hey nerds, I’m getting myself a new personal laptop as a treat, but I very much do not want windows 11 shitting it up. Is there a linux distro with caveman-compatible instructions for installation and use? I want to think about my OS as little as possible while actually using it.
I’ve got one friend who uses mint, but I’ve also seen memes dunking on it so who knows. I actually really only know what I’ve seen from you all shitposting in other communities
This is quite a rabbit hole you are getting yourself into, but to keep it short and relatively simple, you need to figure out something very important beforehand:
- Do you want a rolling release or a stable distro?
I’m assuming that, you are not yet familiar with these terms, so let’s go with the stable distros.
You have a lot of options here, most of them will all be based of Ubuntu, which is based in Debian, so let me drop a few generally good suggestions in no particular order:
- Linux Mint
- MX Linux
- ZorinOS
- PopOS
- Fedora, (This one is not a stable distro, but you should be good with it)
Either of these is a good starting point. If down the road you feel like they stop fitting your needs, start exploring the big three, (Debian, Fedora and Arch Linux).
Linux Mint is one of the most common gateway drug for getting into linux.
It’s incredibly easy to set up and use. And it has plenty of resources if you ran into any issue.
Linux Mint.
+1
Don’t want to think about your OS? Install Aurora. The hardest decision will be choosing your password. Install instructions are identical to any other Fedora installation. Auto updates to everything, never breaking system with bleeding edge software all the time. Superb documentation, zero maintenance, windows like desktop experience but better. That’s all.
Fedora’s KDE spin
I really hope more beginner distros switch to kde from GNOME. When I was first getting into linux and did not know about what a DE was, GNOME put me off from fully switching to linux and themeing it was hell with it not playing nice with qt applications, of course as a newbie i did not know what “qt” or “Gtk” was and did not understand at the time why some applications were not following theme.
while kde default is not pretty it can be anything you want it to look like and its easy to customize and plays nice with gtk applications. GNOME IS very customizable that you might even be able to make it into a usable desktop.
Came to say Fedora KDE is the way to go now. Stable, reliable, powerful and customizable.
Mint gets dunked on for being slow and HDR variable refresh rate and Wayland is not on the cutting edge. Nobody hates it for being stable though.
Its also popular and easier to google issues for.
to be fair you can always remove gnome-keyring and it will go 20x faster. Found out the hard way. I wasn’t aware mint had it.
Huh; any idea why that, of all things, would slow everything down?
- Mint
- Kubuntu
- Fedora KDE Edition
- OpenSuSE
- Pop!OS
These are all easy to use desktop distros (or variants). Use them with their respective default desktop environment. Check screenshots first or try them out in a VM or via live USB before installation, to see whether you like the look&feel.
I use my laptop as a tool - no real idea how it works. If Linux nerds are mechanics then I’m just a taxi driver. Use mint. I do. Zero regrets. Caveman compatible.
I’ve done dozens of distros and Linux mint is the most familiar, unexciting, and stable one I have found. Ignore the hate. Real Linux fans don’t care how you participate in open source, other than being toxic. Consequently, do whatever you want and install whatever seems like it would be something you’d want to use.
Id highly suggest having a separate hard drive for Linux as it can be easy to break dual boot if you don’t know what you are doing. Last thing you want to do is panic and decide you need to reinstall Windows.
I just set up Nobara.
Shockingly straightforward.
Entire install process was very simple, with a GUI, then a neat little post install app that gives you another very straightforward GUI for running your first batch of system updates.
... Oh, and I was able to do this on a SteamDeck, without an external mouse or keyboard.
Nobara has a SteamDeck edition now.
The install process has a bit of Deck specific jank, basically i just had to change the screen UI scaling level from 175% to 100%, it defaulted to 175% when booting from the SD card i wrote the ISO to…
And then there’s a bit of jank doing initial updates off the ‘bare metal’ install, because the SteamKeyboard overlay thingy will prompt your admin password for a system access prompt… which will disable most of the SteamDeck inputs for everything other than Steam untill you input your password to allow it to work.
The work around I figured for this is… when that prompt comes up, you push the steam button and hamburger menu button on the physical deck until you get Steam in big picture mode.
Then your controls all work in Steam.
Then you close Steam.
Then your mouse works via trackpad on the desktop, but the X button to bring up the SteamKeyboard does not.
So then you open Steam again.
Now the SteamKeyboard does work, and you can type in your admin pass to the system access prompt.
I had to do this silly process a number of times through the initial set up 0.o
I eventually set Steam to not automatically launch itself, and now that all the updates have gone through, I just have to mouse (trackpad) over to manually open Steam when I am in desktop mode and then give Steam the admin pw for the keyboard to work… just once per desktop session now that its all set up.
Probably I also could have gone back into gaming mode and just bound a button to whatever button combo Nobara/Fedora uses as a shortcut to open the actual Nobara/Fedora virtual keyboard, but I could not figure out what this key combo actually is lol.
But uh if you’re just looking for an OS for a standard desktop PC, everything I’ve outlined in the above spoiler is not gonna be a problem, and you’ll likely have a very straightforward install process.
I’m also a fan of Nobara’s default UI… kind of a gnomeified KDE?
As well as its default apps, built in DeckyLoader and plugins for the Deck, ProtonPlus for runtime environments, and of course its built in kernel customizations/optimizations for to play vidya gaem.
Oh, and I went with Nobara over the default SteamOS because SteamOS on a Deck is a read only OS by default…
You can install flatpaks, but if you want to actually install new core packages, those will get wiped with a SteamOS update… or you have to use DistroBox… which may also get wiped on an update?
Not sure, but Nobara allowse to use the deck as both a Deck and a more standard desktop linux PC with more customizability… and not having to rely on the AUR, which I find incredibly frustrating.
Nobara is pretty painless. Fedora without having to dink with adding repos and fixing graphics drivers. A pile of built-in tweaks for making gaming work out of the box.
When first coming from Windows, starting with Mint is the safest bet for a good transition because things will work pretty much as you expect them to, and there’s a very helpful forum if you have any questions. But I always say to try several distros and Desktop Environments to see how you like them. Everyone is different and it’s all a matter of preference.
I suggest that once you’ve got whatever distro you decided on up and running, install a virtual machine software such as Boxes (very simple) or Virtual Box (a little more complicated but with more options). Then just download various distros and make VMs for them to try them out easily. Have fun!
Go ahead with mint. It’s the only distro I know with a fully featured setup wizard that holds your hand through the entire process. I am confident anyone who has used computers can use it.
But honestly, most modern distros are about as difficult as picking up an iOS/android phone for the first time. There are different ways of doing things, but they’re still phones and can’t be too different anyway. Same with mint, it’s just a computer, it isn’t all that different.
I second mint, back when I had more time to fuck with such things I distro hopped like crazy, mint is easy and it just works
It’s the only distro I know with a fully featured setup wizard that holds your hand through the entire process.
Ubuntu, Fedora, Nobara(Fedora fork by GloriousEggroll of proton-ge), Garuda Arch, Pop!OS. Those are just the few I’ve personally fiddled with.
Highly recommend Garuda, Nobara and Pop!, in that order, for gaming.
No it can’t be. I’m using fedora right now and it drops me into the GNOME desktop with nothing. The GNOME tours barely count, they just tell you to login to your dropbox or smth.
Have you seen the mint one? It’s actually dummies proof. Full “It’s my first day on linux” step-by-step guide. Everything from updating, setting themes, backups, installing nvidia drivers is in there. All relevant choices are meticulously explained.
I’m so certain of its coverage, I recommend mint to internet strangers because I genuinely believe it’s sufficient even for the lowest common denominator. I can drop mint on any rando and fully trust that the Mint setup wizard will hold their hands through their first day on Linux.
I last switched distros 3 years ago, and the wizard definitely wasn’t on popOS or Ubuntu either.
Absolutely Debian stable, the first thing i wanted in Linux was stability, coming from windows you want something that “just works” and I think Debian stable + Gnome is the perfect choice for this!
Mint is one of the best bets for beginners, it’s very similar to windows 10 UI wise by default and generally very user friendly
Been meaning to try CachyOS. It’s a gamer friendly Arch based distro. Might be worth looking at. Distro doesn’t really matter much at all. Desktop environment does. If you want HDR support KDE and GNOME are your only bet.
Edit: Kubuntu would probably be the easiest to use and setup distro that has HDR support.
