this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023

39 points (78.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27275 readers

3165 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

What Linux distro should I choose? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 year ago by orl0pl to c/asklemmy

44 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm moving away from Windows and I'm looking for distro for coding and occasional gaming. If more context is needed please let me know.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

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

Mint = the desktop is closer to windows look.
Pop os = the desktop is closer to mac look. With extensions and settings with those, it can be even closer.

However keep in mind that Pop OS is developing their own desktop to get away from gnome (the name of the desktop environment(DE) (the bunch of apps and tools making the desktop and settings work)).

That new DE will most likely not be compatible with gnome extensions. And I don't know how it will look.

For functionality, both work pretty well.

Pop os has 2 ISO : one which includes the nvidia driver, and another without the Nvidia driver, should be easy to download the right one.
Mint I don't remember exactly how it works, but it should be easy enough to download and install the proprietary nvidia driver, either through a driver tool, or through the store.
Pop os has a gnome extension which allow you to switch from integrated gpu / hybrid / nvidia "only" directly from the notification menu.
to switch in mint, you need to open the nvidia control panel.

Both need a reboot or log out to switch gpu mode.

(keep in mind, the Nvidia gpu consumes a lot more than the cpu integrated one. In hybrid, nvidia gpus canot be put to 0w sleep yet, so it will still consume some power).

Both need a special argument for app launch or steam launch arguments to launch with the nvidia gpu if you set hybrid.

For boot :

Pop os bypasses grub (a Linux boot menu), so to choose the os to boot from, you'll have to either use your laptop's boot menu or the bios priority.
Mint has a grub boot menu displayed each time. So if you choose mint as priority boot, you can at boot still choose windows (about 5-10 sec to use the arrows to boot into something else than mint).

Disadvantage :

Pop OS still needs an additional app to be able to change all settings, including mouse acceleration (say thanks to gnome devs, theming has become harder to do for non gnome standard themes).
Mint : they only now made plans to develop their DE to support Wayland (a new window manager explained a bit further), and so you could have a bit less track pad fluidity (no 1to1 gestures ... ). Tho as the DE used is cinnamon, there is less use of track pad gestures.

About Wayland : it's a "new" windows manager (what allows apps to be displayed, and how they interact with each other). It is a hopeful replacement for X11 (released in 198X, before Linux...) full of issues but still working well for what it has to do. Wayland wants to bring enhancements on security, gesture fluidity and many other things. However it is not yet fully developed and you shouldn't really base your decision on it yet.

For the rest. I don't really remember other disadvantages as i don't really use them anymore.

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

Thank you for this comprehensive answer. It brought up some new considerations, but that's a good thing — like learning about Wayland, switching to/from use of gpu (which I didn't even know was a thing), and Pop_OS moving away from gnome. I appreciate that you took the time to write this full answer!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

There is a lot to learn for Linux. Search engines are your best friend. Tho sometimes advice is outdated. There are also some discord servers where help exists, tho they also expect someone asking to do their research.

I mostly learned by YouTube, then doing research on Google and other search engines, on forums... Discord servers were my last resort when I had some specific question.

Linux for all : https://discord.gg/eSP6cXjY4B Gaming on Linux : https://discord.gg/AghnYbMjYg The Linux experiment (YouTuber) also has a discord server...