Today, lovely Windows 11 installed an update. And since then I don’t have internet access because Microslop Wincrap 11 can somehow magically no longer connect to the DNS server - to any DNS server. No other device in my network has the same issue. I’ve been bugfixing for over an hour and haven’t found a solution. setting the DNS manually, resetting the network adapter, flushed all DNS entries (I used the commandline tool on Windows!). nothing works.
I don’t have ANY more patience with W11!
I already tried Linux. I’m using Ubuntu Server for hosting Nextcloud and Fedora just to play around.
Do you prefer Fedora or Ubuntu? I have an old Thinkpad…
(And no, I will not go down the rabbit hole of Arch ;-) At least not for now.)
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I jumped ship around a year ago after similar update BS frustrations. I had tried Ubuntu a few times over the years but didn’t like their shift to Unity or later choices.
When I did make the jump, I ran Bazzite for the first 3-4 months as the immutability let me gain confidence that I wouldn’t break something and showed me just how easy Linux gaming has become.
I loved Bazzite but gradually encountered more things that were harder to do because of the immutability and a couple of software packages that didn’t play nice with flatpak so I pivoted to KDE Fedora and love it to bits. It still plays all the games I need it to and super stable.
I am a Debian man myself for servers. I don’t want any Canonical bullshit to break mid LTS.
While I am still running win 10 I am undecided which desktop to switch to. CachyOS and Fedora are the front runners but man do I hate Gnome.
I use cachyOS with kde plasma on wayland right now and would recommend.
I’m scared of Arch and cachyOS was the easiest OS install and config I’ve probably ever done. Maybe OSX was easier, but that’s it. It’s sooooo good, and I had zero issues getting everything working perfectly.
Fedora had three big issues and many small. Fedora was actually the worst to get going. My hardcore difficult use cases include playing a video file from my NAS, seeing the music library on there, changing the desktop theme without it going crazy, and not having the aux jack send a huge horrible pop noise to whatever is plugged in when the sound device constantly goes to low power mode.
Both cachy and fedora on the same exact model of machine, both at the same time (two machines, hardware is perfect, also windows 10 LTSC IoT dual boots to them both which worked… as well as windows works I suppose, good enough)
Debian for everything.
I’m not a big fan of Gnome on Fedora either. Everything is just so big and needs so much space. CachyOS is a tad to new for my taste for using it as a daily driver.
why not fedora KDE? it is a full edition now and a really smooth experience
Seconding Fedora KDE. But if you’re not a fan, you could also opt for many of the other supported desktops (cinnamon, XFCE, etc.)
CatchyOS being bleeding edge has actually alleviated a lot of my complaints with Ubuntu/Fedora. Sometimes I really want that brand new shiny thing. And so far I haven’t had too many issues with Catchy breaking. Granted I only run it on my testing laptop not my main machine.
Another vote for Fedora KDE. But I’ll add get the atomic version (Kinoite).
Debian is perfectly good on the desktop too
You don’t have to use Gnome on Cachy or Fedora. Fedora has spins for nearly every DE, and Cachy also has an option for nearly every DE on install.
CachyOS and Fedora are the front runners but man do I hate Gnome.
Plenty of good KDE distros out there. And it’s often possible to install KDE on a Gnome-default system.
Don’t know about CatchyOS or Fedora, but on Ubuntu, the command was
sudo apt install KDE-full… then just restart and it boots into KDE no problem.(Yes, I know Kubuntu exists. But Kubuntu didn’t support ZFS on root during install, while mainline Ubuntu did. So I suffered through using Gnome just long enough to open a terminal and type in that command, followed by
reboot.)CachyOS asks you which DE you want when installing. And even if it didn’t, it’s Arch, and you can have whichever DE you want on Arch. I don’t know Fedora well, but I think it has variants with different DEs preinstalled.
I am running Fedora with KDE.
Fedora is wonderful. I would not recommend Ubuntu to anyone. Fuck Canonical, who fancy themselves the next Microsoft.
For an easy version of Arch, try Cachy.
Highly recommend Fedora over Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Server and Desktop has some dumb defaults that look measly next to Windows, but still annoying next to Fedora.
Fedora also generally has more solid documentation without a bunch of LTS slag threads with outdated answers.
Not Ubuntu. Mint or Fedora.
You like Gnome (how everything looks in Ubuntu)? Use Fedroa Workstation, or use Mint and install Gnome yourself.
This is only my opinion. After all, this is your computer; do what you want.
It’s typically not a good idea to install a DE that is not supported by your distribution, Mint just repackages upstream gnome - is it ubuntu’s vanilla gnome or debian’s btw? Either way you’re just ending up with an old ass GNOME package that’s untested on your distro.
If you’re interested in GNOME get a distro that ships it and supports it, which is pretty much all of them minus Mint.
Ubuntu? What is this, 2008?
and sorry for the ragebait. I’m just a little bit frustrated and had to write it down
I have been on Fedora since 33 or 34, and quite like it. I will say that I have had upgrade woes twice though. I set up Nextcloud on Ubuntu using snaps about 10 years ago, and it’s still kicking, although it goes down every time it decides it’s going to update itself. Win 11 at work: Randomly, half our fleet stopped loading Teams chats last week, and six machines lost their UEFI boot entries today. Big fan.
Fedora
Don’t settle immediately. If you can spare the time, distro hop for a few weeks / months. On the shorter run of things, give each OS you try a good week before moving on to the next. All distros do essentially the same thing, they just flavor it diffetently. Do you like typing apt, or dnf, pacman or yum? Do you prefer being deep in CLI or prefer using an application store? How do you like your userspace to look? Shiny? Bubbly? Classic? Retro? GNOME, Plasma, Xfce, Mate, Cosmic?
There’s enough options out there to make your head spin. Without touching arch, you should at least visit the following -
Little Champs
- Mint
- Zorin
- Endeavour
- Pop OS
Big Champs
- Fedora KDE (or any of its “spins” https://fedoraproject.org/spins/)
- Ubuntu (and its corresponding “flavors” https://ubuntu.com/desktop/flavors)
- Debian
- Arch (just one of the four main pillars)
Gaming focus
- Bazzite (fedora)
- Nobara (fedora)
- Cachy (arch)
Give each or those that pique your interest a fair shake. A week at the minimum. Some you may not need a week, some you’ll find yourself in a natural swing of things. You’ll know when you know.
Bazzite on my gaming machine, Bluefin on my other machines. Both are Fedora Atomic based (meaning read-only kernel). Secure, stable, amazing. Apps are installed via Flatpak, and cli tools using Homebrew.
I’ve been a full time Linux user for 25ish years now. I’m currently happy here, but have tried most of them
I’ve been on Bazzite for like 2 years now, and I’ve never (purposely) used Brew. What kinds of things do you use it for?
Not a whole ton truthfully. If you run ‘brew list’, you’ll see a lot of things already installed via Homebrew. The main one I install explicitly is ‘yt-dlp’, and I’ve played with llama.cpp and similar too
Hmmm, I use yt-dlp but forget exactly how I installed it. Definitely not flatpak, definitely not distrobox, and I’m pretty sure I never layered it.
App image maybe?
Edit: I think I literally just downloaded the Linux binary?
Hmmm, I use yt-dlp but forget exactly how I installed it. Definitely not flatpak, definitely not distrobox, and I’m pretty sure I never layered it.
from pip? that’s how I have yewtube
I used to download their binary from github and put in /usr/local/bin
Hoembrew will update that now whenever I update my system so I don’t think about it anymore.Hmmm, I guess I’ve just been running an outdated version of it for a while then.
Thank you all for the many replies!
I’ll summarize it as followed:
- Ubumtu: one does not use Ubuntu any more
- Linux Mint: always a good start
- Fedora: also always good and would be good for a Thinkpad
- Bazzite for gaming
- Gnome really is not for everyone
Since I already tried Fedora, I’m going with Linux Mint for the moment.
(In fact, the installation of Mint is running right now and I’m using the whole SSD, no windows boot manager partition will survive!!!)
Give openSUSE Tumbleweed a shot.
Linux Mint: always a good start
Started and stopped there, I love it and never even think about windows anymore
LMDE or ubuntu based? I’d recommend LMDE over ubuntu based
I didn’t want to program shit; I don’t care about command line; I love a good gui and didn’t want to fuck with finicky drivers. Moving to Ubuntu from Windows allowed me to continue to use my mostly browser-based computing existence without having to learn to use a new tool. I may not use Arch but one less Windows victim must be a step in a better direction.
I moved to Fedora a few years ago. Spent a week or two orienting myself, like going to a new town and not knowing how to get around. So glad I did. I choose when and what to update.
Not perfect though, it lost keyboard connection yesterday. Reboot fixed it.
what made you decide to use Fedora and not Ubuntu. Or Linux Mint?
Not the original guy, but I went to Fedora (Silverblue) first, because I heard so much about Ubuntu being shit and basically slightly less corpo infested Windows. I had Fedora recommended to me by a person I know + privacy guides recommends it I think.
I just wanted a simple distro that is seen as privacy respecting for anyone who didn’t want to go into the deep end of Tails OS and the like.
Silverblue is atomic, which is typically advertised as “Noob-proof” since you can’t really touch the OS and system files itself. But I like to tinker a little and found it frustrating to work around, so I ended up going with regular Fedora Plasma KDE. Been a year or almost 2 now and it’s been great. My biggest “normal” issue was bluetooth and touchpad issues. Bluetooth issue was caused by not doing a full power cycle after a kernel update, and touchpad was randomly disabling itself in settings for some reason… The other issues were needing specific software for class purposes like VirtualBox (signing keys and shit for virtualization ig) or coding apps (had to start it in terminal).
Wifi blew up once and tried to troubleshoot to no avail, a reboot or two later and it fixed itself 🙏
Any distro > Ubuntu > Qubes (not for beginners haha)
