Matt

Debian doesn’t push the responsibility to the user to finish setting things up though, it is designed to be complete out of the box, especially since Debian 12.

For what it’s worth on my computer with a GTX 1650 and Debian 12, I am unable to use Wayland at all as the drivers simply do not work (yes, this is the nvidia-driver package, not nouveau). On Plasma, everything seems to move at a snail’s pace, and on GNOME the desktop is constantly flickering and showing old portions of the screen. X11 is perfectly fine though.

On my cheap laptop with integrated AMD graphics though? Debian 12 with Wayland works like a charm and has no issues.

So, I’m going with nvidia being the problem here.

Hmm? I’m sorry, I’m not following because all distributions follow the same format here, which is that you flash an ISO to a USB stick (or other removable media).

This is, in fact, how it also works for Windows.

I definitely agree their website needs work, it is very confusing to browse if you need anything other than the net installer! I find everything else by using search engines instead.

Your issue seems less the command line and that things aren’t “working”, or the tools you want aren’t pre-packaged.

Using Arch Linux was not the best idea if you want something that “just works”, as it works on a philosophy where you install the minimum amount required and then add things, such as drivers or packages, as you need them. In other words, it’s a distribution where you know what you need for your system. It is also a command-line centric distribution, so it’s strange that “GUI” is your bug bear when you picked one that deliberately forces command line.

Regarding overclocking and GPU configuration, you just get CoreCtrl, which even has a GUI.

Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely agree that everything should have a user interface as much as possible, but the whole “Linux means you have to use command line all the time!!” is simply just not true anymore, and I feel this issue comes from people recalling memories from 10 years ago or using distributions where command line is necessary, rather than something like Ubuntu or Linux Mint where it mostly isn’t.

Have people installed Debian since Debian 12? The installer is very straight forward, and Debian 12 also comes with all the firmware modules to make things “just work” for people.

I would like to know exactly what Debian does wrong other than a blanket statement of “it’s hard”.

For what it’s worth if you want to stay inside the Ubuntu ecosystem (so to speak), I would personally recommend installing KDE Neon, which is based on Ubuntu and maintained by the KDE developers. Otherwise, Debian - most Ubuntu specific things work in Debian, although not everything (PPAs and stuff).

So I didn’t read it either (sue me), however people are paid to work on Linux. The examples you give about RedHat and SUSE are completely incorrect - they’re not there to tell people how to use Linux, they literally develop for it and are paid to make it a better product.

The “issue”, of course, is that they focus their paid efforts on Enterprise and server usage, and not as a user-facing product for the most part, although it could be argued that widespread adoption by companies is how you get it into peoples’ hands, since they get used to it at work or education.

Also, you’re using Ubuntu LTS 20.04 which is technically out of date, as 22.04 LTS also exists, and LTS is primarily meant to be for server/company use, rather than trying to keep up with the latest software and features.

I took a look at your bullet point list too, and literally every single one of your bullet points (other than accessibility, unfortunately) is covered by my laptop running Debian 12 with KDE Plasma - seriously, try out a KDE Plasma distro, it most likely fixes all your problems.

While this is true, if someone goes to a shop and buys a “PC”, it will have Windows 100% of the time.

You have to look to get Linux preinstalled on stuff, or pick the choice yourself. People buying PCs aren’t picking Windows, it’s just what comes with them.

1. Isn’t pre-installed on well known machines by well known brands.
2. Popular applications (whether productivity, creativity, or games) do not work out of the box that people want. It doesn’t matter that alternatives exist, or that you can use things like Wine. If it’s more than just click the icon, it’s too much.
3. If things cannot be done purely through touch / the mouse, it is too hard for most people.

In my opinion, the only “root distro” which ticks all your boxes is Debian, especially with the advent of Debian 12.

All the other distros are too opinionated to be “user friendly”, except maybe Solus which I’ve never tried.

Unique usernames cause issues with having to come up with wildly “creative” names to be able to be called the same thing everywhere if the platforms get big enough, or start adding loads of numbers to everything. Unique usernames also create prestigious names, which people most certainly care about, especially for branding or clout.

The discriminator system was clever, as it let people just pick names that they felt resonated with them better, while also keeping everyone equal - you didn’t have a prestigious name like “adam”, and everyone else who just wanted to go by adam on the internet had to add extras to it. Instead, everyone was given the extra numbers so nobody was special.

Now obviously, the username in itself is not that special, and nobody really goes by their username, but a lot of people do assign some value to their online identities and handles, and Discord just sidestepped that by putting everyone on the same level.

There were issues with the username system, but I don’t think the 4 numbers were it. You absolutely do memorise your 4 numbers if you’re adding people constantly for some reason, and if you’re not, it’s not exactly a major inconvenience.

From my experience, people who are happy with the new system already go by somewhat unique names, so this makes it easier for them.

There’s no way I’ll actually use the platform, but I personally have no qualms with federating with it on my instances so I can communicate with friends who may be using it that haven’t made the jump to the current fediverse.

Whether we like it or not, this is most likely the best chance for regular people to be introduced to the Fediverse and hopefully gain a good understanding of it, providing that Meta doesn’t hide it from people too much or make it complicated enough that people are “encouraged” to use their platform instead.

I’m using Startpage and it’s been mostly fine. The biggest issue is that the “nested” results that come from Google (e.g. a forum and related posts) don’t show in Startpage, it will only show the main result.

I really wanted to use something like SearXNG, but I get basically zero results whenever I use an instance, no idea if I’m missing something in how they work.

There’s not really anything bizarre about it, people discover things by word of mouth, and people also like to try things out they see other people doing / playing.

It’s like trying to stick it to an F2P game by just “not paying”, it doesn’t work because players are content and encourage other people to spend more time on them, and some of those people will end up paying money. You stick it to them by just not playing at all and reducing awareness by not even discussing it, even if it might be small in the big picture.

Debian.

Just works, things are made targetting it specifically, able to get latest software if I need it by installing flatpaks.

Can’t complain really.

Been mainly using it to get through the Trails series before Trails from Reverie releases in July - currently on Trails of Cold Steel 4, but it’s a hard one to get through.

Other than that, been emulating Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity and playing with friends.

They’re just different softwares that communicate over ActivityPub.

For an easy comparison using established names: One is Reddit, one is Digg, but they can communicate with each other and show each other the same content, and you can just pick which one you want to use.

The Fediverse allows people to just choose the platforms they prefer, and then talk to everyone else on the Fediverse regardless, instead of having to create multiple accounts all over the place to talk to specific people.