Proceeds to use it exclusively for browsing the web.
How many are there?
It depends.
See, that's not helpful. The right answer is to direct someone to this GitHub project:
https://github.com/FabioLolix/LinuxTimeline
The releases page contains a 3420x12488 PNG to provide a simple and concise answer.
I can see my OS from here!
I see the one I like! :-)
“Simple and concise”
i am not religious, but oh god...
Edit it is so perfectly fitting for the Linux community to respond with mostly criticisms and negations to these flowcharts I shared without a single negative commenter actually suggesting a different similar helpful resource for newbies to Linux who feel overwhelmed or adding something productive and helpful to the conversation.
Do better y'all.
You can't condescend these resources and pretend with a handwave like there are better ones out there, you gotta prove it. If you are going to pick apart these charts then you gotta make a new chart or link me to a better one, I don't care about your condescending minor criticisms of the specifics of the flowcharts, that is irrelevant input unless you are going to edit a flowchart and make a new one or add something else productive.
I feel like I am inside a meme making fun of Linux users right now lol.
https://piefed.blahaj.zone/post/347408
https://lemmy.ca/post/53099450
I appreciate the effort put into this but if answering yes to "are you new to Linux?" leads to the follow up question "apt or rpm?" then there's a problem.
I hate myself but I don't Gentoo hate myself.
gentoo for small computing power?? no offense, but that's bonkers 😹
Lots of pro-Ubuntu propaganda in those floe charts. At this point, Ubuntu of any flavor shouldn't be recommended to anyone. There are always better alternatives.
I judge distro chooser flowcharts by whether they correctly point me to Slackware. These both pass.
JFCLM
Just Fucking Choose Linux Mint.
Nah. I’m a gamer and need something with more up to date packages. I can’t rely on Debian / Ubuntu base.
Fedora and Arch base are my go to.
If you know what you want then you're not the person depicted in this comic.
I'm a gamer too and i'm not sure what is about that, everything seems fine on the 6.12 kernel LMDE is on.
Ditto. Also a gamer on Linux Mint and never once had a problem.
Just pick the yummiest option each time.
Mint.
Cinnamon.
That adds the "which windowing system do you want to use" question and under the "Xorg" option, a "do you want to use a window manager without a desktop environment", and then under "yes", for the "Which window manager" question, you get Ratpoison as one of the options.
There are four main flavors
also ...
Debian - for when you want to wait two years
The popular Debian based distros are up to date. That said, core Debian stable is indeed boring, but sometimes boring and stable is what you need.
see heres the problem, youre doing that in the wrong order.
first figure out your DE/WM preference, THEN choose a package manager with the repos that will best support that for your use case and update cycle preferences. (the distro)
It depends.
ok true
Same thing with Fediverse instances.
IMO the linux and/or fediverse community could learn a thing or two about UX from the establishment.
I believe the best approach is to take note of the Pareto Principle: 20% of instances / distros would meet the need of 80% of users.
I would simply recommend Ubuntu / lemmy.world to complete beginners (just based on market share). If they are interested in alternatives, they would naturally seek those out themselves.
This concept is nothing new e.g. Google presents their searchbar front and centre; power users would click on "Advance Search" for their needs.
I started mainlining Linux about a year and a half ago after playing with it for a bit in 2007-ish and running a headless server for a decade or so.
I just installed Ubuntu because that was what Framework officially supported. I can't think of what a newbie user would find lacking with Ubuntu. It does about everything that Windows does fine. I've heard similar things about Mint. Why do we have to over-complicate things for new users? Just shove them towards a distro and let them know they can probably fix whatever they don't like with a reinstall later.
I really wish people could get together and just agree to recommend like 1 of 3 distros to people and put their personal y preferences aside.
Once people actually switch and use Linux for some time they can figure out what is actually best for them.
I say it should be,
Mint Kubuntu Maybe bazzite (I’ve never used it, but I’ve heard it’s popular for gaming.)
We had that consensus with Ubuntu for 15 years but haters had to hate so now we're here. 😁
that's because even people who are using ubuntu for 15 years and don't really care that much are finally fed up and starting to look for an alternative.
"get these security updates with ubuntu pro" is the ultimate wake-up call...
I still have to make the switch, have been keeping track of these topics a bit.
Right now, the shortlist I would make is:
Only thing that matters is that you realize, none of it's permanent. Getting your feet wet for a few weeks working from a live USB is okay too. Go as fast or as slow as you want. People get stuck on "The Paradox of Choice".
Choose one at random from those with easy installation. Use it for a week. If you like it, stick with it. If it's frustrating as heck, try another distro. Your skills picked up from the first one will very likely transfer over. As you narrow down your experience with what's frustrating you, you can pinpoint what things you like and which you don't and settle on the perfect distro for you.
There is absolutely NO way to know that before you get your hands dirty and see what these options are and their quirks.
KDE plasma gas been braindead easy on my ancient laptop as a first time linuxer! My next experiment is gonna be Bazzite on my desktop. Kinda seems like I'll find the differences as I try new distros, then be better suited to form a preference for myself. Then eventually I'll be on Arch btw...
The wrong assumption is that you have to pick the best of all possible everything the first time. People agonize less about choosing a type of car to spend $30,000 on knowing that if you sell it used its instantly worth 5000 less.
Meanwhile you can switch everything about your computer in 2 hours for free.
You think choosing your Linux distro is bad, imagine having to choose your electricity, water, internet, phone, banking, and insurance provider as well as your local councillor, workplace, school, career, entertainment, childcare, car, house, food, etc.
This "love choice, hate choosing" is a really valuable thing to understand.
For first-timers: pick at random and use it until it annoys you. Then you can make an informed decision second (third, fourth, ..., nth) time around
Just ask your favourite slop generator to shit a suggestion for you, it already replaced your ability to draw stick figures, something every person knows hownto do by the age of 7.
Or better yet, google a list of active distros and throw a fucking dice. Same amount of precision and intelligence, less wasted electricity and water.
Clearly there's an unwarranted assumption baked into this comic that one needs a desktop environment. I have my non-headless Linux systems set up to run the emptty display manager using the Linux console:
Which then launches the Sway compositor without having Sway start any desktop environment if I want to log into a graphical environment. That's my favorite option. Let's not impose an artificially-restricted set of choices, here. :-)
Hint: :q!
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