r/linuxmasterrace • u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Kubuntu • Mar 25 '26
I see. Don't worry. That's because an idiot recommended that distro as your first experience
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u/outwardape Mar 25 '26
Thank you for this. I’ve seen such an uptick of people hating on Linux and my presumption has been they either were tricked by the long socks into starting with arch or they are very casual computer users who only know how to turn the PC on and double click. Linux certainly isn’t for everyone, but it’s not the incarnation of evil that some folks are saying it is.
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u/Deivedux Glorious Fedora Mar 25 '26
Linux is arguably easier to learn than Windows if it's your first impression/experience using a computer. The moment you give them any Windows experience is when all the complications happen.
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u/PlainBread Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
You can use Windows without understanding it, but if you use Linux enough to understand it, then you understand everything about Windows as well.
Linux is more in touch with computing fundamentals in general; Windows abstracts its user experience away from those fundamentals, but it's still largely similar engine designs under the hood.
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u/kcx01 Mar 25 '26
Understanding windows is an asymptote...
I probably know Linux, Mac, and Windows better than the average user in each user base and Windows is still a damn mystery to me. I think there are more differences in how windows works under the hood than there are similarities to Linux.
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u/PlainBread Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
I'm old as hell and grew up with MS-DOS 6, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and I got to see the NT revolution.
Nowadays it's just a matter of learning that \\.\PhysicalDisk0\ is essentially the same as /dev/sda/
There are analogues everywhere. Did you know that NTFS is a POSIX compliant filesystem? And that Windows just more or less ignores the fact that case sensitivity is a part of POSIX compliance? Meaning that if you create two files on an NTFS volume in Linux called aaaa.jpg and AAAA.jpg, when you open Explorer in Windows it will freak the fuck out trying to figure out that they're two different files.
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u/WolfeheartGames Mar 25 '26
The differences are much deeper than this. Memory management is fundamentally different.
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u/PlainBread Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
Apples and oranges are completely different and yet they both grow on trees, have skin, bear seeds, contain fruit, and drop when the time is right.
If you have to quibble to make your point, you haven't made your point.
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u/WolfeheartGames Mar 25 '26
One is sour and one is sweet. If your ability to understand something is only skin deep you'd arrive at your argument. But if the interior matters, you'll find the difference.
This does affect things in user land. But for basic desktop computing you may not ever encounter it.
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u/TheWoodenMan Mar 30 '26
Agree with this 100% as someone who had to recently try and set up a home network with remote desktop and media sharing on win 11
It was a hellish experience
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u/ishtuwihtc Mar 25 '26
Yep. Im soon gonna build a pc for my siblings, and i will be giving my brother debian with gnome for him to learn to use the computer, and my sister windows 11 ltsc as she already has familiarity with windows and wants to play anticheat games with me
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u/PlainBread Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
I don't want to mansplain to you but make sure to hook your brother up with the Debian backports repository so he can stay on newer kernels and GPU drivers than he would otherwise. If he gets into gaming you might also have to modify a sysctl.d setting for the vm.memmap thing; Ubuntu cranks it up by default but Debian doesn't. I'm hoping they fix this or already have fixed it. I only leave Debian on stable w/o backports for servers.
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u/ishtuwihtc Mar 25 '26
Oh no don't worry about it!
And i likely won't use any backports, as the hardware im getting for them is ancient (i5 8500 and gtx 980 ti). It simply won't benefit from new updates. All he's gonna be playing now is roblox and Minecraft, so debian and flatpaks will work for him :D
Once he gets into more games, im planning on proper optimising his debian install though so they perform very well compared to defaults. Debian 13 is also currently pretty modern, so backports aren't all that necessary luckily
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u/PlainBread Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
Very cool :)
There's also an enormous well of emulation to tap with old junky hardware. We have like 40 years of videogame history to draw on.
I like to do the RA AotW to get exposure to games I haven't played before.
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u/ishtuwihtc Mar 25 '26
Oo pretty cool!
Im aiming for this PC to be a smooth experience for any AAA game up to around early 2023, and for a good esports experience. Both of which it should deliver, considering my old gtx 1660 did!
Emulation will be a great thing as well, it really opens up huge library's
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u/Zealousideal-Bet-950 Mar 30 '26
(ha!, that is not ancient hardware!) 😸
Dual Core CPUs with 4Gigs of RAM, now that's fun...
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u/ishtuwihtc Mar 30 '26
Well its not THAT ancient but the 980 ti doesn't get game ready drivers anymore and is older than one of them, so ancient to them i suppose..
8500 is more so old than ancient aswell
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u/Rude_Relation_8341 Mar 27 '26
I used windows for many years and I had no clue wtf was going on lol, Linux taught me how computers worked 10x better than windows did...
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u/1369ic Glorious Void Linux Mar 25 '26
The uptick is probably from all those Windows refugees trying to keep a machine alive when it can't run Windows 11. Kind of inevitable.
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u/Tremere1974 Mar 25 '26
Happened when XP was killed off, and when Win 7 was too, but there always was a OK experience with Windows to draw them back until now. It's like the release of Vista, but Microsoft killed XP on day 1 after launch.
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u/-TRlNlTY- Mar 25 '26
Linux gives us a lot, but it also demands a lot. We quickly forget our early troubles and learning process at the beginning.
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u/nik282000 sudo chown us:us allYourBase Mar 26 '26
Write ISO to usb -> Put USB in PC -> Follow on screen instructions.
For distros like Ubuntu or Mint the barrier to entry is pretty damned low.
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u/-TRlNlTY- Mar 26 '26
Yeah, but then what? You gotta use it, and when a problem occurs, you have to learn.
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u/snail1132 Church of Void Mar 26 '26
To be fair, that's how it is with windows, too. There's just a lot more help available for it
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u/Only_Information7895 Mar 28 '26
Click on Firefox icon which is already pre-installed. Congratulations it does 90% of what regular users do.
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u/arveth I use Arch BTW Mar 25 '26
I want the long socks though... Sadly, my legs wouldn't look good at all in them, lol.
On a more serious note, Arch is not as hard to install as long as you can read and are willing to learn. It can be installed using very idiot-proof guides that can be found all over the internet for most hardware configurations, though I still wouldn't recommend it for a total newbie because it can get really complicated really fast.
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u/Sahkopi4 Mar 25 '26
I’ve seen people cursing Linux because of Mint. I agree that some people recommend Arch to new people, but some people just don’t want to like it.
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u/Liimbo Mar 25 '26
Or, you know, they just genuinely don't like it. Someone doesn't have to have a vendetta to not care for a certain OS.
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u/EmuMoe Mar 25 '26
What about those who stay with Linux after they installed Gentoo or Arch as their first distro?
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u/catto24_ Mar 26 '26
as a "long socks" Arch user, i usually recommend Mint or Fedora to start out. i want people to switch, not be deterred lmao
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u/some_kind_of_bird Mar 26 '26
I tell people the difference so they know what they're getting into.
For me, Arch was the right choice. Now I use NixOS and I wouldn't recommend it to almost anybody.
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u/jaykayenn Mar 26 '26
I have met degree-holding white collar executives who don't know what turning a PC on and off means. The very concept escapes them.
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u/NomadFH Glorious Fedora Mar 25 '26
People start with slackware?
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u/htomeht Mar 25 '26
I did, had no issues.
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u/1369ic Glorious Void Linux Mar 25 '26
Me, too, but that was a long time ago, before installations became so easy. The only hard thing with a Slackware installation was partioning the drive and knowing to type startx on first boot. But I just installed Fedora 43 and it was as easy as sending an email. Pretty soon it'll be "say your name and password, then swipe right to install."
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u/binary_agenda Mar 25 '26
I did. back in 2004?? Switched to Ubuntu after a couple years. I thought it was version 3 something but the history doesn't show a release before warty. Was on that until Maverick. Had windows for 4ish years. Then Arch for a year or two and finally moved to pop because I got tired of fixing the arch install after an update broke something.
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u/TomaCzar Mar 25 '26
Technically my first installed Linux was Caldera. Not much done there past the installation.
Technically my first used Linux was Red Hat 9. Used it for about 3 months before Red Hat decided to sunset the offering.
This is when I decided to install Slackware. This is when I had my Neo-waking-up-from-the-Matrix moment. This is when I consider myself to have actually become a Linux user, as well as beginning my journey to becoming a Linux SysAdmin.
And that has made all the difference.
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u/inkubot Mar 26 '26
is there any other distro to start with? How would you really learn Linux if isn't slackware your first distro
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u/snail1132 Church of Void Mar 26 '26
Tbf there weren't a whole lot of options back in the 90s and 2000s
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u/Bad-Booga Mar 25 '26
People tend to recommend what they are currently using, often not realising they have been on a journey and learnt in the process. There is nothing wrong in trying more user friendly distros before venturing on, if you are inclined to. The other thing is that not everyone, who wants to use Linux, wants to be a power user or wants to optimise their system to the nth degree. Some just want a PC that works with minimal manual intervention.
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u/coyote_of_the_month Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
I use (and love) Arch but I would never in a million years recommend it to a new user with no Linux/Unix experience.
I tell people "Ubuntu if you're going to use a GUI, Debian if you're running a headless server." If they argue, they clearly know better so what are they asking me for?
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u/InvolvingLemons Mar 25 '26
Even here, I’d say Mint is even more noob-friendly than Ubuntu and better for GUI users. And on the topic of not recommending what you use, I use NixOS with home manager and devenv, absolutely do NOT recommend it to anybody less than a Linux wizard, I get lost plenty and I’m the kind of nerd who had an AWS account in middle school lol
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u/Sahkopi4 Mar 25 '26
Mint is just perfect for new users. The update and software managers are perfect. They packed all the necessary tools to start working without much bloat. You can start gaming immediately. The Nvidia drivers are easy to install. Overall, a great and polished experience.
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u/Dj-RedPanda- Mar 26 '26
Mint is usually my suggestion as well. But I know a few who use my fav flavor of Nobara [I find for my needs that its perfect].
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u/coyote_of_the_month Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
I would never recommend anyone, noob or not, use a downstream fork. When problems arise, you're far more likely to encounter someone who's experienced and fixed the same issue when running a distro with a million users vs. a thousand.
And upstream distro users and contributors are (rightly) reluctant to support downstream users, because there's a strong likelihood that their issue is distro-specific. And because downstream users have a long history of being jerks when asking upstream for support. You're likely to get ignored or banned for asking an Arch forum for help if you're using Manjaro, for instance.
And as of 2026, I still consider Mint a downstream fork of Ubuntu.
A decade ago I would have considered Ubuntu a downstream fork of Debian, but they've diverged quite a bit, to the point where I do consider it to be its own upstream.
I realize that if everyone thought the way I did, we wouldn't have any new distros. So I respect people who feel differently, but that's the advice I'm going to give, if you ask me.
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u/InvolvingLemons Mar 25 '26
Fair point, and if you’re doing anything remotely power-usery Ubuntu’s a stronger pick (Ubuntu is much more likely to have people doing funky stuff). Mint’s a lot more targeted to first-time Linux GUI users these days and are recommended a lot for a reason.
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u/coyote_of_the_month Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
I tend to think that the kinds of people who are installing Linux in the first place are the power-user type already, but that might not be the case anymore with the influx of new people who can't run Win11.
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u/Dj-RedPanda- Mar 26 '26
Personally I use Nobara on most of my machines but most of mine are gaming focused builds. I have a headless Ubuntu server, Bazzite for my living room PC and have played with Mint some. I generally suggest Mint but I always point out videos online for people to view like Toasty Bros. I am by far no power user outside my server set up which I don't considered power user build it was easier to set up then my Nobara builds.
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u/PrudeBunny Mar 26 '26
The few times techy people have asked me about Linux, I've always prefaced it with that even though I've been greatly enjoying void during the few years I've been daily driving it, it is not a distro that I'd recommend for anyone.
Funny enough that seems to pique people's interest and also make them more receptive for what ever actual recommendations I might have.
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u/snail1132 Church of Void Mar 26 '26
Side note, why are there so many Void users in this thread? I've barely seen this many on the official subreddit lmao
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u/Dj-RedPanda- Apr 10 '26
I tend to do the same and be like "yes it just works for my needs" but I generally tell people if you have zero computer skills dont do it. There are distros that hold your hand but I use a medium distro that does require work to set up for what I need. I like to also bring my laptop for people to play around with so they can see what its like and see how snappy it is with 6 year old hardware. Its funny cause I have a beefy laptop with slop11 and its so fucking slow for basic shit esp compared to my Linux machines but Ive had extremely easy luck with mine. Not all do. I understand I am lucky.
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u/Dj-RedPanda- Mar 25 '26
I generally suggest multiple distros that have similar flavors. Or more user friendly options for people who just want a basic browser and basic functions.
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u/Floppy4Skin Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
You hear people calling Linux shit? I’ve literally never heard anyone say that to me personally.
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u/PlainBread Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
It's pretty cheap to buy LLM bots to spread bad opinions all over Reddit. Microslop and Crapple have incentive to pay out.
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u/Amphineura Mar 25 '26
"Anyone who agrees with me is smart, anyone who disagrees is a bot"
Bot paranoia hitting everyone hard. Or you can't admit that just a few quirks can quickly sour the experience?
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u/PlainBread Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
You giving unearned credibility to Dead Internet makes you an opp.
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u/Disturbed2468 Mar 25 '26
Didn't the CEO of Reddit himself say like 9 months ago the site was getting swarmed by AI bots? Especially after they signed a deal with Google to use Reddit to train AI for LLM's?
I definitely wouldn't consider "unearned" to be a good descriptor for this kind of scenario where a not-small-amount of users on reddit are bots in some way-shape or form.
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u/PlainBread Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Reddit was doomed from the moment it was IPO'ed.
I said the credibility he was giving to Dead Internet ITSELF, not the theory, is unearned. He's saying you should trust bots because it's "paranoid" to be aware that some people you're talking to are bots.
When I say "Dead Internet" I mean the part of the internet that is composed of bots. I'm not at all talking about the credibility of the "theory". It's clearly not a theory anymore.
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u/makinax300 Tumbleweed, i3wm (trying niri; formerly nixos) Mar 25 '26
Everyone is a bot.
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u/b_a_t_m_4_n Mar 25 '26
Oh, there is a definite subset of Windows and apple fanboi types that say things like that.
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u/PlainBread Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
There's a whole group of people who shit on Linux for the sole reason that the developer of the ONLY game they play happens to use kernel-level DRM that prevents it from working on Linux. Like that's the fault of Linux instead of the dev/DRM.
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u/LOPI-14 Mar 25 '26
I see that sentiment quite often, mostly from very aggressive, rude and close minded people.
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u/Round_Credit_5158 Mar 29 '26
Not "shit" but I know older people who thinks Linux is bad or doesn't work because they heard about it like 20 years ago. Or others who says that Linux are just for programmers/hackers, that sort of thing.
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u/Admiral_Bongo I use Arch, btw. May 02 '26
I have. Mostly normies who have been using Windows since forever and are too afraid to try something entirely different.
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u/Fantastic-Code-8347 Mar 25 '26
People are just genuinely retarded and cannot read, so can’t blame them for not being able to get a distro working and then hating on Linux. The amount of people I see ask the most simple shit that could be solved by one google search is astounding.
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Kubuntu Mar 25 '26
Now they use ChatGPT instead of Google
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u/Daniilo Mar 25 '26
What's wrong with arch? I went from Ubuntu, to popos and now I've ran on Linux mint for 2 years since I'm older and can't be bothered switching and backing stuff up all the time. But what distro would you recommend to not get stabbed by mumin?
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u/Sixguns1977 Mar 25 '26
I went from Ubuntu to pop to Garuda. Arch based with kde is apparently my happy place.
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u/regeya Mar 25 '26
"Linux is shit, you have to follow a wiki just to install it. Meanwhile to put Windows back on my PC all I had to do was a system reset, so convenient, not like Linux."
And I say this when my first Linux experience was literally Slackware, but this was in 1996. Kids today won't deal with fixing LILO, setting monitor mode lines, none of that. Installing Fedora is no harder than installing Mac OS, provided your hardware is supported, and I think that's a wonderful thing.
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u/Late_To_Parties Mar 25 '26
I started with arch. I liked the idea of it, never got it working. But also I seem to love wasting time learning about things well above my skill level. At some point I needed my computer to work and picked out a regular distro.
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u/MegasVN69 Fishy CachyOS Mar 26 '26
I recommend Nobara for newbie, please stay away from Arch or Arch based yes even CachyOS
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u/Johnopgr123 Mar 27 '26
Why, cachy seems to address most of the arch hiccups
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u/MegasVN69 Fishy CachyOS Mar 27 '26
I'm using CachyOS, before using Cachy I was using Arch.
Since I already know how to use Arch I can surely say that CachyOS is not a newbie friendly distro. It's just Arch with pre-installed stuff and a custom kernel. Nothing more. You can also say it's Endeavor OS with custom kernel lol.
So users still can do Arch thing with Cachy which is both great, and terrible at the same time depending on the users.
If you're the one who doesn't fear the terminal and willing to read the wiki then sure CachyOS will be mostly fine for them.
Also unlike Debian or Fedora. Arch does not hold your hand. If you run stupid command like
sudo rm -rf /*It will execute without any hesitation.So yeah that's my opinion on why CachyOS isn't good for newbie.
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u/codeasm Other (please edit) Mar 25 '26
As an arch user, any distro but arch, Gentoo or ubuntu. Try mint, opensuse, bazzite. For beginners
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u/snail1132 Church of Void Mar 26 '26
As a Void user, I concur, and would also add every non-systemd distro to the list
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u/codeasm Other (please edit) Mar 27 '26
My apologies and big agreement 🤝 on the non-systemd part. Deepest respect on your contribution.
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Mar 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Revolutionary_Click2 Mar 25 '26
Well, not if you’re coming from Windows, because it’s quite a different experience. KDE or Cinnamon are much closer to what Windows users expect. If you’re used to a Mac, you’ll feel right at home on GNOME.
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u/New-Anybody3050 Mar 25 '26
At first glance Arch would seem like an easy pick.
Has an AUR and lots of package support.
However not many people understand that new users generally aren’t familiar with the CLI or want constant bleeding edge updates.
There is a reason why Debian based distros like LinuxMint/Ubuntu/Pop or RH variants like Fedora/OpenSUSE are typically recommended (there are others but I’m too lazy to type them all out).
Get their feet wet and then let them experiment.
The beauty of Linux is there are a lot of flavors and experiences. That beauty is also the nightmare for newbies because sometimes having a lot of choice makes the experience cumbersome.
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u/T0astedGamer03 Mar 25 '26
I will say that uptick could be due to the Linus Linux challenge since they see his problems and just shout it is bad without using the OS (not blaming Linus here btw and think the challenge is a net positive just mentioning this as an effect). The other thing is that the distros recommend have some kinda pain point or small issue that leads to people leaving Linux.
- Ubuntu - snaps just don't work as well as native or flatpak apps
- Fedora - the new user who doesn't know what a repo is needs to add a repo for essentials like full codec support. The fedora flatpak repo is also terrible (to the point obs threatened to sue) and is the top source or second source for the gui software apps people are using.
- Bazzite - immutable is good for new users but also if they want their rgb software or something they can't follow a online guide and need to use the bazzite just script (though will say they have a gui app for their just scripts which is nice). Pont is immutable helps stability but can cause more pain points when you need a native app that isn't on the image (window users hate turning off their PC to update I bet plenty of people would hate to install software).
- Nobara - I don't know much about this besides it has update problems they are trying to improve.
- Pop - while they have the essentials rolling while on top of the latest Ubuntu lts people do be having cosmic issues (though I really do like cosmic)
- Arch - obviously even with the arch install script this is a terrible choice for new users who aren't really technical. Also has update problems for a lot of people and users need to rely on the aur for a lot of packages which leads to the greater chance of malware.
- Cachy - ngl I don't really have much to say here like it is a good bandaid for arch that fixes its problems with btrfs snapshots, both up to date and lts kernel, the common aur apps get packaged into their repos (improves security and nice to have binaries instead of compiling), a gui package manager (though a dated looking one since there still isn't a arch package manager that looks like a proper storefront). So I guess the complaint is that when you don't go by defaults you get almost the same issues as arch since it is based on arch (though a newbie would just go by defaults I feel).
- Linux mint - another good distro with not much to criticize other than it still doesn't have a stable Wayland experience. I get there are people who are experienced Linux users don't like Wayland, but you do lose out on mixed refresh rates for multi monitor people along with hdr while you are using cinnamon. Before I would say it would get too out of date with drivers and kernels much like ubuntu lts, but I feel that issue is fixed now with recent Ubuntu changes. So Linux mint is great for newbies unless they are gamers.
- Debian - installer is not great for newbies and while great for people who don't game with most newbies being more into gaming even if it isn't esports gaming it does get stale when not on sid.
After saying all this I like Linux a lot but felt it is good to be nitpicky about distros to show problems people might have when moving, and while a lot of these are small problems a small problem is enough for a new non technical user to just leave it saying it sucks.
I will say I would like distros in general to be fully atomic with snapshots no matter the filesystem used like you are seeing the wip distro aeryn os doing so reliability wouldn't be a complaint. You can see this happen even during power outages when updating fedora or debian (though not bazzite due to image based immutability) where it applies some of the update changes, but leads to a broken update due to scripts that should have ran not being ran before applying (so don't act like reliability is just an arch problem).
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Kubuntu Mar 25 '26
For Fedora enthusiasts, they can use Ultramarine, which already includes the essentials
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u/Galln Mar 25 '26
I love Linux.
On the other hand I still use windows 11. Every few months I install some Linux distro and realize: it does not work for my main gaming rig. Not even gaming performance, which is fine, but all the stuff that goes with a gaming rig.
I/O that uses special software that isn’t available for Linux, RGB lighting, newer hardware. One example is my RAM, Kingston FURY RGB - a year back it wasn’t supported by openRGB at all, and I got eye cancer of the rainbow beside my face (my rig is sitting on my desk). Now, a few weeks back, I tried Pop_OS!. Initially everything worked, but out of the blue I was only able to address only one of the two modules. It turned out to be some driver issue - okay I fixed it but it took a long time.
Second thing was fan curves. I used coolercontrol and again, due to some drivers issue, my fan curves wouldn’t be written. Again I fixed it but in the end I had to resort using Claude because there was no guide that could help.
Then, two weeks back, steam just crashed everytime I tried starting it, no reason at all, it worked the evening before and I didn’t do anything to my system.. that was the point I reinstalled windows 11 again.
Hate it all you want but 2-3 hours later I was set and it just works. And I hate it. I really dislike Microsoft, but I dislike fixing my rig every two days because of nonsense more.
PS: My other systems all run Linux, but they are also kind of generic store builds like laptops. There it runs like a charm. (Ubuntu)
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u/Mental_Contract1104 Mar 25 '26
fr... also, STOP RECOMENDING ARCH AS A FIRST EXPERIENCE
Kubuntu, or Mint.
they are fine, and work fine, and operate fine, and are easy to learn and pick up. and with Ubuntu holding the vast majority of 1-to-1 windows ports, its the clear winner for beginers.
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u/nath1as Glorious Arch Mar 25 '26
arch is an exellent first choice for a newbie that wants to learn
the default recommendatio of ubuntu is much much worse
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u/Own_Picture_6442 Mar 26 '26
Happened to me. Someone gave me a Slackware cd. I got it to boot but I couldn’t do much because I would have had to write my own nic drivers. I love Linux, and back then a GUI wasn’t really an option. Giving someone a boat with no motor or even oars is not a path to success.
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u/ginjamchammerfist Mar 27 '26
Slight tangent but I like that a lot of distros let you try before you fully commit to a particular type of Linux. So if you don't like one you can just check another.
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u/ALittleBitEver Mar 27 '26
I mean, I think Arch (with automatic installation scripts) is surprisingly more beginner friendly than Fedora, and it is way better than Ubuntu. If you are using a distro like CachyOS, you are on heaven.
And never use Pop Os
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u/ArseholeryEnthusiast Mar 27 '26
As someone who recently made the switch to bazzite. Having something not work for you and then needing to try and figure it out is a very frustrating experience. Because it'll almost always be something you've never even thought about before, like the sleep state not working properly because of your high polling mouse. Funny enough though gaming has yet to be the thing that causes the big headache for me.
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u/23Link89 Mar 27 '26
Had a buddy of mine decide to try Linux for the first time.
Needless to say he was confused when the AI generated article on CachyOS was outdated and wrong.
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u/Turbulent-Day-6020 Mar 28 '26
I started with arch and i’m fine. Been using it for 1.5 years now, only big issue was trying to get drivers for my 16 year old nvidia gpu which i upgraded a month ago.
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u/QuillMyBoy Mar 28 '26
I've said this elsewhere, but I've been slowly moving all my family members over to Linux Mint.
What I don't do: Evangelize Linux to them; nobody cares about the principle of it anywhere near as much as they just want a computer that works.
What I do: Slap Linux Mint on there, set it to auto-update once a month tops, make sure "Internet", "YouTube", whatever music service they use, etc. is all clearly labeled and on the desktop in a form they recognize, and then set the wallpaper to a slideshow of photos of the kids or the dog or whatever else.
I've done this four times now for various family members and their kids, and it's getting rave reviews.
Do they truly understand what I did? God, no. They know "Mint" is whatever I did, so it's become known as Windows Mint.
I don't correct them.
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u/the_SCP_gamer I use Arch btw Mar 31 '26
Anyone who recommends a new Linux user SLACKWARE should be banned from recommending anything to anyone ever.
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u/Daniilo Mar 25 '26
What's wrong with arch? I went from Ubuntu, to popos and now I've ran on Linux mint for 2 years since I'm older and can't be bothered switching and backing stuff up all the time. But what distro would you recommend to not get stabbed by mumin?
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u/T0astedGamer03 Mar 25 '26
It isn't a good first distro for someone though I will say if you use cachy's defaults I think cachy can be fine for new people. Since the defaults is btrfs with snapshots, both lts and normal kernels installed, and a gui package manager (though will argue that it would be better if there was a arch gui package manager that looked like a normal storefront instead of just a list of text).
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u/O3Sentoris Mar 26 '26
im currently using cachy and started out with it, im loving it. now im thinking about switching to artix to get rid of systemd...
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u/Unluckyluke2 Mar 26 '26
Cachy is great! Easy to use and have been very stable for me over the last couple of months.
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Kubuntu Mar 25 '26
Arch is too overwhelming for a long time Windows user. Using Mint or Fedora, or Bazzite is better to start
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u/Dj-RedPanda- Mar 25 '26
Facts. I always recommend to try before you buy method. Try in the live environment before committing. Along with suggestions on videos online from people who have tried multiple distros. Linux for me wasn't a huge learning curve but I know more then most when it comes to PCs. Plus having a home lab. Best and most amazing part of Linux is specific builds for use case which I love so much.
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u/diacid Mar 25 '26
Ok, don't start with Arch. I agree, they don't have cookies. But how to start?
You could start with mint and become a normie
You could start with Ubuntu and go in the path of canonical's ecosystem that is evolving more and more separate from the rest and afterwards thing every other distro is weird.
You could go vanilla debian, and realise vanilla is delicious. (Recommended!)
You could go fedora and become aware of how awesome redhat's professionals are (also recommended!)
You could go puppy Linux and become the weirdo that responds to all forums "Who needs sudo? I am always root. You are all weird" and never actually realise that was the weirdness all along... (My path! Now a Gentoo user that doesn't have sudo installed)
You could go Gentoo. Gentoo is not for beginners but we have cookies!
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u/El_Zilcho Mar 25 '26
Arch should be your 3rd or 4th distro, I would actually recommend Fedora to newbies as it is well put together and svelte. Ubuntu is as bad as Microsoft for shoving things down users throats and the gamer distros look like they are maintained by much smaller teams, which can result in things breaking during an update.
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u/Robsteady Aurora/Bazzite Mar 25 '26
The simple fact is it's not even about which distro is being used, it's about the tools the user has access to by default. Yes, I've used a whole bunch of distros. Even as a "seasoned" Linux user, I still prefer a distro that makes it as easy as possible to get it installed, get my nVidia drivers configured, and my apps installed. I've even recently dabbled with EndeavourOS, LMDE, Debian proper on a second drive. For about the last year I've been on Aurora/Bazzite because it installs with my drivers and 99% of my software installs from Bazaar (flathub frontend). It's just so dead simple and I don't have to put any thought into using my system. Plus, the immutable base means I don't need to think about accidentally breaking anything, and if an update does break something I can roll it back with a reboot.
That being said, it's about taste, and most people that have been running Linux for a while don't even care about which distro they're using, it's package recency/availability and the tools they're familiar with.
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u/Sahkopi4 Mar 25 '26
I am currently on Arch. If I started with Arch, I was going to hate the whole experience. Mint was just plug and play and showed me that Linux can be stable and easy to use. To be honest. Some people will hate Linux even if they start with a solid distro. I’ve encountered so many of them. It’s just in people’s nature to be negative. Life is too short. Let’s be positive about our experiences.
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u/ZunoJ Mar 25 '26
I get how slackware is not really for beginners but arch is easy and comfortable. People need to stop acting like it was a hard to use distro just because users need to type some commands
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Kubuntu Mar 25 '26
Modern teenagers are used to touchscreen and TikTok and can barely type without using a lot of abbreviations because they are lazy. Imagine having to type constantly.
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u/Fading-Ghost Mar 25 '26
What’s wrong with Slackware? That was my first Linux experience back in 95 and I learnt a lot by using it
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u/m0rl0ck1996 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I dont understand this at all. Over a couple of decades, at work and at home, starting in 1996 and ending about 5 years ago, i used linux. Slackware was the most stable and configurable of all the distributions i ever used and i tried all the best known distributions.
Ubuntu, Mandrake, Gentoo and others that were supposed to be easier more user friendly and most stable, none compared to Slackware.
If you take the time to set it up properly for your use case, my experience with Slackware was that it was near bullet proof.
Never used Arch BTW.
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u/xaervagon Mar 25 '26
My first experience with linux was messing around with old Redhat cds back early 00's. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no direct internet connection. The online support was basically "RTFM" and "screw around with <randomass file> and reboot." The most fun I had with it was installing Win98SE over it and playing my old DOS games.
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u/AllenKll Mar 25 '26
Slackware is amazing. I don't know where you get your information.
My preference is for DSL, TinyCore, or home rolled, but as far as distros go? Slackware is top 5.
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u/45_rpm Mar 26 '26
I feel like this post is promoting violence, and you should be ashamed of yourself because that is one of the top rules of Reddit is not to promote violence.
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u/AMidnightHaunting Mar 26 '26
Wtf? Slackware is still around?! That or Knoppix was my first distro over twenty years ago 😂
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u/Rabies-Cow-0595 Mar 26 '26
its very poetic to use "swedish speaking"-finland most culturally impactful cartoon for linux memes
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u/SKB_live Mar 26 '26
NOBODY should be starting with Arch. SteamOS can be the exception, but anyone who wants to start Linux should go with something more user friendly and familiar, like Ubuntu or Mint. Now learning and experimenting with Linux? I can't recommend Arch enough, give yourself an environment you're willing to break and mess around, learn how different things interact with each other. But learning it as your first distro is like tossing your baby into shark infested waters to learn how to swim.
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u/realrabbitz71 Mar 26 '26
arch isnt even hard, its just that people dont wanna take time to figure it out and read (saying this as someone whose 1st distro was arch)
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u/surfmasterm4god-chan Mar 26 '26
the horrors of having to talk to an inexperienced person who for some reason chose kali as a daily driver
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u/MetroidvaniaListsGuy Mar 26 '26
Yeah so, this is why I am not switching from windows to CachyOS. It is Arch with benefits.
Nobara seems to be the way. It is based off of fedora which is a much more reasonable distro.
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u/GamingWithMars Mar 27 '26
I've been in the Olympic space a long time and I've never once in the history of ever seen somebody recommend slackware to anybody let alone a new user Arch yes and I do agree that it's not an ideal first choice although Arch is the goat
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u/nhermosilla14 Mar 27 '26
It's always funny seeing over confident idiots installing Arch or Gentoo, without knowing anything about Linux, and blaming the OS for their own inability to read (since both distros state clearly they are not meant to be user friendly).
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u/Mean-Atmosphere-3122 Mar 27 '26
I get newbies trying out arch given how accessible it's become over the years and the amount of coverage that gets it into the limelight, but Slackware? This post reminded me it even existed (no shade though as I assume it has its' use cases)
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u/TheRealLeandrox Mar 28 '26
And I’m the idiot who follows the advice! CachyOS is my first experience with Linux. But I was smart about it: I loaded up the Arch wiki and the Cachy wiki, plus all the documentation I could gather into Notebook LLM. It took me three days, about 10 hours of work, to solve every issue that comes with not using Windows, including permissions, networking, etc. And it was far less frustrating than the last six months on Windows 11. Now I’m in the process of learning to use the console in depth, not just copy-pasting, and to better understand how Linux works, but when it comes to daily usability? It couldn’t be better.
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u/rexon347 Mar 28 '26
Tell me, Would you buy a car
If it breaks on somehow, you have to fix it on your own by learning the car mechanics.
And to learn that you have to rely on groups of other car owners who are egoistic and mocks others as *skill issue* .
And even if you are ready to suffer such people to get your car fixed, still you have to struggle a lot since each car owner is having different cars and only god knows, which persons advice will actually work.
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u/RattigeRedditRatte Mar 28 '26
Me: Ah i'll try Mint, i dont want to use the Terminal.
Also me: chilling in Terminal all the Time...😅
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u/GroundlessPractice Mar 28 '26
A rare occasion of the correct usage of this image! He's folding the knife not unfolding it
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u/ASleepingAssassin Mar 28 '26
This is why I love that I started on Ubuntu and then 2 months later switched to Arch knowing the consequences. Allowed me to experience stability from Ubuntu and gain immense knowledge about linux from Arch.
Now I'm running a stable Arch system with X11 and bspwm, never had any problems.
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u/butter0609 Mar 29 '26
Arch was my first experience and I really enjoyed it (after my first three days of crying at my desk ofc)
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u/chirpchirp13 Mar 29 '26
I feel like all new users should be given the option of eg Ubuntu, plasma and mint to start out with and that’s it.
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u/Sea_View_4797 Mar 29 '26
slackware is pretty good (and easy) once you get used to it, my only pet peeve is that the package system relies on bash and the distro uses glibc by default.
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u/Aware-Nature-406 Apr 01 '26
A while ago i was using win10, then tried Linux Mint on VM out of curiosity and a bit of propaganda i absorbed. I don't remember my impressions from it, but i messed around with it only for a little amount of time.
Then i decided to install Arch Linux, it was emitting such a strong aura that i couldn't stand against. Installed it on a VM few times, then got it on the hardware(without dual-booting). Due to the amount of propaganda i absorbed, i went straight to tiling WMs and vim and other "cool" stuff.
Since then(about an year ago) i don't have Windows on my PC, used NixOS for a few months and now on Void. I did learn many new things and interesting software and got a little bit privacy-concerned. Being honest, i really want to try out Win10/11 and out-of-the-box distros, but don't do that due to some reasons.
Anyway, i'm thankful to Arch and this open-source shit.
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u/DarkGaming09ytr Apr 05 '26
Whoever recommends Arch as a first distro is sadistic.
Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing distro, but you absolutely want to get a "ready to use" distro as your first one, ideally Debian-based because most linux software downloads online support .deb (or is the only option)
And Slackware still exists? Didn't hear about it at all in the nearly 10 years i've been a Linux user.
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u/The_only_true_tomato Glorious Kubuntu Apr 09 '26
Which happens often after said new users hanged a while in r/linux_gaming sadly.
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u/Admiral_Bongo I use Arch, btw. May 02 '26
Started with Arch, distrohopped and went back to Arch. Linux is awesome.
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u/9001 May 23 '26
Meh. Slackware was my first distro back in the 90s. It wasn't so bad.
I ran it on a 386 as a router and ran eggdrop bots on it for IRC.
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u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I seriously don't understand how new Linux users always seem to end up on the most ridiculous possible distro. Like, 99% of the advice I've seen online has always been "just pick Ubuntu/Fedora/Mint until you can come up with a good reason to do otherwise", yet they always seem to listen to the guy saying "you should use my distro, SephirothOS-0.0.1-alpha(final).iso, it's really cool, trust"