In the beginning, i used mint, then i used arch for a while, now im chilling comfortably with a dual boot of bazzite/arch. bazzite for the gaming setup, arch for the work setup.
Void! I used arch btw for quite a while, but then decided to switch and I don't regret nothing... Except the docs, the docs aren't very good. I'm also running debian 12 on my home server, and it has been a good experience
Ubuntu actually. I hated Ubuntu for a long time, until there was a game which only ran on Ubuntu. And now, after installing it, I'm actually pretty impressed and like it a lot. Yaru is a very good-looking theme, and the customizations Ubuntu made to stock GNOME are actually pretty logical (like adding windows buttons). It has among the best documentation and package support in the whole Linux universe. I'm a guy who likes to tinker, but for whom it is more important that the PC runs well, and I haven't encountered a single problem with Ubuntu yet - no kernel panic, no weird Bluetooth stuff, no apps which don't run for some reason,...
Everything just works. And that makes me happy. So Ubuntu it is.
My first try at linux was ubuntu 8 on a 2008 or 09 Lenovo idea pad. I left linux shortly after for windows based products for a little while for mostly pc gaming. After learning more about the current state of linux in 2022 i return to Ubuntu long term release and I'm very impressed with how well it works.
I have been tinkering with different things like large language models and a few other tools which has caused me issues with graphics drivers recently but overall it works well every time
F-that! Take pride... Mint is ridiculously good. Well managed, stable, "just works" and yet has all the capabilities you want, including auto-running near the edge for current kernels (backed down to stable) without doing jack. You can run at the bleeding edge if you want to manage it yourself.
And for any haters - here's my take: I've been working with Unix for 30+ years, I installed Slackware off of floppies when 16MB of RAM was god-like. I have built, compiled and managed nearly every distro at some point certainly the upstream giants. I've been there for the birth of all of them. I've also professionally worked on AIX, SunOS/Solaris, HPUX. Yes there's a lot of fun in maintaining and running things to your satisfaction, but when you hit a certain inflection point of balancing your real life and maintaining distros across multiple machines and decide "This is the way" - Mint just fits the bill on so many levels.
Mint is the bomb and I'm done pretending. Fight me (not you, OP, you're cool)
I've got to admit, I do love Mint. I've thought about hopping, but I've never had a serious problem with Mint (that wasn't my own fault) so I've never really had the motivation.
Mint works pretty well! I've never been much of a power user so using its GUI (Cinnamon 'cause I failed miserably at running KDE) to update and install certain programs is pretty convenient.
Mint is the basic bitch of distros. Sure she shows up in fugly ugs, leggings, gripping a pumpkin spice drank. But she shows up! Works hard. That girl fucks! Make no mistake, basic bitches make the world go round.
the only objective problem mint has is that it's so good I struggle to get people I convinced to install it to be interested in other distros and stuff. And that's fine.
Mint is a solid choice and the one I recommend to anyone who just wants something that works or doesn't care about having several choices, and even when someone wants to explore more options I always include Mint. It just works, it's easy to install that even my non-tech savvy mother on a phone call with me managed to install it and Cinnamon has just enough customization options ootb to make it yours without being overwhelming to a noob like KDE.
I personally don't use it cause I am not the biggest fan of using GUIs, debian derivatives and I prefer KDE plasma so I just go with other options (currently Fedora 40, been using Arch and NixOS a lot before this), however even in my case I could most likely turn LM into what I want with some effort (I just don't see the point in doing that), and my father who has been using Linux since Kernel 1.0 and is definitely a power user swears by it.
Just installed this on a laptop. Really good. Love that it comes with steam, wine, lutris, and all that jazz preinstalled. Amazing docs and very easy to dual boot and put encryption on it. Highly recommend
Thats definitely been my experience. Easy to set up, easy to use, easy to game on. Simple, slick, and mostly transparent (I.E. Not getting in the way of tasks) to the user. everything an OS should be.
Started on the 'buntu in 2005 or 2006. Distro hopped for a decade until I found Solus. That had some dark times a few years ago but seems to be back now but I moved to Debian anyway. Feels right.
I tried installing it 2 times, fucked it up the first time because I didn't read it well enough, then fucked it up when trying to encrypt an USB drive. I've found its installer really not user-friendly. Any tips on the installation?
I started with some UMSDOS-based "full X11 desktop in 5 floppies" distro on a 486, then went through Slackware, RedHat 5 with glibc breakage, actually bought a SuSE boxed set in the 7.x era, mostly stuck with Slackware unril I realized I wanted stuff like Steam and perhaps some degree of dependency resolution is nice. Bounced off of Arch (the AUR is a terrible concept IMO) and ended up on Void, which gives me Slackware-like vibes, but a little more built for broadband instead of CD images. Been trying Debian Sid latrly, just because I put it on my new laptop and I figured I'd go consistent, but I'm not sure I'm sold. Everything works, but even for an "unstable", the packages are dated and I dislike systemd on principle.
I run Arch but don't install anything from the AUR unless absolutely necessary (or if it is dead simple enough for me to understand). I find the pacman-only experience makes a great stable low effort stable PC with all the latest bells and whistles. System updates on the weekend, once a week. No problems.
Interesting. It looks like there's a couple criteria to get something into the Extra repository, but the primary one looks to be a ready and willing package maintainer. Sounds like that hasn't happened yet for fvwm.
