I’m thinking of switching to linux and I’m looking for a lighter weight easy starter distro. Any tips or recommendations?

  • TheyCallMeHacked
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    1 year ago

    OP said lightweight. Ubuntu is many things, but lightweight isn’t one of them.

    • seiryth
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      1 year ago

      I took lightweight as in “easy to get into” as opposed to “write your own wireless driver”. My bad!

    • makunamatata
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      1 year ago

      How about Lubuntu or Xubuntu? What are the drawbacks of these?

      • TheyCallMeHacked
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        1 year ago

        Imo, they’re better than Ubuntu with Gnome in terms of resources, but they have two drawbacks: it’s still Canonical, so all their controversial decisions affect you too, and it’s still rather resource intensive because Ubuntu and it’s derivative want to be very easy to install with minimal configuration. The latter is an advantage if you want a system that “just works™”, but becomes a drawback when your resources are limited

    • cfx_4188
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      1 year ago

      Install the Ubuntu server. Do not install any (suggested) programs and DEs. After reboot manually install xorg, xinit and some lightweight WM (for example sudo apt install xmonad xmobar). Open terminal and write echo >> ~/xinitrc exec xmonad (for example). Reboot. At the tty prompt type startx /usr/bin/xmonad. You get an empty and fast ubuntu-based distro.

      • TheyCallMeHacked
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        1 year ago

        It’s more of a hassle than just installing Debian with your preferred WM. Plus doing the latter, you don’t have to scratch your head at snaps

        • cfx_4188
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          1 year ago

          undefined> It’s more of a hassle than just installing Debian with your preferred WM. Plus doing the latter, you don’t have to scratch your head at snaps

          I think setting up wifi in Debian netinstall will be just as troublesome as fighting the dreaded and horrible snap.

            • cfx_4188
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              1 year ago

              There is a wifi/bluetooth module, the rtl8821. It comes with cheap or old Windows laptops, try to find an open source driver for it.

              • TheyCallMeHacked
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                1 year ago

                I happen to have this exact chipset in my laptop (RTL8821CE to be exact), and it has driver modules directly in the mainline kernel (rtw_8821ce). The only possible issue would be firmware, but I honestly had absolutely no issue installing Arch, Gentoo, or Debian (with the non-free firmware iso) on it multiple times.

                • cfx_4188
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                  1 year ago

                  undefined> I happen to have this exact chipset in my laptop (RTL8821CE to be exact), and it has driver modules directly in the mainline kernel (rtw_8821ce). The only possible issue would be firmware, but I honestly had absolutely no issue installing Arch, Gentoo, or Debian (with the non-free firmware iso) on it multiple times.

                  We talked about using only free firmware, drivers, etc. I gave an example. For example, I am much more comfortable using OpenBSD than Arch/Gentoo/Debian. But I can’t do that because the elements of the firmware are in the kernel, but not enough to make it work properly. With any Linux distribution this is not a problem.

                  • TheyCallMeHacked
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                    1 year ago

                    We never mentioned the restrictions of only free firmware. In fact your argument of installing Ubuntu only makes sense in the first place, because Ubuntu ships non-free firmware