This long-term-support version of Linux Mint is a great Linux desktop for both beginners and experts:
Linux Mint 21.1 is a comprehensive desktop operating system that includes everything you need for home and office work. It comes with LibreOffice 7.3.7 for office productivity, Firefox 108.0.1 for web browsing, Thunderbird 102.4.2 for email and calendering, and GIMP 2.10.30 for graphics editing. None of this will cost you a thin dime.
Mint gives you your choice of three interfaces: Cinnamon 5.6, MATE, and Xfce. For me, the Cinnamon interface is the easiest to use. I recommend it to anyone who wants to move from the Mac and Windows world to Linux. It's very simple to pick up.
[...] This version of Mint is built on top of Ubuntu 22.04, known as Jammy Jellyfish. From it, it inherits many business-friendly features, such as full support for Active Directory (AD) with Advanced Group Policy Object. So if you want to run Mint on a business network with a Windows 2012 or newer AD Domain Controller, you're ready for work.
[What do you think the popular distros will be in 2023? I plan to purchase my first linux computer (as opposed to always repurposing old hardware) and I'd be interested in hearing pros/cons of some of the newer distros as compared to Mint. Anyone use Pop!_OS or AlmaLinux? At some level all I really care about is decent package management and security updates and I can deal with the rest. --hubie]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 03, @01:26AM (12 children)
I want to like Xfce, but I configure Ubuntu-Gnome for use in our product, so I am kind of stuck eating the dog food, though it's not 100% required that I use Gnome on my dev machine, or others around the house.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday January 03, @01:46AM (4 children)
Material Shell makes Gnome sufferable. Like, It's still crap compared to sway+waybar... But at least you don't need to dick around with windows all day long.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 03, @02:07AM (3 children)
Our product runs a single app, full screen, so it's not too fussy about desktop environments. At this stage we're uncovering fringe edge case configuration tweaks for gnome and a move to a whole new desktop would be pretty radical.
However, for my dev machine...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday January 03, @03:41PM (2 children)
You know, I met a dev that figured out how to get work done in stock gnome: He uses two screens where one has vscode running and the other has chrome to read docs. That is, he moved the tiling from the WM to the code editor and the physical monitors layout.
A valid solution I suppose.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 03, @05:02PM (1 child)
I used dual monitors up until 30" 4K screens became affordable... I really don't see the point of the extra complexity on my physical desk anymore.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday January 03, @06:13PM
Nothing a dual monitor arm won't solve... This reminds me of all the years I've spent on VMs and Wine before I finally ended up picking up a $30 KVM to switch between my physical windows and linux box. What a life changer that was...
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kymation on Tuesday January 03, @02:34AM (2 children)
I've been using Mint+XFCE for more years than I can remember. It is the easiest to modify to work the way I want it to. In the end it's all a matter of the workflow that you want and how much hacking you are willing to do to make the OS work that way.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Tuesday January 03, @02:56AM
I use mint xfce for many many years too. The main reason I started doing it was that xfce puts the least overhead on the hardware. As per mint, it requires the least time for maintenance. I live pretty much with what I get off the box rather happily.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday January 03, @04:15AM
I've also been using XFCE4 for a long time, currently on Linux Mint 21.1 even. My main reason for using XFCE4 for these years has been the simplicity of adding pull down menus to the panels and the ease of customization of the few widgets I use. Mint itself has some shortcomings. First, they are spending resources on M$ junk, none of which is the least bit relevant to me. If you have M$ in your infrastructure, you have bigger problems than choice of desktop distro, specifically staffing and probably management crises. Nevertheless, one can make many arguments for and against wasting effort chasing undocumented, proprietary technologies. Of the parts that affect me, I am disappointed with some underlying bugs introduced in 21.1 which I did not see when evaluating 21.1 but still affect my work flow and would have held me back from 21.1 for a while had I known. One can't test everything and regressions are almost by definition unexpected, yet here we are.
Anyway, I had also recently evaluated LXDE/LXQT, Cinnamon, MATE, and KDE, the last one via Kubuntu the others via Linux Mint. GNOME and derivatives seem fairly take-it-or-leave it as far as customization goes. In contrast, KDE seems fairly flexible but it looks like one must be comfortable with C++ and QML to actually customize any of the pre-made widgets. Please correct me if that is not true.
The XFCE4 panels have been very easy to customize to the very limited extend that I need. They basically use .desktop files which I point to a selection of shell, perl, or python scripts. There are a handful of widgets that do what I need without diving into the source. Otherwise I could probably just get by with a few panels or docks inside a raw Window Manager and without a full Desktop Environment.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Tuesday January 03, @02:44AM
I use MATE, since it's default is very close to what I like. On a new install, I only have to tweak a few things.
That said, it has been some years since I switched the window manager to i3 [mattgreer.dev].
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 03, @03:55PM (1 child)
Briefly, years ago. Seems like the XFCE version lacked a LOT of the polish and consistency common in Gnome and KDE desktops. In fact that seems to be a pretty common failing with XFCE desktops in general. At least the ones I've tried.
I *really* like the configurability of the XFCE panel/taskbar though, SO much better than anything else I've tried, so for many years I simply installed the XFCE bar in whatever other desktop I was using. I kinda suspect that may include a bunch of extra XFCE stuff behind the scenes, but I was completely happy with it. If my Linux laptop hadn't died on me I'd still be using it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 03, @05:07PM
Yeah, back ~2015 our product was being developed on CentOS and I was configuring an XFCE desktop for that... at the time it was a little unfinished feeling. I mean, very configurable, but not very easily re-configurable. I admit it: for my dev desktop use, I really like being able to right click and add a launcher to the favorites of the taskbar, not necessary (or even desired) in the product, but I've got to live in both. The design decisions that were driving the CentOS choice changed, can't say I miss it, and in the new environment Ubuntu became the most logical choice.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Sourcery42 on Wednesday January 04, @07:46PM
I've been mostly using Mint since Mandrake became Mandriva and drove me away, so probably about 15 years. I ran Gnome until the Gnome 3 silliness, then Cinnamon until Cinnamon started to ape a lot of Windows 10/11 interface changes I didn't like, more recently XFCE. Mint has always done a great job of just getting out of the way and working. It is like Debian without being so damn fiddly and its default look doesn't look like it got beat with an ugly stick like Ubuntu.
Recently Debian introduced something into the base that really disagrees with my laptop, and I had to switch to something else. I tried Fedora for a while, but it seemed like every other time I updated packages something broke. I landed on Arch with XFCE. The tiny desktop I use mostly as a server is still running Mint. Overall Arch feels a little faster and more optimized than Mint did. Both Mint and Arch handle everything I ask them to do without a whole lot of screwing around, but all distros seem to have their quirks. Xsane works flawlessly with my wireless scanner out of the box on Mint, no configuration needed. The scanner is not detected on Arch; I'm yet to bother to get it working. On the other hand, RetroArch (multi emulator front end) is great on Arch, but the version in Mint's package manager is kind of a dog.
Basically, you can make any distro look and act exactly how you want if you grind on it long enough. Mint is just a great jumping off point for me in terms of appearance and functionality, no systemd comments please ;)
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Tuesday January 03, @01:54AM (2 children)
I was really hoping it'd come with LibreOffice 7.3.8 and Thunderbird 102.4.1. Guess I'll have to wait for a different distro to come along that meets my particular needs.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday January 03, @03:57AM (1 child)
You can usually download older versions of Linux distros. Just make sure you download a full install image, then disconnect from the 'net when you install, then make sure to turn off automatic updating so you can reconnect to the 'net but still keep your crusty dusty preferred versions. :)
/s
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday January 03, @04:00PM
Yeah, don't you know LibreOffice is on version 7.4.3?? That's just the official current version. Alpha users use 7.5.0.1!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by darkfeline on Tuesday January 03, @02:02AM (1 child)
Linux distros don't matter much. All of them can be molded into whatever you need/can tolerate, you're just picking the starting defaults that are closest to your goal.
Interestingly, Chrome OS is based off of Gentoo and Steam OS is based off of Arch. Those two are generally considered the most flexible, so if you prefer making your own choices, those two are good starting points.
If you don't like committing to choices you could also go Bedrock.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 03, @04:11PM
And I can build a car from the ground up from parts I scavenged from the junkyard. That doesn't make it a particularly attractive option come car-buying time.
Distros matter precisely because they set up the millions of defaults into a consistent well-polished whole that doesn't need weeks of tinkering to get into a pleasantly usable state. Or as is often the case, fail to do so.
Whether that means a well-polished, consistent, and easy to use GUI, or a bare bones minimalist web server that runs well on a Rasberry Pi, finding a good distro that is optimized for something close to your use case gives you a starting point that only needs a little fine tuning to fit you well.
Now personally I don't understand why so many even bother with their own libraries of default apps, seems like a whole lot of extra headache for the maintainers with approximately zero benefit for the users. If you want to make a web browser, image viewer, etc. do that, and try to do it well enough the major distros will add it to their repositories. Stop with the custom desktop/distro specific junk and focus your attention on the *actual* important parts of a distro. There's no reason something fairly integral like the launcher or file manager should be left in a buggy or anemic state while maintainers energy gets spent on "polishing up" yet another distro-specific underpowered custom calculator app.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Tuesday January 03, @02:51AM (20 children)
What do people with Linux home systems do with their PCs? My PC is a glorified games console, so I just have Windows on it for simplicity.
I know I can get a lot of games to run on Linux with Steam and other compatibility layers, but I still haven't found a reason to switch to Linux.
If all I did was browse the web, code, and run some office software, then I could easily see the benefits of Linux's theoretical privacy and security.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 03, @03:31AM (8 children)
We run a mixed house, some Windows laptops, an OS-X desktop for many years until it recently died, and Ubuntu on the HTPC and my work machines.
I clean infinitely more malware off of the Windows machines, but it's never been more than a minor annoyance. Windows updates are more annoying than Ubuntu. OS-X just percolated away until it died one day, I forget the symptoms but that son needed to move from a desktop to a laptop anyway.
I keep threatening to migrate my wife off of Windows to Ubuntu as she bitches about Windows, but I am waiting for her to ask me to do it...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday January 03, @03:52AM (3 children)
Maybe she's giving you hints? You know, the trail of rose petals leading the knight in shining armor to the damsel in distress? :) (did I mix metaphors? :)
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 03, @04:17PM (2 children)
Rule one of surviving dating (and any other relationship, really): Do NOT change the OS on someone's computer because you think you're getting hints.
Really, that's true of pretty much any significant changes to any significant part of their lives. By all means *offer* to make the changes if you're willing, but touch nothing without a clear "Yes please".
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Tuesday January 03, @08:07PM
Interestingly, today's "Dilbert":
https://assets.amuniversal.com/c008ddd06389013bd7a3005056a9545d [amuniversal.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by pTamok on Tuesday January 03, @08:32PM
AnD there is a world of difference between "Don't. Stop!" and "Don't stop!".
(Score: 2) by EJ on Tuesday January 03, @04:19AM (3 children)
I tinker with Raspberry Pi for media stuff. I suppose that's Linux, so I guess I do use it.
If you're mainly a gamer, Linux just seems like a hard sell for your gaming PC.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 03, @02:37PM (2 children)
Define: gamer.
I game: Go, Sudoku (for the past 6 weeks, giving it up I think....), various this and that on whatever platform is handy. There are many games to play in Linux. StarCraft was the last game I played a lot that I couldn't get on Linux.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 03, @04:41PM (1 child)
Seems like "Gamer" is usually used specifically for aficionados of deeply involved video games, be they RPG, RTS, FPS, platformer, etc. With special (though I think not *necessary*) consideration for new releases of big budget AAA games from the major publishing houses. Especially for multiplayer games - if you can't play those during the initial surge in popularity you're likely to mostly miss out - not many manage to capture a long-term audience.
I've never heard the term applied to enthusiasts of paper and board games... *maybe* DnD stuff? I was never part of that scene. It seems like it caught on to describe people who embraced home video games as a major leisure activity. Originally with a (not so) slightly derogatory inflection as a "nerd" thing, but that faded as video games attracted a more mainstream audience. I mean - if liking video games meant that professional athletes are nerds then the entire high-school social heirarchy would have to be re-evaluated, and that's not going to happen.
And computerized versions of paper or board games have always been hard pressed to be considered video games. Rightly so I think - changing the medium does not change the nature of the game, and "video games" are distinguished from other games by the fact that they *require* a computer to be viable. Even when their genre spans other mediums, a specific video game would lose most of it's distinctive gameplay if you tried to port it to a non-computing medium. Blasting Space Invaders just isn't remotely as satisfying if you have to roll dice or compute positions and bullet trajectories by hand.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 03, @05:18PM
>new releases of big budget AAA games from the major publishing houses.
As I (almost) said, StarCraft II was the last such thing I played. We have a PS3, but we honestly enjoy the lower budget games more - and it's not about the cost to buy.
>I've never heard the term applied to enthusiasts of paper and board games
I have thought about buying a traditional Go board, but never actually done it. Never in my life have I done a Sudoku puzzle on paper, what started this kick was a new PC we connected to a big touchscreen - we got playing tic-tac-toe with the kids and then advanced through connect four until we got to Sudoku - my wife and I found we have different play styles, so we quit playing on the big screen together and did a little on our phones (she doesn't mind making dozens of mistakes, as long as the software identifies them early and lets her take them back, I prefer to play with notes where you can solve without mistakes...)
>changing the medium does not change the nature of the game
Well, it definitely does for Sudoku (seeing mistakes before you run to an impossible end and have to backtrack), and Go is a whole different animal when you can practice against AI that beats all human players or realtime against 6 year olds in Korea who will beat you half the time...
>Blasting Space Invaders just isn't remotely as satisfying if you have to roll dice or compute positions and bullet trajectories by hand.
That much is true, although I'd really like to see a slowed down version of StarCraft that's more approaching a turn based style where you don't have to sit with a death grip on the mouse and 100% focus for the entire game.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday January 03, @03:49AM (5 children)
You make a good point with your somewhat rhetorical question.
25ish years ago I got into Linux mostly because I wanted (needed) to get away from the worsening problems with Windows OS licensing and various sw problems, crashes, etc. I was very lucky to get (find in trash) computers with various Windows licenses, but with all the "upgrades", OS version deprecation, application incompatibility, etc., more and more "wizards", dll hell, driver and other incompatibilities and problems with Windows, Linux was awesome.
Being a sometimes programmer, the idea that I could change code if needed, compile kernels, build and configure a system with a huge array of options was amazing. So for many years- mid 90s - 2010 or so, Linux was my main desktop OS.
Then I got a laptop here and there that already had various Windows versions (mostly 98SE and XP) and I had some Windows apps I liked, like WordPerfect and a bunch of utilities, so I ran both. Linux on the bigger boxes which allowed me to use them for development, audio / video editing, testing and diagnostics, especially for hard disk problems (have data recovery running right now... ugh.), and Windows on laptops. I've done dual-boot on most of them too.
I wanted to do Linux admin as my full-time job, but found it difficult to convince my nemesis HR departments that I'm good and get things done. I spotted a cl ad for a guy who had an established diversified company that included web hosting, but he lost his major contract (long story- not anything he or his staff did wrong) with a very major company and needed some quick IT help. Well, 15 years later I'm still doing the admin, although it's very few hours unless there's a breakdown, which have been very rare, or a major upgrade, etc, but things are humming along.
I'm a bit of a tinkerer (okay, a lot of) and like to know and be in control of "the works" (which is why I won't use systemd). MacOS seems to do the automagic stuff well. I've rarely had to fight with a Mac- mostly when adding graphics adapters and fighting with MacOS as to which one should be the desktop- in situations with multiple outputs like one for streaming, one for projectors, one for other monitors, and of course desktop.
But Windows, especially (ugh) 10, tries too hard to be MacOS-like, and fights with you, running automatic "wizards" that install drivers that you don't want, and that sometimes interfere with basic OS running, as well as the far too many forced updates (why is it okay for an OS to be that full of so many bugs?)
TL;DR: It all depends on who you are, what are your needs, proclivities, whims, etc. Linux generally gives you tons of configuration options which some people really care about, some don't. Also, maybe more so, it may be all about the apps you use and which OS they need to run on.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Tuesday January 03, @04:16AM (1 child)
Yeah. Linux was just starting to become a thing back when I was in college, and a few of my friends were installing it purely for the purpose of tinkering with it.
Most of my current friends who use it are not gamers. I can see the fun in using Linux purely for the ability to tinker with it, and it does have a lot of benefit for non-gamers.
If game publishers would give better direct support for Linux, then I think I'd be onboard with a full switch. I figure even setting up Linux for an aging parent could work since you can configure things to simplify its use for web browsing, etc.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Tuesday January 03, @06:41AM
There were / are some companies making (or selling anyway) computers optimized for seniors, including better keyboards, screens, zooming, etc. Depending on their needs, the one thing that's usually an issue is screen size / resolution.
https://sourcedigit.com/26508-elderly-friendly-linux-systems/ [sourcedigit.com]
https://takacsmark.com/the-top-5-linux-systems-for-elderly-people/ [takacsmark.com]
Somehow I remember this from some years ago because it was Linux and for seniors, but I don't have any experience with them:
https://www.telikin.com [telikin.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telikin [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Tuesday January 03, @06:59AM (2 children)
If CADCAM companies supported Linux, then Linux would be an option. But the professional grade software only runs on Windows, so professional CADCAM users run Windows, and because of that, the software is only made for Windows.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by PhilSalkie on Tuesday January 03, @02:32PM (1 child)
Bricscad is commercial 2D/3D CAD/CAM software that runs natively on Linux. It reads and writes AutoCAD files as its native format, is extremely configurable, and is pretty easy to transition to for AutoCAD users.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday January 03, @05:02PM
It is not even remotely close to professional grade.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 03, @12:03PM (2 children)
Home user here. I switched to Linux long ago, because Windows couldn't stay running for a day. Linux runs for weeks. Months and years, if your electrical supply is stable, which mine is not. The computer in the kitchen is a Windows machine, and it is rebooted routinely, when my wife is frustrated with something. Or whatever. True, Windows rebooting for crazy reasons is less of a problem today than in years past - but Linux simply doesn't have that problem.
What that means is, I can leave documents open, and come back to find them in the same state I left them. Ditto for all applications. I diddle around with whatever, get up to tend to life, and when I come back, everything is same-same.
What Linux does not do is phone home. Today, the non-tech-savvy Windows user has to log into a Microsoft account to use his computer. It's part of setup. If you do everything by default during Windows install, you are logged into a Microsoft account when you boot up for the first time. My computer sends no telemetry anywhere. Not the OS, not the applications, nothing phones home. Call me silly, but I just don't think it is anyone's business what I'm working on. Do you think Pinky and the Brain send hourly memos to the NSA, so that the NSA always knows at what stage their plans for global domination are in?
I also vote with my wallet. While I am no major source of revenue for any project, I much prefer to support open source projects. I despise Bill Gates and Microsoft. I despise Steve Jobs and Apple. No way am I willing to support either enterprise. My scant support goes to Linux and other open source projects.
As for what I actually do with Linux? Anything at all. For instance, setting up a server is easy peasy with Linux, without paying the exorbitant licensing fee that Microsoft asks. If a task can be done on a computer, I can do it on Linux. Sorry, I'm not a gamer, so I don't care how difficult it might be to get the latest and greatest games running on Linux. Anything else, if it piques my interest, I'll get it done.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday January 03, @04:17PM (1 child)
Sorry, I'm not a gamer, so I don't care how difficult it might be to get the latest and greatest games running on Linux.
Lack of game support has actually been used in business to rationalize avoidance of GNU/Linux and pursuit of M$ Windows. Really.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 03, @04:51PM
Well sure, Management needs to be on the same platform as everyone else for compatibility reasons, and if they can't play games how else are they going to pass the time until their next fat paycheck?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday January 03, @09:17PM
The holy trinity Slackware [slackware.com], Window Maker [windowmaker.org] and LibreOffice [libreoffice.org].
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by WeekendMonkey on Thursday January 05, @09:08AM
I started playing with Linux back in the 1.x kernel days (Slackware), but never used it for my main PC until Windows 7 reached end-of-support. The motivation to switch was the UI changes that Microsoft forced on users from Windows 8 through to the abomination that is Windows 11 (I continued to use Windows at work and it hasn't grown on me).
I used to run Mint, but that didn't play well with my new HP laptop, so now I run Ubuntu 22.04 with Cinnamon desktop and a few other customizations and I really can't complain about the experience.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday January 03, @04:00AM (3 children)
It's basically Ubuntu without Wayland and a stupid unusable UI.
The one thing I don't like is Mint dumping Snap [zdnet.com]: nobody wants what Canonical wants to do with Snap. But the packaging format itself is no worse than Flatpak, and sometimes things are only available as Snap packages and Mint makes them inconvenient to install.
But that's not a big problem, because I try my hardest to stay clear the hell away from the Snap / Flatpak / AppImage terribleness anyway. So the case doesn't arise often.
(Score: 2, Touché) by pTamok on Tuesday January 03, @08:41AM (1 child)
Some people are very happy with Mint's stance on Snaps. It does look rather like Canonical wanting to move towards an App Store walled garden, which, while understandable from Canonical's point of view, is not what many people who have adopted Linux-based operating systems in the past want.
Snaps are one approach to avoiding dependency hell. High quality backwards compatibility of APIs that allows old code to use new shared libraries is another. Breaking changes ought to be vanishingly rare.
(Score: 1) by BeaverCleaver on Wednesday January 04, @10:48AM
I'm very happy with Mint's decision not to include Snaps. Mint seems to avoid dependency hell anyway, at least I've never run into any dependency issues. I'm hardly a power user but I have been using Mint as my daily driver since 2016. Clément Lefèbvre and the team have done an excellent job and I am also very happy with their stance against Snaps :-)
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 03, @12:08PM
I'll echo what pTamok says. I fiddled with snap and flatpack. Then I removed everything from my machine. If a developer is unable or unwilling to put his application into the regular Linux repositories, I can't be bothered to run his software.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PhilSalkie on Tuesday January 03, @02:39PM (1 child)
The best distro I've found that uses XFCE is MX-Linux. MX21-1 has just been super, it's got a suite of special management tools which make system management easy, including creation/cloning of live USB installs. As a bonus, it's systemd-free by default (but you can install it if you must.)
https://mxlinux.org/ [mxlinux.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 03, @04:49PM
MXLinux is my most recently abused OS of choice. It works great and the XFCE desktop is light and snappy.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03, @03:38PM
I've been using this combination for years. It's been rock-solid, it has newer versions of packages than most distributions, and it requires almost no tweaking to suit me. Note that I use the computer for general purpose use (web browsing, using Firefox, etc), and "old fashioned" software development (C/C++ primarily). I don't play games.
I run it on a Thinkpad P1 (X1 Extreme), and everything works perfectly (better than Win10).
If you go with Fedora, make sure to install RPM Fusion!