The real hard part of linux is decision. I’m indecisive af so deciding a distro and then a de took forever. I’m still going back and forth on gnome and plasma. My only issue with gnome is I cant seem to get my top bar centered (cant find extensions) and only in the middle which was easy on plasma.
If you are indecisive, and want to game, get Nobara.
Its pretty much ready to go out of the box, regularly updates, and has tools to make updating things like SteamTinkerLaunch and GEProton easy and effortless.
I have no idea how people keep recommending that distro to beginners and regular end users only based on what the experience is like right after installing it.
It was such a pain daily driving it for couple of months even for experienced user. updates breaking stuff every now and then, packages reverting versions oddly, causing conflicts in plasma packages, when using SteamDeck mode it would auto-install updates on boot without asking and bootlooping for no reason until I disconnect it from the network, plymouth theme changing randomly. Usually to troubleshoot I had to go to their Discord to see what broke this time. I mean, fine, but this is an unstable tinkerer purely community-driven distro, not meant for those who just want easy time dealing with their PCs. Besides, none of that shit happens on just regular plain Arch btw, once setup properly it updates just fine.
I’ve used Nobara since…38? I think? and not encountered any of those issues. Its been stable, easy to use, user friendly, and most importantly… absolutely flawless for gaming, without having to do any annoying shit like compiling my own version of STL to install it and stuff like that.
Honestly, in my experience its easier and more friendly than Ubuntu. . Which is saying a lot, since Ubuntu is basically the linux for new people.
Honestly, I only have one complaint slash negative thing to say about the my entire Nobara experience, and that is I wish the upgrading (Like going from 40 to 41) was more automatic, like it is with ubuntu where you just click yes and it gets to work… But that isnt to say upgrading is hard or obnoxious, GE puts out an almost idiotproof guide on how to do it each time a new iteration releases that you can copy the commands from and do it without issue.
I like Arch because I love minimalist stuff and love having the latest software available. However, I always had small niggles where my Linux experience would fail me and end up spending time trying to fix it. In the end I booted more into Windows to just avoid it.
I wiped and installed Mint at the weekend as I wanted to spend less time tinkering and just using it instead. I’m happy with the decision so far.
Yeah. I had a perfect gnome setup for myself, but then arc menu stopped working with dock to panel randomly and now wont turn on. No idea how to uninstall it.
fighting is a good way to describe it. i see why people like it, i just don’t know how they can stand it. i would love it if it was as stable as the others. btw kubuntu lts uses a very old plasma version, it’s probably going to be better if they ever finish updating it to 6.
Yeah the amount of choices is overwhelming. Luckily desktop environment shouldn’t make or break the experience for anyone. KDE is kind of buggy, but there are so many customization choices. Ultimately I still ended up preferring cinnamon.
On kde I can have a bottom bar plus a top bar that is only in the middle not the edges, I like the notch look, only way I can get a top bar in gnome is slightly notched it still goes all the way to the edge. Or I can have no bottom bar and then I can have the top bar centered using gnome to panel, but I like having both. Its just annoying to get exactly right unlike kde, but has more extensions I like right now.
Idk, im having issues with extensions not working after reboot, like arcmenu, which i need for gnome to be usable, so far now ive swapped back to plasma.
They make a desktop which is opinionated, and in some ways pushes things forwards. For example it is nice to not have to always deal with the awful Start button metaphor.
On the others it can be a constraint. Only wanting to support the modern icon tray lead to years of having to use an extension for all the software that didn’t.
And that’s fine. That’s why we have KDE and XFCE.
I personally much prefer the Gnome flow which gets out my way, and find KDE to feel much more archaic. I don’t want docks and bars, I don’t want the desktop to be more than a place to hold my applications.
The real hard part of linux is decision. I’m indecisive af so deciding a distro and then a de took forever. I’m still going back and forth on gnome and plasma. My only issue with gnome is I cant seem to get my top bar centered (cant find extensions) and only in the middle which was easy on plasma.
If you are indecisive, and want to game, get Nobara.
Its pretty much ready to go out of the box, regularly updates, and has tools to make updating things like SteamTinkerLaunch and GEProton easy and effortless.
I have no idea how people keep recommending that distro to beginners and regular end users only based on what the experience is like right after installing it.
It was such a pain daily driving it for couple of months even for experienced user. updates breaking stuff every now and then, packages reverting versions oddly, causing conflicts in plasma packages, when using SteamDeck mode it would auto-install updates on boot without asking and bootlooping for no reason until I disconnect it from the network, plymouth theme changing randomly. Usually to troubleshoot I had to go to their Discord to see what broke this time. I mean, fine, but this is an unstable tinkerer purely community-driven distro, not meant for those who just want easy time dealing with their PCs. Besides, none of that shit happens on just regular plain Arch btw, once setup properly it updates just fine.
EDIT: maybe it’s any better in Nobara 41?
I’ve used Nobara since…38? I think? and not encountered any of those issues. Its been stable, easy to use, user friendly, and most importantly… absolutely flawless for gaming, without having to do any annoying shit like compiling my own version of STL to install it and stuff like that.
Honestly, in my experience its easier and more friendly than Ubuntu. . Which is saying a lot, since Ubuntu is basically the linux for new people.
Honestly, I only have one complaint slash negative thing to say about the my entire Nobara experience, and that is I wish the upgrading (Like going from 40 to 41) was more automatic, like it is with ubuntu where you just click yes and it gets to work… But that isnt to say upgrading is hard or obnoxious, GE puts out an almost idiotproof guide on how to do it each time a new iteration releases that you can copy the commands from and do it without issue.
Went with cachy, works well.
I bounced between them both. Decided on Mint with Cinnamon because it just works without fuss.
I like Arch because I love minimalist stuff and love having the latest software available. However, I always had small niggles where my Linux experience would fail me and end up spending time trying to fix it. In the end I booted more into Windows to just avoid it. I wiped and installed Mint at the weekend as I wanted to spend less time tinkering and just using it instead. I’m happy with the decision so far.
cinnamon is like the perfect middle ground. it’s not as painful to use as gnome, not as buggy as kde, but it still has a ton of customization.
Yeah. I had a perfect gnome setup for myself, but then arc menu stopped working with dock to panel randomly and now wont turn on. No idea how to uninstall it.
I’ve been fighting kde on Kubuntu
fighting is a good way to describe it. i see why people like it, i just don’t know how they can stand it. i would love it if it was as stable as the others. btw kubuntu lts uses a very old plasma version, it’s probably going to be better if they ever finish updating it to 6.
Go for opensuse tw with plasma 😇then you have always the newest tested snapshot
Yeah the amount of choices is overwhelming. Luckily desktop environment shouldn’t make or break the experience for anyone. KDE is kind of buggy, but there are so many customization choices. Ultimately I still ended up preferring cinnamon.
What do you mean “centered”? The top bar is top, and the clock is centered.
On kde I can have a bottom bar plus a top bar that is only in the middle not the edges, I like the notch look, only way I can get a top bar in gnome is slightly notched it still goes all the way to the edge. Or I can have no bottom bar and then I can have the top bar centered using gnome to panel, but I like having both. Its just annoying to get exactly right unlike kde, but has more extensions I like right now. Idk, im having issues with extensions not working after reboot, like arcmenu, which i need for gnome to be usable, so far now ive swapped back to plasma.
Check out Cosmic? The default layout sounds exactly like what you want.
Didnt feel good, tried it first
And Gnome is probably not for you.
They make a desktop which is opinionated, and in some ways pushes things forwards. For example it is nice to not have to always deal with the awful Start button metaphor.
On the others it can be a constraint. Only wanting to support the modern icon tray lead to years of having to use an extension for all the software that didn’t.
And that’s fine. That’s why we have KDE and XFCE.
I personally much prefer the Gnome flow which gets out my way, and find KDE to feel much more archaic. I don’t want docks and bars, I don’t want the desktop to be more than a place to hold my applications.
yeah we tend to distrohop a bit before settling with something, and maybe something will change down the line that makes you wanna hop again.
its part of the process for some people.