I'm ready to install Linux, but I'd like your opinion first

Hello I’m Doctor_Rex I’m the OP of this post:

My Windows 10 install broke, but I’m hesitant to switch to Linux.

I’d like to start by thanking everybody who responded to my questions. Your answers have helped a lot when it came to my worries on switching to Linux.

I’ve taken in a lot of your recommendations: Fedora, Fedora Kinoite, Nobara, Bazzite Linux, VanillaOS,

I’ve decided on Fedora Kinoite, as it has everything I want from a distro.

It was very kind of you all to answer my questions but after making that post and reading your answers new questions propped up.

These questions are a little more opinionated than the last ones, and a little better thought out, but please take some time to answer them.

Questions:

  • Is Wayland worth using? Especially when you consider all the issues that may come from using an NVIDIA card.

Are there any real noticeable advantages/improvements to using Wayland over Xorg.

  • Does bloat actually matter or is it just a meme?

Does bloat actually have a noticeable negative impact on your system or are people just over reacting/joking.

  • What are some habits I should practice in order to keep my system organized and manageable?

Any habits or standards that I should abide by in order to save myself headaches in the future?

  • Any other resources besides the Arch Wiki that I should be aware of?

Self explanatory.

  • What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux that would have saved you a headache in the future?

I’m not referring to some skill but instead something pertaining to Linux itself. Feel free to skip this question.

I’ll be going to sleep soon, so apologies if I don’t reply but please take a moment answer any questions you think you can.

Thank You!

Edit: AUR = Arch Wiki. Fixed a typo

Falcon,

If you’re going to use nvidia, don’t even touch wayland. Truly an awful experience.

Bloat does matter it is extremely important, not because having a bunch of apps slows anything down or has any tangible impact in that regard. Because it isn’t as sexy as somebody’s hyper specific gentoo install compiled without some specific module.

The reason bloat is such a big deal, particularly if you’re new to it, is because it’s confusing. if you’re trying to fix a problem that you have run into / possibly contributed to, a dozen different programs running in the background that you didn’t put there is going leave you frustrated and disenfranchised.

Pick a modular distribution like Arch, take the loss that is your weekend putting it together and develop an understanding of how the pieces fit together. If you really don’t have time choose something like eg endeavourOS. ( or even Void is quite nice (but non systemd so less conventional))

I would personally recommend avoiding something like fedora or Debian. They are both fantastic distributions that work very well. They are not good at teaching new users how to fix problems and that should be your primary goal here.

scratchandgame, (edited )

Does bloat actually matter or is it just a meme?

What is bloat. If I recall correctly fedora or RHEL (or both) enable the cups daemon even if you will not print anything. If I recall correctly Ubuntu enable openvpn service even you will never use it.

But it seems neither of them have tmux installed by default.

Feel free to test and correct me because I won’t bother those distro anymore.

Any other resources besides the Arch Wiki that I should be aware of?

arch wiki is a tutorial.

Manual pages are best, and if GNU hells put the documentation in info pages, you can install info.

If the manual page is unreadable and the program is part of the base system (on BSD all 3rd party “packages” are installed on /usr/local and base system is installed on / and /usr), try reading the BSD (OpenBSD) maintained documentation. They are also provided on-line.

What are some habits I should practice in order to keep my system organized and manageable?

The first is to drop all the things you learned in Windows. Many have no value, many are flawed and create bad habits, many are disposed.

New linux user often prefer GUI or menu instead of command line tool (what I mean is different, see the next sentence). They prefer to browser chromium and chat and typing this comment instead of taking time reading manual page, books, learn how to maintenance their system, even you need to learn how to INSTALL YOUR SYSTEM CORRECTLY!! You use ‘a’ huge a partition (sorry, root / partition) with an EFI partition and a /boot partition (and perhaps a /home partition too, and that’s the end?). No /usr, no /usr/local (this hierarchy is not used in Linux so keep it small), no /var, neither the /opt hell?

To keep your system organized and manageable, you first need KNOWLEDGE.

What to learn:

install and maintenance the system: partitioning, use your package manager (I hope you won’t read websites that have to teach you to use your package manager but the main topic is to use some software). Example: Absolute FreeBSD; Absolute OpenBSD (Michael W Lucas, although this is for FreeBSD and OpenBSD).

Learn not to wine (don’t run windows software on other operating system since it will need much kernel modification, OpenBSD explicitly refuse to do; I think running windows software on linux is unstable and insecure; I’m hostile with wine.)

UNIX programming: The UNIX programming environment; select some (like sed, awk) in the UNIX 7th edition manual pages, volume 2 which are tutorials that are still valid these day; manual page.

useful addition: get on tmux,

Enough for a regular user?

my personal habit:

I think I’m so lucky that I never do neofetch; once tried to decorate LXQt with the arc theme and then never used LXQt (since I switched to sway), if decorating the graphical interface make no sense to convenience I wouldn’t do (I myself hostile with unixporn or something like that, mean I never care about such community) and never created a colorful github’s myname/myname repo readme. (of course at the time I didn’t do learning since I’m chatting and being an discord terrorist)

What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux that would have saved you a headache in the future?

I wish I could know what books to read

But when I know it’s too late (wasted 2 year using linux and learned almost nothing), and I have already switched to BSD. “Gần mực thì đen, gần đèn thì sáng.” (Near the ink you get darker, near the light you get brighter, that’s my poor translation.)

0485919158191,
@0485919158191@lemmy.world avatar

This would’ve saved me a headache!

From what I’ve heard. I’ve you have an Nvidia GPU the easiest thing you can do is to run Ubuntu. They have partnered up with nvidia and they provide you will all drivers you need right out the box.

It can be a hassle to sort out nvidia cards with certain distros.

BingBong,

Ubuntu broke with my Nvidia card. I went to PopOS and the problems stopped.

0485919158191,
@0485919158191@lemmy.world avatar

Sorry to hear that! PopOs is cool though!

ikidd,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

Ubuntu is no magic bullet when it comes to nVidia. A lot of derivative distros like PopOS do it better anyway. And non-ubuntu OSs seem to have less problems anyway, IME. Manjaro and Nobara seem to get a long very well with nVidia cards.

0485919158191,
@0485919158191@lemmy.world avatar

That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing!

BCsven,

nVidia hosts its own repo for fedora and openSUSE. So on those you get direct driver from manufacturer. i found it made everything juat work, and the nVidia app has many config options

0485919158191,
@0485919158191@lemmy.world avatar

That sounds great to be honest!

BCsven,

It has been helpful for onboarding to linux. Everyone complaining about issues on other distros, and one OpenSUSE leap you just add a repo and check which card category you have. For openSUSE newbies here are some links.

For Leap zypper addrepo --refresh ‘https://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/leap/$releasever’ NVIDIAand if for some reason you don’t want to type in a url you can add to the repos this way zypper install openSUSE-repos-NVIDIA

Tumbleweed is zypper addrepo --refresh https://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/tumbleweed NVIDIA

And if you wanted to Auto-detect and install driver per your card is zypper install-new-recommends --repo NVIDIA

possiblylinux127,

I would avoid Ubuntu personally as it tends to complicate things unnecessarily

oo1,

on wayland vs Xorg.
i've found a few things that demand it (e.g. Waydroid - an android emulator)

So I've started using KDE plasma recently (previously I was XFCE due to speed and lightweightness).

KDE plasma gives a choice of wayland or xorg on the gui login screen,

Assuming the K in kinote stands for KDE plasma, becuase that's how these things go - then you should be abe to choose - so you don't need worry about wayland, just log back in and pick the one you need, or the one that works for the task at hand.

russjr08,

Kinoite is the KDE plasma version of the Fedora atomic (previously known as immutable) spins yeah. However, as far as I’ve heard Fedora KDE is explicitly removing Xorg support in Fedora 40, due for release this spring.

Right now the latest release is 39 which still supports both, and for me personally when I still had an Nvidia card up until right after the 545 driver release in October, Wayland (in both GNOME and KDE) was too buggy for me to use it as a daily driver, since Xwayland apps kept displaying previous frames, as if the application was time-jumping in random parts of it.

Speaking of Nvidia, I wouldn’t recommend going with Kinoite directly since AFAIK it doesn’t have the Nvidia drivers built in, rather I’d go with the KDE version of Universal Blue since all of their images have a dedicated Nvidia image that has the driver built in, so that you don’t have to mess around to get it up and running. It’s effectively Kinoite, with a few extra nice things baked-in on top.

danielfgom,
@danielfgom@lemmy.world avatar

I’d say avoid Wayland for now. There’s no real benefit to it at the moment and at least your card works with X11. If the Linux Mint team are happy to wait and just test it out at the moment, that tells me that is the way to go.

Not sure what bloat people mentioned but Linux doesn’t have bloat. The distro chooses their preferred apps which they hope everyone will like but it’s easy to remove them if you don’t and use the app you want. If it’s a system app (.deb, rpm etc) it will barely take up any space anyway. Only flatpaks and snaps take up huge amount of space. I wouldn’t recommend using alot of those as you’ll be pressed for disk space

Linux doesn’t require maintenance. It typically just works. It’s not like Windows where you run a cleaner every so often. Just just use it normally and don’t work about it.

What I wish I knew at the start: Linux Mint is the best distro. I wasted a lot of time distro hopping only to realise I just want a stable distro that gets out of the way but is thoughtfully put together with nice touches. Mint is that. I use Linux Mint Debian Edition because I don’t like canonical.

It’s been rock solid except for when the kernel broke my WiFi, but I had a time shift backup so in 5 minutes I had my pre-update system back and working.

Pantherina, (edited )

Using NVIDIA please use the image from ublue.it, the official Fedora one can work but noveau is not ready. You can install Kinoite from Fedora though and give it a try, report your experience with noveau (should work and proprietary drivers are pretty scary) and then rebase to ublue (unsigned, reboot, signed, reboot)

Wayland is worth it, Plasma 6 will come out soon and primarily target it. It just works for me, always, I have like no problem with it. Flathub flatpaks always worked because they have loose permissions.

Xorg is an insecure mess and it is not maintained.

Also, give the Plasma 6 preview a try! and report bugs. Its like 99% ready.

Bloat: yes of course. Fedora Kinoite has none. If you install a few flatpaks, dont be scared by duplicate Libraries, they use deduplication to actually need less space.

Bloat matters as a huge LUKS drive is notably slower, but only a matter of seconds on an NVME/ any SSD. And yeah, please use LUKS, encrypting afterwards is not easy. Also use a Password that can be written in US QWERTY too, a bug in current Fedora Atomic, it doesnt use your native keyboard layout. Seems to be fixed on 40 (rawhide, Plasma 6 prerelease Version of Kinoite)

Habits:

  • install huge apps like RStudio, an IDE, a programming environment etc. in a Distrobox. If you program hardware it needs to be a root distrobox, otherwise no USB access.
  • if you git clone stuff, create a “Git” folder in your home, put that there. Guides never mention that.
  • if you use Appimages, compiled apps, binaries; create a “Programs” folder in your home
  • use Czkawka to find duplicate files

Resources:

  • alternativeto.net
  • itsfoss.com
  • discussion.fedoraproject.org
  • discuss.kde.org

What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux that would have saved you a headache in the future?

  • Fedora Kinoite (Ubuntu broke, stable Distros suck, …)
  • use Flathub Flatpaks, they are often better
flashgnash,

Immutable distros are great

Wayland is nice, can suck in weird and wacky ways with Nvidia though. Only reason I’m using it is because my favourite WM is Wayland only

WitchHazel,

Mind sharing?

flashgnash,

NixOS/hyprland

possiblylinux127,

I would be careful using Kinoite as it hasn’t been around as long and doesn’t work in the same way as a transitional system. This means you could be on your own when it comes to issues. This could be especially problematic as most of the help online isn’t going to be related to Fedora let alone Kinoite.

I would recommend Linux Mint to anyone and I use it in a VM for a bunch of things (main system is Proxmox and Fedora). It has normal apt and you can tweak it as much or as little as you like. It is very easy to use and is suitable for a broad audience.

ILikeBoobies,

You might find something that works better or worse in Wayland, it’s not really a big deal

Does bloat actually matter or is it just a meme?

Both, the little things don’t matter but you can fill up your resources with bloat if you wanted.

Any habits or standards that I should abide by in order to save myself headaches in the future?

Update unless you have a reason not to

What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux that would have saved you a headache in the future?

Sym-links

TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe,

LearnLinuxTV is a pretty good YT channel for noobs

I recommend getting familiar with the following software:

  • Quickemu (and quickgui) - super easy way to setup a Windows (or Linux or Mac) virtual machine
  • Distrobox - easily run a different linux distro within your current linux distro. It’s useful for running ubuntu containers because of “PPAs” which are unofficial repositories which allow you to install some obscure software with a single command.
  • Timeshift - someone else already mentioned it. I actually don’t know whether it would be a problem on an atomic distro like Kionite but I had Kubuntu break after a major update. Timeshift would have been useful at that time.
cetvrti_magi,
@cetvrti_magi@lemmy.world avatar
  1. I never used Wayland but Xorg works really well.
  2. Don’t copy terminal commands from internet if you don’t know what they do. Also, try new things just to try them. That’s how I started using many things that now make the core of my computer experience. Even if something looks scary I recommend giving it a go because in most cases it is much easier than it looks (at least when you have some experience with Linux).
  3. YouTube can be a good resource at the start.
  4. Switching to Linux was very smooth experience for me because I wanted to inform myself about Linux before switching just to know what I’m getting into. If you go prepared you probably won’t experience many problems.
scratchandgame,

Don’t copy terminal commands from internet if you don’t know what they do.

Very important. Don’t run arbitrary commands on the internet, but don’t paste sysctls and config too.

YouTube can be a good resource at the start.

Linux lacks much documentation. Man pages, tutorials from arch and gentoo wiki should be considered.

that’s my feedback

bloodfart,

No, no, none, no, learn vim.

MajinBlayze, (edited )

I’ve been running kinoite on my laptop for a short while now, and I wanted to address a few miscellaneous things.

First: I recommend trying the out of the box experience for a while before going far customizing it. For example, someone mentioned your filesystem layout with subvolumes: that’s the default in kinoite: home, var, and root are in subvolumes.

Second: Wayland either is or is about to be the default in fedora (I’m running the beta for the next version, and it’s Wayland by default). Try it and see if you have issues before trying to switch to x11.

Flatpak is your first stop for installing software on kinoite, but the fedora repo that’s configured by default is missing a lot. If <your favorite search engine> shows software available that you don’t see in discover/flatpak, you need to add the flathub repo, which is easy to do, but not obvious (to me) that it wasn’t the default.

Finally, Nvidia experience might not be good ootb. You might need to take extra steps to get the proprietary Nvidia driver.

Good luck with your endeavor!

Edit: Firefox

I don’t understand why the default install of Firefox isn’t the flatpak version. Switch to the flatpak version and you won’t have to worry about codecs.

Lol, I just noticed that this thread is 3 weeks old… How is your setup working out?

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