I've been playing around with Linux distros lately. I've had an interest for years. In fact, I bought a copy of Suse Linux in Germany 20 years ago. Yes, the man pages were in German. But with the advent of Windows 11 and the increasingly abhorrent nature of Microsux Windows, I went back to Linux looking for an alternative.
Wow, have things changed over the years. There are so many different players on the field these days! And so many different desktops! And mixing and matching of all sorts lets you customize your experience. And so many versions made expressly to welcome newcomers from the Microsux gulag. I tried several out as virtual machines, then dusted off some old hard drives and slotted them in the external holder and got to installing multiple versions. Here are my experiences on my 7 year old all-in-one computer with 16GB of ram with a dual core 2600MHz processor.
Open Suse: Slow and annoying.
Fedora (formerly Red Hat) KDE: Broken. Terrible installer. After installation it went into an infinite loop of failure, involving negative 1770 MB of updates.
KDE Neon Plasma: Really good, if a touch slow. KDE is definitely my favorite desktop environment, because it is so customizable. I like being in control of my computer, not vice-versa.
Mint Cinnamon: Excellent. The Cinnamon desktop is my runner-up to KDE. The feel is similar, but Mint just runs a bit smoother.
Peppermint: No. Just no. Errors while installing. Doesn't show newly installed programs without a reboot. Do they think this is Windows?
Zorin: Amazing. This distro is expressly made for newbies, and is remarkably helpful. When you're trying to do something, if it doesn't have what you're looking for, it can often recommend an alternative. It offers hints about what it thinks you really meant to do, that are actually helpful. The desktop layouts are limited, but they are really good. The default desktop is more or less what I work to recreate with KDE.
Feren OS: A remarkable work by one man. Really very good. It uses the KDE desktop on a Ubuntu base, with a healthy inspiration from Mint. He really is taking the best of what he finds, and sewing them together into a beautiful and functional tapestry. Privacy and anonymity are baked into everything, down to the custom browser installer app.
Pop OS: It's good, if it's the only OS you're running. Does not play well with others.
Manjaro XCFE: Fast and well done, but not to my taste. Manjaro, based on Arch, is a solid base to work with.
Manjaro Deepin: Broken. Windows are meant to move.
Manjaro Budgie: Works well, but I just don't like it.
Manjaro KDE: Excellent. I like everything about it.
Garuda KDE Dr460nized: This is the way. It's based on Arch, and feels a lot like Manjaro, but with attitude and humor built in. When I mess up typing my password, it insults me with movie and TV show quotes. I really like the desktop layout, even if some of the widgets are a bit buggy. The event calendar works properly when relocated to the bottom dock, for example. It's running really well on a 128GB USB 3.1 flash drive. Even the Grub boot screen is attractive, although secure boot doesn't recognize it.
Started moving away from Windows...wow..20 years ago?
ReplyDeleteStarted with Mandrake KDE, loved PCLinuxOS 2007, but they didn't go 64 bit until LONG after I need it for something. Eventually landed on Mint XFCE. I'd used Slackware derivatives on a decidedly aging and aged laptop and XCFE was the right balance of "ooh shiny" and not being overly demanding.
I did have the advantage of a housemate who'd done Unix/Linux for some time, and a KVM switch helped at first. Eventually I had a *hardware* failure on the Linux machine... and realized I hadn't used the Windows machine in over a year. And then I was done with Windows... well, as soon as repairs were done.
Good luck!
Thanks, Orvan! It's good to hear from you, and to see that somebody reads this drivel every once in a while.
DeleteAfter the Commodore-64, I started on Unix lo, these many years ago. Then I got away from it, because home computers used Microsux. I kept looking back to Linux, but less and less frequently. Until I started watching Explaining Computers on Youtube, and saw how useful the Raspberry Pi was becoming. (Again, something I saw when it first came, out, then ignored for a decade.)
Have a very merry Christmas! May all your hay be sweet alfalfa.
I've been using mostly Linux since... well, since Slackware was one of the leading distros.
ReplyDeleteThe past many years, I've been mainly using straight-up Debian, with KDE, though these days my laptop and some of the other, lesser systems are running Mint (or, in some cases, Raspbian).
I also have an assortment of virtual machines that can run on desktop, laptop, or wherever, for (1) ill-maintained tools that I still need but that are incompatible with current libraries, and (2) locked-down development environments for long-term support.
I don't exactly miss Windows, especially on those occasions when for some reason I need to use it, so I boot up the Win10 partition on the laptop and am reminded of just how annoying it is. (The Windows partition is basically for TurboTax, which is ill-behaved in multiple ways, and for the occasional mandatory app for talking to special hardware. I also have a Windows 7 VM, for those times that MS Office is mandatory and for confirming that some of my Ruby stuff will run in a Windows environment.)
PCLinuxOS with KDE desktop here. I liked XP, and that is still my minimum standard of functionality, including whether I can achieve an eyes-restful desktop. (Win10 gave me hives and made my eyes bleed.) Most of linux still doesn't manage it. I have discovered I really only like the Mandrake descendants.
ReplyDeleteI keep a few other installs as fallbacks (given PCLOS is a one-man band and if no one steps up for Tex when he hangs it up, it will die). None is quite up to PCLOS performance and just plain good choices for usability.
There are a few DOS and WinApps I can't live without, and linux does not like networking with my WinBoxen. WINE is a crapshoot. Solution to all of this: WinXP in VirtualBox.
And XP64 on the "new" everyday box, because I get tired of hoopjumping just to see my external HDs. (Linux can see one. It can't see the other.)
Side note: nowadays I keep the boot drive in a hotswap bay. One PC, large pile of installed OSs on small laptop HDs.
I have several horror stories of How Linux Catastrophically Fails, going back to RedHad6 and most recently with Neon, but I won't bore you with them today. :)