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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I had a dream about windows and have decided to setup Linux on my laptop. What distro should I use? (self.linux)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by PRUSSIA_x86 to c/[email protected]

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I used Ubuntu once a few years ago but had compatability issues so I went back to windows. Not a great programmer but I'd like to learn. I'm not looking to do much gaming beyond DOOM2 and factorio. Mostly looking for privacy and a way to get back into programming (I have this pipe dream of learning Assembly). I'm not to particular on UI, I can use whatever.

Edit: https://distrochooser.de for anyone who stumbles upon this post with the same question

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Additional to the Mint suggestions: Mint tones down the "Ubuntu-ness" of their default distribution, but it's still Ubuntu under the hood. LMDE is the version of Mint based on straight Debian skipping the Ubuntu "middle-man" if that sounds more appealing.

Can't speak to compatibility one way or another, though.

My computer is old and made of parts from well-known manufacturers. Everything in it is pretty well-known to the open-source community at this point, so that might well be giving me a huge advantage with regard to drivers and such. (Case in point, I have an NVIDIA graphics card and Intel i7 from the tail end of the era where people wouldn't advise you against getting either, and in fact might have outright recommended them over AMD. Yes, that old. Legacy proprietary drivers work fine for me.)

[–] Caboose12000 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

does LMDE have KDE flavours yet? Ive always thought cinnamon was pretty ugly

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Official support of KDE was dropped by the Mint team a while back, and I'm pretty sure LMDE has only ever been Cinnamon too.

Despite this, it is possible to install and use a different desktop manager.

KDE and all the usual KDE packages remain available from the Software Manager, and a different DM can be selected at the GUI login screen (once installed, of course).

If you don't even want to touch Cinnamon once, I suspect you could jump to a text-only terminal, enter apt install kde-standard etc. and then jump back to the GUI login to see if it knows about KDE. A reboot (or similar) might be needed? That should be all though. (Very reminiscent of deliberately using command line ftp or a Windows port of wget to get Firefox back in the day when people didn't want to touch Internet Explorer, but Cinnamon isn't that bad, surely? ;) )

(FWIW I don't mind it. I switched from Win7 back in the day and Cinnamon was similar enough that I felt at home. One day maybe I'll switch to something else. KDE probably won't be it, but you never know.)

[–] Caboose12000 1 points 1 year ago

thanks for the info, I won't hold my breath haha. I'll probably just stick with Kubuntu for now, it's not so bad after removing snapd