This. (although I follow the directions here, which is a little more than apt install). The only thing I couldn’t get on Debian stable is the latest gnome. But when I tried debian testing, it was slightly broken anyway. And gnome extensions could get most of the functionality missing in my older gnome version. Debian stable + flatpak + anaconda + adding repositories (like for firefox) is a perfect compromise.

What’s nice about a stable distro is you can update the things you want to update, and your OS isn’t constantly changing a million packages a week that you don’t even know the function of.

Gotta wonder how many state actors have been using it for years.

Oh right, sometimes I forget people have computers other than old thinkpads

IDK if thats true in 2024. Debian 12 isn’t much harder to setup than mint or Ubuntu, and the version of gnome it ships with is perfectly fine. I’m not a beginner anymore, so maybe there’s something I glossed over.

Oh wait, I just remembered the thing I glossed over. Needing to install sudo would definitely throw a beginner for a loop. (Iirc, you only need to do that if you give a root password during install). And that’s the problem with trying to learn Linux. Someone will tell you the thing is easy, but they forgot about some arcane step

Open camera is the best

Idk if it can be called a smartwatch, but I just found out about the sensor watch, and now I really want one. Basically a hackable Casio f-91w

Pretty much. I used mint for a while, then Ubuntu, upgrading every October and April. Then I tried Debian on a laptop I didn’t want to update often, and realized it’s not really missing anything that Ubuntu has.

Although I think the main thing that lead me to Debian was some issue with snap that I was having

Conda makes python soooo much easier. I never use apt for python things. If you use it a lot, you’ll eventually have to learn how to work with different environments. But I promise it’s easier than trying to solve dependency hell with some combination of apt and pip.

Debian stable on Thinkpad 1 and Debian testing on Thinkpad 2. Testing is nice because Gnome is a slightly better version. Stable is nice because it doesn’t bother me about updates.

What don’t you like about gnome?

no.

The problem with the cli is you need to memorize a whole bunch of new words and syntax in order to do anything. You also need to memorize what not to do so you don’t accidentally erase your system while using rm or cp or whatever.

Even something as simple as copying and pasting, which works the same in every single other program has new rules in the terminal. I mean, think about that. If you’re just learning bash, then the first thing you’ll be doing is copy pasting commands. But even that has the hurdle of 'oh, I guess this is the one program where ctrl-c means something else

Like, how do you look at sudo, cat, man, and apt, and think ‘yeah that’s intuitive’. And forget about multitasking, new users won’t even know how to quit most programs (is it ctrl-q? Just q? Esc? Ctrl-c? Ctrl-d? Wait how do I undo that, is it ctrl-z? Wait where did the thing go

I’ve tried to run Ubuntu, mint, Debian, and couple other distros without the terminal to see if I can actually recommend it to non-geeks. And every time, I conclude I can’t because the fucking “software center” (or whatever it’s called) is always garbage, and it’s easier to just use apt.

The only time I’ll recommend Linux to a non-tech person is when the hardware is so old that it would just be junked without Linux.

It has its issues but the graph showing temperature/precipitation/wind can’t be beat IMO. I try to use other apps, but wunderground is the only one where I can open it up and almost immediately have a good idea of the weather for the rest of the day and the rest of the week

My x230 tablet has 16gb of RAM, and a nice touch screen with a stylus. Its such a fun machine and feels pretty powerful.

Dope! I think I will get that

You wandered into a communist website and then asked why there’s communists here.

This website is run by Marxists. The primary developers of Lemmy are Marxists. Haven’t you wondered why ads aren’t being shoved down your throat on this site?

Thank you💅

True. Gotta let the people know we (communists) out here

Ah, thanks. That makes sense. I knew it was the screens, but didn’t realize it’s a whack patent issue