but I’m embarrassed to admit I actually don’t know what the difference between linux distros are.

I think you’re courageous to admit it in spite of feeling embarrassed, and I admire that.

If we all ask and share without ego, the world gets just a little bit better. :)

“I just get it straight from upstream” (Munches beans to build the coffee internally from source)

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed user here…

I’m gonna claim “the coldbrew” for us, because it’s always refreshing, chill, and in constant rotation. It might take a little longer to brew, but that’s so it doesn’t destabilize your entire system. Ahh…so smooth. :)

(I dunno if this analogy holds up but hey I’m taking a shot lol)

then they’re stupid rapture is on its way.

Can I…can I ramble a sec for anybody willing to see this?

I was raised around this rapture insanity. There’s lots of evidence that this entire interpretation of Revelation isn’t even an apocalyptic prophecy at all. That whole thing might have been started by some con artist named Darby in VERY recent history.

It angers me personally, because it screwed up my perspective in my formative years. Thinking the world was going to end any minute anyway and all the boomers were so friggin excited about that. What the actual hell.

From a believer’s perspective, and I mean actually reading the book, it’s infuriating, that this recent “trendy interpretation” of The Bible has been the excuse to completely wreck the planet we were given and hurt so many beautiful people and living things.

These scum claim to be godly, but treat their OUR home like a shitty rock-band treats a hotel room, and they think they’re magically going to just get whooshed away from the consequences after they instigate WWIII to try and what, strongarm God into coming back because He smelled smoke and ruin?!

I want to band up with other believers against this “republichristian” cult. I wanna shout this from the rooftops.

But I’ll be honest, I also don’t want bombs sent to my house. I could rant on this all day, but American Christianity used to be a thorn in the side of capitalists. Christians helped everybody, sheltered them in their churches, didn’t force them to rely on whatever the gilded assholes were selling, created community. Christians used to be good people, dammit. Christians used to be straight-up BASED.

But capitalists absolutely made a concerted effort to turn it into the monster we have today. Where people claim to follow a God who warned them against swearing oaths, while being the strongest supporters of “pledging allegiance” to “a flapping pretty banner and its current owners at the moment.”

“Americhristianism” is the Devil’s most clever work of our time. Now more people just automatically blanket-hate Christians than ever. Nice friggin’ evangelism right?!

Breaks my heart. Feels like screaming against a deadly avalanche of stupid…

(Behind the Bastards podcast has a great couple episodes on “How the Rich Ate Christianity”)

The “protect children online” act or whatever. Ugh.

If you wanna try Arch + KDE without hassle, well Arch has an easier installer now, but I use EndeavourOS. It’s a lovely smooth Arch experience!

Very easy installer with lots of options to choose from. :)

Yes! Great way of putting it. It’s hard to explain how just using an OS can be a fun hobby in itself.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed does it all for me. I work and play games on it and stuff, but my laptop is less mission critical, so I run EndeavourOS on it and experiment with fun layouts and everything is all “frutiger-aero-esque”. It feels like how I nostalgicallyremember those WinXP-7 days!

Snapper rollbacks with BTRFS are incredible for letting you play around with an OS you actually use, and still giving you a cushion to fall back on. :D

My little media streamer / guest PC has Mint. Nice, maybe a little boring, predictable, reliable. Ahhh simplicity. :)

“suicide drones”

… Hey guys I think they just unlocked… “missiles”. 😬

To everyone down voting and assuming this is ragebait, I would ask we take a step back. I think this is a genuine question and I can’t help but feel a bit heard that someone is asking it.

In the midst of all this ridiculous culture-warring, creators have a ton of anxiety now. It’s one thing to be afraid your creation will get you laughed at for being cringey, (as if that’s not a huge barrier already).

But it’s another entirely when it feels like in this era of “all art is political”, writing anyone who has recognizable human qualities will forcibly put you, the creator, into some ideological category where you’ll be scrutinized and judged personally based on your work’s perceived “agenda.”

The right with their relentless “woke-hunting”, the left with their “purity tests” to blame you for not championing their particular social cause. Showing your art seems to inevitably involve chumming the waters to the terminally online. This can also produce anxieties of being doxxed or something if it’s high profile enough.

That being said: My heart is warmed by all the overwhelmingly level headed responses in this thread. Seriously. It gives me hope.

Please notice I said FEELS a lot up there…Our perception is definitely muddied by how social media tends to megaphone the worst of society, and it tends to discourage us from being seen or interacting with others.

I’m glad threads like this demonstrate how genuine people can be. It provides quite a contrast.

While we’re at it…

Don’t make life choices based on the opinion of white supremacists.

Now your great life advice is even more universally applicable! :D

It’s gonna have to be “Linux From Scratch” at this point…starting with the hardware.

Also OP, if you want pretty and Cinnamon can’t do it for ya, you can always install KDE (my fav!) or GNOME or what have you right on top of your existing system.

Research before doing so! But it’s possible. :)

I also love Tumbleweed and rock it as my daily driver!

To complement this point, OP, you can also get that sweet rollback functionality in any distro! Usually the easiest way is selecting BTRFS as your file system on install, and installing a software called “TimeShift” that will manage snapshots for you.

BTRFS can be complicated, but basically, it allows remembering the changes in files, without needing to copy the ENTIRE file. This saves a ton of space. (You don’t need to get into the weeds deep diving if you don’t want to. Snapshots are great, everything else is great, as long as you aren’t doing crazy specific RAID setups or something lol)

Otherwise, on EXT4 for insurance, your rollbacks would just literally be copied files, which can eat your storage fast. :)

Tumbleweed is known for rolling (heh!) this in quite smoothly by default, but this is just an example how any distro can be tweaked how you like! (Highly recommend setting up Timeshift on ANY install.)

I absolutely second the advice in this comment: Try some live USBs or virtual machines and just play around for what feels right. Distro hopping can be lots of fun, but you’ll find one that “feels like home.”

:)

I agree with most folks here that usability-wise, both are truly fine! Mainly I think philosophy is where Mint might have an edge here.

Ubuntu, run by a corpo named Canonical, has had some controversial decisions in the past, such as inserting amazon ads into the system’s search feature, or “opt out” analytics being default, and lately, a system called “snap.”

Snap is controversial because it has a closed source backend, but effectively works just like its open-source counterpart, the “flatpak.” It’s packaged so the software has everything it needs to run.

Some people say they work great, others hate them, but Ubuntu doesn’t make it very easy for you to have a choice in the matter.

If you don’t like the idea of snaps, it’s a bit of a pain to get rid of it. And otherwise, Ubuntu will sneakily use it as the default way to install most software. Philosophically, this can feel a lot like why people left Windows behind!

Long term, that’s why I favor and recommend Mint to most newcomers: It doesn’t play those games, sometimes the drivers work even better, the community is fantastic, and the vast knowledge that works on Ubuntu should work on Mint too.

So that’s mainly where the difference will lie.

Either way, I wouldn’t sweat it too much while you’re learning, as long as it does what you want! And purple-orange is pretty snazzy. ;)

Mint just feels a little “cleaner” in my humble opinion. Most software you’d want the latest of, like GIMP or Discord, will be found as a Flatpak in Mint’s app store.

Hope this helps you get a clearer view!

Ah the old bad guy cliché. You know they feel threatened when they bust out the “We’re the same, you and I!” Lol

I like that idea, although I think we need some simpler guides as to what exactly one might he getting into if they’re setting up an instance that’s not just a domain name. (Costs, potential usage blowing up, legal issues with content, etc…)

Also, I really think there needs to be a smoother way to navigate between instances. I guess, so you’re still aware of “jumping nodes”, but also don’t feel locked in there. (Although maybe I’m just a newb still haha)

Truuue!

I probably engage here a little much too, but I’m glad there’s not a ton of “You also might like based on where your mouse hovered 0.4 seconds longer” panels on every single page!

The way he wields that stupid flamethrower around employees and such is SO Zorg!

Let’s be honest, corporate was just mad they didn’t think of it sooner! :p

This gesture is meant to convey threat and to harass religious and racial minorities.

I’d even take it a step further and say it’s a gesture made by a very dangerous minority that threatens the vast majority.

Nothing says “I’m willing to forgo my humanity to wage pointless violence on literally the rest of the world.” like the cringiest dipshit salute ever devised.