I tried PopOS and the pop store is not the best, and gnome is too foreign for someone coming from windows.
And also, too fiddly to make it work with a number of third party extensions vs the customization being built in.
KDE is heavier but also seems more streamlined and Cinnamon is fairly decent too.
Copied from another comment I made
" I have a home server on debian and after a bit of setup woes(partly linux still being so reliant on CLI, partly my inexperience with it), it’s been running super smoothly. Have multiple dockers and it has been a joy. And same for the steam deck, it just works. Some glitches here and there with controller support but that’s just PC gaming. But I installed it on my laptop as well and that was a shitshow. All biometrics wouldn’t work, wifi kept dropping in and out, phantom touches now and then. Sure I could have done some cli technical wizardry but I gave up after trying to make it work half as smoothly on my workflow as in windows. And the windows 11 on it is utter garbage. Partly this is manufacturing not having linux drivers available and partly it is linux just not having guis for essential functions. Hope steam is able to have enough of a push to get much needed consumer friendly guis for more system functions. "
Recent years of 2021, 22, 23, and 24.
As someone who has tried it on multiple devices in recent years, it still isn’t smooth enough. And I’ve been assembling computers for 2 decades now. So not entirely technically illiterate, but just not adept in linux. Definitely heavily reliant on use cases for how smooth the experience is. The server side is very well developed with years of linux leaning heavier on that side, but the splintering of frontend has a bit of an android effect. Lots of really cool things but still some jank that you can’t get rid of.
Exactly this. To both points actually. I have a home server on debian and after a bit of setup woes(partly linux still being so reliant on CLI, partly my inexperience with it), it’s been running super smoothly. Have multiple dockers and it has been a joy. And same for the steam deck, it just works. Some glitches here and there with controller support but that’s just PC gaming. But I installed it on my laptop as well and that was a shitshow. All biometrics wouldn’t work, wifi kept dropping in and out, phantom touches now and then. Sure I could have done some cli technical wizardry but I gave up after trying to make it work half as smoothly on my workflow as in windows. And the windows 11 on it is utter garbage. Partly this is manufacturing not having linux drivers available and partly it is linux just not having guis for essential functions. Hope steam is able to have enough of a push to get much needed consumer friendly guis for more system functions.
That and Emudeck.
The most seamless retro gaming setup I’ve used yet.
For occasional use of a Windows specific software, how feasible is it to keep a VM handy? Not too much of a drag or a bit of a hassle.
Been on the edge of turning the main OS to linux on the gaming rig.
This. The best distro is the one you stick with. AND you’re gonna bounce off from the first one soon enough. You might come back to it later, but just pick one and go for it.
hits line of hopium
I mean… Yo… We have the steam deck bro. And that’s going to get the linux desktop to 10% itself. And then Valve is going to re-release Steam Machines and VR 2.0. We’re definitely going to have the year of the Linux Desktop
Anecdotally, Mint broke file permissions and then the mounting points for my home server setup. And I find Cinnamon to be quite ugly imho.
I tried Fedora and Debian and much prefer those two vs Mint. Also, KDE is incredibly beautiful on the Steam Deck.
P.S. Fedora and Debian work with secure boot OOTB. Helpful for a laptop install. I know you can make it work with Arch and Mint as well, and there’s issues+opinions with secure boot, but I just wanted something to work. I am not as adept with linux and the guides assumed a particular level of experience with it.
I’ve landed in the same boat. Debian is quite usable as is. And fairly familiar when you’ve been using Ubuntu/Mint for a bit.
This may be a bit counterintuitive, but I tried Mint and it was ugly and also 21 => 21.1 upgrade tool botched my drive mounting points.
Fedora was absolutely smooth af and Debian has been absolutely lovely too.
In case either of those seem more up your alley.
I’m a fairly technically savvy person. And yet, since the drivers do not support the fingerprint sensor and the windows hello camera on my laptop. I am trucking along without.
But, not everyone is going to have the same leniency for tech they bought. Also the bluetooth is ridiculously flaky. Sure I could change the driver/software and all from CLI but the layperson is not going to be adept at that.
Considering the size of the country, and the margins it works with, it works quite well. Well enough that Amazon itself uses USPS for deliveries. Plus there’s a lot of additional work that USPS does. Like shipping to places that just don’t make any fiscal sense but are essential for that remote community. Shipping live chicks under a certain amount of age.
And no private company would do this coz it won’t give the most profits but the service greatly benefits the populace as a whole. (Which preaching to the choir since you’re on Lemmy vs Reddit when the Reddit experience is a lot smoother for the layman right now but also fully profit oriented.)
FedEx is a private company. USPS is the public one.
21.1
Every documentation would say it was supported but no ball. Tried Fedora first and worked smooth as butter. Then RHEL decided to be tools so on Debian now.
I couldn’t get Linux Mint to work with my laptop’s secureboot. I’ve had luck with Fedora and Debian. In case you trip at mint same as me.
Tbh, I kinda like that we have these growing pains. Helps folks leave out older expectations of monolithic profit-oriented social platforms. And actually put some money down to help host the specific niche community they really want to exist.
I’ll probably eat these words later but, as of this moment, I stand by it.
Hiren’s boot CD is still kicking around?
I totally see your point and I tried GNOME first to have a uniquely Linux experience. I do agree with you. But the inflexibility of GNOME by default made it a much harder flip. I tried it with PopOS too, after using Debian for a while.
Plus tbh, I don’t think with still how much you need to use the terminal for linux, anyone would be mistaken in the transition. Windows has kludge from the 90s for their settings and linux still needs terminal.