I feel like a lot of people spend more time looking for the perfect distro than actually using Linux. There's always another release promising better performance, a cleaner desktop, or a more convenient setup, so it's easy to convince yourself that switching again will finally solve everything.

But most of the time, the distro isn't the problem. You can customize your desktop, change your workflow, install the tools you need, and fix a lot of annoyances without reinstalling your entire system. Switching distros makes sense when there's a genuine reason, like incompatible software or a release model that doesn't suit you. Doing it just because another distro looks better gets exhausting.

I also don't think everyone needs to start with Arch to properly learn Linux. You can learn the terminal, understand your system, troubleshoot problems, and become comfortable with Linux on practically any distro. Making your life unnecessarily difficult isn't a requirement for becoming a knowledgeable user.

The best distro is the one that fits your needs well enough that you can stop thinking about distros and get on with using your computer.

For those who used to distro-hop constantly, what finally made you settle down? Was it finding the right distro, or realizing you could solve most of your problems without switching?

Basically the title. I mostly listen to digital media on my PC, in my car I usually do physical media. So highest priority is a nice local library with a good player. But it'd be nice on occasion to access my music from my phone when I do feel like it. Any suggestions and advice would be great, thanks in advance!

Switching to Linux doesn’t have to mean hating Windows; sometimes, it’s simply about wanting more control, better performance, or a new way to use your computer. 💻

Even an old laptop can become a useful project with the right setup. For those who have made the switch, what was your biggest reason for trying Linux, and what advice would you give someone considering it for the first time?

i dont have much idea about linux and i was looking up youtube and some other stuff to find what distro i should download as a beginner, most of them are suggesting fedora and mint. i thought i'd post here and ask for suggestions too but i dont have an old enough account so i think this post will get deleted anyways.

also i had a concern which has been keeping me from downloading linux, im not worried about any files or memory wipes, all im worried about is ruining up any drivers of my pc. i dont want anything like wifi or bluetooth to disappear, it sounds dumb but im still a bit concerned about it and i cant find anything online which assures me that something like this wont happen, or even if it does, how am i supposed to fix it later.

pls help, thank you

Making the switch to Linux can feel exciting and intimidating at the same time. Maybe you're curious about having more control over your computer, want to breathe new life into an old laptop, or simply want to explore something beyond Windows. But then the questions start piling up: Which distro should you choose? Will your favorite apps work? What if something breaks and you have no idea how to fix it?

The good news is that you don't have to hate Windows to enjoy Linux, and you definitely don't need to understand everything before giving it a try. There are beginner-friendly distributions, helpful communities, and plenty of ways to experiment without immediately replacing your current operating system. Even an old laptop can become a great learning project or a useful little home server.

For those already using Linux, what advice would you give someone just starting out? And if you've recently made the switch, what was the biggest surprise, challenge, or improvement you noticed? I'd love to hear your experiences and help make the journey less intimidating for newcomers! 🐧

I recently found a version of Trisquel for the Armhf or Armv7 architecture (the one used on the XO 4.0 v2). Well, I'm not quite sure how to adapt it, and I'm trying and can't. I want to install it on an old 8GB SD card in ext3/ext2 format so I don't have to erase the original system, which could crash it. My idea is to revive my XO with a more modern Linux so it's a usable mini notebook again. Does anyone here know how to do this? I've tried ChatGPT recommendations, and it still doesn't work. For now, it just stays on "loading ramdisk image" and doesn't go any further. Any solution?

It's unlocked and everything, that's all I want to do. Any experts interested in helping? I want to see what the XO's potential is with a newer Linux like this.

I was thinking about using CachyOS, but I saw some people saying it was mid and that Arch itself is better. Which one should I pick ? (I'm looking for better gaming performance and customizability)

Arc Menu, Dash to Panel, Chrome, LibreOffice, VSCode, Steam, OBS Studio, InSync. All set.

I really want to make the switch to Linux but I’m scared and overwhelmed

I guess it’s kind of normal. I’ve been on windows since I was a kid. I’ve taken my privacy much more seriously the last 2-3 years only.

Since 2-3 years ago I now self hosting almost everything I need (calorie tracker, media, Immich, password manager etc). I use truenas scale, which is beginner friendly but I use the shell from time to time, which is Linux based.

I just want to be able to handle my own data in the operating system I use every day as well. But I’m just so concerned over some thing.

Security most of all. I rely on windows defender today for example to “stay secure”. I play a couple of indie games I doubt is Linux compatible. I use a vpn all the time. I torrent things daily.

It just feels like such a steep learning curve and I feel like I’ll mess up everything when it comes to everything.

Any comforting words?

What distro does everyone recommend here?

Hello, as the title above, I have an old laptop that still function relatively well. And I wanna hook it up to a TV that has 1080p resolution. How do I go about doing that?

For more information, my laptop has a 5th gen i5, and an 8 gigs of ram ddr3L. It also has an Nvidia chip to it, that is why I'm wondering if 1080p is possible with such dedicated graphic card.

I don't know much about linux, I know that you want a certain distribution for doing a specific task, I also know that you can customize the UI to fit a certain use case. An advice on which distribution to use, and how to optimize the drivers is appreciated. thank you.

I was searching for a way to do this and never found anything that matched exactly what I needed, until I sat down for a while and just figured out keyd (with some help from Duck.ai).

Problem statement: I am coming from macOS and I have a mac keyboard (actually a Keychron keyboard in mac mode) that I want to use in Linux (Debian Trixie on a ThinkPad T14s Gen 2, fwiw). So I want Command+C to copy and Command+V to paste etc etc. I want to get all the Command modified shortcuts to do the Control shortcuts in Linux but I did not want to permanently remap my Command (Super) key to Control!! That might have been easier but for reasons I didn't want to do that.

Solution: keyd obviously but also Gnome (48) because it gets you about 45% of the way there with its out of the box keyboard shortcuts. I simply created a /etc/keyd/defaults.conf file with the following:

``` [ids] *

[main]

[meta] w = C-w a = C-a s = C-s r = C-r t = C-t n = C-n f = C-f z = C-z x = C-x c = C-c v = C-v enter = C-enter ```

Hopefully this helps someone else trying to do the same thing (or me in the future when I get a new laptop and forget how I did this).

Are all the quirks of a terminal emulator a result of historic compatibility? For example, not being able to distinguish keybindings like Ctrl-m and Return key, Ctrl-[ and ESC, Ctrl+i and TAB. Terminal capabilities and ANSI color codes. The performance overhead of running a terminal multiplexer on a terminal (emulator). Displaying graphics efficiently.

If all terminal emulator applications are nuked from the world and an interface has be rewritten to run CLI tools on, would we get back to the same fragmented terminal emulator ecosystem of many types of applications and layers of incompatibility and lack of standard behaviors? Or would there be new protocols enforced to streamline the expectations of a terminal emulator to improve the user experience (even just easily transitioning from one terminal emulator to another without custom terminfo, potential remaps, etc.)?

What posed this question is that as a Vim user, I'm revisiting my Emacs config and when running Emacs GUI (how I use it 99% of the time), the quirks of e.g. the keybinding limitations of a terminal emulator are irrelevant and I can actually use e.g. Ctrl-i and Tab as different bindings. Not only that, but running Emacs GUI has other benefits such that I don't see any reason to run Emacs on the terminal unless for some reason a graphical environment is not available. In fact, unless you're working on servers professionally, I'm not sure there are any good reasons to invest heavily in an Emacs config that is 100% compatible with CLI.

Hi, I'm trying to get an external USB webcam working on Ubuntu for an AI camera project using Python, OpenCV, face detection, and face recognition. My teacher wants me to use Ubuntu rather than Windows.

1. System information

• Laptop: MSI Katana GF66
• CPU: Intel Core i5 11th Gen, around 2.70 GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3050 Laptop GPU
• OS: Ubuntu 26.04 (based on my installed package repositories)
• Current kernel: 7.0.0-38-generic
• Python: 3.14.4
• pip: 25.1.1
• OpenCV: Installed in a Python virtual environment; I have previously encountered different OpenCV versions and compatibility issues.
• External webcam USB ID: 2bdf:0280
• Webcam name: SN0002 1080P Web Camera
• Built-in webcam: HD Webcam

2. Main problem

The external webcam works perfectly on Windows, but on Ubuntu:

• The webcam sometimes appears in lsusb but does not consistently appear in v4l2-ctl --list-devices.
• Sometimes listing the camera devices takes a long time.
• Ubuntu becomes slow or unresponsive when the external webcam is plugged in.
• My headphones repeatedly mute and unmute while the webcam is connected.
• After physically unplugging the external webcam, Ubuntu and the headphones return to normal.
• The webcam's video stream fails to start, even when the device is detected.

This makes me suspect a Linux USB/UVC driver or compatibility issue, but I cannot confirm the exact cause.

3. USB and kernel errors

The following errors appeared in kernel logs at different times:

• usb_set_interface failed (-110)
• Failed to set UVC probe control : -110 (exp. 26)
• Failed to set UVC commit control : -110
• Failed to query (GET_CUR) UVC probe control : -32 (exp. 26)
• uvcvideo: probe with driver uvcvideo failed with error -5
• USB descriptor errors, timeouts, disconnections, and unable to enumerate USB device

The webcam sometimes appears under /dev/video0, /dev/video1, /dev/video2, or /dev/video3, depending on device enumeration. These numbers are not fixed.

USB controllers reported by lspci:

• Intel Tiger Lake-H Thunderbolt 4 USB Controller [8086:9a17]
• Intel Tiger Lake-H USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 xHCI Host Controller [8086:43ed]

lsusb -t showed the webcam on Bus 003 at 480M using uvcvideo.

4. Tests already performed

A. Confirmed that Ubuntu detects the USB device

lsusb shows:

2bdf:0280 SN0002 1080P Web Camera

However, USB detection does not guarantee that video capture works.

B. Checked the camera's supported formats

v4l2-ctl --list-formats-ext worked and listed these formats:

• YUYV: 640x360 at 25 FPS, 640x480 at 25 FPS, 1280x720 at 10 FPS, 1280x960 at 7 FPS.
• MJPEG: 640x360, 640x480, 1280x720, and 1920x1080, with up to 30 FPS listed for several modes.

C. Tried streaming directly through V4L2

Command:

v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video2 --stream-mmap --stream-count=10

Result:

VIDIOC_STREAMON returned -1 (Input/output error)

I also tried setting MJPEG at 640x480 and 30 FPS:

v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video2 --set-fmt-video=width=640,height=480,pixelformat=MJPG --set-parm=30 --stream-mmap=4 --stream-count=30

This produced VIDIOC_S_FMT, VIDIOC_S_PARM, and VIDIOC_STREAMON Input/output errors.

D. Changed USB runtime power management

The webcam's USB power control was set from auto to on using:

echo on | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/devices/3-1/power/control

After this, device listing became faster and both cameras appeared, but video streaming still failed. The device path may change after reconnecting.

E. Checked system resources

At one point, system memory was not exhausted: approximately 14 GiB RAM total, 9 GiB available, and load averages around 1.81, 1.65, and 1.24. Therefore, ordinary memory exhaustion did not appear to explain the problem.

F. Checked kernel packages

I considered testing an older kernel side-by-side with the current one to determine whether the issue was kernel-specific.

The current kernel is 7.0.0-38-generic. An older 7.0.0-34-generic package was available, but installing it failed due to dependency conflicts:

• linux-modules-7.0.0-34-generic depends on linux-main-modules-zfs-7.0.0-34-generic, which apt would not install.
• linux-modules-nvidia-595-open-7.0.0-34-generic has a version conflict with the available nvidia-kernel-common-595 package.

I did not force the installation or remove any NVIDIA packages.

5. Current status

• I am currently back in Windows, where the external webcam works perfectly.
• I have unplugged the webcam from Ubuntu because it caused system slowdowns and repeated headphone muting.
• My Ubuntu installation and NVIDIA drivers have not intentionally been downgraded or removed.
• I have not yet retested the webcam on a different USB port or cable.
• I want to fix the underlying Ubuntu camera issue rather than switch my project to Windows.

6. Questions

1. What could cause this particular USB webcam to be detected by lsusb but fail during UVC probe/commit or video streaming?
2. Could this be a kernel regression or compatibility issue involving uvcvideo and this Intel USB controller?
3. How can I safely investigate the USB timeouts without risking my current Ubuntu installation or NVIDIA driver?
4. Are there specific kernel logs, USB traces, or other diagnostics I should collect before changing kernels?
5. Could the webcam itself be triggering USB-controller resets or other device problems that explain the system slowdowns and headphone muting?

I would appreciate suggestions for diagnosing the root cause before attempting a kernel change.

I’ve had this setup for maybe half a year now, it’s nice. I’m running FEDORA KDE PLASMA 44, and as the title says I set my pc to update and restart when done while I left for a while. Come back to pc off and unable to boot. It will power on, allow me to access bios, or toggle through kernel versions, but none of them worked. Once a kernel versions is selected it will try to boot and display the fedora logo while it thinks. Then go black screen with a flashing underscore in top left. (Uninteractable screen) If I press the power button here it will show the same fedora logo and loading circle then just turn off after a while. I have a fedora workstation live USB I’m trying to fix the issue on. I assume something failed during the update. The fedora install on my pc is on a 1tb Sabrent rocket5, no idea if that’s relevant. I’d really appreciate some help I tried YouTube videos and various Google attempts too, I think I was making progress but couldn’t get grub to reinstall. And now I may have hurt one of my partitions on my boot drive, as I ran a: fsck -a /dev/nvme0n1p1
This told me: there are differences between boot sector and its backup
this is mostly harmless. differences (offset:original/backup) 65:01/00
Not automatically fixing this
Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt. Automatically removing dirty bit
Filesystem was changed writing changes.
/dev/nvme0n1p1: 24 files, 5128/153296 clusters

I'm using Bazzite, and I literally just switched, so my knowledge on Linux is extremely bare bones. I'd like to set up a group of windows on a screen and 'save' their layout so that I can open them all at once at any time. Specifically, I'm trying to have OBS and a few webpages open, since from what I can tell, flatpak OBS can't add custom docks. Is there a way to do this? Or is it a manual process every time?

Hey everyone!

I have a 2017 MacBook with the following specifications:

Processor: 1.8 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

RAM: 8 GB DDR3 (1600 MHz)

Storage: 121 GB total, with around 100 GB available

I wanna become a soc analyst and hence I want to start learning skills on linux. I'm confused which linux should i use that'll be best for my MacBook. I asked chat gpt and it said I won't be able to run heavy labs on it so I want your help knowing whether it's right and if it's right then what should I do??

I need help. first time putting linux mint on a macbook pro 11,1 and having issues with wifi randomly disconnecting. does anyone know a fix for this? its only showing me one driver option

New to Linux and I am just curious on the security of Linux. On windows by default there is Microsoft Defender and other software such as Bitdefender, Malwarebytes, Kaspersky and other kinds of antiviruses. It's good to have an anti virus handy, but is there any way to scan for malware such as viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, etc on you machine that you are running Linux on?

Hey, I have a really strange issue in my office, I've been using a Brother multifunction printer for a few weeks and everything worked fine, but since last week something strange is happening, printing works fine, but scanning through airscan is bugged, I use naps2 for my scanning needs, the scanner is listed in the device section with the correct IP address (let's say 192.168.1.100), but when I scan something another scanner in the office starts the scanning job, is a similar model but no the same (different IP address 192.168.1.130) and sometimes another scanner stars the job (same model as the 1st one, different ip address, 192.168.1.160) any idea on what could be happening here? I'm kinda going insane, I'm on a up-to-date Arch install

Yesterday I downloaded nobara linux n now want to learn how everything works, command lines n all

Just as the title says.
I'm on Fedora 44 Workstation running this kernel: 7.2.11-200.fc44.x86_64 (any more info you might need just ask )

i want to do the switch but I'm scared that I might break something anything I should look out for?

i don't think it's just simple as installing doas then removing sudo right?