this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I recommend Mint as it's overall a fantastic distro. Better than the majority. And it's not just for beginners. It's full blown Linux so it can do anything.
They have an XFCE version so try that too, as well as the MATE version. All 3 desktops are quite light.
I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu and it's flavours simply because they have Snaps so deeply embedded now it will spoil your experience.
MX-Linux is also a great distro and quite light. Antix is even lighter and maintained by the same team as MX.
Opensuse is always a great choice, and their KDE implementation is quite good. So if you want KDE try opensuse Leap. (Don't use tumbleweed on a Mac because the proprietary drivers for Mac tend to break with frequent updates).
I'm running Mint on my 2012 Mini and it works great. Tried a few others but I find Mint the best.
Fedora Xfce is also great on old HW, and have SELINUX if you are paranoid with security.
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No, I don't think so, as Red Hat only source revenue is RHEL and cloud, not fedora. And RHEL still open source, just you can't get the builded binary from red hat, but you can build it yourself, as open source means the code is available for public, and it's available for public, and most of the codes are in CentOS stream, https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/src
And most of the Enterprise linux downstream could inspect and use rhel code, just the binary and how to build is restricted, it's still adhere with the GPL/LGPL in my opinion
Thanks for taking the time to explain the differences a bit, it's very much appreciated. I'd heard about the Snapstore thing and also Red Hat's decision regarding RHEL; while I don't understand it all yet I do think closed-source defeats the whole purpose of Linux (and why I'm getting off Windows) so yeah, I'm with you on that.
So far, with Mint I haven't had any problems running Cinnamon at all (decided to try the heaviest DE first) but I will probably still end up trying Kfce as the DE on Debian, for example. It was actually shocking how well Mint runs on 4GB of RAM, lol.
But I have plenty of time and plenty of USB sticks, and I will try all the feasible distros mentioned, taking notes along the way. Thank you again for the suggestions!
save some usbs write cycles and use ventoy:
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
deleted by creator
weve all been there. enjoy and have fun.
edit: lovely that you can enjoy this together.
my SO always asks me why Im working when I come home from work......
deleted by creator
I indeed did not knew that.
And actually I would not have thought that this would affect ventoy.
but now we know.
is there also a different procedure to write bootable media for macbooms?
edit: thanks for digging and replying. some will for sure appreciate your post in the future. good luck anyway. have you found yet a suitable distro?
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thats almost 80 % of the linux life.
trying things out and finding joy in it.
keep up your curiosity.