Linux distro recommendation

[jimbee]

Helpful hint: Control-C to copy text, Shift-Control-V to paste text in the terminal window. (Using Ubuntu)
Also drag a file from the file browser to the terminal, the file path will be typed for you in the terminal.

Another option (my preference) is to use the Xserver clipboard. Highlight text as you normally do using the left mouse button. Then center click (using the mouse wheel) where you want the text. Fast and easy.

 

[easysurfer]

I've tinkered a bit with Linux and now have Linux Mint installed on my laptop as my travel OS. Not out of necessity, but I thought that fun. I haven't left Win by any means though as I have Teamviewer for Linux installed on the laptop and can use that to connect to my Win Desktop at home.

I approach setting up Linux Mint on my laptop like a treasure hunt. I think it's fun using the package manager to hunt for applications that are similar to those on Win.

 

[Nunthewiser]

I use Lubuntu on an old HP Mini ( with an 8 GB SSD) I have as my daily driver. It was a bit of a challenge to set up last year, but once it is running, I have very little need to dive into the weeds and get confused. It just works so well with older hardware that you thought you would have to recycle. So, my message to newbies is to try it . There are ways to get it to run alongside Windows before you install it.

 

[Rustic23]

I set up Mint on an older laptop. I have a Buffalo Linkstation that serves an my Network Attached Storage. I have a USB drive plugged into it and it backups the backup. This drive has to be XFS format. Windows will not read this, so I set up Mint. I have played with several distros, but have not used it recently. I was impressed with how easy it was to set up compared to the last time. Especially the network setup.

 

[easysurfer]

Another Spring, Another Distro Hop

Decided to revive this old thread as today and night, I did some distro hopping.

Funny, as looking a couple of posts up, I had posted (back in 2015 about trying out Linux Mint). Several distros later at this moment I'd giving a good kick to the tires using MX Linux. I hadn't heard of the distro before, but what what I've read and seen so far, I'm really thinking of hopping and staying with that (for most of my Linux use).

One cool feature which I read and am now testing, is the ability to make a snapshot (bootable iso) of my current system and use that for disaster recover in case the hard drive goes poof and if I wish to move my system to another computer.

 

[Sunset]

I'm sticking with Ubuntu, as it's working great.
Today I just upgraded from version 16.04 LTS (Long Term Support), meaning very stable and supported. to version 18.04 LTS.

It's a little different, and I'm finding the X to close windows has moved to the right corner (like Windows).
I want to get DW onto linux and this change of the X placement will help make that change easier for her.

 

[easysurfer]

I the MX Linux distro I've been trying out. The snapshot bootable iso worked somewhat. I created a snapshot of my system on a Lenovo Thinkpad laptop and tried to just install on an old Dell Laptop but no go. To be fair, there was a warning during the creation that the iso may not install on all computers (think it said something about Netbios). I did restore back to the Lenovo Thinkpad and that worked out fine.

MX Linux is debian based. From what I've read good and bad. The good, totally rock solid stability. The bad, not as much software to choose from than an Ubuntu based distro. I've already found both points first hand. MX Linux does a better job handling data (copying large files) than another distro I was using. But at the same time, I use a program to make DVDs out of MP4 files which is not in the repositories and I can't simply go into command line and add a PPA to install like I'm more used to.

I'm leaning towards in the end at least have 3 systems :

1) Windoze - due to familiarity and some Windoze only programs (not a huge fan of dual booting or VM)
2) MX Linux - my main Linux distro
3) Peppermint OS -other Linux distro. Runs that program I couldn't find for MX Linux.

I may stick the Peppermint OS on a VM though if that works well. Something for me to tinker with.

 

[JoeWras]

I the MX Linux distro I've been trying out.

easysurfer: you are missing a word. "like" ?

I'm paying attention to this thread because it is time to do some work on my internet of things system. I've taken time away from computers in retirement, yet I know the itch will come soon enough.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

I have a bunch of systems. I recently installed Linux Mint Cinnamon on a old-school Lenovo T400 (circa 2010) that I picked up for $1 (had to add a battery, drive rail, threw an old 2.5" drive - so figure $18 plus the value of an old 320GB 2.5" spinner that was just sitting around).

Performance is pretty decent. I installed Eclipse for programming along with the LeJos plugin and my child is using it for Lego Robotics things.

I am mentioning this because I was pleasantly surprised with a relatively heavy weight Linux distro on an old core 2 duo laptop. For those of you who like GUI things, it isn't bad. (I still find myself going to command line and doing installs/updates using Aptitude.)

If you want to play with ioT devices or constrained memory/disk footprints, I'd go plain old Debian w/o window managers or Arch Linux. I do this a lot for headless devices, where I just install what I want on the device and ssh to it when needed. One of my old favorites was using pogo plugs hacked to act as a Mac Time Machine backup server. (Warning: Easy to brick when setting up and even when working pretty slow.)

Another fun project is to do a Hackintosh laptop. I recently did this on an old (circa 2012) Lenovo X220. It is now running High Sierra. Although old, it has reasonable performance and I'm running it with a 750GB SSD and 16GB ram which would be quite costly on a MacBook Pro.

 

[easysurfer]

easysurfer: you are missing a word. "like" ?

I'm paying attention to this thread because it is time to do some work on my internet of things system. I've taken time away from computers in retirement, yet I know the itch will come soon enough.

Sorry, my mind faster than my fingers . Thanks for catching the slip up.

Yes, I like MX Linux. It's now #2 on DistroWatch over the last 6 months (though you have to take those rankings with a grain of salt). I never heard of MX Linux until a few days ago.

 

[ERD50]

I'm sticking with Ubuntu, as it's working great.
Today I just upgraded from version 16.04 LTS (Long Term Support), meaning very stable and supported. to version 18.04 LTS.

It's a little different, and I'm finding the X to close windows has moved to the right corner (like Windows).
I want to get DW onto linux and this change of the X placement will help make that change easier for her.

IIRC, this is adjustable on all the Linux versions I've tried. I'm running 18.04 now as my main machine, but the XFCE variant (Xubuntu). Go to:

Settings Manager / Window Manager - select "STYLE" tab. You have several options for how things look, and can drag those menu boxes anywhere you want. Very flexible and very easy.

-ERD50

 

[Sunset]

IIRC, this is adjustable on all the Linux versions I've tried. I'm running 18.04 now as my main machine, but the XFCE variant (Xubuntu). Go to:

Settings Manager / Window Manager - select "STYLE" tab. You have several options for how things look, and can drag those menu boxes anywhere you want. Very flexible and very easy.

-ERD50

You are probably correct, but in this case, I don't mind adapting as it will make it more of a reflexive action for me as I have to switch between windows and linux boxes.

I did change the top bar to show the Date along with the time that was there.

 

[Sunset]

I the MX Linux distro I've been trying out. The snapshot bootable iso worked somewhat. I created a snapshot of my system on a Lenovo Thinkpad laptop and tried to just install on an old Dell Laptop but no go. To be fair, there was a warning during the creation that the iso may not install on all computers (think it said something about Netbios). I did restore back to the Lenovo Thinkpad and that worked out fine.
.....

I may stick the Peppermint OS on a VM though if that works well. Something for me to tinker with.

I always thought (and correct me if wrong) that since linux customizes the installation to the present hardware, a copy off 1 type of machine to a different type would not work well.

I really like VM's much better than having a number of computer boxes sitting around with different OS's waiting to be used, and cheaper.

 

[IBWino]

I just setup Linux Mint-Cinnamon last week to try out as my first experience with Linux. I'm a lifelong DOS/Windows user, but I'm not sold on Windows 10. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to setup this version of Linux and I like the GUI's similarity to Windows 7. So far, I'm not seeing any reason not to migrate to Linux over Windows 10. The office suite (Libre Office) will take a bit of time adjusting to, but it seems very capable for my purposes.

Any advice or cautions for a Linux newby thinking of ditching Windows? I may need to setup a Windows virtual machine to run a couple of legacy apps occasionally, but that's not a big deal to me.

 

[ejman]

I just setup Linux Mint-Cinnamon last week to try out as my first experience with Linux. I'm a lifelong DOS/Windows user, but I'm not sold on Windows 10. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to setup this version of Linux and I like the GUI's similarity to Windows 7. So far, I'm not seeing any reason not to migrate to Linux over Windows 10. The office suite (Libre Office) will take a bit of time adjusting to, but it seems very capable for my purposes.

Any advice or cautions for a Linux newby thinking of ditching Windows? I may need to setup a Windows virtual machine to run a couple of legacy apps occasionally, but that's not a big deal to me.

I have been using Linux for several years now having made the transition from the DOS/Windows world as well. Tried a variety of distributions "Distros" and finally settled on Linux Mint XFCE, currently using the 19.1 version.



The only programs I'm unable to run in Linux are Turbotax/ HR Block tax preparation programs. I could use the browser versions of those programs but I'd rather not so I'm stuck with one windows machine for that purpose. I could run windows in a virtual machine under linux but then I would have to buy a copy of Win 10 and I would rather not do that. Surprisingly, I'm able to run some older windows games (such as Titan Quest) under Linux WINE just fine while having a heck of a time having those programs run under Win 10, even using the compatibility tools.


I haven't really found any other major problems to report - updates are painless unlike Win 10, the version of the Linux OS I use just simply works and gets out of the way.

 

[Sunset]

Same as ejman

I keep a low cost windows laptop around for running the tax program, and to VPN to 1 customer network (as I couldn't get VPN to work on my linux for their network access).

Otherwise just linux.

 

[IBWino]

...

The only programs I'm unable to run in Linux are Turbotax/ HR Block tax preparation programs. I could use the browser versions of those programs but I'd rather not so I'm stuck with one windows machine for that purpose. I could run windows in a virtual machine under linux but then I would have to buy a copy of Win 10 and I would rather not do that. Surprisingly, I'm able to run some older windows games (such as Titan Quest) under Linux WINE just fine while having a heck of a time having those programs run under Win 10, even using the compatibility tools.

...

Yeah, Turbo Tax is one of the apps that I need, along with an older version of Quicken. I'm not sure if this will work, but I still have the opportunity to upgrade my current Windows 7 system to Windows 10. Once I do this, I can do a clean install Windows 10, and it will still be registered/activated with Microsoft. I was planning to try this in a virtual machine on this same computer, hoping the activation will still be recognized. I might have to extract the product key after the upgrade to make it work.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

I just setup Linux Mint-Cinnamon last week to try out as my first experience with Linux. I'm a lifelong DOS/Windows user, but I'm not sold on Windows 10. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to setup this version of Linux and I like the GUI's similarity to Windows 7. So far, I'm not seeing any reason not to migrate to Linux over Windows 10. The office suite (Libre Office) will take a bit of time adjusting to, but it seems very capable for my purposes.

Any advice or cautions for a Linux newby thinking of ditching Windows? I may need to setup a Windows virtual machine to run a couple of legacy apps occasionally, but that's not a big deal to me.

This ZDNet article addresses some of the options/issues regarding the transition from Win 7 to Linux Mint.

Many of you are Windows 7 users. I get it. Windows 7 just works. But the clock is ticking for Windows 7. In less than a year, Windows 7's free support ends..........

.....But Windows 10 came out in July 2015. If you haven't upgraded by now, I'm sure you don't want any part of Windows 10......
......There are many good Linux desktops, and I've used many of them. I recommend Mint, but there are numerous others you can consider such as openSUSE, Manjaro, Debian, and Fedora. I have one big reason to think Mint is a good fit for Windows 7 users. Mint's default Cinnamon interface looks and works a lot like Windows 7's Aero interface. Yes, there's a learning curve, but it's nothing like the one you'll face if you move to Windows 10 or macOS.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-replace-windows-7-with-linux-mint/

 

[easysurfer]

I always thought (and correct me if wrong) that since linux customizes the installation to the present hardware, a copy off 1 type of machine to a different type would not work well.

I really like VM's much better than having a number of computer boxes sitting around with different OS's waiting to be used, and cheaper.

I don't know the answer about the customization. My thought is if there isn't proprietary stuff like graphics drivers, then should work. But I could easily be wrong as my Linux is still a work in progress.

I did play around with VMs a few months back. Didn't like the VM software by Oracle. Might be must me, but I found trying to know, for example when I inserted a USB, would the VM or my real machine access the USB. Felt clunky to me. QEMU/KVM in the repositories seemed friendlier and I may give that another try.

 

[easysurfer]

I just setup Linux Mint-Cinnamon last week to try out as my first experience with Linux. I'm a lifelong DOS/Windows user, but I'm not sold on Windows 10. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to setup this version of Linux and I like the GUI's similarity to Windows 7. So far, I'm not seeing any reason not to migrate to Linux over Windows 10. The office suite (Libre Office) will take a bit of time adjusting to, but it seems very capable for my purposes.

Any advice or cautions for a Linux newby thinking of ditching Windows? I may need to setup a Windows virtual machine to run a couple of legacy apps occasionally, but that's not a big deal to me.

My biggest adjustment in way of thinking is how to install programs. In the Win world, you just download and install the .exe program. In Linux there are different ways like using a repository, or through command line or if you know how, compile from source and make your own executable.

 

[ejman]

Yeah, Turbo Tax is one of the apps that I need, along with an older version of Quicken. I'm not sure if this will work, but I still have the opportunity to upgrade my current Windows 7 system to Windows 10. Once I do this, I can do a clean install Windows 10, and it will still be registered/activated with Microsoft. I was planning to try this in a virtual machine on this same computer, hoping the activation will still be recognized. I might have to extract the product key after the upgrade to make it work.

I run Quicken 2010 using Linux WINE with no problems, dunno about latter versions of Quicken. I suppose that extracting the windows key would work for a virtual machine install of Win 10 but I'm not motivated enough to try it

 

[Sunset]

My biggest adjustment in way of thinking is how to install programs. In the Win world, you just download and install the .exe program. In Linux there are different ways like using a repository, or through command line or if you know how, compile from source and make your own executable.

True it is different.
However with Ubuntu it has a graphical "ubuntu software" app, where you can search for programs and see ratings, and install with 1 click.

 

[easysurfer]

True it is different.
However with Ubuntu it has a graphical "ubuntu software" app, where you can search for programs and see ratings, and install with 1 click.

If a program you are looking for is in the "ubuntu software" app then smooth sailing. But if not, may need some more hunting down. Plus, different distros may have different looking graphical repositories.

I'm experiencing the different way of installing a program right now.

I'm looking for a DVD creating program called bombono-dvd which is not in either of the MX-Linux installer repository or Synaptic's repository for debian. If I was using ubuntu, I could easily go to the command line and type in the commands to add a PPA where bombono-dvd can be found. But since MX-Linux is based on debian, there's a warning in the documentation to not try to add PPA like in Ubuntu or could break the system (called creating a "FrankenDebian" ). So, maybe I can compile the source myself (but don't know how to do). Or maybe there is a way to point to a repository (but not sure how to do or if I should do).

Hopefully, this won't discourage folks from trying out Linux, but just an example not totally a switch without some growing pains.

 

[tsoispf]

I've been using Linux Mint as my primary operating system for two years now. Very pleased with the performance and functionality. I recently upgraded to a newer Dell laptop. Mint was snappier before and even more so now.

I like the TimeShift feature to make system snapshots. I actually used one of those snapshots when deploying Mint on the new laptop. It worked flawlessly. You take these snapshots and rarely have the need to use them. It was nice to discover they worked well.

I use Arch Linux on my basement desktop "server". I use the server for tinkering with Linux and other projects. I even set up an Arch Linux partition with the same software that Linux Mint Cinnamon had preloaded. I wanted to kick the tires. I got burned on one update for 24 hours. So I'm sticking with Mint as my primary. Arch was just too bleeding edge. Plus Mint upgrades have been a breeze for me when they roll out.

 

[easysurfer]

TimeShift is great. I use too, especially to make a snapshot before doing any testing or configuring where I may mess things up.

Kicking the tires around the past couple of days with MX Linux, I just finished installing the applications I want and tweaking some settings around. The used the tools with the distro to create a LiveCD and LiveUSB to use to later install on my good (SSHD) drive.

First things first. Time to take a break and listen to the crack of the bat. Baseball .