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Comment by beeflet | Hacker News Reader

Just use any major distribution. Fedora, Debian, Mint, Gentoo, etc.

All linux distributions are essentially packaging the same software. The choice of distribution is just the choice of what organization packages the software.

> I do everything from programming, to gaming, video editing, browsing, basic stuff on Office, 3D modelling and printing, etc. from this computer.

I do all of that on a single linux installation. Your problem is probably that your first instinct is to emulate your old workflow instead of finding a new workflow.

> MyAss_OS! works best for Steam but FuckNux works best with video editing software and you happen to need both.

There is no real compromise here. If you are running a distro that isn't capable of running everything, you are barking up the wrong tree and probably trying to use some random hannah montana linux maintained by 1 guy.

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I do believe distribution matters somewhat. For example, Fedora requires a lot of messing around to get video playback to work. A non-techie is gonna have a hard time installing gstreamer non-free plugins and non-free ffmpeg from RPM Fusion (not to mention figuring out that that's what they have to do in the first place...).

Non-techie NVidia users will similarly have trouble installing NVidia drivers on distros which don't make that easy.

And some distros are less careful about breaking stuff on updates than others. I stopped using Ubuntu after too many updates where random stuff broke just because Debian Testing happened to have shipped a bad package at the repo sync cut-off in the Ubuntu release cycle. One update made the Nextcloud desktop client segfault on launch, another broke auto login in GDM and required switching to TTY and editing a config file from the command line to fix.

Whether the distro ships a software center which makes it easy to install snaps, flatpaks or both will also heavily influence how easy it is for a new user to install the software they need.

Yes, it's just different packaging of many of the same software components. But it matters a whole lot to new users who rely on things to just work without the skills or experience to customize and debug stuff.

Use Ubuntu/Kubuntu LTS , do not upgrade every 6 m0onths to get the latest bugs from upstream just because they GNOME/KDE made some small improvements for some feature you probably do not use. There are PPAs with latest kernels and NVIDIA driver if you really need to upgrade for your work or gaming. This shit on upgrade happens on cool distros too, just Google Arch broke on update and you will see that there were cases where the efi partition was deleted and the user data was lost or some font customization a dude done to GNOME broke the login after an update.

If you want to install Linux to a less tech person you install an LTS distro and enable only the security updates, you can install Firefox from upsteeam and it has auto update and install ad blockers on it but teach the user how to stop it for specific websites in the case the blocker breaks stuff.

> Your problem is probably that your first instinct is to emulate your old workflow instead of finding a new workflow.

You perfectly captured in a single sentence the attitude of Linux maintainers and why it will never ever be a mainstream OS.

> > MyAss_OS! works best for Steam but FuckNux works best with video editing software and you happen to need both.

> There is no real compromise here. If you are running a distro that isn't capable of running everything, you are barking up the wrong tree and probably trying to use some random hannah montana linux maintained by 1 guy.

You got me wrong, I'm not saying that you should go for either of those options, but that if you search online a little bit as a layman, you will be confused because some distributions (popular ones at that) advertise themselves as the right choice to do X.

It's all about confusion for the end user. Just search for "linux gaming distro" and see for yourself the slurry of stupid ass distributions recommended when none of them should exist in the first place.

Well from my experience on a Mac or in iOS you either adapt to their workflow or you leave the platform, I don't think there's a middle ground there. From my experience Linux is actually on the total opposite side, which might be even more confusing: it will allow you to create any workflow you want, if you are willing to sacrifice your sanity to get there. Btw Linux user here who already lost part of their mental health.

TBH some gaming bound distros enable RT based optizations for gaming not seen in any OS. Also, with Flatpak, there's no excuses, you will get the same software everywhere.

Whatever changes they make would be better if upstreamed to a more popular OS.

Essentially your argument boils down to "linux is bad because you have choice".

The slop articles you get are the result of the natural SEO competition.

The real problem is that anyone is propagandizing the concept of a "gaming distro" in the first place.

Ah yes, famous "you're holding it wrong" :)

(My current gripe is with KDE on Wayland - i decided to move from Gnome on X11 for $reasons and it's so hard to get a thing as simple as clipboard, multiple monitors to work consistently. Apparently devs have very strong opinions on workflows...)

I mainly use various Linux distributions since 90s, also while working in systems administration for most of that time, but to say that "all Linux distributions are essentially packaging the same software" and suggest that's all is a vast...... understatement to say the least.

Different kernels, different system libraries, GPU drivers either no free or open source, kernel patches available or not (because there's a conflict no one has time to fix), security patches' availability (with distinct difference between RHEL-adjacent distributions and the others), different init, even filesystems and window managers with their quirks.

It's bordering on false to suggest all the tasks can be easily replicated in all the distributions, which is also the sentiment among the users. Oh well, perhaps, if you spend infinite amount of time preparing a very specific ansible playbook which will bend and coerce this specific flavour to install all the necessary libraries and patches, kick the kernel just right, and backport the Improvements from the incompatible distribution to the chosen one.

Then yeah.

Perhaps. But you're basically saying MacOS is FreeBSD.

> Your problem is probably that your first instinct is to emulate your old workflow instead of finding a new workflow.

I recently started a new job, and was given a choice of Windows or Linux for my desktop. Picked Linux, specifically Ubuntu, since others there use Ubuntu. (I've been using Macs primarily for decades, but can operate in any OS.)

I have my workflow set up mostly fine now, but...there isn't really any alternative to BBEdit. Anywhere but the Mac. And believe me, I've looked. (I'd genuinely love to be proved wrong, though!)

The combination of

- a programmer's text editor

- that's not focused around "workspaces" (like VSCode—which I also use)

- that can do robust regexp search & replace, both within and across files

- that keeps its list of open files in a sidebar, vertically, rather than in tabs, across the top

- that can transparently open & save files requiring privilege elevation (just provide the password when needed)

- that can transparently open & save files over SFTP

- for free (there's a paid upgrade that unlocks more advanced features that are very neat, but that I have never yet needed)

...appears, from what I can tell, to be unique.

So I'm using...I forget, I think it's kate? and it's fine, I can operate...but between that and a variety of other little things, it's just a constant friction. Fortunately, I should be able to get a Mac laptop; it just needs to be quoted, approved, and ordered.

Have you tried Geany? It's what I use often. IDK about privilege escalation, you may need some sort of fumbling around with xhost.

SFTP is an interesting one, I am not sure how the interaction with filezilla goes. I tend to just use scp or edit files in nano over ssh.

So..."try this" that ignores multiple of my requirements.

I think you're describing emacs, or vim. :)

OK; you got me. I was insufficiently prepared for pedantry. Let's add another couple of critical points:

- Must be a GUI application.

- Must integrate at least somewhat reasonably with the platform's keyboard shortcuts and similar, not have its own entire way of doing things that needs 6 years to learn.

Not pedantry; just responding to your "genuine" desire for suggestions. My mistake, I guess.

BBEdit is great, but if you need to learn something new anyway, or if being tied to macOS is ever going to be a concern, emacs or vim are equally-capable and cross-platform options.

You can learn 90% of everything you will ever need in a week or two. You will never need to switch editors again. It's a great trade, all things considered.

I've used both emacs and vim before. Long enough to actually know how.

I don't like using them. (I know, this may come as a shock to a diehard advocate.)

I like GUI text editors much better.

But also: How do vim and emacs do with these points from my requirements?

> - that keeps its list of open files in a sidebar, vertically, rather than in tabs, across the top

> - that can transparently open & save files over SFTP

To the best of my recollection, they don't do either of those. Which, if true, means that even your initial "genuine" response not actually in good faith, because I did say I wanted one that did all of those.

...So maybe keep your snide remarks and scare-quotes to yourself?

You're awfully condescending for someone who started out claiming to be genuine.

That sucks. Good luck out there.

(responding to your edits, for the possible benefit of any readers who are genuinely interested...)

Both emacs and vim can do side panels, and remote editing.

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