I did one of these threads several months ago, when the site was new, and thought now was a good time to do another.

Message me if you

  • Want to try installing Linux for the first time
  • Want to try Linux but don't want to install it
  • Have some Linux-related problem you want another pair of eyeballs on
  • Want to learn a programming language
  • Want to build a computer
  • Want tutoring in any of the above
  • Need help with any old technical problem

(also play Arma with me)

  • goldsound [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    So I haven't touched Linux in well over 5 years when I played around with Ubuntu a bit im HS. What's the go to distro/top ones nowadays? And is it better to ease back in by dual booting before going whole hog?

    • Bloodshot [he/him,any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I've worked with Linux professionally for years, and here's a secret: distro doesn't matter all that much, especially if you're just a desktop user. Since they're packaging mostly the same software differently, you can just pick which one you'd like.

      • Debian is a community distribution with actual democracy behind it
      • Red Hat distros have corporate support
      • Arch Linux is very rolling release
      • Ubuntu is Ubuntu
      • Gentoo compiles stuff from source, which appeals to some people

      etc.

      As for dual booting, if you want to keep using Windows or whatever for anything, there's no real reason you ever have to stop dual booting. You can keep it there if you need it. Some people remove it because they truly don't need it, some people remove it because they like to commit and if they don't they'll never learn Linux, and a lot of people just have Windows there indefinitely.

      A note on Debian since that's what I use: Debian, when you install it, is entirely free software. If you want to download non-free things (like NVIDIA drivers, wifi drivers) you have to enable that and then install them. If Debian runs slow but Ubuntu is fast, it's probably the graphics drivers, as Ubuntu gets most of its packages from Debian.

      • goldsound [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I actually switched to a ssd boot/hdd storage dual drive setup this year, and the hdd is 1tb so if I wanted to I could at least experiment on the hdd and keep them separated. Thanks for the tip. Mentioning boot loader corruption has brought up flashbacks from my first attempts with everything. Desperately trying to get a rig I built out of some new parts in an old pc to run a dual boot taught me more about computers than just about anything else lol.

      • VHS [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        only dual boot if you have a second ssd IMO

        or a spinning drive (HDD) for those of us that aren't living in the future

      • culdrought [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Even with a second ssd windows sometimes still overwrites the bootloader after an update. Easy enough to fix, but still annoying.

      • AliceBToklas [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I dual booted my most recent build and its been updating fine, the main issue is that by default the installer does clobber your boot partition or something so IIRC you have to install windows on a partition first and then install linux and then rewrite the windows bootloader with GRUB and your linux install. but it's not that bad to get both working together on the same ssd.