Yeah, I have no problem with it today, because I want to learn it, so as long as I'm not gaining I'm simply doing everything in my Linux VM to learn@Steltek Yeah, but flatpaks suck performance-wise. The last time I had one for a browser, it started as quickly as a native app I had in a VM running off a HDD!
Give it a chance For example, instead of going to a website, downloading an install program, waiting for it to download, going through several clicks to install it, then repeat that for however many apps you need to install, best case scenario on Linux is that you type a command like:
sudo apt install vlc
It asks for your password and then just installs it. Also, app updates are all rolled into one system, click on an icon on your taskbar, it lists the updates, click on update all, it asks for your password, done.
You can of course use whatever GUI-based app install system on whatever Linux distro you've picked, for example sometimes I prefer to use the synaptic package manager when I want to search for stuff in the repository.
Of course it's not all roses and sunshine with Linux, there are some things that are a PITA, just bear in mind there are definitely some things on Windows that are a PITA and people have just gotten used to thinking "that's the way things are".
I agree, as most people find it easier to learn such things by actually doing them. And, virtual machines are absolutely great for that.Yeah, I have no problem with it today, because I want to learn it, so as long as I'm not gaining I'm simply doing everything in my Linux VM to learn
It is just so much easier learning when you can do it in a safe VM environment, where you know you're not going to break anything important and if you get annoyed, you can simply tab back into Windows.
Besides the terminal, one of the other things the average user has issues with is that crazy Linux file system. I've been using it for 15 years and still haven't bothered to learn everything about it that I really should have....
Flatpaks might suck, but it is easy for a beginner, who is balancing trying to learn an entirely new OS with different ways of doing things, to grasp.
Obviously apt/apt-get is the best way to go once you know what you are doing. However, trying to show my 76 year old mother how to do a terminal command wouldn't go over well.
She is, however, perfectly able to install a flatpak from the Mint software manager though if she uses one of my machines.
One annoying thing about Mint is that, to use their upgrade process to upgrade to new versions, you often have to delete out all your 3rd party PPAs before the upgrade will run. Then, you have to re-enter them after the upgrade. Which is very annoying.
Speaking of command line, back in the mid 1990s, if you wanted a GUI on Linux, you often had to hand craft your own XFree86.config file for your video card. Those were the (bad old) days. By the late 1990s, there was some auto generation of this critical file, but it still took years of efforts to really smooth out.
It is just so much easier learning when you can do it in a safe VM environment, where you know you're not going to break anything important and if you get annoyed, you can simply tab back into Windows.
Yeah, that wasn't what I intended to say. Blood glucose swings do that with diabetes when they occur when you are already tired. Not problems with the file system itself (which is fine), but rather the Linux directory structure. I've tried to explain it to Windows users and have figuratively watched their eyes cross. Especially since a lot of the online information about it isn't consistent about where the user should put what. Whereas, with Windows, you can pretty much put anything anywhere you want.What do you mean?
The Mint software manager gives out standard packages as well as flatpaks. Now that @manly mentioned snaps, I'm just trying to remember which one was dog slow. Are both slow?
I imagine it's more about what goes on in /dev for example that my blow their mind, though if you go far back enough into Windows' history then you start finding things that => Windows NT users might find a bit weird too.Yeah, that wasn't what I intended to say. Blood glucose swings do that with diabetes when they occur when you are already tired. Not problems with the file system itself (which is fine), but rather the Linux directory structure. I've tried to explain it to Windows users and have figuratively watched their eyes cross. Especially since a lot of the online information about it isn't consistent about where the user should put what. Whereas, with Windows, you can pretty much put anything anywhere you want.
As far as the flatpaks are concerned, I only have a couple installed. One of them is the Waterfox browser which I installed more out of curiosity than anything else. Admittedly, it is noticeably slower to update (due to the container) than a natively installed application. And, running on spinning rust it is noticeably slower than native apps. However, when running on an SSD I don't see any substantial performance difference between it and natively installed Firefox.
Can't speak to snaps as I've never bothered to use any of them due to their reputation.
I'll probably take it slowly, this thread has already spawned a lot of questions that I need to look into.@biostud - a tactic that my conversation with Steltek reminded me of that you might want to start doing yourself: I keep a journal of stuff I've learnt on Linux. I tend to also include URLs of pages I found the information from in case I want to look for more on that topic. It's really handy not to have to go searching the Internet for something again only to end up using different keywords and not finding what you want.
Then, pretty much any distro will meet your needs for now.I'll probably take it slowly, this thread has already spawned a lot of questions that I need to look into.
Basically I don't do much advanced stuff on my computer, so I simply want to try it as my daily driver and every time I need to try something new, I need to find a solution.
Just the horror of maybe having chosen the wrong distro to start with, is something different than Windows.
Then whether which type of of Linux, which version of Ubuntu, should it be Gnome? Which GUI, packages? Flatpaks? Installing and downloading via prompt, so much lingo and differences that needs to be learned.