I adore Linux Mint, it’s my goto workhorse distro. If I need a general use computer that I want to #JustWork I throw Linux Mint on it.

I used Ubuntu Studio many years ago when I was going through an electronica phase lol. It worked fine for me.

Don’t sweat it, there will always be the hot new distros on the block. Right now it’s Bazzite, CatchyOS, and NixOS, back in the day there was Garuda, Arco Linux, Bunsen, MX Linux, and a ton of others. Some are still around, some are long gone. Doesn’t mean they are bad distros, many of them are/were great, but don’t choose a distro just because everybody is talking about it.

Plus, as you get more experience with Linux, the differences matter less and less. There are only a handful of package managers, and unless you have some very specific technical requirements, they all do the same thing and work the same way.

“apt install firefox” becomes “yum install firefox”, or “pacman -S firefox” it’s all pretty much the same under the hood.

And if you use KDE Plasma on different distros, the Discover store works the same across distros, same with any other GUI package installer.

If you keep getting better and get into home lab building or just have several different computers, you might end up using a bunch or distros at the same time on different machines.

Right now across all my physical computers and virtual machines in my home lab, I currently have 9 different distros installed on various machines. Different distros for different purposes.

My general #JustWorks laptops and VMs use Linux Mint, my hardcore gaming rig uses Nobara, my test junker laptops run Debian 13, Void Linux, and Arch for testing random software and messing around. For my Docker containers, I run Debian 12 as the base, for my Minecraft server, Ubuntu Server, my Steam Deck is SteamOS which is just Valve’s heavily modified spin of Arch, and my main lab’s Type-1 hypervisor is XCP-ng, which is basically Fedora under the hood.

I can’t speak to any other countries, but in the states, Magic Earth has been great for me. Been using it for over two years now, several different regions of the USA. It’s not as good as Google Maps, but it’s plenty good enough for my needs.

Navigation and routing is solid, traffic data is acceptable, and the dashcam feature is awesome.

You’re on the right track. Linux technically refers to the kernel, the low-level core of the operating system that everything else interacts with and is built on top of. Distros are just collections of components that have been standardized by some group or company.

Linux Mint is heavily customized Ubuntu with a different DE and all of Connonical’s stuff removed. Nobara is a gaming-focused distro built on Fedora with a bunch of kernel modifications and pre-installed software to help games run better. CatchyOS is just Arch but with a really friendly installer that allows less advanced users to still enjoy many of the heavy customizations and cutting-edge software of Arch, etc etc.

Think of it like an engine. You can use the same engine in a bunch of different vehicles. You can also make modifications to the engine itself, but it will still essentially be the same engine.

The #1 rule for new Linux users, especially ones who aren’t interested in becoming power users or tinkering with their OS, is if you’re happy with your distro, stick with it.

There’s no objective “correct” distro. The best distro for you is the distro that works and you feel comfortable with.

Lots of new users become worried that they are missing out on some major improvement in their experience of Linux or feel like they picked the “wrong” distro because some random user dissed it. Don’t pay attention to that, if your distro does everything you need it to do and you enjoy using it, there’s no reason to go looking for something better.

Now of course, there’s nothing wrong with checking out other distros, and if you are somebody who likes to tinker with your setup and doesn’t mind risking breaking things sometimes, then by all means, distro hop away. Almost all distros have a “live boot” option, which allows you to test the OS off of a flash drive without having to install it on your computer. It’s a great way to quickly get the look and feel for a new distro without having to commit.

And of course, there are tons of Linux YouTubers who do reviews of distros, so you can watch those to also get an idea of the different options out there.

Because of the nature of FOSS and the linux ecosystem, you can make most distros look and feel just like any other, so that’s always an option too.

Favorite heavyweight Type 1 hypervisor: XCP-ng. It’s open source, runs on a ton of enterprise and consumer-grade hardware, has always been rock stable for me, even when forgetting to update it for like 6 months, still ran everything like a champ.

I need to try ProxMox, has some cool features. XCP-ng is pretty intuitive though, UI makes sense and is cleaner than Proxmox. The integration in Proxmox with the Incus project is pretty cool though, especially being able to run VMs and containers and manage them together. I’ve been thinking of trying that and seeing how it goes.

For containers, I just install Debian and run Docker on there. Stable, simple, nothing fancy. If I need something more up to date, I typically use Ubuntu Server.

Steam Deck easily. Everything you said you’re worried about Valve possibly doing in the future goes double for Microsoft.

Steam Deck is a great platform for playing any games on, pirated included. I have my whole GBA ROM collection on my Deck and play them through RetroArch, works perfectly.

I only mentioned it because it’s what I’ve been using for a while and it’s been a good experience so far. Cheap, runs well on Linux, and is one of the few that still allows you to port forward.

There are several good ones to pick from, defs would stay away from Nord because of their advertising practices, but Mullvad is solid. I think they removed port forwarding though.

Don’t subject your family to nasty letters in their mail from your ISP. You won’t go to jail, but you might risk your internet service getting canceled, which won’t be a fun conversation with your parents.

If you’re 18 and healthy, go donate plasma at a local clinic. In the USA depending on where you are, you can make $40-$80 per week, sometimes even more if they have a big shortage. Takes about 90 minutes a session, and you just chill with a needle in your arm and browse on your phone, super easy.

Proton VPN’s most expensive plan is $108 for 2 years, you can afford that. Go to your friends or neighbors and offer to do some yard work for cash. Mow their lawn, shovel bark, dig up dead shrubs, whatever. That’s the main way I made money when I was in my teens. People will pay 20-30 bucks an hour in most places for that kind of work, so a few hours of that in a week or two and you’ve got your $108 for Proton VPN, or whatever other VPN you want to use.

Sell some crap on eBay, FB marketplace, Craig’s List, etc. Old clothes, computer parts, consoles, weights, people will buy anything. You’d be surprised how fast I’ve gotten rid of junk buy posting it online for 10 bucks.

I’ll check it out. Even if it doesn’t work conceptually, it’s still cool to think about alternatives to the Capitalist markets and currencies that are dominant.

I use Nobara with KDE for my gaming computer, Mint with Cinnamon for pretty much everything else.

Mint is the closest to a “Just Works” experience for me. Cinnamon is rock stable, especially on Mint Debian Edition. I don’t remember the last time Cinnamon crashed or had any major bugs for me.

I use Debian for most of my servers, stable and simple. Arch on a junker Thinkpad to test and mess around with new programs and window managers.

~50x

My policy is double my download, minimum. But I almost always hit much higher than that, my average is probably between 5-10x

All my torrents are public sites, and I only torrent pretty common stuff, so I don’t feel too bad about killing a torrent after a week or two. I figure 5-10x average on easy-to-find, mid quality media is plenty in the karmic sense lol.

As far as I am concerned, always give better than you get, even if that’s 1.01 but try to aim higher.

Of course, if you’re seeding a rare or otherwise hard to find piece of media, then you should keep it alive for longer. I am in the process of upgrading my torrent machine, and once that happens, I will be able to hold far more active torrents, and my average ratios will be significantly improved.

Happy sailing!

Flatpaks are pretty great for getting the latest software without having to have a cutting edge rolling release distro or installing special repos and making sure stuff doesn’t break down the line.

I use Flatpaks for my software that I need the latest and greatest version of, and my distros native package for CLI apps and older software that I don’t care about being super up to date.

My updater script handles all of it in one action anyways, so no biggie on that either.

Flatpaks are the best all-in-one solution when compared to Appimages or Snaps imo.

Hell yeah! Love seeing old hardware like this still running a modern OS.

With Linux, if your hardware is a decade old, you’ve barely even reached middle-age.

Meanwhile Windows 11 won’t even allow an official install on hardware that’s 4-5 years old.

Long live Linux & FOSS ✊

I’ve been settling on Linux Mint more and more as my generic workhorse distro. I have the least amount of issues with it out of the box compared to any other desktop distro.

It’s clean, relatively low bloat, includes codecs and drivers for basically everything I’ve ever needed to use/do, and Cinnamon’s only crime as a DE is looking kind of boring. But it’s easy to select a new theme, so not really a huge issue either.

I use a bunch of different distros for different purposes, but if you held a gun to my head and made me pick a distro I had to use exclusively for the rest of my life, it would be Mint with Cinnamon.

If something was to replace it, it would have to be even cleaner, simpler to setup, and have even better general stability and compatibility.

Cool!

The company doesn’t care about you. The company doesn’t care about you. The company doesn’t care about you.

In my early teens, I got really into computers, built my first PC when I was about 13, started learning Windows batch scripting and using GameMaker to make goofy PC games.

Along the way, I found Trinity Rescue Kit and was also introduced to Fedora Core by a nerdy guy who worked at my local YMCA.

I didn’t actually enjoy it too much back then, so I left it alone for years until about 5 years ago when I started to get back into the free software movement and related interests.

I’ve been 100% on Linux for about 4 years now and never looked back.

It’s designed to be more compatible with MS’ .docx formats, less weird formatting issues when converting between them. But the actual features it has is less than LibreOffice.

Two different focuses, LibreOffice is designed with more powerful features and uses the .odf file format by default.

OnlyOffice is lighter weight and designed with MS Office compatibility first and foremost, although both suites support both file formats and in my experience, both work great with either file types and for basic users, have all the features you would need.

I’m constantly shocked how poorly Windows 11 runs on brand new high end hardware.

My current company uses brand new $1,500 HP enterprise grade laptops and they frequently freeze up, stutter, and get really hot from basic office work.

My old Debian servers I used to have there were running butter smooth with KDE Plasma on 12 year old hardware.

+1 I used LibreOffice all through university, wrote dozens of papers, did class presentations, résumés, etc. Never had a problem. I use it at work too and collaborate with O365 users often.

Such an awesome piece of software. I used OnlyOffice as well, really nice if you don’t need the fancier features that LibreOffice has.