• Shirasho@lemmings.world
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    8 months 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.

      • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        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.

  • Gakomi@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    For windows users that go to Linux I always recommend KDE as it looks like windows and it’s easy for them to understand and use it!

        • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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          8 months ago

          It’s really similar to Windows in how you use it. Switching between Windows 11 and Cinnamon is as seamless as it can be.

          There’s almost no configuration or anything necessary, you just install it and it’s great.

  • There’s Two Main Choices:

    Packages…

    1. Pacman-based - Arch, Arco, Endeavour
    2. RPM-based - Fedora, SuSE
    3. Aptitude-based - Ubuntu, Debian

    Choose Pacman for rolling release, bleeding edge. Pick aptitude for servers and pick RPM if you want something that ‘just works’.

    Desktop…

    1. Full DE - Gnome, KDE
    2. Window Manager - Awesome, i3

    High end machines with lots of fancy features and ease of use pick a full DE. WM is good for speed and low-end hardware but harder to use.

    • FalseDiamond@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Disagree on picking RPM distros for an absolute beginner (this is what the image is about at least). SUSE maybe but you don’t want a newbie having to deal with US patent bullshit and especially SELinux. Similarly, no newbie will ever pic a barebones WM as a first time user.