Today, lovely Windows 11 installed an update. And since then I don’t have internet access because Microslop Wincrap 11 can somehow magically no longer connect to the DNS server - to any DNS server. No other device in my network has the same issue. I’ve been bugfixing for over an hour and haven’t found a solution. setting the DNS manually, resetting the network adapter, flushed all DNS entries (I used the commandline tool on Windows!). nothing works.
I don’t have ANY more patience with W11!
I already tried Linux. I’m using Ubuntu Server for hosting Nextcloud and Fedora just to play around.
Do you prefer Fedora or Ubuntu? I have an old Thinkpad…
(And no, I will not go down the rabbit hole of Arch ;-) At least not for now.)
Fedora is wonderful. I would not recommend Ubuntu to anyone. Fuck Canonical, who fancy themselves the next Microsoft.
For an easy version of Arch, try Cachy.
Thank you all for the many replies!
I’ll summarize it as followed:
- Ubumtu: one does not use Ubuntu any more
- Linux Mint: always a good start
- Fedora: also always good and would be good for a Thinkpad
- Bazzite for gaming
- Gnome really is not for everyone
Since I already tried Fedora, I’m going with Linux Mint for the moment.
(In fact, the installation of Mint is running right now and I’m using the whole SSD, no windows boot manager partition will survive!!!)
Give openSUSE Tumbleweed a shot.
Ubuntu? What is this, 2008?
Tried Fedora, tried Ubuntu, tried Mint, tried Debian, tried flavors of Arch that don’t make the install process take an hour.
They all suck compared to openSUSE Tumbleweed. Rolling release with good hardware support out of the box and snapshots/easy rollback coupled with extensive testing before each release? It’s the winner for beginners, and it’s not even close.
The first time a user gets the itch to learn Linux and go deeper and borks their install, they will hate any distro without snapshotting.
The first time an immutable distro user needs to install OEM drivers, they will hate their distro.
I used to recommend Linux Mint, and I still would maybe to those I know will never ever open the console.
For everyone else, openSUSE Tumbleweed all day everyday and twice on Sunday.
Thanks, I’ll keep openSUSE Tumbleweed in mind. I think I’m going to try this after two weeks of Mint
Highly recommend Fedora over Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Server and Desktop has some dumb defaults that look measly next to Windows, but still annoying next to Fedora.
Fedora also generally has more solid documentation without a bunch of LTS slag threads with outdated answers.
I like a lot of Ubuntu-based distros, and Ubuntu server, but Ubuntu desktop just wasn’t for me!
Try either one and see for yourself. I would recommend to partition carefully isolating /home so that you can wipe distro but keep your files and settings. Distro pick is rather personal thing - folks find their groove in various ways. I’m on Fedora and have been with Fedora for ages, never owned Windows machine so I’m not your average user, BUT looking at self-starters today I do see a lot more gravitating towards Fedora whereas previously I saw more Ubuntu jumps. YMMV, but distro-hopping is not a bad thing. Partition wisely and pains of distro-hopping won’t be as pronounced 😃
What would you say was a good size/ percentage for a home directory partition?
+1 Fedora (Workstation, in my case) When I set up Fedora on the machines I loaded it on, I normally allocate 50 GB to /root and the balance of the space to /home after setting up my swap and /boot partitions. This has worked well for me so far, YMMV. It also sounds like its not a bad idea to leave a small percentage of a drive un-allocated but I haven’t done this personally.
Thank you.
My assortment of varied storage devices & drives me nuts sometimes.
I’d been boping along just fine, but had to install window the other day to do something and I been meaning to look into this before jumping back over.
Leaving a bit of change on the drive sounds like a good idea too.
if you care to walk “on the wild side” I’d say use LVM, create one big volume covering entire drive then do 50G for / and 20G for /home . I use ext4 since it offers live resize2fs. So the drill is: you set up OS etc. and whenevr you get closer ti the allocated limit bump it by 5G with lvresize + resize2fs which allows you to “grow into” your setup. Also allows snapshots of running OS in cases of iffy updates OR parallel second distro install with subsequent distro removal and space still being at your disposal after it’s gone. BTRFS is fun but offers less flexibility than LVM IMO.
Fuck Ubuntu, move to Linux Mint Debian Edition or Debian.
Fedora is great but I did hit some really annoying snags a couple of times. Ubuntu is easiest and generally is most supported. I don’t like snaps and some other Ubuntu things so I go Ubuntu-based instead, with pop os. I really like it.
Literally anything but Ubuntu
Not Ubuntu. Mint or Fedora.
You like Gnome (how everything looks in Ubuntu)? Use Fedroa Workstation, or use Mint and install Gnome yourself.
This is only my opinion. After all, this is your computer; do what you want.
Yeah. I’m in a phase between Ubuntu and mint but moving on with my change over. Ubuntu is trying to commercialize the platform. I can sniff that a mile away. Mint is basically the open source version of Ubuntu.
I like Ubuntu as little as the next guy, truly, but there are so many legitimate issues with Ubuntu/Canonical that we don’t need to make up fake stuff on top. Both Mint and Ubuntu are completely open source, and in fact, Mint couldn’t exist if Ubuntu was proprietary, seeing as how Mint is a derivative offshoot from an Ubuntu base.
I am a Debian man myself for servers. I don’t want any Canonical bullshit to break mid LTS.
While I am still running win 10 I am undecided which desktop to switch to. CachyOS and Fedora are the front runners but man do I hate Gnome.
I’m not a big fan of Gnome on Fedora either. Everything is just so big and needs so much space. CachyOS is a tad to new for my taste for using it as a daily driver.
Another vote for Fedora KDE. But I’ll add get the atomic version (Kinoite).
why not fedora KDE? it is a full edition now and a really smooth experience
Seconding Fedora KDE. But if you’re not a fan, you could also opt for many of the other supported desktops (cinnamon, XFCE, etc.)
Kubuntu has been pretty nice to me. It has the beginner friendliness of Ubuntu and the modern desktop of KDE
Don’t settle immediately. If you can spare the time, distro hop for a few weeks / months. On the shorter run of things, give each OS you try a good week before moving on to the next. All distros do essentially the same thing, they just flavor it diffetently. Do you like typing apt, or dnf, pacman or yum? Do you prefer being deep in CLI or prefer using an application store? How do you like your userspace to look? Shiny? Bubbly? Classic? Retro? GNOME, Plasma, Xfce, Mate, Cosmic?
There’s enough options out there to make your head spin. Without touching arch, you should at least visit the following -
Little Champs
- Mint
- Zorin
- Endeavour
- Pop OS
Big Champs
- Fedora KDE (or any of its “spins” https://fedoraproject.org/spins/)
- Ubuntu (and its corresponding “flavors” https://ubuntu.com/desktop/flavors)
- Debian
- Arch (just one of the four main pillars)
Gaming focus
- Bazzite (fedora)
- Nobara (fedora)
- Cachy (arch)
Give each or those that pique your interest a fair shake. A week at the minimum. Some you may not need a week, some you’ll find yourself in a natural swing of things. You’ll know when you know.








