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Linux tips
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this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
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I can’t understand why there’s so many people suggesting newbies something really complicated distro, when all they need is to start with a something really user friendly, like Linux Mint. User can then move on to other distros if they want to when their skills improve. I use Arch BTW.
Yeah, I totally agree. The only thing I can guess, aside from people just being assholes, is that someone with many years of experience is only thinking of what they liked after gaining that experience.
For example, if someone learned with Debian and then moved on to Arch, they think Arch is "better" and I think they are telling others to not waste their time on Debian. They are totally ignoring the fact that they spent quite a bit of time learning before they moved on and they are advising that a newcomer skip to what they perceive as "the end."
Because otherwise you don't have the "true linux experience", whatever that means.
I work in IT support, and you can't imagine how completely computer inept the average user is. Like, they start crying when a button has moved 2cm to the side.
These will never be able to use a command line, let alone install their own operating system.
Yet some of these Linux evangelicals think everyone was born with a UTP cable up their arse. So they recommend what they see as "easy", but don't understand that it only looks easy to them because of the decades of experience they already had.
As long as the Linux community can not decide what distro is the best for newbies, it will never be the year of the linux.
Gatekeeping is a big problem with anything - especially as it becomes easier.
Film photographers balked at people going digital and about color grading and retouching with lightroom and photoshop.
Car people talked shit about how using an automatic transmission wasn't really driving.
PC gamers got pissy at console gamers in the 90s and 2000s for just wanting a game to fucking work without having to chase down a conflict caused by a random printer driver that made their game crash in any map with water (my actual lived experience with Battefield 1942).
Lots of old-school 3D printing enthusiasts get upset when new users don't know when to adjust their pressure advance or can't read gcode.
Doctors who worked three 30-hour shifts a week in their residency think new doctors should go through the same rite of passage.
Football players who were taught to lead into a tackle using the top of their skull think new rules implemented to prevent neck injuries and TBIs make new players pansies.
We need to understand that part of making the world better is that the next generation of professionals, hobbyists, and people in general will have it easier than us, and that's a good thing.
... we stopped doing that? D:
This is also stupid because before the tail end of the 2000s, the types of games you'd buy a PC for were different than consoles. Not to say there were no platformers on PC, but you were going with console if that was your biggest interest.
When I recommend Linux I always recommend Mint because it can be installed and set up by anyone who can read and follow half a dozen instructions. I don't often recommend Linux though, because the average user won't even read an error message before giving up.
When I recommend Linux I always recommend Mint because it can be installed and set up by anyone who can read and follow half a dozen instructions. I don't often recommend Linux though, because the average user won't even read an error message before giving up.
because it's pretty hard to recommend anything you don't use. Seeking advice on a distribution in geek forums, therefore, is a losing plan right from the start. It's smarter to install whatever you want and then come to the forums with your problems.
"I heard distro xyz is really beginner friendly, i didn't use it though so i can't give you much advice on that." is pretty simple.
Maybe adding "...i'm using distro C btw" at the end if you truly want to feels important.
Cachy btw
What's the value of this advice? You can google the same thing in about 2 minutes. People usually expect real-world experience.
It gives people place to start with, and since you're in that comminity you would very likely heard some recommendation. There were a time Google will recommend people PopOS where they're undergoing changes that makes the OS so buggy to use and not user friendly at all, as a human person that participated or heard discussion about it, you will most likely tell new comer to steer clear from it. Google won't do that.
"Just google this" is definitely the worst way to treat people who just want an easy recommendation in a sea of choices.
That's alright, I've used them all. Don't ask me about Fedora cause I will shit on Red Hat for the rest of my life. This also includes stuff like Bazzite by extension.
But distro C isn't actually easy you should use distro F for a really good new user experience!
Lol
Nah, adding “I use Arch BTW” is something you’re seeing in Reddit all the time. I found it hilarious, didn’t realize how literally it was taken here. I would add that actually I have used Mint for ages, but I don’t want to make you think that I want to feel important.
That was mainly a joke, but i see it's hard to tell from that tone, my bad.
LFS, Slackware, and Gentoo are the only complicated distros in 2026 and no one recommends those.
I think you overestimate skills of the average computer user. Most of them don’t even know how to install operating system, even that Windows which came with their own computer. That’s why you shouldn’t recommend them any distro which is easy for average Linux user. They need something very simple and easy for the start up.
Even Debian is a lot harder to use than Mint if you want things like the login page recognising your external monitor and realising that it should be your primary monitor before logging in, especially if a KVM means that it wasn't attached when you first booted. Or wanting that setup to persist after an nvidia driver update. There's just so much stuff that a user-focused distro can make easy that most distros don't make easy!
Because most Linux users online are posers who only use their computers to run update commands.
Nah, poser was my teenage self installing it on my first gen iPod nano despite not knowing so much as what cat or mv does.
Played lots of Tik-Tac-Toe. Ai played nearly perfect games everytime.
because some people are assholes