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Comment by RIMR | Hacker News Reader

Linux is so much better than it used to be. You really don't need to be technical.

I have been recommending Kubuntu to Windows people. I find it's an easier bet than Linux Mint. You get the stability of Ubuntu, plus the guarantee of a Windows-like environment.

Yes, I know, Linux Mint supports Plasma, but I honestly think the "choose your desktop" part of the setup process is more confusing to a newbie than just recommending a distro with the most Windows-like UI and a straightforward installation.

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Generally I recommend people use PopOS. It's well suited for laptops, as that's what System76 is focused on a they're shipping laptops with Nvidia GPUs. I personally prefer Arch based distorts like endeavor but even with wide community support it's just more likely a noob will face an error. Fwiw I've only faced one meaningful error in the last 3 years in endeavor but I've also been daily driving Linux for 15 years now

I’ve been using PopOS for the last five years and while I generally agree… the latest release using Cosmic by default has a lot to be desired. Cosmic will eventually be good but right now it’s far from it and I had to install Gnome as a stop gap just to have a functional desktop environment. I’ll probably ditch PopOS for Arch + KDE but I haven’t had the time to do so yet for my workstation.

Truly, and to really drive it home, I’ve loved PopOS but this latest release is just too half baked. I think anyone considering it should either wait a year or use something else, and Kubuntu seems like a reasonable alternative for people coming from Windows or MacOS.

That's unfortunate to hear.

I'd give kde a shot. It's been my preferred DE for years. But check out the below wiki and poke around for what your style is. The beauty of linux is adapting to you and switching DEs is a quick change (you do not need to change your DM to change your DE).

If you're interested on Arch then give something like EndeavourOS a shot. Cachy is getting popular these days too but I haven't used it. But I feel its going to be as easy as using Endeavour or Manjaro and those are very convenient distros for Arch with direct Nvidia GPU support. Though if you want you learn Linux I suggest going Vanilla Arch. You'll learn a lot from the install process (it isn't uncommon to mess up. You won't brick anything and learning about the chroot environment will help you in the future of you do mess things up)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_environment

Eh, not for laptops - I say as someone who switched to Linux from windows in past year.

I have spent a decent few days to get long battery life on Linux (fedora), with sleep hibernate + encryption. And I am still thinking that the Linux scheduler is not correctly using Intel's pcore/ecore on 13th gen correctly.

The hybernate works like shit thanks to microsoft asking manufacturers to remove deep sleep. Yay!

If you have an Nvidia GPU you're generally going to need to edit the systemd services and change some kernel settings. This is a real pain point to be honest and it should be easier than it is (usually not too bad tbh)

If you want I can try to help you debug it. I don't have a fedora system but I can spin up a VM or nspawn to try to match your environment if you want

I just got a lunar lake laptop and in CachyOS you can just enable either scx_lavd or scx_bpfland from the kernel settings. I use them both: bpfland guarantees that the active application runs smoothly even if you compile code in the background, and lavd focuses on energy saving a bit more. They both understand how to use the P and E cores: especially the lavd scheduler puts the active app to a P core and all the background apps to the E cores.

> you can just enable either scx_lavd or scx_bpfland from the kernel settings

So Linux is still nowhere near an option for non technical users.

It just depends on one distro to default on scx_bpfland.

For technical users, it's already the best option.

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