)
It makes adding space easier down the road, either by linking disks or if you clone your root drive to a larger drive, which tends to not be something most “end users” (I try not to use that description but you said it heh) would do. Yes, using LVM is optional.
I feel like the window manager is important, but for newbies I also consider the package manager and overall installation process to be very important.
I’ve had pretty distros that are basically busted after a package fails to install or video drivers are mucked with. An advanced user could fix most of these issues, but this is usually where a new user may go running back to their previous OS.
A good computing experience for me is all my hardware working with minimal fuss and all the software I expect to be available being a few terminal commands away (e.g. steam, developer tools, etc.)
I’ve had pretty distros that are basically busted after a package fails to install or video drivers are mucked with.
Ubuntu?
i love K⭐D⭐E
KDE FTW!
Arguably you can’t beat Debian + KDE
Aktually, I prefer Arch + KDE. I say if you like your current desktop, then stay with it. I’ve hit the sweet spot with what I’ve got because I love the AUR, pacman, and paru.
Arch btw
Just became a first time user (~48 hours ago) of KDE on Sparky distro and I’m pretty impressed.
I’ve picked xfce on basically every distro I’ve used and I’ve hopped through like 30 distro’s.
I start with either xfce or cinnamon for the fam, then install a window manager for me.
New Linux Users don’t even know the difference.
Ha! Yeah, I remember that phase. I was planning to install LXDE as my first distro, simply because I thought the wallpaper looked cool.
Yeah hi that’s me - I just use pop_os and everything works so I just roll with it
PopOS is great! I have used a few other (but never strayed far from APT), and I also did some light reading when doing my final decision . PopOS was the best fit for and easy-to-use OS without Snaps. Linux is great and all with how much control you have, but I want as little maintenance as possible for my daily driver.
Just installed Mint to try it out because it looks similar to Windows. Don’t judge me.
Oh I’ve judged you! And I find you guilty of making an acceptable decision that suites your preferences.
I’ll get the pool noodles!
The sentence, however, is still death.
I installed Mint for the sake of trying it and I quite liked Cinnamon, but after that I did some distro and desktop hopping, I will not go back until it has proper Wayland support.
Go GNOME or go home.
Obviously go home to KDE Plasma!
No need to go through extensions and tweaks for basic stuff and sane defaults.
Nah for a lot People (like me) more customizable DEs are better GNOME is whery limiting.
Unless you want a cool desktop, then go for Plasma. /joke
I use i3wm btw
I think that SteamOS is a great place to start people off with Linux.
edit: I mean if you plug a steam deck into mouse and keyboard and use it as a linux box.
it has the support of another company hiding as “games” and can WINE pretty easy with Steam controlling the WINE.
So Arch with KDE
i would recommend it to gamers but they still dont support it officially outside the steam deck…
I don’t think they will officially support it outside of the deck IMO, having used one in the flesh they have hardware optimization down to a tee - which to me really rounds off the deck experience.
The rapid sleep/wake and some options in the quick access menu would likely need some ironing out on other hardware configs, not sure how nvidia card support would work too…
They promised it “soon” so im still holding my breath. I hope.it happens but lets see.
I started with Ubuntu and slowly tried getting used to Gnome over the course of a few months (mainly using windows, every now and then hopping into Ubuntu when not gaming). I learned of KDE, tried it in Kubuntu, and it all instantly clicked for me. I switched over in about a week and haven’t had much reason to boot Windows since.
It turned out that front-facing experience was incredibly important to me.
What do you mean by front facing? Like the DE is the FrontEnd?
Is it not?
It is I just think I found the sentence a little confusing
Cinnamon is epic dekstop environment
I don’t use a DE, BTW.
- guess right which distro I use and win a pet!
arch!
Sir, you win!
So do I get a cookie?
All the cookies you want ! They are already delivered to your browser of choice. Check inside 👍
The most important thing for most new Linux users would be a pathway to getting support. Because of this the distro you use matters much more than the DE because each of the major distro’s have different pipelines that the funnel users in to getting support. The package manager lock in is distro dependent and depending on the philosophy that they subscribe to can be the difference between how many steps a new user has to take to get a working system up and running. Thankfully, with the rise of flatpak, appimage and snap being more popular than ever package availability is much more streamlined but that is another layer on top of an already overwhelming package system for new users. The defaults for all of this depends on your distro which can be different. Heck we haven’t even gotten to support cycles which depending on user needs can be different. Because not every user has or wants what comes with for example maintaining an rolling release distribution. Did they setup their system to have snapshots so they can roll everything back when the new kernel update breaks something system critical and they have a presentation at 2:00? None of these things are really DE dependent but are baked in to the defaults you subscribe to when you choose a disto. The good part is that if you don’t like how something is configured you can change everything easily depending on how well documented it is. This is why it’s more important to choose a distro with good documentation or at least a active enough community so when you run into hangups you can get some sort of resolution.
