Looking to dip my toes into Linux for the first time. I have a 2016 Intel MacBook Pro with pretty solid specs collecting dust right now that I think I’m going to use. Research so far has indicated to

Linux@lemmy.ml – 92 points – 9 months ago

Looking to dip my toes into Linux for the first time. I have a 2016 Intel MacBook Pro with pretty solid specs collecting dust right now that I think I’m going to use. Research so far has indicated to me that the two best options for me are likely Mint or Elementary OS. Does anyone have any insight? Also open to other OS’s. I would consider myself decently tech savvy but I am not a programmer or anything. Comfortable dipping into the terminal when the need arises and all that.

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I started on Linux with some old distros that aren't around anymore but went to Ubuntu eventually and then played with different distros after that. There is a lot of opinions on how things should be in the Linux world and that's what makes choice so awesome.

I say start with Ubuntu because there is TONS of documentation and help on forums, users are generally super helpful unlike some other distros and it's a solid STARTING point. Honestly you'll end up distro hoping like we all are guilty of so you won't stay on one for a long time.

Mint is another solid choice as is pop_OS!

Debian is great as a base but I found it lacking in bells and whistles early into my Linux days. Stay away from the Chinese distros, they'll make you sad (not because they're Chinese made but the lack of work being put into them).

Have fun trying every flavor out and enjoy breaking your system from time to time and eventually try Arch or even Gentoo lol

I think mint and pop are generally the distros people recommend over Ubuntu nowadays

Documentation for Ubuntu generally works for anything Ubuntu based and they're specifically designed for newbies coming from Windows

That said they're coming from Mac so elementary might be better

They never said they were coming from Mac. You are correct in regards to Mint and pop_OS! tho, I just think the recommending of other Ubuntu based or even other based distros nowadays is just so "political". Canonical isn't the darling it once was but it's still a good distros to cut teeth on especially because you can easily hope to another spin for a new DE and still be on "Ubuntu".

One of the things that makes Linux so great is the freedom of choice and the shear amount of options available so we can all use a distro from a person/community/company that shares in our values/ideals that we can then go on to tell everyone that they should be running it lol.

I've had numerous issues running Ubuntu and any Ubuntu based distros on my laptop, that's why I personally dislike it

The fact that they're starting to make questionable decisions around snap is just extra reason imo

Also op didn't say they were coming from Mac but did say they were planning to put Linux on one they already have, think it's a safe guess that they might be used to macos

Laptops are always iffy when running Linux, so many proprietary things in them but I am surprised you had so much trouble with an Ubuntu based distro.

I'm not used to MacOS myself but I did have a MacBook and I currently have an iMac running Lubuntu. Multiple environments makes things interesting lol.

I think the reason I ran into problems was mainly Nvidia drivers to be fair

I had issues with them to on a laptop I had and built in webcam.

Out of all the distro hopping I've found NixOS is the most solid. That said, my built in microphone sounds atrocious for some reason on nix

I've been wanting to give Nix a try but I can't find a use case for it's best feature. The list is long of distros to try (Clear, Garuda, rhino, and so on) but I really do need to give Nix a go.

It's quite good as an all rounder really, I'm using it on my gaming pc, laptop and raspberry pi for some self hosting stuff currently, all of which use a modular config file so I've got the same installed programs, hotkeys, user profile etc whatever machine I'm using

That's its best feature I'm talking about. I don't use the same OS on two different machines so I can't make use of the config file. I never thought about running it on a Pi so maybe I can just toss it on a SD card and give it a whirl (I like using actual hardware instead of VMs).

Absolutely same with the actual hardware thing you can't get a good feel for an os on a VM

Nix package manager and home manager runs on any distro and even Mac so you can use a home manager config cross machine

There are other benefits though like the fact that you can configure services, system components and other software with like 2 lines of code most the time and it just works

I didn't even know the package manager and home manager could run on different operating systems, now I need to look into that. I really do think NixOS has a great idea and that more distros should have an option to use such a thing. Nix almost seems like the perfect OS (relatively speaking).

4 more...

try Arch or even Gentoo

Time to go install Gentoo!

Masochist

I've done LFS and it was really boring. Apparently with Gentoo you learn more.

You're a glutton for punishment aren't you lol

Challenge more like

I didn't enjoy Gentoo, the process was long and slow (3rd Gen Core i5 system at the time) and spending hours just getting things up and running wasn't my cup of tea. I can see the appeal but can't understand the elitism but to each their own. Good luck and enjoy your journey!

Well, I'm doing it for the learning process, and armed with a Ryzen 5 4500U, time and patience (and the knowledge that a kernel takes 40 mins to compile on LFS when on Virtualbox using half my cores), I think I'll be alright.

You're way ahead of where I was lol. I haven't touched LFS but I hear Gentoo is easier so you should be alright. Have fun learning!

Thanks. To be honest, wirh LFS you just follow the book. The only thing you really learn is how to unpack tar archives, and the fact that it takes super long to compile software.