extremely not tech-savvy
You managed to make an account and post on Lemmy so you’re probably underestimated your technical knowledge. That being said IMHO it’s best to first list what software you use then find alternatives that work on Linux. Once that’s done then yes sure try whatever distribution you want.
If you know the right tool for the task, very few things take time. IMHO what’s more problematic is that with enshitification you’re swimming upstream. Sure as long as the maintainer finds the right trick, you can postpone indefinitely bad “surprises” but ultimately, why do so when proper alternatives more aligned with your Worldview exist?
Well even a PWA still has to be developed and maintained.
I just wanted the machine to turn-on, work, and play some games.
And that was before the SteamDeck too.
Absolutely. I learned about that decades ago as a teenager and never would I have thought it would still be useful today… yet, in 2025 if you want to do anything powerful, in the cloud, on your phone, even in your XR headset, it is STILL relevant!
PS: I project I’m contributing to on the topic https://nlnet.nl/project/xrsh/ ideas welcomed!
Yeah it happened to all of us. The console is powerful and it means when you mess up, it will have BIG consequences. One learns to test first before globbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob_(programming) too much!
Very nice, I don’t seem to have that option available but I can right-click on a filename to open the file manager in the current directory. Good to know!
It’s actually even more efficient because one can search through the list of all available buttons.
reverse-i-search (typically ctrl-r) or ~/.bashrc (or whatever your alternative shell configuration file equivalent is) means one doesn’t have to memorize much indeed, especially while commenting properly.
CLI is effective also because of its history (i.e. one can go back, repeat a command as-is or edit it then repeat) but also the composability of its components. If one made a useful command before, it can be combined with another useful command.
Rinse & repeat and it makes for a very powerful tool.
FWIW I do use the file browser too when I’m looking for a file with a useful preview, e.g. images.
When I do have to handle a large amount of files though (e.g. more than a dozen) and so something “to them”, rather than just move them around, then the CLI becomes very powerful.
It’s not because one uses the CLI that one never used a file browser.
Same, in fact you can also went down in RPi models. Basically the more you know, the less you need, e.g. going from Plex to Kodi to minidlna…
Interesting, thanks for sharing.
Windows
Take that back… /s
Takes literally minutes to try with 0 install and no risk for your data : https://distrosea.com/start/kubuntu-24.10-default/
I’m not saying you should enjoy it (even though I do, Debian stable with Plasma for a while now) but it’s so convenient to give any distribution with any desktop environment a try that IMHO it’s wrong not to spend few minutes and see what you might be missing.
Local only.
So… actually (put on fedora hat) it’s a GREAT way to learn!
What I do NOT recommend though is distro hopping with your data and your daily life setup. Namely the safest to learn is main system is stable, easy to setup and fix, you’re comfortable with even if you are not “proud” to claim it on Lemmy BUT the weird stuff you do on the side, it’s on a dedicate harddrive (ideally not even partition, just so that you can even mess that up) and you go LinuxFromScratch of whatever rock your boat knowing your data is safe and if you fuck up you can still go on with your day.
Care to explain how it does in a way that other distributions don’t?
That I understand, and I’m also on that boat. That’s what I tried to express separating the system, i.e. parts with dependencies, vs “just” applications and giving an example like Blender.
I understand for that aspect but for anything that is lower down the stack IMHO what are actual features needed and people can’t wait on are very very few and the trade off is probably for most people not worth it.
Obviously not everybody has the same taste for risk and some people might find it thrilling to install a system back at a random moment if it brings them 1 FPS extra or a very obscure feature that nobody else needs so I find it great that alternative exist. What I’m arguing for though is that people who do take a higher risk do so knowingly.
Edit: as an example of bleeding edge, there are some applications I download from the repository, build and run so they are basically as new as they can be. Again this is extremely precious to me, but it’s not part of the “system”, they are “leafs” on the dependency tree thus never leading to any catastrophic effect.
Just finished the latest trendy AAA game (Clair Obscur) thanks to Proton and Steam… 45hrs of (amazing) gaming and I didn’t tinker with a single option.