“Arch” they just need to read the newsletter before updating.
"Gentoo" because fuck you personally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_From_Scratch
Linux From Scratch (LFS) is a type of a Linux installation and the name of a book written by Gerard Beekmans, and as of May 2021, mainly maintained by Bruce Dubbs. The book gives readers instructions on how to build a Linux system from source. The book is available freely from the Linux From Scratch site.
LWN.net reviewed LFS in 2004:[19]
Linux From Scratch is a wonderful project. It should become a compulsory reading material for all Linux training courses, and something that every Linux enthusiast should complete at least once. This would also create another interesting side effect: people who tend to be quick in expressing dissatisfaction on the distributions' mailing lists and forums would probably show a lot more respect for the developers. Installing a ready-made distribution is a trivial task. Building up a set of 4 CDs containing a stable, secure and reliable operating system, plus thousands of applications, is most definitely not.
Does anyone really recommend Ubuntu these days? I think Mint has reigned supreme for years, at least for beginners.
I recommended Mint to my partner and she wasn't too enthusiastic about it after trying, I have Ubuntu on one of my laptops where she has a guest account and she actually prefers it even after hours of use so her new laptop is getting 24.04. I did do the diligence of explaining that Ubuntu is to Canonical as Firefox is to Mozilla, and why some Linux heads aren't a fan.
@Natanox Seems like NixOS replaced Arch as both a local extremist cult and the most effective newbie repellent.
What's funny to me here is that, as a long time Arch user, I have been considering switching to NixOS. One of the most terrifying thoughts to me is that after using the same Arch install for 2 years I will spend ages trying to recreate it if I ever have to. Oh, that and Nix letting you test packages seems like a cool feature.
I've been on arch around a year now and also considered the jump to NixOS. I was actually dual booting it with arch for awhile and I found pretty quickly that the shit documentation was a huge turn off for me. I ended up nuking the nix partition and reclaiming it for arch.
This is my biggest issue. I am utterly spoiled to the exquisiteness that is Arch's Wiki...
I mean the Arch wiki mostly works on NixOS too. The problem with NixOS documentation is that there aren't many examples for the Nix language itself.
I mean isn't it accepted that NixOS is a terrible pick for a beginner, especially a non-technical one? I feel like even the Nix community doesn't recommend the distro to complete beginners.
I use Nixos BTW.
And I can't recommend it to anyone. Not even veterans.
I can only say if you like souls like games nixos might be your thing....
I really wish everyone thought like that, but I still see people recommending Nix, Arch, Void… and some go the ideological route and start recommending systemd-less only like Artix or ranting against anything that uses Flatpak. Those discussions can get messy, and they always alienate the person who asked. Unfortunately those with ideological reasons are always the loudest and present in basically every "Beginner's Help" group.
I wouldn't recommend vanilla Arch only because of the installation process. CachyOS that simplifies it is an extremely good pick for a person who already knows what a computer is, but wants to try a proper OS.
Arch mostly got it's reputation in the early days. Today some things are a lot easier to do on Arch than on other distros, especially because AUR exists. Also, it built one of the best wikis over all that time.
I wish. People recommend Arch to beginners all the time. And then wonder why there's so many "Linux is too hard" comments everywhere
Documentation? For Nix? Yeah right.
Did you know that the suffix for nix documentation files is, coincidentally, .nix?
The code of the packages is the documentation. So the newcomers better start learning Nix language and reading the paper about how Nix works under the hood before they get started! /s
But seriously, I used NixOs for about 2 years almost 10 years ago and while it was/is fascinating when you have everything setup, getting there and maintaining everything across so many packages that each have their own way of configuring them took hundreds of hours. I'm back on Arch using a custom tool I wrote to fully manage my configs, packages, dotfiles etc.
The way I remember it is that there is no consistency across Nix packages and it all feels like a giant puzzle for people who enjoy spending time configuring more than actually using the computer. And I say that as someone who actually enjoyed getting into that when I had unlimited time.
Debian/ubuntu/arch is easy to use even as a beginner, just try NixOS and compare.
Tap for spoiler
I've genuinely never seen a single person recommend NixOS to a new user, unless they already had advanced technical knowledge
Are you new around here?
You could just look at my profile to see that I'm not. I'm also not new to Linux communities in general. Doesn't change that I've never seen someone recommend NixOS to a complete beginner. I have (rarely) seen Arch recommended, but those recommendations will generally be downvoted and have many replies disagreeing. Linux Mint is by far the distro I see most often recommended, followed by Fedora.
NixOS consist of a bunch of options that you define using the nix programming language. Since it's a programming language, everything is well defined and organised into single place.
Technically, someone could build a GUI configuration editor with sane defaults and clearly organised pages of settings, which generates a configuration for you. This could immediately change NixOS from the most tedious to a relatively easy to use distro.
They already built a GUI editor, but a programmer made it so it is actually harder to use than the text file
I really love this image for this, that expression combo is perfection.
Ubuntu was so good. Too bad my brother simply shut off my VM when I was using it
I swear, I've only recommended it to one newbie, and they were an engineer! I had a reason!
Hilarious that this is the new norm, though. NixOS is so not typical at all. Arch is more normal at this point.
I have an old MacBook for 2012, can barely open terminal, installed Pop!_OS, and I love it!
Am I a terrible person?
Nah, you're killing it.
I want to install fooFlorp2!
check nixpackages:
"
environment.systemPackages = [
pkgs.fooFlorp2
];
or nix-shell -p fooFlorp2 "
edit configuration.nix, add pkgs.fooFlorp2
install happens, won't work, no mention about the binary
Web search
ohh you don't install it with pkgs, there's a systemd that has to be enabled, and some config wrapped around it.
But the documentation said...
The documentation doesn't lie, but it often doesn't give you the whole answer either.
I love nix, but installing anything interesting ends up with a lot of websearches.
On the upside, my home/work and travel pc's are all just lockstep. anything I install on one just ends up on the others, and that's something cool.
As a person who just barley figured out how to install Mint in some laptops most of that looks like a foreign language to me.
I have this exact situation with my wife's work laptop, which can't upgrade to windows 11. The requirements are pretty simple, something that runs Chrome and Dropbox as well as Microsoft Office 2007.
I'm going with Mint Cinnamon for her (I use arch & kde btw) - was pleasantly surprised to see Dropbox now has Linux support actually, haven't looked at it for years!
Almost everything she uses her computer for runs in Chrome.
I use Alpine, tbh I dont see why I should learn an entire programming language just for a distro
Throw Mint Cinnamon or the latest version on the computer, solved. Ubuntu can.. be speshy sometimes on my older spare laptop, but it is not really their fault, more my computer is a bit cooked. Some puppy linux distros are cool, but also a tiny bit complicated for beginners.
@fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com I think they found you
I'm in everybody's walls.... whispering the words "NixOS...."
I use arch btw
Big nix fan here, I love being able to define my system from a couple configuration files and not scrounging around the file system for the right dot file
Hint: :q!
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