Linux Distro Suggestions

ChadD said:
Think your remembering MS-DOS running machines. ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaOS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TOS

Sadly the wrong MS Operating system won out cause ya business. Not faulting MS for pushing their own thing either... don't get me wrong. At&T screwed themselves. (or the gov screwed us all when they broke up bell... making their software division an important revenue generator)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V
There was a time when everyone not IBM was betting on another path.... versions of System 4 was found on Ataris, Amigas, Apples, Sony, Sun ect. Companies like Atari even had Unix S5 shipping units for awhile powered by very nice hardware.

Believe it or not at one point the majority of Unix running computers in the world where running the system 4 complaint Xenix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

Its really too bad that when AT&T and Bell where broke up in the early 80s that the software division ended up being looked at as a revenue generator in a new way. They where happy to licence everything to MS prior... but at that point AT&T started selling their own system V OS. MS really didn't have much choice but to go their own way and abandon xenix. Thus was born IBM/MS OS/2 project... from which came NT and every version of windows since. If only when the Bell break up happened open source had been what it was today. I imagine today it would have ended up being spun out into something like the Linux foundation. If that had happened. "windows" would never have happened... and we would all likely be running Unix system 8 or 9 complaint Operating systems at this point. (perhaps even from multiple PC vendors... imagine Ataris and Commadores running MS Xenix 10) lol

Alt Universe stuff.... lol one where updates didn't break everything and BSOD would be a strange combo of keys to typo and nothing more.
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There was Amiga Unix for the A3000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Unix
 
Just to throw in my worthless 2 cents worth, I've Been on Mint Cinnamon 18.03 for several months now and have had very few issues. It does all I ask of it and is a joy to use. MS is a distant bad nightmare at this point.
 
Deadjasper said:
Just to throw in my worthless 2 cents worth, I've Been on Mint Cinnamon 18.03 for several months now and have had very few issues. It does all I ask of it and is a joy to use. MS is a distant bad nightmare at this point.
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When you're not on some form of mission to discredit alternate operating systems and willing to learn new things, this is generally how things work out. It's all just a matter of initial adjustment, but you'll always be learning something new. ;)
 
So, my desktop is now sitting in my "data closet", running headless. I have Plex working, Samba working, PuTTY + VNC working, and even Steam working. Steam streaming to my tablet even works, with occasional quirks.
I am actually looking at other machines in my house to go play with Linux on, now that I have everything up and running. Especially now that I have learned from all of my previous attempts' failures. That said, here are my thoughts from my journey to getting this running (I may update this as i think of more) and where I think i would have just given up had i not enjoyed the challenge:
1) Linux, from my experiences, still requires a lot of command line work to do some of the basic things you can do in Windows. This is going to turn off less technical users, especially when you consider the activities are not that complex. Installing additional applications is far more intensive than the windows 'Download, and click to run installer". Uninstalling is even more confusing ( I actually had to google to find out how). Intermediate level tasks are pretty complex as well, depending on the desktop environment (i.e. setting up file sharing, setting up remote access, etc.). I am not sure if it is because of how integrated the DEs are into the system, but if you do not like an aspect of one DE, there is no easy way to change that part of it without affecting other things, which kinda leads to my second thought....
2) All of the different flavors of Linux further confuse things. Don't get me wrong, i like that lots of different people have put their own ideas into making their own Linux. I am probably going to butcher explaining this, but I wish that they had a sort of "core" Linux for each of the branches/"x"-based distributions. I first tried Ubuntu Desktop, which came with Gnome. While Gnome did have plenty of good about it, there were a lot of things I did not like, and a number of issues it seemed to actually cause with for some activities I wanted to do. I tried installing another DE, but that seemed to just make a mess of things. Yes, I could have eventually gotten it fixed back up and working how I wanted it.... eventually, but first instinct was the reformat and try again. I installed the only other direct from Ubuntu offering, the server version. This included a lot of cloud stuff, and was not really directed at my specific application. I actually tried installing XFCE on this, but after initially working, the terminal stopped opening, there were intermittent crashes/hanging that required reboot within the DE, and other frustrations. Since I wanted to try to stick with Ubuntu based, I ended up looking at Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and a number of others, eventually installing Xubuntu. I am still not sure how different these distributions are compared to base Ubuntu, but my understanding is that they are just the core Ubuntu, with their own Desktop Environment and bundled software tools. I tend to think about it like with Android phones and how each of the phone vendors have their own flavor of Android and system. This isn't as big a deal in phones because lots of people are willing to suffer through Touchwiz in order to have the latest shiny. Computers do not have that luxury. Perhaps Gnome ruined it for me, like Windows 8 did Windows. I would have preferred to go to download/install Ubuntu LTS, and being given the option there on which DE to use (and for advanced, maybe even select which file manager, which terminal, etc., or even if i should include OpenOffice in the install). Basic users who don't really care could be given a set of defaults.
 
Choices are always a good thing. I skipped around from one distro to another before settling with Mint Cinnamon 18.3. It's not perfect but it's close enough for me and it does all I need it to do.
 
ThatITGuy said:
So, my desktop is now sitting in my "data closet", running headless. I have Plex working, Samba working, PuTTY + VNC working, and even Steam working. Steam streaming to my tablet even works, with occasional quirks.
I am actually looking at other machines in my house to go play with Linux on, now that I have everything up and running. Especially now that I have learned from all of my previous attempts' failures. That said, here are my thoughts from my journey to getting this running (I may update this as i think of more) and where I think i would have just given up had i not enjoyed the challenge:
1) Linux, from my experiences, still requires a lot of command line work to do some of the basic things you can do in Windows. This is going to turn off less technical users, especially when you consider the activities are not that complex. Installing additional applications is far more intensive than the windows 'Download, and click to run installer". Uninstalling is even more confusing ( I actually had to google to find out how). Intermediate level tasks are pretty complex as well, depending on the desktop environment (i.e. setting up file sharing, setting up remote access, etc.). I am not sure if it is because of how integrated the DEs are into the system, but if you do not like an aspect of one DE, there is no easy way to change that part of it without affecting other things, which kinda leads to my second thought....
2) All of the different flavors of Linux further confuse things. Don't get me wrong, i like that lots of different people have put their own ideas into making their own Linux. I am probably going to butcher explaining this, but I wish that they had a sort of "core" Linux for each of the branches/"x"-based distributions. I first tried Ubuntu Desktop, which came with Gnome. While Gnome did have plenty of good about it, there were a lot of things I did not like, and a number of issues it seemed to actually cause with for some activities I wanted to do. I tried installing another DE, but that seemed to just make a mess of things. Yes, I could have eventually gotten it fixed back up and working how I wanted it.... eventually, but first instinct was the reformat and try again. I installed the only other direct from Ubuntu offering, the server version. This included a lot of cloud stuff, and was not really directed at my specific application. I actually tried installing XFCE on this, but after initially working, the terminal stopped opening, there were intermittent crashes/hanging that required reboot within the DE, and other frustrations. Since I wanted to try to stick with Ubuntu based, I ended up looking at Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and a number of others, eventually installing Xubuntu. I am still not sure how different these distributions are compared to base Ubuntu, but my understanding is that they are just the core Ubuntu, with their own Desktop Environment and bundled software tools. I tend to think about it like with Android phones and how each of the phone vendors have their own flavor of Android and system. This isn't as big a deal in phones because lots of people are willing to suffer through Touchwiz in order to have the latest shiny. Computers do not have that luxury. Perhaps Gnome ruined it for me, like Windows 8 did Windows. I would have preferred to go to download/install Ubuntu LTS, and being given the option there on which DE to use (and for advanced, maybe even select which file manager, which terminal, etc., or even if i should include OpenOffice in the install). Basic users who don't really care could be given a set of defaults.
Click to expand...
While I appreciate your thoughts, and I'm glad you have it working, allow me to offer some counterpoints.

In regards to installing software, I personally fail to understand how opening the applicable software center, searching for software i.e. Firefox, and clicking install is any more difficult than the Windows method of open web browser, search for software, go to website, find download button, wait for download, navigate to downloaded file directory (or run from browser), and install. If anything, it's very similar to what Mac OS Xdoes by default for installing software (i.e. software store application). Realistically, the terminal is only an option for installing software unless you are running without a GUI. Sure the method is different, but that doesn't make it more difficult, just different.

I agree with the amount of choices being confusing for new users. No argument from me there.

Now, about the base core with choices at install. So, there are some distros that give you this option (Antergos is one), but the issue this presents is that it makes it much more difficult for the distro maintainers to provide a solid experience. The reason Ubuntu focuses on just GNOME is to provide polish. The more customizable the install process is, the less tightly integrated the maintainers can make it. It's a great idea in theory, but there's a reason you really only see this used on Arch based distros for the most part.
 
I can also back Lunar's counterpoints.

- Even installing software via apt in terminal is no harder than Windows, in fact in many cases it involves less 'clicking'. Once you get used to it, it's literally second nature.
- I never found the procedure to create shares via the GUI that different to Windows, I do it all the time under Linux no problem. MacOS is where the sharing procedure is vastly different.
- Talking about macOS, do anything even remotely beyond the norm under macOS and you also need the terminal.

Good job persisting and working everything out though! :D
 
ThatITGuy said:
So, my desktop is now sitting in my "data closet", running headless. I have Plex working, Samba working, PuTTY + VNC working, and even Steam working. Steam streaming to my tablet even works, with occasional quirks.
I am actually looking at other machines in my house to go play with Linux on, now that I have everything up and running. Especially now that I have learned from all of my previous attempts' failures. That said, here are my thoughts from my journey to getting this running (I may update this as i think of more) and where I think i would have just given up had i not enjoyed the challenge:
1) Linux, from my experiences, still requires a lot of command line work to do some of the basic things you can do in Windows. This is going to turn off less technical users, especially when you consider the activities are not that complex. Installing additional applications is far more intensive than the windows 'Download, and click to run installer". Uninstalling is even more confusing ( I actually had to google to find out how). Intermediate level tasks are pretty complex as well, depending on the desktop environment (i.e. setting up file sharing, setting up remote access, etc.). I am not sure if it is because of how integrated the DEs are into the system, but if you do not like an aspect of one DE, there is no easy way to change that part of it without affecting other things, which kinda leads to my second thought....
2) All of the different flavors of Linux further confuse things. Don't get me wrong, i like that lots of different people have put their own ideas into making their own Linux. I am probably going to butcher explaining this, but I wish that they had a sort of "core" Linux for each of the branches/"x"-based distributions. I first tried Ubuntu Desktop, which came with Gnome. While Gnome did have plenty of good about it, there were a lot of things I did not like, and a number of issues it seemed to actually cause with for some activities I wanted to do. I tried installing another DE, but that seemed to just make a mess of things. Yes, I could have eventually gotten it fixed back up and working how I wanted it.... eventually, but first instinct was the reformat and try again. I installed the only other direct from Ubuntu offering, the server version. This included a lot of cloud stuff, and was not really directed at my specific application. I actually tried installing XFCE on this, but after initially working, the terminal stopped opening, there were intermittent crashes/hanging that required reboot within the DE, and other frustrations. Since I wanted to try to stick with Ubuntu based, I ended up looking at Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and a number of others, eventually installing Xubuntu. I am still not sure how different these distributions are compared to base Ubuntu, but my understanding is that they are just the core Ubuntu, with their own Desktop Environment and bundled software tools. I tend to think about it like with Android phones and how each of the phone vendors have their own flavor of Android and system. This isn't as big a deal in phones because lots of people are willing to suffer through Touchwiz in order to have the latest shiny. Computers do not have that luxury. Perhaps Gnome ruined it for me, like Windows 8 did Windows. I would have preferred to go to download/install Ubuntu LTS, and being given the option there on which DE to use (and for advanced, maybe even select which file manager, which terminal, etc., or even if i should include OpenOffice in the install). Basic users who don't really care could be given a set of defaults.
Click to expand...

The other guys have mostly covered the counter points. I guess I can't help but chime in.

On your first point.
Windows is a malware magnet for a reason. Users expect to go to X website download a .exe... expect that its secure and safe... install it... click through 5 or 6 screens which in many cases are straight up asking if you wanna install some malware with your freeware. That is a TERRIBLE way to do things. Its partly why windows security is a complete dumpster fire. It also leads to people using software that is often times 2-3 years out of date (it drives me crazy seeing windows downloads for year old FOSS software that can be had on Linux always fresh via git updates ect)... most win software doesn't have self updating features. Those that do either simply ask (which most people decline) or worse it downloads new versions on its own... again not all that secure. In contrast most Linux users can install 99-100% of all their software via their distros TRUSTED main repositories. They get the latest bug fix, security fixed versions every time they update. (without getting into community repositories like PPAs and AURs... most users can stick to the 100% official repos)
As far as command line use goes... its underrated. Firstly many average users at one time used command lines... be it dos, unix, or other archaic OSs from the 80s and 90s. MS did the entire world a huge disservice when they pushed GUI for everything all the time. Its not the fastest way to do most things (GUI that is) its not even the easiest... its for sure the worst way to try and help someone help themselves. Have you ever tried to tell a less computer savvy family member how to fix something via a GUI over a phone ???? Its pure hell. You know what is a lot easier... telling them to click the terminal icon... then type;
sudo apt-get update [enter]
sudo apt-get upgrade [enter]
Sure they might not remember that command next time... but they won't remember where to click in the GUI either. Only you solved their issue in 10s... instead of trying to get them to tell you if the windows upgrade icon is up, and how to find the control panel if its not... ect ect. What a pita. I hate helping people out with windows. Thankfully my rather large french family got turned onto chromebooks... my life has gotten so much less old aunt phone cally since. ;)

On your second point... ya your not wrong there are lots of Linux options. I don't see this as a bad thing. The main issue with "average user" adoption isn't how many Linux distros there are... or how many DEs to choose from. Its that their machines don't come pre installed with Linux. You are on [H] your not an average user. Its ok if you wipe and reinstall 10 different distros seeing whats what. Real average users won't be switching over anyway. Unless Dell starts selling tons of Ubuntu mainstream PCs GNU/Linux isn't going mainstream. Linux may via ChromeOS... but ya that is a completely different conversation. Chromebooks are Linux just not GNU Linux.

Your issues with the DEs... ya Ubuntu which is far from my favorite distro does work best if you stick with one DE. As Lunar mentioned some distros try and stay more agnostic. Arch is one where its easier to use different greeters. Antergos as Lunar mentions gives you a bunch of DE options when you install it... being based on arch its very easy for them to use one of the good universal greeters. Antergos uses lightdm I believe. You can switch a distro like Ubuntu over to lightdm but its more steps and it doesn't come that way. For the most part the different flavors of Ubuntu use that DEs specific greeter... so Gnome for instance uses GDM. It integrates the best with Gnome... but it makes launching other DEs sometimes problamatic.

Anyway apreciate your thoughts... and its great that you seem to have got what you wanted mostly up and running. :) Took some work but sounds like you did learn a lot. Welcome to the "will it run Linux" gang. lol
 
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Everyone talks about toxic Linux communities, I happen to think we're quite a helpful bunch here... :)
 
I actually agree with most of your points from my POV. I only bring up these points because I had a 15 year old and my wife (along with 4 and 3 yr olds who mainly cared about trying to type letters onto the screen) watch me work on this at different stages throughout the process. When they saw me working from the command line, they thought I was "hacking". When i tried to explain what I was doing and why, they just looked at me lost. They have more of a "phone" mentality. If something isn't working, you uninstall the things that don't work. If that doesnt solve things, you do a factory reset. Having to know anything beyond that is just not something they are willing to invest any time in. This is quite frustrating for me, coming from the age of playing with config.sys and autoexec.bat in Windows and even (for a while) using LILO to dual boot windows and pretty basic Slackware install. The sad realization I have been coming to is that there are seemingly more and more people like them around and less like me.
As far as the "software center" is concerned, not all software that some may want is able to be found in it (i.e. PLEX was not there). I had actually kind of forgotten it existed, because I was spending most of my time doing things from the command line.
 
I haven't read this whole thread but any opinions on Deepin? Read an article yesterday where it seemed to be pretty user friendly with a slick UI.
 
DPI said:
I haven't read this whole thread but any opinions on Deepin? Read an article yesterday where it seemed to be pretty user friendly with a slick UI.
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Well the distro itself is from china. But its also talked about in terms of the deepin DE.

You can install the DE in some distros like Arch.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Deepin_Desktop_Environment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepin

Its basically just another ubuntu distro with its own DE. Its been accused of spyware more then a few times.
 
Been tryin a few distros out this week. I have a box that I inherited, and it sucks for most things, but a decent guinea pig box. Slow ass Athlon 750K on an MSI A88XM-E45 with a GTX 550 Ti and 14 gig of ram.... Scrounging around to fix that. Already swapped the 550Ti out for a GTX 670. It sports a OCZ 60 gig ssd. Yeesh.... I acquired it due to the previous owner didn't run a UPS and lightning was involved. Turns out the crap power supply was smoked. I swapped in a Corsair 850 watt supply and it fired right up. I was excited till I saw the specs.

I ran Sparky for a few days and just didn't dig it. Trying Manjaro now. Always wanted to give an Arch variation a whirl.

You know we always mention distro's but even a single distro can come in different forms. Cinnamon, KDE, Gnome, Unity. Kinda hard to pick a fave.

I'm giving Manjaro Cinnamon a try, and if that doesn't pan out I'll play with the KDE version. Find a flavor that fits this POS system.
 
I'm far from a Linux expert - but I've played around with a lot of distros since 1994. If you're looking for a daily driver that just works - linux mint is the way to go IMO. I suppose Ubuntu is just as good but I'm not a fan of the interface. Mint just gets 'er done. If you're looking for something to learn on and are ok with breaking things - I have always enjoyed Arch. But I wouldn't use it as a daily driver because I always end up breaking something sooner or later that requires time to fix. And fixing things is a perfect excuse to not do the work/thing I was supposed to be doing ;P

Mint does 99% of my computing these days - except for games (and that's been getting better as well).
 
Yeah, Mint's cool. Used it in the past on a few laptops. Want to try something different and expand. Been a fan of Ubuntu, non unity crap though. Mostly due to Steam acceptance. Although Steam OS is fun too.
 
Ok, I am not an expert, but have spent the past 6 weeks installing/reinstalling trying the following Distros : Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 18.10 Linux Mint 19 and Linux Mint 19.1 with a combination of 1070ti and a RX580, this is what I learned

I landed on Ubuntu 18.04 as more things worked and seemed more stable, guess there is something about LTS :) I prefer Ubuntu as well as it seems that the kernel is updated when you add your updated graphics drivers. I had an issue with Linux Mint and getting Lutris and DXVK working properly for some reason, always seemed to be missing a dependency.

I would have preferred to run the RX580 in Linux, as Mesa drivers are default, but, I did need to load the AMD driver (amd-gpu-install pro) to have Battle.net and WoW and Diablo III to work. But somehow, it broke (an issue I have never had with the 1070ti and Nvidia driver) so , I stayed in Team Green.

I had a weird issue with Ubuntu 18.10 and moving files to my synology that it would lock up from 50-85% of the transfer, almost as if the connection through afp:// dropped.

I do know that all the Distro's I played with are different versions of Ubuntu at the core. It seems that Linux has landed firmly in the Ubuntu/Debian world, which is fine.

It had been years since I plated with Fedora 4 or 6 (back in 2003) along with SuSE.

It has come along way, and even further than the Linux Red Hat I played with back in 1999, and the linux version of Railroad Tycoon. Just because you Could.
 
Ubuntu has screwed AMD users over a couple times with the drivers. About the only negative thing I can find about it.
 
I'll never quite understand why everyone recommends newcomers to Linux should use Linux Mint? In my humble opinion it has more problems than almost any other popular distro available.
 
In the past when I used Mint, it was a good experience. What are some of it's problems that you noticed?
 
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Mazzspeed said:
I'll never quite understand why everyone recommends newcomers to Linux should use Linux Mint? In my humble opinion it has more problems than almost any other popular distro available.
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I have the same experience. Mint has been the most problematic distro I've tried right after the rolling release ones.
 
My experience with Mint has been the opposite. Mint Cinnamon 18.3 does everything I need it to do and has been trouble free for the most part. I did upgrade to the latest a while back but it broke a bunch of stuff and I ended up going back to 18.3. All my problems with Linux, with few exceptions, have been caused by upgrading. I have learned that life is good as long as you don't upgrade / update a working system.
 
Debian + Xfce is my most commonly used distro/window manager these days though I'm looking into other distros due in no small part to this thread. (y)
 
I was really into CrunchBang Linux a few years ago. They stopped development of it, and there were a few continuation projects that came out of it. The one that seems to have picked up the most steam is BunsenLabs.

Trying to find a replacement for CrunchBang is what got me into OpenBSD. I spent a long time trying to mimic the look and feel of CrunchBang into OpenBSD.
 
DogsofJune said:
In the past when I used Mint, it was a good experience. What are some of it's problems that you noticed?
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I'm using it and it's my first Linux attempt fwiw

It's buggy. Little stuff that you don't really remember a few days later but, for example, stuff in the taskbar sometimes doesn't "release"


Say you have in your taskbar
VLC | Documents Folder | Firefox | GIMP

Occasionally I'll hover my mouse over Firefox(or any one of them) and it will auto-grab and drag, like when you right click to reorganize them. The only way I've been able to fix when this happens is to fully close the program that grabs every time on hover


Sometimes programs freeze. Not often, but once a week is still a lot more than it ever happened on Win 10 for me

Decrypting my Veracrypt drive in W10 takes 10-15 seconds. In Mint it takes 3:20 every time

I can't get my mouse to actually adjust sensitivity in the program. Have to do it in terminal and it resets every time on reboot.

When stuff hangs or freezes, closing it out is a much bigger PITA than in W10. In 10 you can pretty much guarantee that ALT+F4 will close it out every time within 2 seconds. NEVER works in Mint. Always have to open system monitor and either end or kill

Steam has the library/main window, the friends list, and the chat window, as well as the game. If you alt+f4 a chat window, it will exit out of the entire Steam program completely. Annoying and not intuitive.


Sometimes copying a large file from a child folder to a parent folder it'll do so at 33MB/s instead of... instantly. Inconsistent and unrepeatable but happens.

Opening up large folders definitely takes longer in Mint than W10. Not hugely so but maybe 3 seconds vs .5 seconds.

I can reorganize stuff in the taskbar, but not in the systray. Not the end of the world but an (admittedly very small) annoyance.


Volume jumps are WAY bigger than they are in W10. In W10 my keyboard's volume wheel controls it at a very fine level which is great. In 10 you move the wheel and eventually it just jumps a large amount.

None of this stuff is a dealbreaker per se but I am confident in stating that at least at the consumer level W10 is more stable and more polished than Mint.
 
There really is no other options imo.

Manjaro is the best home/power user distro around right now >.<

For people talking about it being rolling and breaking all the time... they really have no idea what they are talking about.

Manjaro is not just arch. Its arch based... just like Ubuntu is not debian, its debian based.

Manjaro holds everything for stability testing. Yes they roll releases but they aren't feeding standard manjaro users brand new zero day packages in anyway.

As an example Manjaro proper is currently using MESA 18.2.6 (that is not cutting edge zero day it was released end of Nov) - Manjaro unstable testing repo is running MESA 18.3.1-1

More people should be giving Manjaro a proper go over. If you want it to just be a simple arch installer switch your package manager to the unstable testing branch. But for 99% of users the standard manjaro repos bring everything that is great about arch and cut out all the zero day bug stuff that although not as big a deal as some suggest does still happen. (manjaro stomps that out... just like Ubuntu ships tested debian packages)

A personal story for everyone;
Built my 15 year old daughter a new machine for xmas.
Ryzen 2200g / 8gb ram / an Asus b320 board (I am not looking to overclock her stuff and the asus board was both inexpensive and well built) / a 256gb SSD adata SU800 / A decent 450w ps
.... The computer store I grabbed the parts from mounted her CPU for her... but she assembled things in around 20 min
.... Manjaro install took all of 10 min to install to her SSD
.... full update (around 1gb) 2-3 min
.... she got a Canon photo printer (ts8220) I checked the current canon linux driver versions, searched the AUR and installed drivers for printing and scanning in about a min. Added printer to cups in a couple seconds.
.... running MESA 18.2.6 and kernal 4.19.12, zero fuss no muss
.... she installed a ton of steam stuff overnight. I admit she isn't into the latest greatest games, but she has been playing tomb raider, bioshock, boarderlands... but mostly shes into games like bastion transistor the trine games and everything runs fine zero issues. On the proton side she installed a couple of the lego games, fallout new vegas and a few I'm likely forgetting. Everything runs very well. On the proton side the only thing we have really had to tweak was adding a esync flag to one of the games can't remember which now. Very impressed with the integrated ryzen 3... I wasn't expecting much but she is playing most games on high settings at 1080p very smoothly... turned a few things down to medium in games like TR but still very very impressive for a machine that cost right around 400 bucks. At some point I'll have to put some more demanding windows games on to see how it handles them.

Anyway point of the story... built a very simple machine a few parts known to be a bit of an issue (ryzen3) if you aren't on the newest kernel out of the box ect. In under an hour she had it assembled installed updated downloading games printing and scanning to a printer released 3-4 months ago. Sure she had me around for help but I think perhaps outside of ensuring she was grabbing the right canon stuffs from the AUR she could have done it all herself. Manjaro is just so slick.
 
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I am liking Manjaro. I just need some newer hardware for the test box in sig. I have got Manjaro with Cinnamon installed now. Need to decide if I would rather have gnome, kde, or other.
 
DogsofJune said:
I am liking Manjaro. I just need some newer hardware for the test box in sig. I have got Manjaro with Cinnamon installed now. Need to decide if I would rather have gnome, kde, or other.
Click to expand...

Try them all out and decide what you like.

https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Install_Desktop_Environments

Manjaro has no real issues with mulitple DEs. They even give people easy to follow instructions to set them up with "Default" iso manjaro install settings if they want.

I prefer Gnome over everything else... but that is a personal thing. With gnome I make a few minor changes over Manjaros default setup. I get rid of the arc menu junk but I get some people like that... and I tend to move the dock to the bottom of the screen if I leave it on. Otherwise I don't do much other then touch the scaling and system fonts. First thing my daughter did was go to https://fonts.google.com/ and download a ton of fonts.... she just opened a terminal in her /Downloads and kept running sudo unzip fonts.zip -d /usr/share/fonts being a teen girl I swear she spent an hour downloading 1001 hand writing fonts 10-20 at a time. Ubuntu / Noto / Roboto / Open Sans / Lato / Oswald .... there are a ton of great free sans serif fonts that work great as system fonts. Using the gnome tweak tool to switch to one of them is one of the first things I always do in Gnome.... right after I grab a hot corner extension and turn that off. (the one thing I really can't stand about gnome is hot corners... but they are easily shut off)

Also another quality of life thing with manjaro. If you use google chrome. Don't go and install chrome. Just install chromium... and then install widevine for netflix ect.
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/chromium-widevine/
 
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I think my preference lies towards gnome, my mom likes unity and cusses gnome regularly. Retired and a MS hater with a penchant for unity. It's a wonder I turned out even keel.
I think I will switch out Manjaro tonight with the gnome flavor and tinker.
 
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DogsofJune said:
I think my preference lies towards gnome, my mom likes unity and cusses gnome regularly. Retired and a MS hater with a penchant for unity. It's a wonder I turned out even keel.
I think I will switch out Manjaro tonight with the gnome flavor and tinker.
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If your running a Manjaro install with another DE
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Install_Desktop_Environments#Gnome_3
you can switch to gnome 3 and they are even nice enough to tell you how to enable the gnome version defaults. So no need to do a complete reinstall unless you really want to. :)

GDM the default gnome DM is ok... its not the easiest to theme and doesn't play as nice as it should with other DEs. But if your going to run nothing but Gnome, it has the slickest lock screen integration.
 
Yeah I saw that, I'm DL the Iso, but will try switching first. Then re-install if I muck the switch up.

Beer is involved, anything is possible....
 
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I've been running Manjaro in my garage workstation for quite long and its been stable.
 
Swapped it to gnome, and it went without a hitch. Gonna try some Python learnin'. Either I'll get some bad programming skills or be a snake wrangler. Hopefully one of the two might pay well
 
terpsy said:
Am I the only one who likes KDE and Plasma Desktop?
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Nope. I love Plasma. I despise Gnome and many of it's forks (MATE though is really nice) and really hate the way they're headed. I like XFCE for the simplicity and old XP feel.

I love Budgie as well but being on the Gnome stack hurts it and with Ikey no longer involved it doesn't look like Budgie is going to move off the Gnome stack anymore. So I'll happily stick with Plasma.
 
Vermillion said:
Nope. I love Plasma. I despise Gnome and many of it's forks (MATE though is really nice) and really hate the way they're headed. I like XFCE for the simplicity and old XP feel.

I love Budgie as well but being on the Gnome stack hurts it and with Ikey no longer involved it doesn't look like Budgie is going to move off the Gnome stack anymore. So I'll happily stick with Plasma.
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This is the same problem with MATE, it's one of the reasons I'm still running 16.04. As much as I love MATE, when support is up for 16.04, possibly earlier, I think I'll be switching to KDE/Plasma.
 
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