• 0 Posts
  • 15 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: September 1st, 2023
  • folaht@lemmy.mltoLinux@lemmy.ml•Alright fine I admit it, I want to learn Linux
    3·
    7 days ago

    Can I tell you off from Arch Linux?

    There are around three Linux families to choose a derivative Linux OS from,
    some are more obscure ones and then some really obscure ones.
    Choose one of the Linux family OSes and choose the most popular derivative of that one.
    So for example Aurora is a derivative of Fedora, which is a derivative of RHEL (derivative-(in)ception).

    The reasons to choose derative OSes and not one of the basic main three is that:

    1. The Linux derative OSes have bells and whistles build on top of the parent OS. This is especially true for the extremely bare bones Arch Linux, that will throw you back into 1985.
    2. And this is most important… community support! You will at some point have issues and a forum where developers and experienced users can help you out are a godsend. Derivatives tend to have better community support than the bare bone ones. I’ve experienced this with the Arch Linux community. I’m not sure if Debian or RHEL communities would haved fared better, but to me this community felt like having a conversation with a real life Sheldon Cooper. I am really thankful for the excellent expert level help I did get there, but I will not go there back again. And I don’t know if I even can, because the last time I was there, I got banned for a third time.
      I’ve had great experiences on the Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Manjaro communities. Other communities from less popular Linux OSes have been too small in my experience to get help on time.

    For Debian, the most popular one right now is Linux Mint, a derivative of Ubuntu (derivative-(in)ception). It used to be Ubuntu, but Ubuntu tends to take big moves and risks that don’t always pay off.
    Linux Mint I consider to be the safe option for beginners.
    Debian is known for stability.

    For Redhat it’s Fedora. I haven’t used it that much.
    Redhat is known for good security.

    For Arch it’s Endeavour OS and recently Cachy OS.
    It used to be Manjaro, but they fumbled a lot on security issues.
    Arch is known for having the best documentation,
    and the largest amount of software available,
    especially made by fellow users,
    and if I may add myself, having the best package manager.

    I still use Manjaro myself, because I don’t feel enough need to switch to a new one,
    and I like the community there.

  • folaht@lemmy.mltoLinux@lemmy.ml•A few beginner questions about the differences between distros.
    31·
    5 months ago

    1. It matters as some distros have one maintainer or will offer you something ideological at great sacrifice, but you seem to already know that.

    2. No, the biggest difference is package manager, community forum in case you meed troubleshooting, default DE (eases troubleshooting), and release type.

    There are three big families of distros: Debian / Fedora / Arch. Any distro that is a derative of either of these three use their package manager.

    1. Drop tuxedo and take a look at endeavourOS. It’s arch-based and arch has the best package manager of all. Also KDE is their main DE. I use Manjaro because I prefer Xfce.

    In case you do use EndeavourOS, one warning, DO NOT USE THE ARCH FORUM FOR TROUBLESHOOTING!!

    (If you’ve heard of ‘Sheldon Cooper’ from the tv-series ‘Big Bang theory’ or ‘Young Sheldon’. This forum is run by a real life version of him and you will get banned there immediately or very quickly, unlike other forums. Rule #1 of many is that any user troubleshooting admits that the issue is occuring on any OS other than Arch, including the closest deratives, will get banned.)

    1. No. Don’t know what HDR is.

    2. Tinkering with the DE is definitely fun and you should play with it. Be careful though, because the freedom you’re allowed also allows you to break things. But tinkering with the DE isn’t the worst thing you could break.

  • folaht@lemmy.mltoLinux@lemmy.ml•GRUB is confusing
    7·
    7 months ago

    GRUB gets installed on your harddisk in your root partition, it’s configuration file on the boot partition and finally into your boot sector if I’m correct. UEFI is a standard for your firmware located outside your harddisk. You go from firmware -> partition layout -> bootloader (grub) -> kernel.

    The firmware is closed source under BIOS or UEFI or if you’re hardcore open source, libreboot/coreboot/‘other options’ and is located somewhere on your motherboard on some chip.
    Then there’s the partition layout and bootloader that are located inside /dev/sda I believe, so inside the device itself, which can be read if you want to take a peek at it.

    Now the bootloader located in the boot sector /dev/sda loaded by the firmware located in some chip in the motherboard, has access to the boot partition, where it loads the bootloader’s configuration file usually located at /boot/grub/grub.cfg for GRUB. I remember UEFI having some kind of standard bootloader by itself, so it doesn’t even need a bootloader if I can remember correctly.

    This what I recall as it was quite complicated for me too. Especially with software being called firmware and not being called motherbootware or pre-bootware or anything that indicates that this piece of software is the very first thing that starts running during boot.

    But you look at /boot and what you can find there. There will be at least two files there called initramfs and vmlinuz, which were also part of the boot process, but I forgot what role those two played.