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by gravypod 3679 days ago
If you are still looking for a way to get into Linux I'd strongly recommend trying Manjaro [0] XFCE (Not any of the other versions).

I've yet to have a computer that was made in the past 5 years that I haven't been able to get it running on. It's amazing.

If you start it with the non-free (as in libre) installer, you'll definitely get near perfect hardware support. You'll need to install two packages if you want good battery life (TLP and thermald).

After that, it's ready for production use on almost every system I've tried.

If you like it/try it I'd like to see how it works out for you so try and contact me and tell me how it went. I might try starting to recommend this for some family I know who get viruses but don't do much else but Youtube and Facebook.

[0] - https://manjaro.github.io/
2 comments
oldsj 3679 days ago
I appreciate it but I'm not all that new to linux. I'm not a huge fan of Manjaro because they are downstream of Arch, and therefore any security updates are in the hads of the few maintainers. I ran arch for about a year and that was probably the best experience I've had with linux on the desktop. I just feel like in 2016 the desktop should be a solved problem but I just keep getting disappointed haha. I'll probably change my mind again next week but oh well
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michaelmrose 3679 days ago
I really wish people would stop pushing manjaro quite so hard for newbies to linux I honestly don't think its an optimal choice.
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gravypod 3679 days ago
It really does just work. I'm fairly stupid, and I've not had any problems with it.

I have a rule of thumb: I try to NEVER touch the console for my non-development OS. Manjaro allows me to accomplish that and it also works on most hardware I've tested it on.

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michaelmrose 3679 days ago
Why would never touching console be a goal I use the console for basic tasks and find it effective and useful.
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gravypod 3679 days ago
You and I will have a very easy time navigating the world of a command prompt, the average user will not.

There is a reason GUIs won out over terminals, and that is because no one in the main stream wants to touch one.

A good OS should allow you to do every necessary task via a GUI. If there is a Linux DE/WM that can provide an experience like that, I feel like GNU/Linux will have its break through in the consumer market.

I use my "I never need to do something in the terminal" as a basic user acceptance test.

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