janNatan
@janNatan@lemmy.ml
- Comment on I'm newly retired, and I wanna go all in. Starting place? 1 week ago:
You’ll hear a lot of people talk about a lot of different distros (distributions) and which one they think is the best. One of the great things about Linux is that anybody can make a new distro for any reason. But, that can also make the choice between them feel daunting.
“Distrowatch” is a good place to learn the basics about a distro in a nice, standard format. Many distros will just talk about how great they are on their own website, but distrowatch at least gives you an idea of what makes them different. Distrowatch also has a list of the “most popular” distros (based on how many hits their page on distrowatch gets daily). “Mint” is currently at the top and has been near the top for a long time. I would second the suggestion that others have made that you should try Mint.
There can be a lot of differences between distros, but (in my opinion) the two biggest things of note about a distro is: what its “base” is and what its “desktop environment (DE)” is.
The “base” (Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Arch, etc.) really tells you which program manager the system uses. That is to say, the program which allows you to install programs. This all used to be done through the command line interface (CLI) (and still can), but most distros have a graphical installer now as well. Do you prefer the PacMan package manager or RPM? You’re not likely to care at first, but you may develop a preference. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is itself based on Debian. Neat, huh?
The desktop environment (Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc.) is basically what the distro looks like. Many distros will have different “flavors” or “spins” of themselves in these different DEs. And, you can just pick whichever one you think looks best or has the best work flow. Although, not every distro offers multiple DEs. Linux Mint uses Cinnamon by default, which forked off from an older version of Gnome. Cinnamon is said to look and behave similarly to Windows, which is why it’s often suggested as a starting point.
You said you use Mac, so you may also enjoy these distros that kinda look like Mac: ElementaryOS, Deepin, and Ubuntu Budgie.
Don’t forget to back up any important files before “distro hopping” to try out a new one!
- Comment on Innovative sand battery can heat entire town for a week 9 months ago:
I mean, it works. The question is if it works well enough. Heating things to make steam is how nuclear power plants work. Solar tower power plants use heated salt instead of sand. That sounds pretty similar to me.