Linus and Luke from Linus Tech Tips are switching to Linux as a challenge!

Hello guys!
As some of you already know, Linus and Luke from LinusTechTips are switching to Linux as announced here! They do not know what distro(s) they will be using, but they know it will need to be used for everything they currently use their Windows machines for! I know this is a forum centered around a specific Linux distro but I'm curious what distro you guys think he should use? I think Garuda should be in the running personally due to the optimizations towards performance and user friendliness that have been made thus far! As well as the array of built in tools.

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M$ users should switch to Mint or similar first.
Switching from M$ to Arch after years of use of this OS is like a culture shock.

I hope that this will be done by all those on whose "old" computers the upcoming M$ version will no longer work.

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Well, as they belong to technical background, and already have a guy with good Linux experience working with them, I don't think that they will find any issue with Garuda or even vanilla Arch.

The problem with Arch comes when you have no idea about Linux and don't want to learn and can't find right support. Otherwise, Arch Linux/ based are the most charming distros, imo.

In other cases, Mint might be the best choice. Mint is where I started myself.

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I bet Anthony will suggest Linus to settle on using Pop_OS. Honestly, it isn't a too bad of a place to start with Linux either. The only draw back I see for it is when getting into heavy gaming, because it doesn't come with all the goodies Garuda Linux has right out of the gate (like Proton-GE or even Feral Game Mode).

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I'm quite excited to see the outcome of this! Depending on how it works out, this might give desktop Linux a big boost :grin: also I do agree that Arch shouldn't be an issue for people who are used to doing Tech stuff all the time since documentation is one of the best out there :slight_smile:
2021/22 might be, finally, the year :joy:

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They should pick Zorin or PopOS. Or maybe even Endeavour if they want to try Arch.

I believe, if they fully inculcate the "Arch Way" in their learning, that they would start off with a very strong Linux backgrounding.

There is no "up" to go after you learn Arch (well enough). You're already there. Not to say "grok" Linux (if anyone could), but well on the way.

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After learning my lesson the hard way about installing distros I like for my wife, I spent some time testing different distros out to decide what would be best for her use case.

Ultimately, I decided to go with PopOS.

  • Since it is based on Ubuntu LTS I won't have to do a major upgrade on her laptop very often
  • Like Mint, they block automatic snap installation
  • When key software stops getting updates it helps you convert those packages to flatpaks
  • It has out of the box support for hybrid graphics
  • Since it isn't rolling she doesn't have to worry about updating the system when installing software
  • The update process is much less likely to cause issues because the new major versions aren't introduced and updates are less frequent.
  • The recovery partition, while not essential, is a pretty nice feature.

After a couple of days of getting used to it, she has had no real complaints.

PopOS wouldn't be my first choice but it works great for her and I think it would also be a good choice for someone like Linus.

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I think they will chicken out and use!
Windows subsystem for linux :rofl:

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fun fact: yesterday I turned on my wife’s laptop ( kinda old but more than enough, only disk could be faster ) that had popos. it was old 20.04 “un updated” for more than a year.

curious how in main machine, I keep annoying @dr460nf1r3 if kwin-git is one day old, but on my other machines is kinda “rot away”. ( except for my old trusty i3700k , that I keep fairly updated ).

she kept getting annoyed at my “hey make backups on your laptop, I want to test a new distro in there, you will love it”… i stopped doing it

and i kinda dig the popos shell , the little that i used it. fair to say I prefer it to “stock gnome”.

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cof cof … gen… 2… cof :slight_smile:

@Bro, I know you are big fan of Arch. But as per my view the arch as rolling release may sometimes be nightmare for beginners.

I remembered when tkg 5.10 released about 6 months ago many Garuda users (including me) faces wi-fi driver issue. At that time @tbg was tired to telling too many users to change kernel to LTS.

That issue was very simple but for any beginner it is like what happened to my system!!!

So, any debian based LTS system I believe is more beginner friendly than Arch where this type of events are very rare. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I think all of my non tech friends would agree :confused: Never ever heard of the concept of a kernel, let alone other things :smiling_face_with_tear:
I wish Linux was taught like Windows is today in school…

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That's a good point. If only the educational system think out of the box. In Ecuador the goverment try to impulse the use of free and open source software for educational purposes in 2010 but even the teacheres were not preapered for that kind of assigment the only things that they used to teach us was the use of gimp and openoffice.

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Yeah, many organizations are putting effort into it, especially KDE. They are really pushing hard to promote GNU/Linux at school level.

Also, in almost all the technical college in India, Linux is included as a subject for BTech Computer Science and Engineering courses. (I am pretty sure of elite ones, that is IITs and NITs)

But imo, Linux knowledge should be included at grassroots level. This can only happen if Computer teachers themselves have Linux knowledge, which are currently rare. But Linux knowledge is increasing day by day. Especially because alternatives are becoming weaker day by day. :wink:

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I tend to agree with @SGS. Arch based distros are a poor choice for those new to Linux. Even power users with decades of experience on Windows are not prepared for the massive learning curve that must be surmounted on a rolling distro.

The educational system is at fault for only teaching students on the singular mainstrean OS (the Windows OS of the day). Unfortunately, that is unlikely to change in the near future because M$ basically bribes the school systems to remain using Windows.

For newbies evaluating Linux, testing a static distro is the only way to get a positive unbiassed review of Linux. A rolling distro is not going to lead to a positive evaluation from most users coming from the Windows world. Even experienced techies still need to learn how to walk before they run.

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I don’t want to be that guy, but I kinda disagree ( not completely of course, but in major point ).

What I think is honestly, there is the “I want to improve my computer skills” and run what is best for me" and the “I just wanna work”.

The fact is that the “I just wanna work” will use whatever is installed.
Example: my wife uses popos on her laptop. She doesn’t really care because she can do whatever she wants to do. But because I installed it for her ( can’t even say configure it, because I didn’t do any actually ).

Most people that use windows don’t also “go to school” to learn windows. They just do. Because its there !

But when trying linux, I think there are two issues:

  • first is that you try linux, you want to tell about your cool new *buntu or manjaro desktop … you get laughted at for being a noob in some places ( on reddit there is always “that guy” that the only way to use linux is install arch from scratch )

  • second is that there isn’t much QA and consideration for peoples use cases. like in some distros that don’t have codecs, where ex board employees just say that they don’t need codecs… or have to have the misfortune of having a nvidia ? well … f. y. !
    And even when everything works… it always works for a little while, because “the race to have the latest package” award that causes a bug that ruins everything ( sometimes the fix is trivial … but trivial for us , master hackers :stuck_out_tongue: )

Actually the lenovo + redhat and kde laptops and system76 solutions are what is needed to help with this.
the RaspBerry Pi scene and android roms also.
In some way … Windows wsl might too … and as Linus said when I was young:

Said Torvalds: “If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I’ve won.”
CNN - Why Intel and Netscape bought into Linux - October 10, 1998

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You got it wrong. We meant that windows is used in most of schools, only recently did some schools shifted to mac or Linux. When you are in school, you are generally taught to use ms office for making presentations, spreadsheets and other stuff. And most of authors write installation procedures for windows in school books. Like “how to install MySQL in windows 10” or “how to install python in windows 10” and so on. Only recently some of top notch authors started including procedures for Linux too, but that too in apendix. Only a little more Linux education at school level can make a remarkable change in society.

Idk, I rarely use social media. Not gonna comment on this.

Yeah, hardware compatibility is a major issue. But more companies are providing drivers for Linux than ever. But yes, you can’t expect to change the things overnight.
Regarding QA, I am sure that Linux distros are far better there. (If we exclude 3rd party support)

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Btw, I was introduced to Linux word when I was in 12th Science. At that time, Our board include Red Hat as linux os. And include some commands like cd, ls. But not a word like kernel.

After 12th I choose Electrical Stream. After then I choose my laptop os as 8.1 till windows 10 released for 7 years. While using 10 I show my task manager which is about 70 % filled with dumb processes. And I started hating 10 and then after I started searching on Windows what is alternative to windows. And I once again find out the word linux.

Then I show very long list of Linux distros on Distrowatch.And I am confused which linux should be used.

Then about 2 year ago I searched for most beginner friendly Linux and I got word Mint.

After installing Mint I was very impressed as my system monitor run very cool. And I checked 2 to 3 other distros.

Then after somewhere in user comment I saw the word Garuda linux and then after I switched to Garuda. And on Garuda only I introduced a word KERNEL.

And currently I am transferring Ms Excel macros to libre office calc macro for my father's main business PC which uses 10. And once I have done with macros I am planning to shift Ubuntu LTS as my main business OS with Libreoffice as my main Office suit. .

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If a 10-year old beginner can do it, surely these astute personages can.

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