New OS! But which one?

>>276096
ubuntu

>>276096
>>276121
I prefer Linux Mint imo. Fairly windows-like interface

>>276121
Do you use any particular flavour?

>>276096

Standard Ubuntu is horseshit because Unity. Such a retarded system, cannot even have a taskbar at the bottom. Get a spin if It shall be Ubuntu.
If you ask such a question you will get many different personal favourites, that won't really help.
Just like I can just tell you what I am using and with which I made the best experiences- if you come from Wndows and want a Win- like system: Fedora. It's excellent.
But you will have to ask yourself what preferences you have, do you want a slim faster system- then use a spin with XFCE, taht's what I am using, the KDE and gnome desktops are pretty resource heavy but look shiny and blingy of course.

>>276155
Even though I don't personally use Ubuntu, I must say, Unity is not that bad. Especially for a beginner. Let me explain.

Most desktop environments try to look like the big OSes like Windows (KDE, XFCE) and macOS (Gnome-a bit. Elementary) and not do something completely different.
Unity being the odd one out of the bunch is clearly something different.

And the thing is, when something looks like what your familiar with, but not quite, you move into the "uncanny valley", where you get frustrated over things that are not the way they are clearly supposed to be.

When using something that is clearly different, you don't get this feeling that much because it is already a new thing. This is why you have no problem for example navigating your Android phone although it is very different than your Windows PC.

That is not to say I am recommending Ubuntu, all I'm saying is that it is a good distribution to start with, not in spite of how different Unity is, but because of it.

I'd recommend a Debian-based GNU/Linux (doesn't really matter which one), with your desktop environment of choice (they go from GUI-oriented to text-oriented, so really, it's up to your personal preference).

>>276126
this guy knows whats up

tried ubuntu for a while as my first non-windows os and to be fair, its pretty userfriendly. But the GUI feels really "babys first os" like (for the lack of a better definition). With mint you will feel right at home though, it looks clean and professional of a better definition). With mint you will feel right at home though, it looks clean and professional

>>276345
But Mint is not secure.
Ubuntu Mate <3

>>276315

Unity does not really look a serious system that you can really do work with, more like something you'd find on a Fisher Price learning tablet, with your programs in a sidebar with big candy-like glossy icons in case you have not learned how to read yet and to open a program instead of opening a convenient list menu you have a load of tiled icons and if it's not there you have to type its name in a search bar. Ridiculous.
They really overdid that "easy for newcomers" thing. Ubuntu is fine, but for the love of Christ use another surface like with kubuntu or a distro going the middle way not being totally overwhelming for newcomers (debian is famous for this) but at least looking like a real OS, like redhat/now Fedora.

>>276367

Nah you're retarded. The FBI and NASA use Ubuntu with Unity.

>>276345
Mint is literally Ubuntu for kiddies who can't do Ubuntu properly.

Also this, >>276346

get FreeBSD its like linux but it actually works

>>276442

Today's linux works like a charm.
The days of not installing anything without doing a two weeks course and self compiling are over with todays repisitory system.
Using a new version of fedora and wanna have e.g. vlc:
sudo dnf install vlc
dnf looks for vlc in the reps, finds it, confirming with "yes", downloads it, installs it, done.
BAM, you got vlc and it works.
With another system it's maybe just not dnf but some other manager.
And wine these days is really advanced also, it is able to run a lot of Windows programs and even full games games.
Linux is definitely out of its kid shoes.

>>276096
If you have some fear about leaving the windows interface, go with kubuntu and the breeze dark theme. All the good of ubuntu, but better looking.

>>276448
Until your e.g. vlc is too old to do something you need it to do, at which point you're back to downloading source code for e.g. vlc, which won't compile because your glibc is too old, so you download that and it won't compile because your distribution build infrastructure is too old, so you're stuck with having a broken vlc or reinstalling your OS, or trying to upgrade your OS in-place at which point everything breaks.

And then you go on the Internet and they tell you linux is easy to use now so you must be an idiot for having a broken vlc and a broken computer.

Oh, yeah fedora, that thing where you have to enable mp3 support by installing packages from 3rd party repos?; no tanks. Wine advanced? measured how? Does MS Office 2016 run on it yet?

>>276705
>>276448

sry meant to reply to 276448

>>276452

And thats the beauty of FreeBSD, you can compile everything from the ports;

#cd /usr/ports/multmedia/vlc
#make install clean

>>276711
That's what every distribution says, yet they all have this exact same problem when you want to update an app past the ancient version that comes with the OS.

>>276705

Which distro has mp3 support out of the box?
Even though completely obsolete mp3 is based on non free algorithms, that's why it isn't included in a system trying to follow the open source standard. The same goes for most other codecs.
Pretty understandable imho.
S you have to download a codec pack from the repos quickly, takes a minute, so what's the problem?

>>276824
Almost all of them.

Ubuntu had mp3 support forever, because they did a deal with MPEG-LA. Same with Android.

The mp3 decoding patents have lapsed now, so any distribution that doesn't do mp3 is a bit of a fuckup.

>>276854

Yes and since it now has lapsed, Fedora added mp3 support from version 25 onwards.
They just don't put anything in they deem not completely all clear, that's just how RedHat always was.
But it wasn't a thing to install the codecs anyway.