I’ve been toying with Linux on and off for almost 20 years now.

Started with damnsmalllinux on some ancient 600mhz Thinkpads. Dual booted Ubuntu for a long time, back when 3d desktop cubes were all the rage, so I’m used to gnome, synaptic and apt.

Tried to stick with it, but never could get away from Windows entirely. Especially for gaming, and a few critical apps. Eventually I kind of drifted away, and went full Windows for years. I always keep an Ubuntu LTS thumb drive around, and would use it occasionally for various reasons, testing etc etc.

Recently I installed Ubuntu 24.04, and had tons of stability issues. Mostly involving video output and the GUI. Screen would jitter left and right a few pixels. And sometimes maximized windows would be transparent to clicks, so you’d be clicking random stuff below the window. This was especially bad with Firefox and VLC, separately. I also had issues with removable drives not mounting properly. Standard stuff, I wasn’t doing anything weird. Practically a fresh install.

So I tried Mint, cinnamon. And so far I really like it! I’ve not been running it daily, but just the same tinkering. And so far no issues at all. But that got me thinking, what else am I missing?

I’m comfortable in the command line, but not proficient, I appreciate a good GUI for most things.

I plan to do some gaming, so steam proton compatibility is important. I don’t think that’s hard to achieve, but I wanted to make sure, it’s important to me.

Last time I played with KDE was a decade ago, I hear there’s lots of new developments going on there? In plasma? Unless plasma is different now, IDK I haven’t looked extremely hard.

I don’t care much about customization, I don’t want arch. I want something that is a pretty solid base, with decent features, and good support for when this go sideways. I feel like that’s not Ubuntu anymore. Especially with them pushing into Wayland and flat packs.

I guess my question is, does Mint seem like a good distro to start with? Or am I not looking hard enough?

Thanks!

  • marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    Debian with XFCE here - I do just have a single monitor though so I suppose I’m not running into complicated display issues anytime soon. It has been extremely solid, I forget to update my system for months on end and then remember to do it one day and it just works. XFCE is boring like Debian but that’s why I like it: it stays out of my way.

    I work on RHEL at my day job so Linux isn’t just a hobby for me, and I love being free from Windows. Honestly the only thing I keep a windows VM around for is an installation of Adobe Acrobat PDF reader because I’m too lazy to set up signatures on Linux since I don’t sign that many documents anyway. And maybe a couple of windows servers from a few keys I’ve got lying around to learn AD on.

    • beastlykings@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      4 days ago

      Thanks for the recommendation! Nothing wrong with simple and standard. I won’t lie though, I fired up Fedora last night to play with, and I really liked what I saw 😅

      I’m excited to go full Linux. It’s been a long time coming for me. Like I say, I tried to do it years ago. I recently did it for a year or more. I don’t remember switching back to Windows, it just kind of… Happened 🤷‍♂️

  • Zink@programming.dev
    5·
    6 days ago

    Mint Cinnamon has been great for me.

    It is fully featured right out of the box and is a great drop-in replacement for windows. I will without a doubt use it when upgrading family members who are about to lose win10 support.

    It is based off the popular Debian -> Ubuntu distros, and is very popular itself. This is good when it comes to quickly finding existing answers to specific questions. And of course they disabled the iffy stuff from ubuntu (snaps) while supporting flatpak.

    I’m a software engineer who uses the command line all day, and I use Mint at work and at home. You see, even though the distro is a polished, full featured, and “easy” option, it is still Linux. So it is not locked down and you can still do what you want with your computer.

    It won’t teach you to configure your system from the ground up like Arch might, instead it starts you off in a complete well-configured state and you can leave it alone or change it.

  • Wooki@lemmy.world
    12·
    7 days ago

    Mint is amazing and frankly if its working for you then I think you’ve found it. I stayed on mint for a long time until I relented to a nagging friend and tried out NIxOS and was amazed. If you have the technical skills and feel confident to push through the inital difficulty its well well worth it.

    So whats the good?

    1. Reproducibility. Ever been annoyed that someone cant help you because they either dont have the time or just cant reproduce the problem? Its no longer an issue. Dependancy is managed by design so configuration and state is transferable with as little as only two files.
    2. Declarative. Best way to decibe this is all the benefits of Arch and zero of the problems. Declare your configuration in a file and then have a life. Ive never saved so much time before with any distro. Imaging installing windows, configuring the OS, installing apps, configuring them only once, ever, never having to do that again. Reinstalls go straight back to the way you like it.
    3. Reliable. Ive never had a linux distro so stable. The risk and pain of change is a thing of the past.
    4. Largest and most up to date repo. Its simply unmatched.
    5. The list goes on to other areas like security, scalability and much more but lets leave it there.

    Whats the bad?

    1. Difficulty of entry. You need to have basic understanding on writting basic code to some degree as you define your config as a simple text file. I recommend vimjoyer on youtube he has some great simple intro videos that will help here.
    2. Using apps not in the repo. You will need to step up your config skills here to install that weird app you want. That is only unless you cant wait. If you have time the community is fantastic, a quick app request on the repo has a great chance of being picked up by some legend and added to the repo officially.
    3. The wiki, its no Arch wiki, thankfully you dont really need it. The community maintains a bunch of configs for hardware and apps on the repo which is weirdly not advertised half as much as it should be. Alternatively just search github for configs from other nixians.
      • Wooki@lemmy.world
        1·
        7 days ago

        Timeshift is a life saver but its still experimenting in the dark. Id rather not spend my life tinkering all the time. Office suite is an app & 1 word in a config.

        Mint is great for non technical people, but if you have the skill and crave more the innovation that nix introduced is singular.

    • beastlykings@sh.itjust.worksOP
      2·
      7 days ago

      That’s quite the glowing recommendation for nixOS!

      Definitely a learning curve to installation, but I like the idea of config once/cry once, then in the future you’d never have to do it again. I’m just wondering how true that is in practice? Like, I configure it once, but over the course of a few years I install a bunch of stuff. Do I have to keep my config file manually up to date? Or once I’m up and running does this happen automatically?

      I’m not opposed to a fair amount of cli legwork to things up and running, if the payoff is as good as you say.

      I’m definitely curious about this distro, thanks!

      • Wooki@lemmy.world
        3·
        7 days ago

        Thanks. Nix made me a convert back from Windows. Microsoft doesn’t innovate anymore like they used to. iMO the origional concepts that sparked nix and now others like it has been a breath of fresh air into a stagnated critical cornerstone of the industry. Imagine being able to install every version of a dependancy like say .net thats ever been released without it causing a problem.

        Install is imo better than even Windows, install from media, highly recommend kde plasma or gnome on your first round, but hey its nix, sky is the limit. Hardware will autodetect so long as you dont have anything out of ordinary.

        Config once cry once cant be over stated enough how good it is. As for your concern about changes its really simple. Make the change, run the update command from terminal, reboot and if it fails (rare) juat reboot again and select your previous config, it keeps as many configs as you want to. I now only maintain the last 5 and run a cleanup confidently.

        To update to the latest versions of apps and os its one command in terminal and nix checks your config for errors before updating. Some people run bleeding edge versions & update daily getting nightly apps, OS, and kernel even without issue. I sit on unstable, silly name, its stable as all hell, you just get the latest releases and features.

        My worst experience was moving to home manager, but it was well worth it. The error nix presented was meaningless, the real error was just buried and I had to use journald to find the meaningful error.

        What ever distro you use enjoy the freedom! Mint is great, Nix is great!

    • balssh@lemm.eeEnglish
      31·
      7 days ago

      Yeah, nixos is great in some aspects, but a newcomer will be very displeased with a lot of nix specific things. And having quite bad documentation is no help either.

      • Wooki@lemmy.world
        3·
        7 days ago

        I made it very clear about the barrier to entry for nix and frankly I don’t think you give OP enough credit. They sound quite capable already familiar with mint

  • stringere@sh.itjust.works
    8·
    7 days ago

    I recently made the switch from Windows to Linux on my gaming desktop and it’s been a nearly flawless transition. I’ve been running Pop_OS without problems. If you have an AMD video card you might want to check Bazzite for a gaming oriented Linux distro. Any distro should allow you to use a different desktop, so which GUI to use is up to you. KDE Plasma has a lot of skins to choose from and is a pretty easy transition from Windows. You don’t even have to stick with a single desktop environment. I currently choose between the default Pop_OS or Plasma depending on my mood or use case.

  • shadshack@sh.itjust.works
    61·
    7 days ago

    I just recently ditched Windows and installed Kubuntu. I like Ubuntu but wanted KDE Plasma, and that’s exactly what this is! Works great for me, including proton gaming with Steam.

    • Adiemus@lemm.ee
      1·
      7 days ago

      Same here. Coming from Windows, Kubuntu seems like a good choice for me (though I might change one day).

    • beastlykings@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      7 days ago

      Thanks for the input! Glad it’s working for you!

      There are some great recommendations on this thread, I’m excited to try them out!

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
    5·
    7 days ago

    never could get away from Windows entirely. Especially for gaming, and a few critical apps.

    Been gaming exclusively on Linux now for few years, including in VR. Just few hours ago before my work day I was playing Elden Ring with controller. 0 tinkering, System key, “EL”[ENTER] then play. So… unless you need kernel level anti-cheat, Linux is pretty good for gaming nowadays.

    Same of the few “critical” apps, I don’t know what these are but rare are the ones without equivalent and/or that don’t work with Wine, sometimes even better that on Windows.

    Anyway : Debian. Plain and simple, not BS with a mix bag of installers (but you can still use AppImage or am or even nix whenever you want to). It just works and keep on working.

    • beastlykings@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      7 days ago

      Yeah I’ve been using a steam deck since it’s release, Linux gaming is definitely a million times better than days of yore.

      Thanks for the Debian recommendation! Not a bad idea.

      • utopiah@lemmy.ml
        2·
        7 days ago

        I also have a SteamDeck and it’s IMHO one of the best device to promote Linux. Just hand skeptic the device, let them play and ask them how the experience then if they can guess the OS.

        • beastlykings@sh.itjust.worksOP
          1·
          7 days ago

          Yeah honestly, I set up a Windows SD card for dual booting, and I’ve used it maybe once. SteamOS is where it’s at for the steam deck. Premium.

  • daggermoon@lemmy.world
    4·
    7 days ago

    Mint is great as long as you don’t care about HDR or Wayland. Seeing as you don’t want Arch and Ubuntu is being a pain in the ass for you I’d say give Debian Testing a try. It has the newest packages unlike standard Debian. You can choose KDE, Cinnamon, or something else. I hear people constantly reccommending OpenSuse but I’ve never tried it so I can’t comment. If you just want to game and don’t care about much else then Bazzite is pretty great. Nobara is also popular. PopOS kind of sucks in my experience, I’d avoid it unless you know you’d like it.

    Edit: Forgot to clarify HDR support requires KDE Plasma or GNOME. Plasma has better support for it right now.

    • beastlykings@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      6 days ago

      Thanks! HDR isn’t important to me right now. Though I think I need to specify that I’ll be installing this on a framework laptop, and therefore, from what I’ve learned recently, Wayland is actually preferred because it enables some track pad gestures that x11 lacks somehow.

      I’m definitely leaning towards bazzite, because people seem to think it’s not that bad even for general use, and it ticks a lot of boxes.

      Though nixOS is on the table. I at least wanna try my hand at configuring it.

  • Clocks [They/Them]@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    Fedora Atomic (Fedora Silverblue).

    You can choose the KDE spin if you want.

    Bazzite is Fedora Atomic but for a more gaming focus.

  • data1701d (He/Him)@startrek.websiteEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    I use Debian with XFCE, but while I love XFCE, it might not be everyone’s thing. If you do give it a try, make sure to use Whisker Menu instead of the default app menu, and also set keyboard mappings to your liking.

    P.S: Ubuntu’s pushing for Snaps, not Flatpaks. Flatpaks are actually pretty good - makes it really easy to install a newer software version when the one in Debian repos doesn’t suffice.

    Also, it’s not only Ubuntu pushing for Wayland - most distros or DEs either have it working or are working towards it (there are some exceptions). XFCE is still on xorg, but working on Wayland. The problem is xorg is on life support and not getting a lot of new features.

    • beastlykings@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      6 days ago

      Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve used xfce in the past, and at least back then, it definitely wasn’t my jam. I appreciate how lightweight it is for older machines though!

      And yeah I’ve definitely learned a lot through these discussions. Snap vs flatpaks, and the benefits of Wayland.

      I’m leaving the op as is though, a record of things I didn’t know before haha

  • Presi300@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    7 days ago

    My personal recommendations: Fedora KDE, Nobara or Linux Mint. You can’t go wrong with either one of them.

    • THEfonz@lemm.ee
      2·
      7 days ago

      +1 to Nobara. Been using it for about a year and it’s pretty damn solid.

      • Enragedzeus@lemmy.world
        2·
        5 days ago

        Fedora kde spin here with 4080 super. 5 mins to set up the nvidia driver and steam, no issues for like 1-2 years

        • beastlykings@sh.itjust.worksOP
          1·
          5 days ago

          I’m really thinking I might go Fedora. I haven’t spun any of these up yet, busy busy.

          My new laptop is a framework 13, AMD version. Apparently bluefin, which is Fedora based, is super compatible with all the features of that laptop.

          • Enragedzeus@lemmy.world
            2·
            4 days ago

            I don’t know much about the other distros but Fedora is a happy medium between bleeding edge features in arch and waiting 10 years. It’s also one of the few distros that support HDR And HDR gaming

            • beastlykings@sh.itjust.worksOP
              1·
              4 days ago

              Thanks! I’m actually settling into bluefin right now. It’s based on Fedora, but is closer to bazzite. Supposedly has great framework support, which is important I realized

        • shadowDingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          4·
          7 days ago

          Friggin love Fedora! ❤️

          Probably my favorite distro for stability, package availability, and performance.

          Also comes in tons of different spins if you like different desktop environments!

  • julysfire@lemmy.world
    2·
    6 days ago

    Just ditched windows about 2 weeks ago and finally made the full time switch to Manjaro and am absolutely loving it

  • kcweller@feddit.nl
    3·
    7 days ago

    +1 for mint. I’ve been using pop, zorin and manjaro, but since I’ve used mint I completely switched to daily driving it on my personal devices and my gaming PC, even going so far that I got it installed on the company laptop 👍