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And so it begins

I installed Linux Mint for the first time on my personal Laptop just a few months ago, and it ran so well that I didn't want to mess with it to try out different distros.

But today, my company's IT department announced that they have some spare old Laptops to give away (technically because they didn't meet the specs for Windows 11, didn't stop the IT department from giving them out with Windows 11 pre installed though)

So now I got a few devices to play around with!! They're a Precision 7530 and a Latitude 7390 2-in-1!

I already got ZorinOS running on the little guy because apparently Zorin is nice for Touchscreen support. For the big guy I was initially thinking that I could try Bazzite, but the installer was like "Intel UHD Graphics aren't really recommended" so I might try something else first. Any recommendations? I mainly just want to try as many different flavors of Linux as I can haha

st3ph3n @midwest.social - 2hr

I've become quite the fan of Fedora with KDE. Running Fedora 43 on both my couch Thinkpad and my gaming desktop. Only issue I'm having with it is sleep functionality on the desktop, which just sucks (it likes to not wake up from sleep) so I have that set to not go to sleep, just turn the screen off when idle.

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azvasKvklenko @sh.itjust.works - 2hr

Yeah, I’m normally an Arch guy, but gave Fedora with KDE a shot when I bought Framework. It's pretty sweet, does everything I want and never bothers me

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Ooops @feddit.org - 10min

and never bothers me

For some time... but nowadays I would never go for anything not rolling release anymore.

Because those distro upgrades were traditionally when something broke (or there were just too many changes requiring my attention at the same time), triggering a fresh install... usually combined with trying another distro.

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Victor - 1hr

Do you find that Arch bothers you in any way, would you say? How if so?

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kwomp2 @sh.itjust.works - 1hr

can you do gaming on fedora? like, run pirated games or use steam?

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Ooops @feddit.org - 10min

yes, it's linux...

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NewNewAugustEast @lemmy.zip - 1hr

I always wonder why mint is the one people try. It seems so out of date.

Fedora these days works really well and is really up to date.

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winkerjadams @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 28min

Is there something wrong with mint?

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Interstellar_1 - 12min

Personally the ui looks a bit outdated and there's less customization than most other distros

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DIY KARMA KIT - 4hr

If you wanna have fun, i woild recommend bedrock linux, haven't tried it, but it sounds cool and interesting. Also nixos might be fun to try in my opinion.

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radswid @feddit.org - 4hr

Nix might be a bit overwhelming when his first installation of linux was only a few months ago, I guess :D

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DIY KARMA KIT - 3hr

It might be overwhelming but still fun to explore new things, right?

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python @lemmy.world - 2hr

Ooh, Nix looks interesting, I'd be down for the challenge!

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UNY0N @lemmy.wtf - 2hr

Nix is such a cool project. If I had more time I'd definitely give it a go.

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UNY0N @lemmy.wtf - 3hr

I ran bazzite on a Lenovo flexpad with Intel und 630 graphics and it ran perfectly. I even ran mechwarrior 5 on it, albeit with the graphics details turned down so low that it looked like a mechwarrior game from the 1990s.

I'd give bazzite a go. Learning about how to install and use distroboxes is also lots of Linux fun.

Edit: also, you literally cannot break any of the immutable fedora distros. Very newbie friendly.

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Bluegrass_Addict @lemmy.ca - 3hr

warning for bazzite: It's very restrictive and doesn't let you actually manipulate it like most distros. if you're even remotely tech savvy and want to explore/play around in Linux, do NOT install bazzite.

if you don't care, and want their team to 'protect you' from doing pc damage, the. use bazzite.

(backstory; I went to modify my fstab, it allowed me to with no issues. I broke the file.. fine, went to edit it to revert back.. root access was revoked and I was told to f myself by bazzite. I had to enter grub? (can't fully remember) to modify it back which worked but was a pain in the ass I should have had to do. promptly uninstalled and never looked back.)

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Mereo - 2hr

if you don't care, and want their team to 'protect you' from doing pc damage, the. use bazzite.

I would say that most people fall into this category. They just want to install the operating system and start working or gaming.

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PerogiBoi @lemmy.ca - 2hr

You do a massive disservice to the overwhelming majority of computer users.

To everyone else: if you want a computer that just works and don’t want to fuck around with the command line, Bazzite is perfect. It should be recommended over Linux Mint.

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Ooops @feddit.org - 7min

You do a massive disservice to the overwhelming majority of computer users.

By explicitly telling the rest why Bazzite probably isn't for them?

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python @lemmy.world - 2hr

Well now I want to install it just to try to break it lol

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boredsquirrel - 2hr

Computertruhe could be happy about well working laptops! Dont hoard ;) you can try distros with external SSDs

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python @lemmy.world - 2hr

That's actually an awesome project and I'm coincidentally moving close to one of their locations soon :o

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INeedMana - 3hr

Maybe not exactly what you are asking for but try out yunohost. Since you have some spares, one can be self-hosting stuff

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python @lemmy.world - 2hr

That's a neat pointer! I have been meaning to look into self-hosting anyway since my AWS free tier is running out pretty soon and I need a new place to cheaply plant down my in-development website project haha

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SlicedPotato @feddit.dk - 29min

Bazzite is the more gaming oriented flavour of Universal Blue's distros, but take a look at Bluefin if you wanna try something similar (but not focused on gaming, although gaming also works fine on it). I've used it for about a year or so myself, and I love it. It's immutable so it "just works", but I can still play around and tinker with distroboxes or VMs.

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pr06lefs @lemmy.ml - 13min

Snagged a thinkpad today for just over 100$. Guy mentioned it was because of windows 11. Its hippie christmas for linux!

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