Favorite Linux distro?

Linux Mint has been my go to for years. I'm a Windows guy and the transition was easy. I've used Red Hat, Ubuntu, and OpenSuse for various reasons but I've always got a Linux Mint VM ready to go on my machines.
 
Interesting. KDE is one of the few I haven't used nearly as much since I usually opt for lighter options, but it sounds like this might be a perfect fit (and my HTPC has plenty of power/memory/etc so a more featured WM would be fine). It's been a while since I've given KDE a shot. Fractional scaling is exactly what I'm looking for- thanks!
KDE is not a resource hog like it used to be. I saw testing that compared system resource utilization about a year ago and it as up there near XFCE (which is touted as super light), if i remember right. That was part of why i went with KDE Manjaro for my non-gaming machines (I have less issues with games working on PopOS than anything else).
 
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Interesting to know that MATE also has fractional scaling. I think I've, just by sheer bad luck, been trying all the wrong ones for my use case :)

That, and not researching this enough in the first place. Did some searches but it was hard to find anything really conclusive. Might have just been bad Google-fu. Appreciate all the answers here.

Also didn't realize Neon is a full OS. Pretty hyped to spend the evening trying some new stuff out :D
 
Interesting to know that MATE also has fractional scaling. I think I've, just by sheer bad luck, been trying all the wrong ones for my use case :)

That, and not researching this enough in the first place. Did some searches but it was hard to find anything really conclusive. Might have just been bad Google-fu. Appreciate all the answers here.

Also didn't realize Neon is a full OS. Pretty hyped to spend the evening trying some new stuff out :D

Ubuntu MATE 18.04 was probably the first MATE version to get fractional scaling. It may have been in beta in 17.10 for all I know. It's been there awhile now though. Martin Wimpress (head of Ubuntu MATE team and now Director of Ubuntu Desktop) spent a lot of time on it. Ubuntu MATE is easily my favorite Ubuntu flavor nowadays.

KDE Neon is Ubuntu LTS underneath with rolling release Plasma on top.
 
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Which variation of Mint do you use? I may give Mint a try, not exactly in love with Ubuntu. I used Fedora for a time, but eventually migrated from that, also.

Latest Linux Mint 19.3. It looks good, works good, supports latest HW (I have 2080ti , 64Gb RAM and some new Intel processor (do not remember the model).
 
I've noticed that manjaro comes pre-installed with steam (some releases)... curious about the library of games offered- do only linux specific games work or something?
 
I've noticed that manjaro comes pre-installed with steam (some releases)... curious about the library of games offered- do only linux specific games work or something?
No, not only Linux specific. There are options for most games to work.
 
Just none of the games I play...
At this point I'm not sure who to blame for it. If it would just run my games I would have switched years ago. At least now Windows spyware is free basically.

Yeah, there are a few here and there, but look back 5 years ago. Leaps and strides.
 
Just none of the games I play...
At this point I'm not sure who to blame for it. If it would just run my games I would have switched years ago. At least now Windows spyware is free basically.
Which games are those? There may be someone around that can help.

Look into Lutris and Play on Linux as well.
 
Which games are those? There may be someone around that can help.

Look into Lutris and Play on Linux as well.
Battlefield v and company of Heroes two.
Bfv works ish by my last look, with a decent amount of fidgeting, and with my luck I'd get banned because the anti cheat thinks Linux is a hack.
Coh2 works, but the multiplayer can't cross platform, so it's essentially broken.
 
KDE, Gnome, and MATE all have fractional scaling. XFCE has limited scaling. 2x versus 1x is all it can do right now. Cinnamon and Enlightenment also are supposed to have good 4K support although I don't know if they support fractional to the same degree as KDE or Gnome.

Mate doesn't have fractional scaling, only 2x scaling. Fractional scaling under Gnome doesn't work as well as fractional scaling under KDE based on experience.
 
Interesting. KDE is one of the few I haven't used nearly as much since I usually opt for lighter options, but it sounds like this might be a perfect fit (and my HTPC has plenty of power/memory/etc so a more featured WM would be fine). It's been a while since I've given KDE a shot. Fractional scaling is exactly what I'm looking for- thanks!

This is actually an interesting point and an area where people assume the worst, but the reality is vastly different. The KDE DE is actually very light on resources, it uses no more memory than Ubuntu Mate for example.
 
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I’ve been using Pop OS for a while now and been really happy with it. The level of customization isn’t as good as with other distros but it’s far and away the most stable and ready to game on out of the box.
 
Xubuntu or ubuntu server very minimal install don't really need GUI and if I do I want it as simple as possible.
 
I like POP OS for debian/ubuntu base distro but Manjaro is #1 or #2 on distrowatch for a reasons. Their package manager is awesome!
 
Mint Cinnamon here. It works with everything I have has given me the least grief of all the Distros I've tried.
 
The first Linux distro I tried was Gentoo. Steep curve. I would like to give it a go again. Not been very impressed with Ubuntu and friends in the last 10 years.
 
I follow this guide for Ubuntu based distro's and rarely encounter an issue:

https://www.howtogeek.com/105413/how-to-compile-and-install-from-source-on-ubuntu/

However the need to compile from source is pretty rare these days, I only really use it for certain BBS ANSI terminal software I use.

I don't really NEED to do it, but sometimes I will find a piece of software that states "Just compile", like I know how to lol.. Honestly, I just want to learn to do it, so thanks for the link!
 
I wish I could figure out how to compile things some day lol.

Go try LFS. You learn a bunch about compiling. It's even better if you can actually get it working LOL. I've tried a few times in the past and I've learned a lot but it has never seemed to work for me. Don't know why. Haven't been able to figure it out. I can get everything to compile correctly but it never boots. :(
 
Go try LFS. You learn a bunch about compiling. It's even better if you can actually get it working LOL. I've tried a few times in the past and I've learned a lot but it has never seemed to work for me. Don't know why. Haven't been able to figure it out. I can get everything to compile correctly but it never boots. :(

Well, that's encouraging lol
 
Which games are those? There may be someone around that can help.

Look into Lutris and Play on Linux as well.

Well how interesting... I guess my mind is stuck ~5-10 years ago when you couldn't play a damn thing on Linux machines. Just linux versions of games in the steam store.
I'll have to see if the games I play will work. I noticed steam came pre-installed on manjaro, and if I can get my games to run in linux I will have finally severed all ties to windows! how excited I would be.
I play magic the gathering Arena, which is windows only I believe, but I'm sure somebody has gotten it to run using wine or something
 
Well how interesting... I guess my mind is stuck ~5-10 years ago when you couldn't play a damn thing on Linux machines. Just linux versions of games in the steam store.
I'll have to see if the games I play will work. I noticed steam came pre-installed on manjaro, and if I can get my games to run in linux I will have finally severed all ties to windows! how excited I would be.
I play magic the gathering Arena, which is windows only I believe, but I'm sure somebody has gotten it to run using wine or something
Thanks to Steam and Proton, https://www.protondb.com/ things have improved greatly

I don't know about that game, but if you research, you might get lucky. Quick Google search brings up that Lutris may be part of that solution. Luck to you
 
I use Ubuntu and I'm happy with it. After a few months now it just seems normal, I don't really miss Windows.

I tried Manjaro and a few others. KDE looks nice but some of the flashy effects get old quick. But if you want the nicest look Kubuntu or another distro with KDE (Manjaro KDE, etc.) definitely blows most stuff away in terms of customization.

But I find Ubuntu to be easy to use and also there is a lot of help online if you get stuck. You also sometimes find software online that only has a *.deb package to download, so I find it more compatible in general.

Steam runs great, and I've been playing a ton of games, even Windows games with Proton, and performance is good. Sometimes there is a odd game that doesn't work (and especially if you play online this may be an issue) but for single player it's pretty good.

I used to check ProtonDB religiously, but now I just install the games and about 80% or more of the time, it works every time. And Lutris also helps if they don't work with Proton. Valve as done an amazing job, probably the biggest deal in Linux gaming ever.

GSync works now, however some of the newer GPU feature aren't fully supported (like image sharpening, VSR/DSR, etc.). I also haven't seen a way to get ray tracing games to work, maybe they will fix that now that Vulkan has cross-platform RT support.

I wish more people would give Linux a chance. Hardware support is better than ever. Yes, you have to do some research and not everything works out-of-box, but there is usually a solution if you search. And game compatibility is the best it's ever been.

Even without Proton, there are probably hundreds or thousands of games on Steam with native Linux support. System updates are actually fun, and you can customize so much stuff in the OS and get it like you want. I'm happy.
 
I use Ubuntu and I'm happy with it. After a few months now it just seems normal, I don't really miss Windows.

I tried Manjaro and a few others. KDE looks nice but some of the flashy effects get old quick. But if you want the nicest look Kubuntu or another distro with KDE (Manjaro KDE, etc.) definitely blows most stuff away in terms of customization.

But I find Ubuntu to be easy to use and also there is a lot of help online if you get stuck. You also sometimes find software online that only has a *.deb package to download, so I find it more compatible in general.

Steam runs great, and I've been playing a ton of games, even Windows games with Proton, and performance is good. Sometimes there is a odd game that doesn't work (and especially if you play online this may be an issue) but for single player it's pretty good.

I used to check ProtonDB religiously, but now I just install the games and about 80% or more of the time, it works every time. And Lutris also helps if they don't work with Proton. Valve as done an amazing job, probably the biggest deal in Linux gaming ever.

GSync works now, however some of the newer GPU feature aren't fully supported (like image sharpening, VSR/DSR, etc.). I also haven't seen a way to get ray tracing games to work, maybe they will fix that now that Vulkan has cross-platform RT support.

I wish more people would give Linux a chance. Hardware support is better than ever. Yes, you have to do some research and not everything works out-of-box, but there is usually a solution if you search. And game compatibility is the best it's ever been.

Even without Proton, there are probably hundreds or thousands of games on Steam with native Linux support. System updates are actually fun, and you can customize so much stuff in the OS and get it like you want. I'm happy.


System updates are a major pro for me.
 
Yeah, updates on Ubuntu are pretty painless.

No need to restart (usually), it only takes a few seconds or like one minute at most, I can see specifically what is being updated, and the updates actually fix things.
 
Yeah, updates on Ubuntu are pretty painless.

No need to restart (usually), it only takes a few seconds or like one minute at most, I can see specifically what is being updated, and the updates actually fix things.

I love being able to watch the terminal and see what's going on. I always wondered if I was able to do that in windows through power shell.
 
This is how I feel updating Linux from the command line.

gitstype.gif
 
I just keep smashing the up arrow until I find the old command I entered and hitting enter... ;)
And of course, include passwords in the buffer commands so you don't have to memorize them :ROFLMAO:

Tip: You can edit .bashrc so that buffer ignores any command that has a preceeding empty space. That way you can hide sensitive stuff from the buffer...
 
I tried Manjaro and a few others. KDE looks nice but some of the flashy effects get old quick. But if you want the nicest look Kubuntu or another distro with KDE (Manjaro KDE, etc.) definitely blows most stuff away in terms of customization.

I by far prefer KDE Neon over Kbuntu, Neon is almost rolling release but not bleeding edge rolling release - Which suits me perfectly. I also love the Dolphin file manager.

I refuse to use Gnome as the devs just won't stop removing useful features, iOS is gaining features is fast as Gnome devs are removing features and iOS is a phone OS!
 
I love that the terminal remembers old commands, even after a reboot.

For bonus points you should know that all of that is stored in a file called .bash_history if you are using bash. It's in the root of your home folder.

So something like:

grep -i "apt" /home/username/.bash_history

Will spit out all of the lines you typed with "apt" in them while using bash.
 
I don't really NEED to do it, but sometimes I will find a piece of software that states "Just compile", like I know how to lol.. Honestly, I just want to learn to do it, so thanks for the link!

Compiling tends to work better on operating systems that were setup for it. I've used several like Fedora back in the day where you just don't have any of the tools installed, so nothing will work out of the box. If you want to use an OS that revolves around compiling, then I would suggest Gentoo. I used it for a few years and it's kind of neat, but after a while compiling everything from source gets old.

By far and away though I think the Gentoo people have the best Linux documentation out there. If there is anything that is more frustrating, it's in open source where you want to use something, but there isn't any documentation to tell you how to use it. Gentoo is the complete opposite of that.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Full/Installation

There is the guide to doing a complete install from scratch. If you're capable of reading and making sure you do everything verbatim, you will likely succeed.


Go try LFS. You learn a bunch about compiling. It's even better if you can actually get it working LOL. I've tried a few times in the past and I've learned a lot but it has never seemed to work for me. Don't know why. Haven't been able to figure it out. I can get everything to compile correctly but it never boots. :(

It's likely something to do with the configuration of the boot loader. Most distros you need to get a kernel into /boot, then use some type of command in grub to point it to that file. I would honestly suggest giving Gentoo a go. Once you go through their directions you will probably understand the underpinnings of that process better, and it might help you figure out what part is broken for LFS.
 
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