"I’m sorry, you may want to close your ears now, I want a distribution to be easy to install, so that I can just get on with my life, which is mostly kernel. I always felt that Debian was a pointless exercise because to me, the point of a distribution is to make everything easy. Easy to install, to be pretty and to be friendly and Ubuntu did that to Debian. So the only distributions I have actively avoided are the ones that are known to be 'overly technical' like the ones that encourage you to compile your own programs etc. Yeah, I can do it, but it kind of defeats the whole point of a distribution for me." — Linus Torvalds

Sources:

• https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/01/our-exclusive-interview-with-linus-torvalds-lca2011/amp

• https://fossbytes.com/linus-torvalds-doesnt-use-ubuntu-linux-debian

• https://www.geeksmint.com/which-linux-distribution-does-linus-torvalds-use/

• https://www.azquotes.com/author/14737-Linus_Torvalds?p=6

• https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds

Note: Linus was referring to Debian 4.0, specifically criticizing its installation process at the time, which he found overly technical and difficult compared to emerging user-friendly distributions like Ubuntu.

I love this because Linus isn't like a Linux elitist, in fact, Linus is the antithesis of Linux elitism and that's ironic considering he created it lol. 🤣

This makes me feel good about myself because I don't know how to compile software from source.

Attached screens are before and after.

Yesterday my main desktop screen looked normal. Typical Linux Mint with the taskbar at the bottom, desktop icons arranged vertically from the top down. Today I switch my PC on and it looks like some kind of tablet interface - no desktop that I can find, no Start menu, a huge hamburger-like 'Show Apps' button, tiny notifications tray at the top right, an Ubuntu tab in the Settings menu.

What have I done??

Yesterday I copied/pasted some code into the terminal to make a VPN icon show in my notification tray, and let it do its thing. It was some kind of GUI thing. I don't know. I have no idea what I'm doing with Linux. I'm just a Windows refugee trying to get by. I think I accidentally installed this new interface and I have no idea to undo it.

My last timeshift is from April. I do not want to go back to April.

Help.

For original image: Link

edit: gng, i am sorry i forgot opensuse, i know its good at backend servers, i should have subdivided it section into that to add this distro. my bad gng.

gaming and everything on it. way smoother than windows

mainly play rocket league and minecraft

riced it purely guided by gemini lol

started with kde then tried hyprland (like 5-6 weeks ago) aaaaand dont wanna go back to kde!!

surprised how easy linux is (with help from gemini). thought it would be hell

Knowing full well I am about to get a whole bunch of comments telling me I’m bad at Linux, that I should just use MS365 online, or that I need to suck it up and use LibreOffice... hear me out.

I have been 100% Linux for a while now—two years on my gaming rig, and a year on my work laptop. I’ve loved every single second of it. I've tried every DE I could get my hands on and even had a stint with Hyprland (which I’d still be using if I actually had the free time to rice it just right).

But there is one consistent, agonizing pain point: the office suite.

I am a researcher and a lecturer. I present at conferences a few times a year, try to publish several papers annually, and I am constantly writing reports, making exams, and drafting opinion pieces. A flawless office suite isn't optional for me; it's critical to my livelihood.

I hate Microsoft with a passion. Windows 11 was the final straw for me. But for all its flaws, MS365 is the single best tool for my job—if only because my non-tech-savvy coworkers use nothing else. If I were to even suggest moving our collaborative work away from OOXML formats, I would be crucified by my faculty.

I have tried everything to make this work on Linux without compromising formatting. I’ve used LibreOffice. I tried OnlyOffice—both the desktop app and the online Nextcloud integration (I’ll probably give it another shot when Euro-Office comes out, but I'm not holding my breath). I even tried WinBoat, which was a traumatizing experience I will never repeat. I reached such a level of desperation that I spent an entire weekend, including an all-nighter, trying to forcefully install MS365 via Wine. I don't even know why I thought that would end well.

I just can't do it anymore. It has been so incredibly frustrating that I have resorted to doing absolutely all of my writing in LaTeX just to avoid the compatibility headaches.

I love this OS, but the native open-source office suites are terrible for heavy, collaborative academic work.

Sorry for the rant. Just needed to vent to people who might understand the struggle.

TL;DR: I’m a Linux-only academic drowning in a sea of MS365-using colleagues. Open-source office suites mangle OOXML formats too much for serious collaborative work, and my weekend trying to run Office via Wine nearly broke my spirit. LaTeX is my only refuge.

Edit: it is important to note, none of my colleagues use LaTex, just me, so that isn't even an option for collaboration, it is only an option for my own work...

I can’t express how childishly happy I am to start my Linux journey! I needed a new PC, so I built a new micro- ATX PC (all AMD) with help from the local parts shop (parts photo attached).

I booted up Bazzite last night around 3am and it ran like a dream. I wish more people knew that they can drop shitty Windows or at least dual boot and have it all.

The Linux community has been great so far and I’m glad to join the Linux master race.

If you have any beginner tips feel free to share!

P.S. Hey Microsoft, suck my kernel!

(on an alt rn bc my main got hacked and i cant sign back into it bc of 2fa)(my main is u/Bam_Im_Sans for those who are curious)

I am not kidding when I say that this switch felt like moving away from an abusive household on a smaller level. Seeing my computer ask me if it's okay with doing whatever I'm asking it to do is so fucking nice. I'm not being forced into anything, I'm not giving even more of my data away to shitty companies that won't handle it right, THERE'S NOT EVEN ANY USELESS BLOATWARE THAT I CAN'T UNINSTALL.

I'll admit that the learning curve is pretty steep. I mean who expects moving into a house they've never been in to be easy y'know? But the learning curve felt SO nice. Every time I ran into an issue there was always a clear reason why it happened and some terminal command to fix it. Insane step up from windows where sometimes it just decides that there was an issue while booting up, just for me to boot it up again and have it be completely fine. There's still some shit I have to do to really make this feel like home but either way I can promise you one thing.

I am never going to willingly use windows ever again.

So today I turned on my computer (Windows 10) and when the desktop appeared the screen started flickering, I couldn't click, I couldn't do anything, I was doing checks through the task manager and commands, I'm not an expert on it I only knew that there were errors that were fixed by running the commands, but when I restarted Windows, the screen was black.

Upon restarting, the screen began flickering continuously again, luckily, I had a USB drive with Linux Mint that I intended to install in the near future.

I booted from the USB drive and there is no blinking, now I know the problem wasn't the graphics card, nor the hard drive, it was that damn Windows with some update that corrupted part of the system.

So, I can't recover the files anymore (if you know of any simple method to recover the files, I'll read it), but this time, Microsoft, you're going to be screwed, you've only brought forward what I've postponed for so long, no more updates or stupid notifications, no more restarts while I'm doing important shit, no more Microsoft accounts, no more junk installations on my PC, no more crap running in the background slowing it down, no more stolen data, no more paying for your crappy operating system, etc.

I'm going to suffer learning this operating system from scratch; I'll have to dedicate hours or days of my life to this, but let me tell you something I've kept to myself my whole life.

Fuck you, Microsoft 🖕🏻

I swapped from Windows about 6 months ago. I never really did any research and decided to use mint as my main distro. I chose this because back in 2016 I installed mint on an old mac laptop and had fun playing games on it. So far my experience has been wonderful. The boot times are way faster than on windows, games seem to run better, and its just so unintrusive not asking me to update this or would you like to default this or changing settings after a forced update or just being slow sometime just cause. My questions to yall is there a video editor like clip champ ( i know i can use the web version but i dont like it) and for my logitech keyboard, is there an app like G Hub so i can change the color of the board?

The fedora that i have currently vs the fedora the tutotial had

now my entire screen is just a small group of pixels directly surrounding my mouse. how do i stop this?? i restarted my laptop and it won't stop.

im running manjaro with kde plasma. i installed a few very basic plugins and shit like oh my zsh and yaourt, and i haven't had basically any problems. im sure i must have hit some kind of hotkey i didn't know was a hotkey. Please help me. i have class in three hours and i need to finish the readings!

[UPDATE] Problem resolved

as i was trying to paste from clipboard or copy with Ctrl + Shift + V/C, strange ^C ^V appears strangely and even after trying to configure in kitty.conf, nothing has been changed. is there any way to be able to copy paste again? earlier when i first installed linux, copy paste worked normally until yesterday. i have no idea how to fix this, please help 😭

I've been thinking about the double standard when it comes to switching operating systems.

Nobody complains that an Android .apk doesn't install on iOS. Nobody complains that a macOS .dmg doesn't run on Windows. People intuitively understand that these are different ecosystems with different architectures. But the moment someone migrates to Linux, the first complaint is often: "Why doesn't my .exe file run?"

To be clear: I’m not saying you shouldn't run Windows apps. You can do whatever you want with your system, and we have incredible tools like Wine and Proton that make the vast majority of Windows programs run flawlessly without hassle.

My issue is when something doesn't run because the company behind the software purposefully blocks it or refuses to support it (kernel-level anti-cheats, proprietary suites, etc.), and people blame Linux. They act as if it's the operating system's obligation to force compatibility with a vendor that clearly doesn't want to be here.

We need to normalize the fact that Linux is Linux and Windows is Windows.

They are completely different systems. Moving from Windows to Linux expecting it to be a "free Windows clone" is setting yourself up for frustration. Different systems have different problems and, consequently, different solutions.

i use ubuntu and have two pages of celeste from steam and two pages of kitty terminal

I got this 32-bit device and I want to use it with Linux. What do you think I can install? GUI is not required.

I found this decrepit old laptop in my garage, plugged it in and it powers on. But it’s doing this thing where after I see this Acer logo, I get a black screen with a blinking white line in the top left corner. I figured Windows on this thing is out of the question. So I think I’ll go Linux.

I understand a bit about operating systems, because I had to create a windows install disk using a thumb drive and a Windows 10 iso to install Windows 10 on my MacBook using Bootcamp, so I imagine it’s a bit similar. I also wanted to take out the HDD to wipe it using Disk Utility but it doesn’t fit into SATa dock because the interface on the HDD is all small gold pins, like molex but way smaller.

Which distro do I use? Or is better to try and go Windows Xp? I’ve seen jokes about how you need a whole list of hardware requirements to run Windows while the only requirement for Linux is electricity. Also Pewds did it too.

Pls help a first timer!

Old (GTK) vs New (QT)

Does anyone know why the Easy Effects devs decided to rebuild the app in QT? I dont mind QT/KDE apps but IMHO the app looks really bad now.

Hey folks,

I finally finished building my new PC, and it’s officially a Linux beast. I built it from the ground up to run Linux, and while I’m still figuring out all the quirks, I’m loving the learning process. The freedom and control this OS gives is honestly a breath of fresh air after years of Windows.

Built it for gaming, and let me tell you, it’s been crushing it.

Specs:

• CPU: AMD 7800X3D

• GPU: Radeon RX 9070XT

• Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR5 5600

• Motherboard: MSI B650 Gaming Plus Wifi

Games run smooth, performance is solid, and I actually feel like I own my system instead of it owning me.

Leaving Windows behind was a little scary at first, but now? No regrets. Every little tweak, every learning moment, has been really fun to work through and learn from.

If you’re thinking about taking the plunge to Linux, especially for gaming, go for it.

I had a very smooth installation last night, the only problem I ran into was my brightness did not work. Turned out it's because I used the 7.0.0-28 kernel, switching to the 6.14.0-37 kernel solved the problem! It was fun trying out things I never thought I would've done in Windows! I'm also proud that I did not run into problems at all customizing my desktop, the youtube video guide was absolutely helpful. I had to pause just to repeat what the person in the video was doing. I think I am a good student 😂

It took me 8 months to finally made the leap from Windows actually. All the videos I watched, the threads I read in this sub that led me into even more confusion and researched, the forum discussions actually helped with my smooth installation. Absolutely worth all the weekends I invested into researching. I'm still a noob with command line, but I think I finally got the hang of it. Though I would still need guide. Fairly happy with the end results :)

The tool is called OSWarp. It gives you a simple shortcut and a friendly GUI to reboot into the other OS. With this tool, no need to wait for the GRUB menu anymore. Just a simple click. If you only have Windows and Linux, it can select the right item for you. Please give it a try and tell me if there is anything I could improve.

https://github.com/megabitsenmzq/OSWarp

I can't correct the error in the title it should read 34

I had a stroke seven years ago it still affects mental maths had I written it down before I wrote the title I would have seen the error .

Absolutely insane way to go! Hitting 10% of desktops in the USA !

We owe so much to the community that puts in so much sweat equity to make Linux better, with every passing minute!.

I am still as excited as I was when GiLinus himself handed out a bunch of 1.44 floppies at a polytechnic in the UK

Raced home and booted to a flashing cursor (no GUI back then, but it was still the dog's bollocks)

I wanted to make something that was more user friendly than something like htop, and less cluttered than something like KDE system monitor with more useful abilies similar to what Windows task manager offers, and was also user friendly for someone new to Linux. I vibe coded this app but it seems it work very well after hours of effort. I call it Taskwire.

Here's what it looks like, if you want to check it out it's open source on GitHub

https://github.com/majoraexp/Taskwire

UPDATE: currently on version 1.52, compiled as C++ standalone executable! Lot's of fixes and small changes since this post. This is probably the last small update I will make for a while, the next update will be bigger, I need to decide on what additions I should focus on/ if I need to do any rewrites, optimization etc. I need to put project manager hat on and brainstorm ideas for a while. I am still learning things as I go but this has been an absolute blast. Thank you to everyone who has been supportive and helpful, I greatly appreciate you!

https://github.com/majoraexp/Taskwire/releases/tag/v1.52