Newb to linux trying different distros

Software & Operating Systems Linux
21

There is, and there isn't.

The idea behind any rolling release is that you are getting the very latest and greatest software. Well sometimes that software has new bugs. Sometimes the bugs are annoying. Sometimes the bugs break your whole system.

Both Manjaro, Opensuse, Debian testing, and several other distros will try to test packages out BEFORE rolling them out to the end user.

Vanilla arch and its derivatives are getting better about this, but they still favor very new software.

I am just gonna come right out and say it. The only real reason to use arch at this point is for the huge software library. The AUR is really the main attraction.

Unless you want the pantheon desktop with some very weird apps, then arch is pretty much a waste of time.

Either use opensuse or debian testing. Hell if you do not mind a bit of hassle, fedora might also be a great alternative.

22

Cinnamon looks pretty nice so far. So you're saying opensuse tumbleweed will be the best backbone to have cinnamon UI environment ontop and be completely open to programs like darktable and pixeluvo and GIMP and the other 1000's of photo manipulation programs. How do I find out which programs CAN'T run in opensuse?

23

I would say for cinnamon, your best bet is to install linux mint.

The linux mint team designed and developed cinnamon, and it works best on their system.

Outside of mint, manjaro has a really good relation with mint and its a pretty solid cinnamon distro.

24

The only major difference between distro is package managers and if they have a custom Desktop interface.

Stick with the Ubuntus/Mint, Fedora or Opensuse and you will be fine.

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25

You know what..............

The new cinnamon desktop is actually working flawlessly now. What ever version of cinnamon they had before mint 17.3 was running like crap on opensuse and fedora.

Now its actually REALLY solid. For what ever reason this forum is not letting me post a screen shot.

26

so being complete newb. Lets say I was wanting to go Mint with Cinnamon. Is there a option whilst installing mint to use the cinnamon DE? or do I install it after the fact? Is there a special installer I get that has both?

27

Cinnamon is the default DE when installing linux mint.

You literally just install it and you have everything.

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oh sweet

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I'm running Mint 17.3 Cinnamon & it's been bullet proof. Very stable & very snappy. I installed it on my mothers (58 years old) computer about 3 weeks ago & she loves it. She has never used Linux before. I setup a dual boot Mint, Windows 10 setup. She hasn't used Windows since the install. I installed all her Windows point & click games in Wine & every one of them works flawlessly. Honestly, I've been kinda shocked at how well she adapted to Mint.

30

Nice. It's finally 5pm here so I'm getting off work. Gonna go home and try Mint out.

1 Like
31

This....ish.

Honestly the only issue I have with mint is how old it is.

The day linux mint 18 drops, the kernel and software packages will already be up to a month behind or more.

Honestly if ubuntu could move to debian testing, I think ubuntu and all its derivatives will be working a LOT better.

It will also force valve to fix their freaking bugs.

32

Hey there PH33E,

So, I have used Arch for about 2 years now. I also have experience with Ubuntu and several other distros, so here is my two cents. You listed the following:

  • Photography (PS and LR)
  • Web browsing (Firefox)
  • File organization (7TB local and 4TB NAS)
  • Torrenting
  • watching movies (VLC)

I believe most Linux user's would agree that pretty much any mainstream distro should allow you to do all of this and more. That is with one caveat, Photoshop. I haven't used PS for a while, but I do not heavily edit my photos. I have recently been using darkroom as of late to adjust white balance, exposure, etc. But that is often the extent of my editing. Gimp is, I believe, the closest comparable program to Photoshop, but I do not think it is fair to say it is equivalent.

Now, with that out of the way. Picking a distro is very much a personal choice, I am very much an Arch fan boy but I recognize it is not right for everyone. You seem to be a photography buff so I will give you an analogy you can appreciate...

Some distros are are like smartphone camera's and others are like manual mode on a nice DSLR. For many, a smartphone will take just as good of a picture as a DSLR for their particular use case. The smartphone is easy to use and will do a lot of things in the background to make taking a photo quite simple, and somewhat close to what the photographer envisioned. Now, the DSLR will allow a photographer to really get control of the camera's iso, shutter, and aperture. In turn you can get the exact picture you are going for, one you couldn't get on the smartphone. However, you can end up overexposing the photo or leaving your subject out of focus etc.

Arch falls into the DLSR category. You can really fine tune what you want to get in the end. But it has a steeper learning curve. If you are just trying to do some work on linux, I would suggest some other distro, more smartphone camera'esc. However, if you are ok with missing your shot now and again and having to retake it, (ie borking an installation etc) and if you want to learn more about linux as a whole, and really build your own distro, then by all means, try Arch!

Whatever you choose, good luck!

33

See and thats just not true. If anything what you just described is gentoo. I am not trying to shit on arch. I simply want to de-hype it.

Just because you installed your system through a command line and chose which packages you wanted to install does not make it special.

Two things makes arch special.

1: Baptism by fire. You are basically thrown into the ocean and you gotta learn how to swim real fast. Which is good if you have a little bit of experience and you want to learn more about linux.

2: AUR. I legitimately can not think of a piece of linux software that is not on the AUR. The other kind of cool thing is that there are lots of different kernels you can try out. But to me it seems kind of silly when you can spend a good couple hours learning how to build your own kernel that will perform better for your system anyways.

I am not including the arch wiki. Mostly because it is so good that you can pretty much apply it to any distro.

34

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I am running into an issue installing. I have a 840evo that I want to install Linux Mint onto. There are currently things on it but I planned on just wiping it in the install stage. Now to my understanding Linux has problems loading the gui without an NVIDIA driver. most people got around this by taking out the card and using onboard graphics to install the drivers. I can't do that because my mobo doesn't have any video out. Here are my full specs:

  • Intel I7-5930K
  • MSI XPOWER X99 mobo
  • NVIDIA 980
  • 16GB DDR4
  • 7 - 1TB HDDs (Storage)
  • 240gb HyperX m.2 on mobo (Windows drive)
  • 250gb samsung 840 evo (sata-hopefully Linux)
    I have no HDMI out. I can't get to a command line interface. I just basically get the failed to start the X server error message. How do I get around this? can I somehow get the driver files into the installer USB?
35

I agree entirely my friend. Gentoo is certainly in the DSLR catagory, even more than arch. I would also include slackware or any other distro that requires more attention than something like Ubuntu, or mint or something that is ready to go out of the box.

My analogy was more about the ability to customize as well as learning curve. It was a simple analogy but Gentoo is definitely even more customizeable and even more of a learning curve than arch.

36

I think your best bet at the moment, if not your only option, would be to install the graphics driver via the command line.

You may be able to get to a command line via a tty. You can try "ctrl + alt + F1" or any other function key. That should give you a plain login prompt without the xserver.

37

Wait are you trying to tell me what you can not boot from your USB because the xserver failed to start?

38

yes, well it shows a linux mint logo, then goes thru a bunch of lines of commands really fast and then give that error. I can read the error log. Doesn't show much. I was able to get to the command line once but haven't been able to get into it again. didn't know I could hit ctrl+alt+F1 and get to it. so im gonna try and do that next.

39

ah didn't know there was a key combo for it thanks!!!

40

No problem. Very useful for when something goes wrong with the xserver. The xsession will be tied to one of the function keys so just hit "ctrl + alt + F5" or whatever key is tied to the xsession to get back to the xsession.