TheHarpyEagle

Ah sorry, I meant using Vim in a GUI program. I wanted something with the flexibility of a mouse (quick navigation, context menu actions, etc.) without using a mouse. Using just the arrow keys, shift highlighting, etc. is just too slow when writing lots of text, and it doesn’t follow the natural position of typing.

I actually use VIM bindings in PyCharm, slightly cursed but actually works really well and meshes fairly nicely with the other IDE shortcuts. Being able to use it in any terminal is a nice bonus.

I honestly learned it just because I hated having to change hand position to use a mouse.

I avoided it for a while because it felt so clunky, but it has really improved in the last decade.

I was a reddit Sync user and was super bummed when (large scale) API access was shut off, so I jumped on the chance to use Sync for Lemmy. It defaulted to world for signups, presumably for ease of use for migrating reddit users. Knowing that Sync already had a loyal audience that was willing to put in a little effort to migrate, it seems the dev opted to make everything as similar to the reddit UX as possible, including registration.

Now that I’m more familiar with the fediverse, I’ve been considering migrating to a more specialized instance that matches my interests. Truthfully, though, it seems unlikely that much of anything would change if I did since I’m going to keep using the same app, so I’ve been slow to move.

To compare this with my experience with Mastodon, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the idea of instances and really had no idea which to join, nor did I have a familiar app to work with. I figured it out eventually, but a lot of the artists I follow didn’t or didn’t have time to, so overall I haven’t spent much time on it. I’ve spent way too much time on Lemmy so far.

Windows into I went to college for development and decided to check out this Linux thing. At the time, I wanted something as different from Windows as possible, so I went with Ubuntu with Gnome 3 (I know) for about a year. Tried out Fedora, couldn’t get my sound to work and accidentally uninstalled the desktop environment trying to fix it, slunk back to Ubuntu, tried out a Debian briefly, and eventually ended up on Linux Mint with Cinnamon and KDE.

At one time I really wanted to try a bunch of stuff and probably would’ve hopped a lot more if Fedora didn’t shatter my confidence, but nowadays I want as little disruption between machines as possible. I have to use Windows for work, so I keep my Linux setup pretty vanilla so I don’t miss features between the two very much. I’ll probably still play with other distros every now and then on old laptops, but I’ve fallen into a “if it ain’t broke” mindset with my daily machines.

You might still try using Proton or Lutris to run it. It may be a pain to get working, but hopefully someone out there has a guide for the mod manager you’re using.

Proton is a godsend. Some games can be a little unstable, but I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t work at all. Even was able to install and mod a game from 2000. For what doesn’t work on Proton, Lutris can hopefully handle. Takes a little doing sometimes but I got Battlenet/WoW working almost prefectly with CurseForge.

Nvidia drivers are a huge pain in the ass, though, and haven’t played nice with Wayland in my experience.

Thank you for this comprehensive writeup! I’m a big Mint user and like not having to mess too much with the OS itself, but I’ve run into a few issues where the stable release of something doesn’t have newer features I want. I might try Arch out on a spare laptop.

What is the practical difference between Arch and Debian based systems? Like what can you actually do on one that you can’t on the other?

That’s a heartbreaking read, and I can’t imagine how it feels now to know that someone who finally helped lighten the load may be involved with such an egregious breach of trust and safety.

I think this is why I can’t get behind Linus-style takedowns, even if the prospective maintainer has made bad a mistake. Entitled consumers make things hard enough already with direct access to the developers, they don’t need any help getting burned out.

I have an Nvidia GPU and have had a few issues with crashes on Mint even after manually installing the latest drivers. Is PopOS noticeably more stable? Have you by chance played Helldivers on it?

Also it seems like it’s pretty tightly coupled with Gnome and tweaks, is it still adventageous if you use, say, KDE?

Could you explain a bit about what makes it better?

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The difference is that, with a base FOSS OS, you’re not locked in to an flavor you don’t like. Dislike the way Ubuntu is headed? Switch to Debian, Pop, or Mint and use the same exact programs you’re used to. If you dislike Windows 11, you’ve only got a few years before you’re forced to switch to it. Makes it much easier for them to force removedty decisions.

More adoption of Linux also means more incentive for FOSS projects to support it. Yes, it also means more proprietary software, but the truth is that most people don’t care what kind of software they use as long as it works for them. At least Linux can’t become beholden to the demands of that software.

back when it was first put into Fedora and I tried uninstalling, it threatened taking down Libreoffice and Gedit with it.

I did this back when I was a newbie and somehow destroyed either the display server or some other part of the GUI. Sound issues have made me nervous ever since.

Back when I started using Linux, I really wanted something that was super different from windows (I used Gnome 3 for like 3 years). I decided one day to try out Fedora cause, hey, I can live on the bleeding edge.

Second day I had it installed, I was having issues with the audio. Decided to try reinstalling pulse. Apt autoremoved it and somehow completely nuked the entire GUI. Stuck in terminal mode, I found that I had no ethernet to connect to, nor could I figure out how to connect to a wifi network with a password or download packages to a USB. After a couple hours, I gave up, wiped the drive, and went back to Mint.

Nowadays I’m happier in my little comfort zone.

Thing is, I don’t know what else you’d really post here. Linux is an OS (don’t get pedantic with me), there’s only so much to talk about other than using it for the first time or getting recommendations on distros/desktop environments/apps/hardware/etc. There’s always something going on with Linux, but most of it is specific to one distro/desktop environment so people will probably go to forums for those specific things to discuss them.

Also, yeah he threads are pretty tired for people who have been here even for just a few months, but for the people switching over, it’s all brand new. They want to talk about their experience and I can’t really blame them. Maybe there should be megathread as suggested elsewhere.

What would you like to see posted? What could give this community more of a direction?

From my perspective as someone who is both getting into gaming on Linux and also not much of a power user, Arch would have to make the installation and maintenance process a lot simpler to attract more people, and I’m not sure that’s something they actually want to do.

Looking at the official Arch installation guide, the average gamer may be overwhelmed by the process here, especially if they’re not comfortable with the terminal. Something like Linux Mint, on the other hand, has a built-in GUI installer with reasonable partitioning defaults, and it comes packaged with stuff like an app manger and update manager, something that will feel much more familiar to someone coming from windows.

Oh, this is good news for me. I remember trying KDE years ago and feeling that it was just way too heavy. My goto is usually Cinnamon, but the lack of Wayland support has made me hesitant to go all in with out on my gaming PC. Def gonna give KDE a try, thanks!