You, too, can become a 1337 h4xx0r with this one (1) simple trick: Read the manual!
Which is both definitely correct, but also profoundly unhelpful for newbies. But seriously, there is so much documentation, blog articles, video tutorials etc. for Linux, if you put in some effort everyone can go from newbie to hacker/programmer/gentoo user.
man command is still in there but Cinnamon is supposed to speak for itself.
Sure, arch has a steep learning curve, but in the long run easier to use than others since it has better documentation.
Since you’re already doing a fresh install, might as well create the root partition as a BTRFS with opensuse-style subvolumes for easy snapshotting and rollback. And since you’re so close might as well also add LUKS1 encryption across the partition, since TPM is untrustworthy for REAL security. You’re going to be using a grub config with rd.luks params and a protected keyfile so you don’t have to decrypt the partition twice per boot like some scrub, of course.
Of course, technically there is nothing wrong just a plain arch install as long you’ve devised a proper opsec strategy, alongside daily, weekly and monthly full-disk offsite encrypted backups!
And yes indeed, Arch linux is the distro that was ordained to me!
Arch forces you to learn about Linux internals and components. Most people don’t need to know these things to work productively with their computers. Arch is more of an „build your own OS“ toolkit than a well defined base operating system. Two Arch installs can be more wildly different to use than Fedora and Ubuntu. That’s why you need the mountains of documentation. Arch wiki is great, but it’s not perfect or correct. Lots of outdated info lingers there as well.
BTRFS with subvolumes is they way to go, I agree. Mint sadly still defaults to EXT4 with only an encrypted /home. I installed Mint recently and a modern partition setup like you describe was difficult to get working. I don’t even remember, what I ended up with.
security
The AUR is a security nightmare.
easy snapshotting and rollback
That‘s an area Mint is pretty weak in.
OpenSuSE
Makes fantastic distros, that more people should use.
I installed arch using archinstall a few years ago just because i got sold on a custom hyperland config, never looked back.
I have yet to understand what the fuss is all about with it being difficult or not new user friendly.
Yes there are weekly updates, and on occasion they do break something, but that was never different on windows.
Tbh i think the hypeland configuration solved pretty much all that for me.
The project has been renamed and changed maintainer since but its still very much alive if anyone wants to check it out.
I had never seen a tiling window manager before and my only experience on Linux was a little ubuntu server to run my Minecraft server from.
I distro hopped for a week, and it was the little things that were dealbreakers.
I love Mint. Mint is love.
See? I knew doomscrolling served a purpose. Bookmarked for the info about the tablet.
Does it work well with low spec tablets? 2Gb RAM 32 (64?) disk?
The machine I have it on is a Lenovo Duet 3i, which has a Pentium processor and either 4 or 8GB of RAM. I bought that machine specifically to use in my wood shop, I wanted a fanless machine that could run FreeCAD.
As a touch device, it’s just this side of unusable. It likes to forget what orientation it was in when waking up from sleep, and doesn’t like to correctly find out while waking up. Gnome will sort of mostly function with gestures and larger touch buttons, most apps are still designed very strictly for mouse and keyboard. The onscreen keyboard isn’t fantastic. I can confirm that Windows Vista had a better tablet experience than present day Fedora Gnome. But it functions.
I tried Fedora KDE, and trying to get Fedora KDE to be a tablet OS was a fool’s errand, the features aren’t even half-baked, they’re on the counter waiting for the oven to preheat. Fedora offers a KDE Touch image which I found runs like boiled butt.
I have no experience with ARM tablets; this is on an x86 tablet (or one of those Surface knockoffs with the keyboard that pops off).
once had arch, once cachy os, in both the cases after few weeks something was broken after update (libreoffice, matlab)
never again
i actually switched from cachy to arch because when kde plasma 6.6 released it wouldn’t let me past the login screen (i’d log in, it’d start loading and freeze the system)
i used a snapshot to roll back the update and waited for plasma 6.6.1, where instead of freezing it’d just restart. then 6.6.2 released with the same issue as 6.6.0 so i just gave up and installed arch
btw, i still havent figured out limine+snapper configuration yet
No. They are not up to it. It’s the #1 distro on Lemmy and it shouldn’t be.
To be clear the only distro I hate is Manjaro, mint I only think about when people here remind me it’s popular. Downvote away, your oppinion is meaningless.
It has never had solid corprate backing
This is why I love mint, among other reasons.
Recommending Ubuntu in place of Mint is a total derangement.