It’d be really nice if it was like Wii, where you can have the emulated console do an online system update and bang, there’s your whole OS… or failing that, the entire system is on every game disc, just in case… but nooo can’t have that.
Distros that don’t have SELinux generally have AppArmor, which is similar, and has the advantage that it doesn’t have quite such a boneheaded design getting in the way all the time. :3 So I wouldn’t pick a distro just to get SELinux, personally!
(I don’t like how SELinux sticks labels on individual files, except those labels are apparently pointless, because there’s a tool specifically to go through your whole filesystem and reset all the labels if they get screwed up. Which can happen (e.g. if you mount a home directory that doesn’t have the labels of every single file in it set to “this is a home file”, because you moved it from a Debian install where that isn’t a thing).)
– Frost
And honestly, in the coming age of “OSes that don’t spy on you will be illegal!!”, I’m really, really glad for that. We’ve got the entire 27-ISO set of Debian 13.0.0 squirreled away. There’s even more discs for the sources, and they go to great lengths to ensure that everything can be built with no external dependencies that aren’t available in the archive.
Debian: It’s Apocalypse-Proof.™
– Frost
Haha yeah! :3 I uh, misread the critter I replied to as saying “I don’t get it” rather than “I’m not even interested in getting it”. Cue the massive infodump. >,,>
I’m not that sorry, though. It’s still fun to talk about and also kinda hilarious that it happened.
– Frost
Debian is weird in even having non-live ISOs, but they do have various live ones with different desktops! (Don’t grab the one from the homepage, grab one of the live ones instead.)
Yeah! https://www.debian.org/CD/live/, the little teeny “live KDE” link. =^.^=
You don’t want the “netinst” ISO on the main page. It technically works, but it’s a pain to use and needs internet access to install. Its only redeeming quality is the small download size and fitting on a CD (if you’re burning it to a CD-R which is unlikely).
Nope! I’m a wolf! :3
I’m trans, but for species instead of gender. Yeah that’s a thing. 🐺
– Frost
The homeserver doesn’t have to be fancy. We’re running all our stuff off a Dell Vostro from 2012 we got for like $30 on Craigslist. (It did need another $30 replacement PSU though. And it has 8GB RAM and a 500GB SSD which is nothing to sneeze at for a machine that cheap and that old.)
I mean, I could just go “TLDR grab Debian’s live KDE edition” if that’s easier!
The whole point in me explaining all that is that people don’t know all this stuff. That’s why I’m explaining it. I did gloss over the fact that distros exist, but it seems like the person I’m replying to already knows that multiple versions of Linux are a thing so that’s not a huge issue.
And going “here’s some options to pick from” helps if it turns out you’ve got different priorities than we do. But yeah, “TLDR Debian” is also good if you’re overwhelmed.
Funnily enough, Gajim from Flatpak (1.9.5) does drag and drop just fine!
I can’t remember what version we’ve got on our laptop– [can’t we just check packages.debian.org?] right! It’s 2.1.1-2, apparently. Good to hear that 2.2.0 is non-adwaitified, that sounds like a good place to fork from.
– Frost
Anything with the KDE desktop!
That’s a neat thing about Linux, the look and feel is actually totally separate from the distro. Everyone focuses on distros when really, that’s mostly under-the-hood stuff, the look and feel is the desktop environment.
KDE is windows-10-like (out of the box, you can also rearrange the crap out of it, ours is set up more like Mac!) and also happens to be one of the most full-featured desktop environments, so you won’t be missing stuff (like HDR support or whatever).
So, a distro with KDE.
Debian is great if you want something that Does Not Break on you. Ever. It will never throw you a curveball with an update. That also means you just won’t really get updates very much, outside of a Big Major Upgrade every couple of years. If you’re tired of Windows Update screwing with you, Debian’s perfect.
Fedora is pretty good if you want the new shinies all the time. Major updates every 6 months. Debian has a bigger appstore and even stuff that isn’t in there often provides .deb packages, which Fedora can’t run, but it’s not a huge deal.
Mint doesn’t have a convenient KDE version (but you can install KDE after the fact). It has its own desktop called Cinnamon. More Windows 7 vibes. It’s based on Debian so you get the Debian compatibility, as well, and they put work into making sure you have GUI apps for stuff like installing drivers (Debian you might need a terminal command or three during initial setup).
There’s also immutable distros like Bazzite, which is basically SteamOS But Desktop. It also comes with similar restrictions to SteamOS, though. Good for an Appliance Computer, an absolute fucking pain if you ever need to install drivers/VR stuff/other system software or what-have-you. I’d avoid for your main computer.
– Frost
I’m a furry and even I don’t get most furries, haha!
Like, I’m here to be an animal. I heard “people who like to be animals” and went “whoa, sign me up!” and it turns out a lot of furries DON’T like to be animals, they just… pretend to be animals but “oh that’s a character not really me” and they still consider themselves human…?.. also they’re only half-human-half-animals, not actual animal shape either?.. I don’t get it
turns out most of the actual “I’m just an animal” animals are the therians instead (once I found them I decided I’d be both). I’m still a non-character, non-anthropomorphic (the furry jargon for normal animal shape is “feral”) furry though, and the anthro furries can just deal. :3
– Frost
That makes sense!
SELinux is also just a pain in the tail. We’re on Debian which has got AppArmor instead and while it has caused problems, it’s caused problems a heck of a lot less often than SELinux did when we tried Fedora.
– Frost
That’s a thing?? Whoa. The wooden ones SUCK, plastic is alright but plastic… how are the potato ones to clean? One of the nice things about the plastic ones is you can clean them and keep them around in your bag for next time you need a spoon.
a) you’re using “animal” like an insult. That’s not cool.
and b) calling shitty people “not people” isn’t cool either.
and c) just to reiterate, by contrast, animals (human or not) are people, and calling them “subhuman” is just… dude.
– Frost
This is why we run Gajim 1.9.5 in flatpak.
Which. Got removed from flathub, so to install it on our laptop, we had to do some kind of weird flatpak sideloading thing.
On our laptop we’ve been using Gajim 2.something from Debian 13 (our desktop runs testing so we can’t do that there). It’s not Full Gnomified. It also locks up whenever we try dragging a picture into the chat window to send. So… yeah.
Someone should fork Gajim pre-2.
Honestly, I may not be the best person to ask if an IDE is what you want, heh. We usually just use it as an editor, and we don’t really have much in the way of IDE features in vim either. But we also don’t really use languages that practically need an IDE, like Java. Stuff like HTML and perl and JS are much easier to write with a normal text editor.
If you just need LSP autocomplete and such, though, Kate’s got that! There’s a plugin for it, I think. You might have to turn it on.
There’s also plenty of good GUI editors if vim and emacs aren’t your cup of tea. Personally I think Kate’s fantastic, for instance.
– Frost
Ah yes, the literal embodiment of “announcing the new OpenTormentNexus!”.