this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I actually tried linux (Fedora) this past weekend; I had fewer issues installing and using it as a day to day computer, than I did with Windows. Tried out Gnome and KDE both, preferred gnome but UI scaling (for my shit vision) was simpler out-of-the-box on KDE (about 125-150% was comfortable for me.) I found KDE a bit overwhelmingly customizable to start out with, and maybe a bit bloated.
The caveat to this was Gaming, in my case I did not have a good time with gaming (probably because I am trying to run at 4k and play a game dependant on Ubisoft DRM, as well as an older MMO that doesnt handle high DPI screens and ui scaling). Very frame-y at 4K, a decent amount of tinkering is/was required. YMMV, check ProtonDB as it is heavily dependent on what games you play, and heavily dependent on Steam. If you want to multi-box (without software, just alt-tab through windows) an MMO, I found functionally no information on how to open multiple instances of the same game to do so (which is why I mentioned the dependency on steam, which only seems to let you have one game launched at any given time)
Moving back to windows for gaming felt like a major downgrade as far as general computer work goes. Inside of an hour I had a fully functional, up to date, linux machine. Windows 11 took 1-2 hours to install and update itself, then another hour to install drivers, then longer to de-bloat and start disabling all the stupid shit from Microsoft. I'm sure I'll be doing that continuously for the next few weeks.
I've said this kind of thing before; Gnome feels like it's trying to appeal to Apple users, "Look how simple it is, look how few settings menus there are, you use it the way we designed it to be used and only that way, nothing else works." They like their empty blank windows. The ideal Gnome utility app is a blank window with a single button in the title bar that says "Cancel." Featurelessness is their goal.
KDE always felt like the polar opposite of that to me. Every feature under the sun, sometimes twice. Nothing is consistent, nothing aligns quite right, they love their cluttered windows. The ideal KDE utility app is a window crammed edge to edge with text boxes, drop downs, radio buttons and check boxes that never opens quite big enough for all the elements in it. This one little utility app can do basically everything even remotely related to the task it's made for plus several other adjacent tasks, to the point it takes you a long time to find the one option you ever actually need in a sea of settings menus.
Cinnamon felt somewhere in between. Except where Gnome apps crept in with their hamburger menus and top bar UI, Cinnamon felt consistent and good looking without being an iPhone commercial, and their included utilities tended to have the functionality you needed and nothing you didn't.
I just recently built a PC, and to get the most out of an AMD GPU I'm using Fedora KDE instead of my long time favorite Mint Cinnamon, and I've already had to boot up my old computer once to use a Mint utility because I couldn't seem to get the job done in KDE. You know that USB stick formatter tool in Mint? Why doesn't every OS have that?
Just out of curiosity, how does Fedora KDE get more out of amd than Mint Cinnamon?
I went with Fedora because of newer packages than you generally get in the Debian family lineage.
KDE, especially KDE 6, has a fairly robust implementation of Wayland. Cinnamon is just now rolling out experimental Wayland support. This wasn't an issue on my previous machine with an Nvidia GPU as X11 was the better deal there, but now that I have a Radeon GPU Wayland is the better deal. My two monitors running at different resolutions and refresh rates work. FreeSync works out of the box. There's even the beginnings of HDR support. Having tried both on this machine, Fedora KDE has a lot more features of my hardware that "Just Work."
I much prefer using Cinnamon to KDE, but I'll deal.