• pastermil@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    Because for most use cases, Mint works flawlessly. It changes little from time to time. It has all the drivers to get started with a wide range of common hardware. It has all the codecs to play common media formats.

    Of course if the package update is too slow, it’s not for you, but then unlike you, most people don’t need the latest and greatest. They just need something that works from the get-go with predictable behavior.

    • trolololol@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      The software I use doesn’t get significant updates often. Kennel, vi, grep, find? They’ve been around for decades.

      I’m genuinely curious what kind of things people can’t do because of lag on package updates.

      • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        It usually has something to do with programming. Again, most cases, the versions in the packages included in your garden variety stable distros should cover most use cases.

        However, once in a while one would encounter the need of using the cutting edge features on certain compiler or interpreter. Rust comes to mind. I know Python introduced some features that could drastically alter workflow (e.g. switch statement). NodeJS is another one known to be lagging behind from time to time.

        In other cases, hardware support might be taken to consideration, especially for newer machines. However, with Mint including the optional newer kernel, it shouldn’t be a problem.

      • Cornelius@lemmy.ml
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        4 days ago

        Modem hardware.

        The default kernel Mint has installed isn’t new enough to support cards like the 7900 XT. Though this can be fixed by updating the kernel using Mint’s kernel version utility

      • neidu2@feddit.nl
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        4 days ago

        The only major issue I ever had with mint running relatively old packages was when I got my current laptop. Nvidia 4060 required a really new nvidia driver, which in turn required a really new kernel. I sorted it out by adding a few unofficial repos, and it worked like a charm afterwards.

        Whenever old versions are giving you grief, they can usually be sorted out in a similar manner.

      • Benaaasaaas@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Hmm vim is the reason I dropped all debian based distros. Cause I wanted v8 when it was released but sorry you have to wait 2-4 years. Wasn’t in the mood for compiling it myself so just went with arch based distro and haven’t looked back since.

  • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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    5 days ago

    These thumbnails are also the reason why people stay away from Linux. How is the little girl relevant to your question?

    • extremeboredom@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Couldn’t possibly agree more. One of the biggest barriers to sharing my enthusiasm for Linux with my friends is filtering out all of the cringey anime weeb shit that somehow gets posted along with it. Why does open source software need to be associated with creepy drawings of little girls? Absolutely the worst vibes.

      • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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        5 days ago

        It’s understandable when it comes from niche programs with solo devs. You are likely to be a degen when you spend your whole day in front of your computer. So you likely also have degen habits like the one here. But if it’s from group of devs then yeah that’s straight up irritating.

        Also you in the sense not you. English not my main language.

      • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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        5 days ago

        I would have to disagree. What you are saying is toxic communities that reply RTFM to every question like arch or gentoo. Those aren’t beginner friendly distros. Mint, ubuntu, pop, fedora all have wonderful communities and quick support.

        Windows is more documented. Not better but more. So when someone migrates to linux they panic because they can’t find resources like they used to do. How to fix this? Just give it time. More windows enshittification, more migration, more questions in support, more answers. No more gstekeeping like feeling.

        • Titou@sh.itjust.works
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          5 days ago

          What you are saying is toxic communities that reply RTFM to every question like arch or gentoo.

          Im active on arch communities and i’ve never seen this kind of message, most of the time they give you a hyperlink to a specific chapter of the manual so you know exactly how to fix your issue, not just copy pasta.

          Windows is more documented. Not better but more.

          Not at all but ok.

          • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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            For your first paragraph, try arch discord and for the second ever used a search engine or just youtube? Windows is way more documented. Not necessarily by Microsoft but by the absolute waste community.

            • Titou@sh.itjust.works
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              Windows is way more documented. Not necessarily by Microsoft but by the absolute waste community.

              Kinda hard to provide a full documentation of a os as a particular when you have absolutely no control on it. Also there’s plenty of “windows tutorial” that are either wrong or out of date, while in Arch or most closely Linux there’s things that still remain the same years later.

            • BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world
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              Windows is way more documented. Not necessarily by Microsoft but by the absolute waste community.

              If I had a nickle for every BSOD error code I researched only to find “have you tried running sfc /scannow? What about a refresh? You tried both and nothing worked? Just reinstall!”

              More documented my ass. Linux at least tells me what’s wrong. “No space left on device” or “missing dependency” is way better than “Error code 0x0000007e”

              • tuhriel@discuss.tchncs.de
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                Jup, Im having an NTP issue on my win10 machine If you search for it you find the same 5 “solutions” from dozens of content farms.

              • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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                4 days ago

                I repair computers on the side and this exact issue happens so frequently I know some of the error codes that I dont bother trying to fix now. The sheer amount of Windows reinstalls I have to do… honestly its often faster than trying to fix the problem.

              • uis@lemm.ee
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                4 days ago

                have you tried running sfc /scannow?

                To be fair this is kinda “did you try to reboot?” kind of answer. Stupid, but effective.

                Just reinstall!

                IT’S TIME TO REINSTALL ШINDOWS! This is why I love Linux community, especially Gentoo. Reinstalling system is rarely considered to be valid answer.

        • featherfurl@lemmy.ml
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          5 days ago

          The gatekeeping I was referring to is giving people shit for being weebs, furries, etc. etc. Feels skeezy and moralistic. One of my favourite things about the Linux community is how openly eccentric so many people are. Even if it isn’t my aesthetic it’s way less contrived than the bland wastelands that corporate culture generates.

          It wasn’t really relevant to your question, but you do you, weeb OP.

          • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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            Gatekeeping (communication) Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication.

            • featherfurl@lemmy.ml
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              3 days ago

              That is certainly one use of the word gatekeeping. Another common use of the word is:

              “when someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity”.

              • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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                You got it mixed up. I am not restricting one to let others in. Being a creep is not normal and it isn’t gatekeeping to say cosplaying little girls is not normal.

                And all the down votes prove how much this is normalized in linux communuty which gets us all bad rep.

            • uis@lemm.ee
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              Linking to upstream source instead of copying answer that will be outdated is neither gatekeeping nor “RTFM toxicity”

              • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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                I never said rtfm is toxic but it is well known how toxic arch community used to be. Im very much referring to that.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      Anime fans, despite counterintuitiveness, have greater average IQ that not anime fans.

  • gerdesj@lemmy.ml
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    Mint has managed to become a meme and that’s no bad thing, per se, but it can look a bit odd to the cognoscenti. Anyone doing research by search engine looking to escape MS towards Linux will find Mint as the outstanding suggestion.

    That’s just the way it is at the moment: Mint is the gateway to Linux. Embrace that fact and you are on the way to enlightenment.

    I am the MD of a small IT company in the UK. I’ve run Gentoo and then Arch on my daily drivers for around 25 years. The rest of my company insist on Windows or Apples. Obviously, I was never going to entice anyone over with Gentoo or even Arch, although my wife rocks Arch on her laptop but I manage that and she doesn’t care what I call Facebook and email.

    We are now at an inflection point - MS are shuffling everyone over to Azure with increasing desperation: Outlook/Exchange and MS Office will be severely off prem. by around 2026. So if you are going to move towards the light, now is a good time to get your arse in gear.

    I now have Kubuntu on my work desktop and laptop. You get secure boot out of the box, along with full disc encryption and you can also run a full endpoint suite (ESET for us). That scores a series of ticks on the Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation and that is required in my world.

    AD etc: CID - https://cid-doc.github.io/ pretty nifty. I’ve defined the equivalent of Windows drive letters as mounts under home, eg: ~/H: - that works really well.

    Email - Gnome Evolution with EWS. Just works. Used it for years.

    Office - Libre Office. I used to teach people how to use spreadsheets, word processors, databases and so on. LO is fine. Anyone attempting to tell me that LO can’t deal with … something … often gets … educated. All software has bugs - fine, we can deal with that. I recently showed someone how decimal alignment works. I also had to explain that it is standard and not a feature of LO.

    For my company the year of Linux on the desktop has to be 2025 (with options on 2026). I have two employees who insist on it now and I have to cobble together something that will do the trick. I get one attempt at it and I’ve been doing application integration and systems and all that stuff for quite a while.

    Linux has so much to give as an ecosystem but we do need to tick some boxes to go properly mainstream on the desktop and that needs to happen sooner rather than later.

    • plumbercraic@lemmy.sdf.org
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      I’ve been a lifelong ms admin, and always stuck to their desktop environments because they “just worked”. Often use Linux on containers, devices (handhelds, rpi etc) and webapp servers.

      That win11 recall stuff though is a step too far. So I looked at which distro was likely to be easiest to use and just as you say - mint is the overwhelming consensus. And now it’s my daily driver. I needed to learn a few new tricks, but the mint forums are filled with windows refugees so finding forum posts is easy (e.g. I thought had a problem with my “task bar” not my “panel” but since others called it the same thing I found what I was looking for).

      My biggest reason for staying on windows was that I could search for something and almost always find an answer - that’s become worse over the years IMO (often get these useless forums posts when they’re basically advising the user to reinstall with five paragraphs of pasted/generated text). The mint forums are genuinely friendly and helpful, and searching them is as useful as searching for win stuff used to be.

      I don’t know if “this is the year” but I can’t imagine I’m the only one who has had enough of the MS ecosystem. My experience has been great so far, and I hope there are others who give it a go.

      • gerdesj@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        Good for you.

        I learned a really strange (yet rather obvious in hindsight) lesson a week or so ago. I recently deployed Apache Guacamole at work for webby access to an RDP box with MFA. We are dumping MS’s RDG because it is not very flexible and is really complicated. One of my younger members of staff uses it whilst in the office and are almost pathetically grateful for me setting up the Guacamole thing 8) (WTF).

        She’s an Apple aficionado. She can now use her Apple thingie as St Jobs intended and also connect to work stuff, which is largely Windows and Linux based but the Linux stuff is abstracted away to the browser.

        The key point is that she considers herself as an Apple person for want of a better word and can be an Apple whilst using our corp MS and Linux gear and it appears to her that it is all integrated.

        I’m 53 years old and have been doing IT for around 30 years. We really have to get to grips with how people think and work.

  • rozodru@lemmy.ca
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    I only just switched to Linux this past week and I use Mint. It was suggested to me by someone here on lemmy. It was easy to set up, customize, and get all my stuff working on it. I have World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, Elden Ring and a few other games all working on it. The only issue, and right now it’s a minor one, I’m having is the 535 nividia drivers can cause random stutters/lag every now and then but nothing major.

    My point is for people like me who are new to linux and don’t want to get overwhelmed I think Mint is great. I know eventually i’ll change to a different more “advanced” distro, right now I have my eye on CachyOS, but I don’t think I’m there quite yet to confidently install it.

  • Taleya@aussie.zone
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    Because you’re dealing with lifelong windows users who want a reassuringly familiar looking OS not fucking linux techs

    Jesus christ learn to tailor to the user

    • ReveredOxygen@sh.itjust.works
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      Fedora does have a Cinnamon spin. The advantage of Mint is that all the Ubuntu tutorials work on it

      Edit: plus Fedora’s philosophy about non-free software makes it less than ideal for people who don’t care

      • holgersson@lemm.ee
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        Even if Fedora has a spin with the same DE, from my experience, Mint/Ubuntu still has a higher chance just work on a given system.

        I love Fedora and use it pretty much exclusively, but the out of the box experience of Mint and Ubuntu is still a bit better for the average user imho.

  • Default_Defect@midwest.social
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    Linux users can’t even agree on what distro is actually beginner friendly, so how am I supposed to pick one with any confidence?

  • olafurp@lemmy.world
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    Anybody that already has had a computer for 2 years and is coming from Windows will have almost no problems with Mint. Stability is top priority for first time Linux users and you need some visual guide with screenshots. Mint also has a great default look and setup for people coming from Windows. Mint is probably the best distro to put on your mom’s old laptop that is “getting slow” because of viruses.

    I’d recommend KDE Neon or Ubuntu also depending on the situation but if I don’t know anything about the person and computer I’d say Mint.

    • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
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      This is a bold statement considering how many daily Windows users don’t understand how to use Windows.

      • shinratdr@lemmy.ca
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        It never ceases to amaze me how out of touch tech enthusiasts are. How much does your average person know about their car? That’s how little they know about their computer.

        They might not know what an OS even is, or how to identify where “Windows” ends and applications begin. They do what they bought it for, and if that doesn’t work, they take it to someone who knows how to get it working again. They know how to charge it, and to plug in a headset or USB key or something. If that functionality doesn’t work automatically or they encounter any issue, it might as well have exploded in their hands.

        There are people who have been using Windows for 30 years that know literally nothing about it. Putting a “years of experience” metric on it is hilarious. It’s like assuming that if someone has been driving for 50 years that they know anything about cars besides how to drive it and where to put the gas.

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            3 days ago

            Most people get their oil changed at a shop, and drive through a car wash. I wouldn’t really consider those additional skills.

        • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
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          Exactly. I know plenty of people who have driven a car for over 3 decades, and do not know what a timing belt or a spark plug does. I don’t look down on those people, but it certainly makes sense as to why they don’t know. They don’t really need to!

      • ian@feddit.uk
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        Windows users have a variety of different skills and experience. I guess the most likely ones to try Linux first are not going to be the PC-fearing ultra-causal users, who probably follow what their friends do. But the more adventurous and curious ones, or IT workers.

        • olafurp@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, exactly. If a person asks for a recommendation they don’t trust their own skills enough to make their own decision or distrohop.

          I feel like a website is needed to recommend a distro to people based on a very varied set of criteria that doesn’t just ask “Do you like stability over all? Debian”

          • ian@feddit.uk
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            3 days ago

            Definitely a help website that focuses on user level questions and not IT pro solutions is desperately needed. Today new users are immediately given misinformation by hard core Linux techies with no clue about usability or user level solutions.

    • techarmy@lemmy.world
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      It’s my favourite distro because of three reasons.

      1. Arch worth lightweight with minimal QOL improvement
      2. best user community 3 ) who doesn’t like space theme distro?? lol

      I just setup on my T480 with BTRFS and BTRFS-Assistant and snapper last night. It’s working well

      • confuser@lemmy.zip
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        I refuse to use anything that isnt arch based unless its a niche linux distribution for something specific because the arch user repository basically solves the biggest issue for newbies which is getting a grasp of packages for software. it has any of the common software and if you do need to build something from a github repo, that is ofc easy enough on any distro. I’m not the most technically inclined with linux and I use a chatgpt got thingy called code copilot in their search thing and I can use it to solve even really niche problems I have like a USB DAC not being recognized because it doesn’t have the correct read/write permissions. most of the time I just ask basic things like how to get whatever github repo working and it helps me troubleshoot if I run into weird issues. I even got it to help me set up neo-matrix to run in alacrity terminal on bootup, it was a nice introduction to scripting and autostart and stuff when it helped me, so now I have a little bit better grasp on how that all works out.

  • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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    Mint works. Most alternatives don’t. I can install Mint on a total newbie’s system, and not have to worry about something breaking two weeks later. Hell, most newbies can install Mint if you give them the USB.

    On a deeper level, I think Mint devs are one of the few teams that understand the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ philosophy.

  • Billegh@lemmy.world
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    Because Fedora is open source only to the point of it being pathological. If there isn’t am open source driver most time you’re just boned. Someone new is going to have a tough time with it, and the community is on average a very “lol rtfm” bunch. Not as bad as Arch, but that’s not saying much.

    Meanwhile, despite the problems around Ubuntu, Debian communities are much more understanding and helpful. Mint even with old packages is going to be an easier time for a newbie. Certainly a newbie unfamiliar with the way entirely too much of the FOSS community is.

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      To be fair arch has amazing docs, and even a rube like me can follow it decently well. I found endeavor to be the easiest distro to use. But agreed the attitude isn’t great.

      • Billegh@lemmy.world
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        Arch is absolutely divine with its documentation. There is a bit of a “you must be this tall to ride” with them though. Like the tiny [AUR] link. That’s not really well explained, and is even more opaque if you follow the link.

  • digdilem@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    Because choosing a distro to begin with isn’t easy. Ask ten people and you’ll get eleven suggestions.

      • tabular@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        What features were lacking from mesa or Cinnamon generally?

        I have 4k 1440, 1080 monitor (120hz or higher) on Mint edge, what would I gain from switch to somethibg else?

        • 737@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 days ago

          mesa is outdated by default, not supporting rx 7000 cards unless you use the edge iso.

        • 737@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 days ago

          plasma has wayland support, tons of customizability, better multi monitor support, a great suite of applications including a text editor with lsp support and much more, and in general looks nicer. cinnamon is sort of the bare minimum

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            better multi monitor support

            I run a 3x1 setup and KDE didn’t handle it any better than Cinnamon did.

            Wayland support is coming to Mint. You can actually use it on 21.3 right now but it is unstable.

            Rest of what you said is opinion.

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              Wayland has objectively better multi monitor support in every case. You were encountering tearing issues before switching, maybe you just didn’t notice.

              • mihnt@lemmy.ca
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                Well, I got rid of KDE and I’m on Cinnamon right now, so where are these tearing issues? You think I would have noticed after over a year of use.

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              the rest also isn’t just an opinion, cinnamon does not have an equivalent to kdenlive, krita, or kate. even the existing applications are just not on the same level. it’s an acceptable desktop, but plasma and gnome are just better.

              • mihnt@lemmy.ca
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                Why would I care what software KDE comes with? This is Linux. I can install whatever works best for me. Including the whole of KDE software suite if I so chose. You KDE fans are voracious.

              • Liz@midwest.social
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                I use KdenLive on Mint whenever I need to edit a video. I’ve never bothered to look for the other two because I use Darktable and GIMP for my photo editing, but I can check to see if they’re available if you want me to.

          • tabular@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Does that include support for variable refresh rate with multiple monitor (Freesync in my case).

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          Cinnamons compositor doesn’t turn off for games (it’s supposed to but has been bugged for years) which costs you fps.

          Playing Alan Wake 2 at launch was only possible with the latest Mesa drivers compiled from the AUR due to some graphics features that it required.

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            It doesn’t just cost FPS. It straight up breaks some games that run fine on other distros.

            Does it still have that feature that kills and restarts cinnamon when memory leaks start getting to be too much? I honestly had to laugh at that when that was introduced.

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              No clue. Haven’t used it in years. I was done when I went looking for a fix for the compositor thing and found a years-old open bug report.

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            I assume compiling Mesa is rather difficult to set up? For reference I’ve not bothered to try and compile Lutris or Wine.

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              With AUR it’s as easy as installing any other package, actually.

              You just install the git version from AUR.

              • tabular@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                Installing Arch appears to be more complex than Mint’s Click Yes x4 GUI. Should I expect almost everything to just work after install?

                • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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                  Not even close, if you actually install barebones arch, then barebones arch is exactly that, barebones. You wont even have a DE.

                  Endeavour is what you want. It’s just straight up arch, but with all the stuff you’d want to set up anyway done for you.

                  And if you want an “app-store” style app to browse packages with, and not fiddle with the command line to manage packages, install pamac. It can be expanded with AUR and flatpak support.

            • nyan@sh.itjust.works
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              4 days ago

              Looks like mid-to-high-level difficulty if you really want to build from source, due to multiple complex interdependent configuration flags that have to match your hardware, and the need to check a kernel option or two. (Based on the Gentoo ebuild for mesa 24.1.2).

  • Grangle1@lemm.ee
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    Older packages, but not too old, generally provide better stability. Problems can also come from packages being too new and not having all the standout issues worked out of them.

    • Magnolia_@lemmy.caOP
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      around 1 year and a half, thats way too long, considering the Pipewire, OBS, Kernel, Gaming and other drivers updates. Not even mentioning all the updates KDE and Gnome just got in the last 3 months.

        • priapus@sh.itjust.works
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          I generally would for desktop use, and absolutely wouldn’t rexommend them for a new user.

      • NaN@lemmy.sdf.org
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        Newer kernels are available, they even have a gui for it. Why would a Cinnamon user care about KDE or GNOME updates? (Some of which are broken on Fedora, like rdp login)

        Mint Debian can run 6.7 right now.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      Older packages, but not too old, generally provide better stability.

      And worse compatibility. Old packages are a no go for upstream supported hardware like Intel’s and AMD’s.

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    6 days ago

    If you have cutting edge hardware, this might be an issue. But most people don’t and for them Mint will work just fine. If you want cutting edge, don’t use Mint. But that’s not their focus at all. Mint is for people who just want their computer to work with minimal hassle.

    • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
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      If you want cutting edge, don’t use Mint. But that’s not their focus at all. Mint is for people who just want their computer to work with minimal hassle.

      These don’t seem like competing needs. When I think “just work with minimal hassle”, I don’t think “I need to restrict myself to outdated hardware”.

      I’m perfectly happy running old packages in general. I’m still on Plasma 5, and it works just as well as it did last year. But that’s a matter of features, not compatibility. Old is fine; broken is not.

      • accideath@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I think Mint is mostly for the “I have a PC that’s a few years old and want something easy and reliable to replace Windows with” crowd. Because it works great for that. It’s the perfect beginner distro.

        • Liz@midwest.social
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          Yeah absolutely zero newbies are going to buy a new computer in order to test out Linux.

    • vithigar@lemmy.ca
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      The machine I have running mint is a fifteen year old Core 2 Duo T6600 laptop. Works great!

    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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      I do want to add that new games can also require new packages, the way Alan Wake II did at launch. Even on Arch you had to compile the development version of Mesa for it to run.

    • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
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      people who just want their computer to work with minimal hassle.

      Elementary OS. Hassle-free, elegant and polished, distraction-free.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      If you have cutting edge hardware, this might be an issue.

      No, thanks to Valve’s efforts for Steam Deck all RDNA2 hardware directly benefits for upstreamed improvements.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      If you have cutting edge hardware

      If you have cutting edge hardware, you would probably need linux-next kernel. Otherwise you don’t have cutting edge hardware.

    • Magnolia_@lemmy.caOP
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      The thing is that Linux has gone mainstream, with young adults and teens trying it out for Gaming and Streaming. The target people has changed so recommending Mint is not suitable anymore.

      • HRDS_654@lemmy.world
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        I wouldn’t quite go so far as to say it’s gone “mainstream” since you still have to be moderately nerdy to know about it. I get your point though. This is one of the reasons I am so happy the Steam Deck exists. Before Valve released the Steam Deck nobody wanted to make games for Linux, so Valve said “fuck it, we’ll do it ourselves” and proved it was not only possible, but a better experience overall. While not all games work, having 78-80% of your game library work on Linux, with no Windows OS performance tax, is a great experience. Even with the Proton compatibility layer games generally run faster than on Windows.

        • Magnolia_@lemmy.caOP
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          this video from last month has 600k views. Ive seen several recent linux videos with 150k+ views. Brodie, Horn and the Linux Experience constantly pull 50k to 200K views on some of their videos.

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    I installed Mint (no idea mint was old tbh) looked into Gentoo and tried the live boot USB option. 'This looks nice, no how do I install" The install option opened a web page (gentoo wiki) with several options for guides based on various permutations. All options send you in a ring without actually telling me how to install.

    I went back to Mint as it does the few things I need a PC to do these days:

    Some kind of office suite with spreadsheet and word processor, Steam, Netflix and Prime, Firefox

    Added bonus is that it runs MegaMek natively AND i don’t need to read pages of documentation, just click install.

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      Well you went from one of the easiest to one of the more complicated distros so thats not surprising. There’s a lot of distros thst are just as simple to install as mint, you don’t need to mess around with arch and gentoo unless you’re planning on becoming a real Linux enthusiast.

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      Added bonus is that it runs MegaMek natively

      This is always a fun thing to read in the wild. Keep on stompin’, MechWarrior! O7 (salute)

      Gentoo might have been quite a leap! :p I wanna try it some day as a challenge but it’s def intimidating.

      I run Tumbleweed on my main rig and love how crazy stable it is for being cutting edge. Endeavour OS is also cool for this. Both great communities too.

      But agree with you on Mint. It’s just a really nice smooth experience. So far it’s on my “little media laptop I won’t update much, need to be reliable, and will probably hand to family on occasion”, and I can trust it’s just gonna work.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      All options send you in a ring without actually telling me how to install.

      Don’t know. I was installing Gentoo in 6th grade of school with poorly-translated gentoo handbook.

      EDIT: had wrong quote

      • menemen@lemmy.ml
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        If it doesn’t provide a benefit for them, why should they bother? I understand why a teenager would, I would have as a teenager. But as an adult? Who got time for this?

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          It was counterpoint to “send you in a ring without actually telling me how to install”. It does.

          I also agree that installing it is rather lengthy.

    • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
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      Why the fuck would you try Gentoo as a Linux noob? I am guessing no one told you it was for advanced Linux users only. Fedora and OpenSUSE are nowhere near as difficult to install as Gentoo, as they are made for normal users.

      • Evrala@lemmy.world
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        Gentoo was my second linux Distro ever some time in 2003 or 2004.

        Installed it by printing out the full install doc, which was like 30 or 40 pages, and starting up a stage one install. I got through the entire install by following the instructions because the documentation was that good.

        I remember having a problem and hopping on an irc chat to ask for help and people there being baffled about the basic level questions I was asking while having a working Gentoo install.

        • TheRedSpade@lemmy.world
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          Yeah, even the “difficult” distributions tend to just be a matter of following instructions to get a working installation. Gentoo was a massive PITA to maintain though. Chances are I was missing some knowledge that would’ve simplified things, but I spent way too much time on maintenance for the system to actually be useful. Arch has been much kinder.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          and starting up a stage one install.

          Dear Faust.

          Difficulty:

          • Easy
          • Medium
          • Hard
          • Nightmare
          • > Novichok

          I thought you went with minimalcd, opened handbook in links(browser) and installed stage3.

          I remember having a problem and hopping on an irc chat to ask for help and people there being baffled about the basic level questions I was asking while having a working Gentoo install.

          Self-perpetuating circle of “Gentoo is not for noobs” stereotype.