this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I've been using Linux Mint since forever. I've never felt a reason to change. But I'm interested in what persuaded others to move.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Swapping out KDE/Plasma for Gnome or anything else is dead simple most of the time. The DE isn't locked to the distro, you can have multiple DEs and windowing systems (X and Wayland) installed at once. You can select them from your login manager.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wish I knew about this sooner.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Heh, no problem, never too late to learn. If you're coming from Windows or OS X it's easy to think that the WM/DE is tied to the OS but due to the way Linux is written, the entire GUI stack is separate from the base system. You can have both the old school X Windowing system and the new Wayland installed at the same time, along with many different Desktop Environments and Window Managers. I use SDDM as my login manager and in the upper left-hand corner there is a drop-down to choose the DE and Windowing System.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That really is a lot to learn and get used to.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No one ever said learning something completely new was gonna be quick and easy. Take it piece by piece and follow tutorials. Installing Arch Linux will give you a good idea how everything fits together instead of just "click, click, click, reboot" and it's installed. You don't learn anything that way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I remember seeing memes about this all the time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I credit Arch with actually teaching me how to use Linux, even though I had already been using it for about 2 years at that point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Heh, no problem, never too late to learn. If you're coming from Windows or OS X it's easy to think that the WM/DE is tied to the OS but due to the way Linux is written, the entire GUI stack is separate from the base system. I use SDDM as my login manager and in the upper left-hand corner there is a drop-down to choose the DE and Windowing System.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Didn't you already reply with a comment similar to this?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Possibly, I reply to a lot of people and I'm on Mobile most of the time and lose track of what I type.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Looking at my comment history, I noticed that this ended up happening to some of my comments too.