Recommend me a linux distro other than Linux Mint

Just keep it simple, Debian + gnome or even fedora+gnome. no point in using these fork distros, most them are based off debian anyways.

I had used Debian+gnome for the past year and it was by far the best linux laptop experience ever. Also, embrace the command line if you want to use linux. It will only cause you pain if you go looking for gui in linux.
 
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Amazing how people manage to not read anything but the title and think they're giving good advice.

OP said like 9 times on page 1 of this thread "no gnome" "hate gnome".
 
calvin1719 said:
OP said like 9 times on page 1 of this thread "no gnome" "hate gnome".
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Where exactly is this 9 times? Op doesn't like any mainstream newbie distros/desktop environments, I'm simply stating my opinion based on my experience of using linux for about a decade that gnome is the most "complete" clean GUI experience out there.
calvin1719 said:
Amazing how people manage to not read anything but the title and think they're giving good advice.
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but sure.. go ahead and call me out for giving "not good advice".
 
@devagya
OP at least used gnome 3 times to clarify his dislike towards it.
I can understand OP's general dislike towards gnome :), its not hate but kind of disdain...

Any recommendation about solving his usb speed issue would've be great, found people complaining about the same in Linux Mint forums.
Otherwise, debain and fedora are generic distributions which anyone can recommend.
 
TEUser2K1 said:
@devagya
OP at least used gnome 3 times to clarify his dislike towards it.
I can understand OP's general dislike towards gnome :), its not hate but kind of disdain...

Any recommendation about solving his usb speed issue would've be great, found people complaining about the same in Linux Mint forums.
Otherwise, debain and fedora are generic distributions which anyone can recommend.
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I have a feeling there's no speed issue. I was using the "supposedly" bad cable i got with the external ssd enclosure with my pixel 6a and - it copied data off the phone at 175Mbps!!
That cable doesn't work with the enclosure any side since its c-c cable but works with pixel and LM. Really weird. I have a feeling there's something wrong with the enclosure or something else.
I'l have to try using a nvme ssd in the enclosure and see if i can copy stuff off it at 150+Mbps.

I tried Endeavour Os live and I think I like LM better than that. Just using it for 5-10 minutes, it was sluggish even though it was running xfce. LM Cinnamon and xfce live versions are so fast in comparison even in live mode. Don't know how anyone can make xfce slow down but endeavour did it.

Oh yes, I have said I don't like Gnome and I really don't like it. I have tried 3-4 times running Debian Gnome, or other distros with gnome and hated it every time. The minimalist ui is what i dont like. Every menu hidden behind a hamburger menu. Plus lots of stuff you cant even do without installing some third party tool. Plus the way you try to do things in gnome is different than with cinnamon or xfce or mate. If you are used to xfce/mate/cinnamon, then you will scratch your head on why gnome wants to do things differently. But it is what it is. I did try Sway or another terminal window manager but terminal way is not my tye. I want gui desktop. it just doesn't feel right without a desktop.
 
I don't think recommending a district would help you at this points. The growing pains you mentioned come down to compatibility issues with the software and hardware. Particularly the touchpad issue, I had faced multiple times with it being jittery or delayed response. You will have to dig into forums for users with similar laptops facing this issue.
I started hating GNOME with the release of 3.0 but I have made my peace with these days.
Coming to the enclosure, it definately is an issue with the cable or with the enclosure or both. If another cable doesn't help and the enclosure is realtek 9210 based you can easily try updating the firmware if it helps.
If you still want your style of Linux there's bedrock Linux in the deep end, create your own Frankenstein...
 
6pack said:
I tried Endeavour Os live and I think I like LM better than that. Just using it for 5-10 minutes, it was sluggish even though it was running xfce. LM Cinnamon and xfce live versions are so fast in comparison even in live mode. Don't know how anyone can make xfce slow down but endeavour did it.
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Sorry to hear that it didn't work for you. I did not experience any sluggishness in my system

I run Manjaro in my laptops. In the new laptop, the WiFi adapter requires a driver that is not included. Had to install it manually. I could not get Manjaro to install in the Compulab IPC3, only EndeavourOS and OpenSuse Leap worked properly in it. File copy operations were slow with OpenSuse and then tried EndeavourOS which worked perfect. I run Ubunutu on Odroid C1+ and XU4 as they are best supported for those platform. There are no good or bad distributions, you simply choose whatever works best for your needs. Sometimes you have to do a bit of trial and error to find that one.
 
@6pack
Mostly you will get to solve the usb transfer speed issue, generally found Linux handling this better considering antivirus is not doing real-time scanning it between (this is just my justification of slightly lower speed in Windows). Cable issue can be a real root cause.
Gnome3 always gave this impression that gui is getting in between your work, also kind of heavy.
elementary OS is worth a try.
Best wishes for your tryst with distros...
 
I've used many Linux Distros in past and now settled in Debian. Mainly because in my opinion that is the only available stable user friendly Desktop Linux distributions available. All other distros are trying to ship the latest and cutting edge software and along with that lot of bugs or made for server installation. With the latest Debian 12, I am getting the application versions those I can cope with.

Another advantage for me is the release cycle. Debian does not have a short release cycle. That might be disadvantage for some. But it works well for me.

In past I liked switching distros frequently. I enjoyed the pain of backing-up and formatting hardrives and spending hours to install and configure new OS. But now I am getting old and doesn't want to take all those hard work.

My opinion is is to take a stable enterprise grade Distro and polish it for your need and keep sticking with it. On the way you might face some hurdles, solve them and make it perfect.

1. RHEL - That's the true enterprise grade distro available (Not user friendly as a desktop OS). But it is mainly a commercial distro, so you might need to find work-around for many things to get it working without redhat custom tools.
2. RHEL spins - a. CentOS - Now they made it rolling lease and a test base for stable RHEL, But should be better than many distros.
b. Alma, Rocky - Redhat stopped providing source, but they might find alternative way to keep going.
3. Fedora - Fedora is mainly a testing ground for Redhat Linux. They provide cutting edge software and release new version every 6 month. - I don't like it as my daily drive. I want something stable and with a longer release cycle, so that I don't have to take the pain of upgrading OS every 6 month or so. ( But I install it in a VM to get hands on latest trends in Linux software )

4. Debian - RHEL and its spins are primarily designed as server/headless OS, so you might not find rpm packages for all desktop apps for them. Outside RHEL family, I think Debian is the most stable distro. It is run by community, so no need to worry about some company making it paid one day. Its the mother of many popular desktop distros including ubuntu and its spins.

I once tried LFS (Linux from scratch), its a good way to learn all Linux building blocks for your hardware. It is not a practical distro. But good way to learn all the layers in a Linux distro. That will help troubleshoot issues with your main Linux distro installation.

Note: Switching Linux distro might not solve the specific issue you are facing. End of the day all distros has component from same vendors. Check if the Linux kernel version, driver version etc has any bug causing slow USB speed.
 
I used Linux Mint for nearly a year, and it's a great distro, but I did find it a bit buggy- after the 21.2 Victoria upgrade, my screen would randomly go dark for a few seconds in the middle of my work and no amount of fiddling with power settings would fix it. And it has no Wayland support. I have now been using MX Linux 23 Libretto KDE edition since August. I chose that because MX Linux is based directly on rock-solid Debian Bookworm, and the KDE desktop is full-featured, well beyond Mint's Cinnamon desktop, and supported by a large team at KDE. I've had excellent results. Very stable yet snappy performance.
Fomer Mint user, now a firm MX Linux 23 KDE edition user. Debian solid, MX tools, KDE versatility.
 
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Try Solus. I use the Budgie version. It's fast, beautiful and highly compatible. You will have to tinker a bit to get it set up but once you do, it's smooth sailing.
 
You might want to look into Nixos or Nobara Project, they provide options outside of GNOME, and have a lot of cool features. Was contemplating daily driving Nobara myself.
 
devagya said:
Just keep it simple, Debian + gnome or even fedora+gnome. no point in using these fork distros, most them are based off debian anyways.

I had used Debian+gnome for the past year and it was by far the best linux laptop experience ever. Also, embrace the command line if you want to use linux. It will only cause you pain if you go looking for gui in linux.
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+1
Vanilla debian for server , vanilla debian + gnome for desktop and you won't go wrong.

the only way to actually fix a problem in linux is to understand the operating structure once and then go through the man documentation for the tool/service that you are trying to change or fix.
With all of the forks, all you will find is half baked guides (or perhaps fully baked but now dated) which will likely do nothing or break something else .

And as mentioned by @devagya , all the fancy gui options to change settings are effectively wrappers around one or the other underlying conf file and the best way to do it is via vi or nano rather than a gui wrapper
 
I've been using both Pop os and Zorin os for quite a while and they have been nothing but reliable. Although my use case is minimal computing such as browsing and online media consumption.

But if your use case is power-use, you can give Endeavour OS a try
 
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