My objective is to ditch windows & utilize my triple monitor desktop as a cockpit style dashboard for my homeserver & lan devices along with always open widgets like music, calculator, etc.

There was another post yesterday about this and the community recommended Mint & Pop OS the most. However, I am not looking for windows-like. I want a new & fresh experience like using a smartphone for the first time or switching from ios to android.

Distrochooser.de recommended kubuntu to me.

So I have some questions:

  1. What are the building blocks of a distro? Things that separate distros from each other. Like I know 2 - Desktop Env & Package Managers. Are there others, what are they or where do I find a list? I would like to compare these blocks and make it a shopping experience and then pick the distro that matches my list. Is this approach even valid?

  2. How do I find and compare whats missing from which distro? For eg. if I install mint, what would I be potentially missing out that may be a feature on another distro? How do I go about finding these things?

  3. What are some programs/ widgets/ others that are must haves for you? For eg. some particular task manager

  4. What are the first steps after installing linux? For eg. In Windows, its drivers, then debloat and then install programs like vlc, rar, etc.

  5. I read on some post, a user was saying that they want to avoid installing qt libraries. Why would someone potentially want that? I have never thought of my computer in such terms. I have always installed whatever whenever. The comment stuck with me. Is this something I should be concerned about?

  6. Should I not worry about all of the above and just pick from mint, pop and kubuntu?

  • the16bitgamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    11 months ago
    1. You got the bases down from my understanding. But it can more be simplified by what’s the bases of the distro. For example Linux Mint is down stream from Ubuntu which is down stream from Debain. Getting familiar with the base distro is helpful.

    My strategy is just a good old VM and installing whatever I am interested in. Technically you could list all the package managers but if a distro has a different upstream source that uses apt then its going to be hard to tell that nuance.

    1. Its down to your use case. For me I primarily game so I have a handful of games and software which I need to install. Xpadneo, mangohud, goverlay, lutris, etc. All this is testable in a VM installing is the most you’ll need to do.

    2. must have software for me is steam, lutris, dxvk, and flatpak support (lots of emulators use flatpak). The rest like libre office, gimp, vlc is usually pre-installed.

    3. Software Manager and running the updates. Most distros aren’t bloated by default. If you feel they are, the software is easy to uninstall.

    4. haven’t heard of this, so no clue.

    5. Mint, Pop, kubuntu are all the same OS underneath. They are all up stream Ubuntu with software and Desktop Environment tweaks, tailored to their preferred configuration. Kubuntu stands out as it has KDE plasma installed, while the others have a tweaked gnome experience.

    Other than feel, they all should run the same under the hood.

    Fedora, Manjaro and OpenSuse are all viable alternatives to Ubuntu/Debian. Each having their pros and cons based on your tastes. In order of easiest to setup to best to tinker with this is my recommended order to try them out in a VM.

    1. Mint/Pop_OS/Kubuntu (deb bases and has the most users/support thanks to Ubuntu)

    2. Fedora (RHEL bases and lots of enterprise support. Other DEs can be found as “spins” if you don’t like Gnome. DNF isn’t my favourite package manager

    3. OpenSuse (Good around distro. Very workstations friendly, but lacks one or two packages I want, close to Fedora for my recommendation)

    4. Manjaro (its arch for babies. Easy to configure and setup compared to arch, but very temperamental and easy to break)

    5. Arch/EndevourOS (if you want the best Linux has to offer, all the software and tunable to your taste. Welcome. Otherwise git gud)

    6. Hanna Montana Linux (its the best of both worlds)

    TL:DR install virtual box and try the distro. You’ll know very quickly if you like it. And what you’ll like in a distro.