Throwaway1234

joined 8 months ago

How to choose your first distro - A guide for beginners (flowchart + text post) in c/linux@lemmy.ml

[–] Throwaway1234@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

First of all, I applaud your efforts. Making an all-encompassing guide/flowchart that is able to answer all kinds of needs that new users might have is hard and not done in just a few sittings. And it seems you're willing to iterate a couple more times until you and the community are satisfied with the end result. That's just awesome and highly commendable.

As for my personal critique, perhaps it's noteworthy that I'm not entirely satisfied with the current setup. I think the following would align better with my personal convictions on how I would assist friends and/or family with these matters:

(long text)

Step 1: Hardware probe. So, somehow establishing what we are working with as this sets severe limitations to our options. Personally I would divide this in three groups:
- potatoes; suited to run only distros like antix, puppy linux etc
- old(er) devices; suited to run DEs like Lxqt, Lxde and perhaps even Xfce etc
- 'modern' devices; suited to run DEs like Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE Plasma etc It's of course important to note that someone with 'modern' hardware is absolutely free to run something like Xfce if they like its design choices (i.e. offering a very stable experience that's unlikely to change for the sake of change). Furthermore, special attention would go out to hardware for which it's known that it requires special attention (like Nvidia GPUs etc). This should result in picking distros that are better suited for running that hardware (like Pop!_OS and uBlue for Nvidia), but also distros that specifically target a piece of hardware; like what uBlue tries to do for Framework etc.
Step 2: Investigate their intended usage and what software they would rely on. Do they absolutely need Adobe's Creative Suite? Well, then they should at least go for a dual boot or simply stay with Windows. The same would apply to any piece of software they might specifically need, but that simply does not work on Linux. Furthermore, their intended usage might be tied to their motivations for making the switch. Some of which would be: learning Linux, for Linux' improved workflow for specific use cases (programming, workflow benefits related to the use of tiling WMs, pentesting etc), privacy, reviving old(er) hardware, free as in beer, freedom to tinker to their heart's content, F(L)OSS ideology, transforming their hardware into a game console/HTPC/media-box, improved performance under some circumstances or just plain curiosity etc. Each use case comes with its accompanied set of viable distros. Of course, it's very hard to be exhaustive here. Therefore, you're absolutely forgiven for only focusing on some of the more common ones.
Step 3: Update cadence. Some people hate updates with their lifes, or only tolerate security ones. Others, simply want the latest and greatest at all times. Simultaneously, some may want said updates to occur automatically in the background, while others want deliberate control in that aspect. Lots of different distros exist with lots of different approaches to how updates are handled. As updates are our primary suspects whenever breakage occurs, it's therefore vital that the update cadence is aligned with the user's preferences. Hence a distro should be chosen accordingly.
Step 4: Priorities. Security vs convenience. Blank slate vs sane defaults. Control and responsibility vs 'managed'. Learning platform vs consumption platform. Means to an end vs end in itself. Performance vs stability; these two aren't mutually exclusive to each other, but helps in determining what the user finds important. Furthermore, ideally these should not be binary choices but allow steps in between the two ends. Finally, each of these choices should also be weighed against one another. Like, if someone highly values security over convenience and believes this choice is a lot more important to them than all of the others, then they should definitely consider Qubes OS for example. Similarly, other conclusions could be made based on a different evaluation etc.
Step 5: Desktop Environment. Based on the earlier questions, only a handful of distros should remain or perhaps it's even somewhat expected that just a specific distro remains. Regardless, most distros allow different desktop environments to be installed and thus a choice should be made between the different available options. In the case of desktop environments, one should just try out the available ones until a decisive choice can be made. Switching later on is fine anyways.

Having said all of that, whatever is mentioned above is a lot more involved than what you have currently. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if you would deem most of it out of scope.

Moving on to the actual critique:

While I (somewhat) understand why you've tried to tie one's preferences in earlier used OSes to a potential desktop environment they might like, I do think that this might set new users up for false expectations. Therefore, I would propose to not even go there. If you want them to make a conscious choice on the desktop environment, then perhaps implore them to boot a live USB environment in which they can explore it themselves. The only important thing to note would be that in all cases customization is allowed and thus they shouldn't necessarily abandon a DE for a minor issue as it's most likely easily solvable.
If this gets good (and it certainly has the potential), then only the flowchart itself will be shared while the accompanied text might be disregarded. In hopes of ensuring that others also read the accompanied text, consider to either (somehow) include the text in the image of the flowchart or include a link to the text and ensure it's easily found and one is somehow able to easily access the text through the link. This might even require a shortened custom url that redirects to the text. The exact specifics are obviously up to you though.
I can't agree with the inclusion of both Pop!_OS and Vanilla OS. Don't get me wrong, the potential is absolutely there. But both are currently in a major overhaul and need at least one or two proper releases to mature. Expecting new users to either start with the 'abandoned' old release which they might have to abandon themselves when they move over to the (eventually) matured new release or start with (at best) beta software that may come with a lot more trouble than worthwhile is IMO irresponsible.
I got a ton of smaller (personal) nitpicks, but most of those are related to scope and/or preconceived notions and therefore not worth mentioning here.

Fractional scaling help? in c/linux@lemmy.ml

[–] Throwaway1234@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

so idk why but apparently silverblue and bazzite are very difficult to dual boot. I feel like I’ve tried everything the internet has to offer.

https://lemmy.ml/comment/6941765