"They just have to read the documentation"

“Arch” they just need to read the newsletter before updating.

@Natanox Seems like NixOS replaced Arch as both a local extremist cult and the most effective newbie repellent.

Documentation? For Nix? Yeah right.

I really love this image for this, that expression combo is perfection.

I mean isn't it accepted that NixOS is a terrible pick for a beginner, especially a non-technical one? I feel like even the Nix community doesn't recommend the distro to complete beginners.

I swear, I've only recommended it to one newbie, and they were an engineer! I had a reason!

Hilarious that this is the new norm, though. NixOS is so not typical at all. Arch is more normal at this point.

NixOS consist of a bunch of options that you define using the nix programming language. Since it's a programming language, everything is well defined and organised into single place.

Technically, someone could build a GUI configuration editor with sane defaults and clearly organised pages of settings, which generates a configuration for you. This could immediately change NixOS from the most tedious to a relatively easy to use distro.

I have an old MacBook for 2012, can barely open terminal, installed Pop!_OS, and I love it!

Am I a terrible person?

I've genuinely never seen a single person recommend NixOS to a new user, unless they already had advanced technical knowledge

I use Alpine, tbh I dont see why I should learn an entire programming language just for a distro

I have this exact situation with my wife's work laptop, which can't upgrade to windows 11. The requirements are pretty simple, something that runs Chrome and Dropbox as well as Microsoft Office 2007.

I'm going with Mint Cinnamon for her (I use arch & kde btw) - was pleasantly surprised to see Dropbox now has Linux support actually, haven't looked at it for years!

Almost everything she uses her computer for runs in Chrome.

At least they aren't trying to get Steam to work on Kali.

Debian/ubuntu/arch is easy to use even as a beginner, just try NixOS and compare.

Big nix fan here, I love being able to define my system from a couple configuration files and not scrounging around the file system for the right dot file

I use arch btw

Does anyone really recommend Ubuntu these days? I think Mint has reigned supreme for years, at least for beginners.

Throw Mint Cinnamon or the latest version on the computer, solved. Ubuntu can.. be speshy sometimes on my older spare laptop, but it is not really their fault, more my computer is a bit cooked. Some puppy linux distros are cool, but also a tiny bit complicated for beginners.

I am daily driving nixos. It is for those users who have already used atleast couple of beginner distros. Get familiar with packages terminal and other. It is just arch but stable even at the unstable branch. It has saved from breakdowns during important work. But nixos needs time to mature it's flakes and home manager.

Or arch instead of NixOS 😂

Nix OS is so much pain

Use Ansible or something else

I want to install fooFlorp2!

check nixpackages:

"
environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.fooFlorp2 ];

or nix-shell -p fooFlorp2 "

edit configuration.nix, add pkgs.fooFlorp2

install happens, won't work, no mention about the binary

Web search

ohh you don't install it with pkgs, there's a systemd that has to be enabled, and some config wrapped around it.

But the documentation said...

The documentation doesn't lie, but it often doesn't give you the whole answer either.

I love nix, but installing anything interesting ends up with a lot of websearches.

On the upside, my home/work and travel pc's are all just lockstep. anything I install on one just ends up on the others, and that's something cool.

@fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com I think they found you

sips coffee from Alpine land

I see a lot og talk here abotu wha tis best. I want to play my games and work on my papers. I have mint right now but is there a better choice fro a beginner?

Oh I actually need a recommendation... I have a tiny 7 inch LCD monitor. If I hook it up to my iPad the colors are fine but when I run it from the mini Linux computer I have the colors are all washed out and have weird dithering.

I know it's a driver issue and I haven't been able to find one that works. I also tried different distros. I tried mint, ubuntu and I think one other one that I can't remember. All had the same issue.

Do any of you have ideas? How can I fix it

Ubuntu was so good. Too bad my brother simply shut off my VM when I was using it

Kinda new to Linux, is that the documentation icon ?

I've had some people here tell me about POP_OS as it's the most friendly to NVIDIA hardware and also is configured for gaming.

What are your thoughts?

Nice astroturfing attempt