Maybe I should have. But fighting fortress Europe seemed more important (not to say that pirates don't do this, but their focus is on digital topics). The strategy of connecting with the non Parliament left and making carola rakete second of the list by the left party gave me the impression that they would be a better choice.
That's some nice info. From what I've heard manjaro is just arch with things done for you most users would do anyway (Desktop environment setup, package management set up, etc.)
But if arch is more stable even if some casual hobby ITler like me installs it I should maybe give it another try at times.
Didn't know there was much difference between arch distros, but now that you mention it: steamOS is working flawlessly while being arch could be an argument for your point. It thought this was more because its perfectly configured for the hardware and deck and I seldom need the OS itself outside of steam because I only use it for gaming.
I think what makes arch different for first time users is mainly the user repository. If I want to have glassy themed desktop for example on Ubuntu I need to understand kvantum, which folder need which permissions, download themes from a website, kvantum from the terminal and install them, while on arch I type
yay glassy-themeXY
Sure arch comes with more possibilities in terms if what combinations of software are possible and rolling release etc. Pp. But that's not that tangeble or import for the beginners usage.
When installing teamspeak for Ubuntu I need to understand how to make my own desktop entries, mark files as executable, how to install .deb packages etc, while on arch I type yay teamspeak, done.
Sure aur is not the most secure source, but better (and easier) then blindly copy pasting commands from some forum or manually downloading dubious python scripts from github.
In a nutshell: I can rely on other (smarter) users better on arch than Ubuntu.
For the customization at the time Ubuntu only had gnome, which is easy but not very powerful in its GUI options from my experience. Manjaro came with KDE plasma which is way more in depth with its GUI.
I don't know what you are talking about with everything in the same place regardless of distro, I seldom find any config file i dont already know without googleing it for my system. Package names are different, the according folders are different, depending on you DE all paths regarding this will be different.
In win you have all your settings in the settings app (and the values stored in registry)
EVERY file of the program you would need to accsess is in the program folder (or roaming).
On Linux, the steam installation via snap has another file structure than via apt, and another for flatpack and another for appimage and another for the aur version which is different from the selfcompiled version. Depending on your Linux version the gamebug could be produced by a file in any of those folders (mostly not one place but some in /etc some in /home/steam some in home/.local some in /home/.share etc. Pp.) Also steam depends on like 100 libraries which are stored in different places. Not to even start with symlinks, config files you should not edit because they get generated from a template in another dir which you instead should be editing and stuff like this.
For people who are working in the field or using the system since decades this becomes natural at some point. But for people who can't (yet) deal with this kind of stuff it makes a HUGE difference if they can type "yay teamspeak" or not.
Sure, by now it seems trivial for me to know about sudo, chmod, .deb files, apt, .desktop files how to add a repository, manage gpg keyrings and so on but in the beginning, coming from windows this was confusing and overcomplicated as heck (remember under win installing a programming is literally double klicking an installer and that's it)
When you don't know about this stuff and don't have the time to watch tutorials or read man pages when wanting to do anything, the difference between this and "yay teamspeak" was like day and night, a matter of usable vs. Unusable.
People good with this stuff underestimate how valuable it is for noobs to be able to rely on smarter people. If I had installed ts when starting with Linux it would have been way more prone to failure and insecurity than a package by an experienced arch user.
The "why would a beginner need those" question always strikes me as odd, because it always sounds love me people wanna deny use cases. I tried changing my local one time, because I accidentally installed the us English default and in the end it was easier to reinstall, because changing the local here doesn't automatically changes the local there, and for this the locale gets baked in when installing and then your off chasing details and suddenly needing systemctl commands or editing system.d config files or stuff like that. (Again, for something that is literally one klick in a drop down menu for win). I have never seen someone who uses Linux without ever needing the terminal, while doing more than webbrowsing and emails (while for win it is the default to never need the cmd) So if you didn't study IT for 6 semesters you come to the point where GUI is not working anymore and you don't know what to do REALLY fast. In this case you are of to either fail if you don't want to spend hours tinkering and learning about internals of Linux or you have the aur, where its not that unlikely that someone has already written a package to accomplish the task.
"You can do the same things with the aur as without" is the dumbest shit I've ever heard (sry)
Its like saying you can do the same thing with a guitar as with a CD. Sure, if you are skilled enough you can produce similar results, but for 90% of humanity its either you have the CD and can hear Elvis Presley or you can tinker with the guitar for hours and in the end get something that doesn't even vaguely resembles Elvis Presley. --> you can't hear Elvis Presley.
For btrfs: OK, give me the Debian bookworm installer where you can select ANY enrcrypted format that is not luks-->lvm-->ext. I looked lastime I installed there wasnt an option for encrypted btrfs on Debian, but there was on arch
Maybe I could customize filesystems and install drivers/libs etc afterwards, but from what I've read its not that easy to get it working and it for sure didn't work out of the box.
But please correct me if I am wrong.
For flatpack: I avoid it, as people who are far more deep into the topic than me said its basically snap with extra steps, bloated, insecure, against the Linux philosophy of interlocking FOSS software blah blah. Didn't understand most of it but followed the advice.
Nah, but it sounded like its integrated in his notebook somehow AND having double touchscreens, which could have proprietary drivers or some dumb caviot. Normally having multiple monitors is not a problem (if you don't mind windows spawning with their top bar out of frame and stuff in wayland kde)
My first experiences were Ubuntu and and pop OS and i t really drove me away from Linux, because especially with Ubuntu lots of the promised customizability and deep control wasn't there (if you are a first time user who don't know about the 4-5 places config files can be located, often differing between distros so google doesnt always hekp, you have no idea what sysctl is, how compiling works, how to manage dependencies), instead with gnome you get an Apple/mobile like minimalistic look, where nothing of the ui just says what it does and most things can't be changed in the gui which I really hated.
When I got manjaro for the first time, I was blown away about how much you could do with Linux even when not a programmer, because smart people on the AUR have paved the way. Also you had things like btrfs which are just plain better then win NTFS or linux ext.
Im not a programmer and don't work in IT, but man arch was making me interested in Linux.
But you are right, it broke way to often, that's why I settled for debian after all, as it has the right amount of stability and options imho
Also when coming from win OR having some technical skill OR wanting a highly customizable, good looking feature rich desktop envirment:
GO FOR KDE PLASMA!!! THE NEW VERSION IS SO GREAT I FUCKING LOVE IT
I had a look at it, but after paying 200€ for ableton, paying for another program which doesn't natively integrate with my push and doesn't have as good standard librarys, instruments, effects and sounds was to hurtfull
OK, point given
What I meant was, that most distros and programs depend on some level on code written by individuals or at least without profit incentive --> therefore for those bits of code the developer isn't liable in the same way. Sure, the core of libre office is written by programmers payed by the document foundation, but it nevertheless uses libs which are not, and therefore have not the same level of customer support or liability as Microsoft word would have, where they build most stuff in house and get played handsomely
First of all Linux isn't a company, but the name some dude named Linus gave his code he put for free on the internet.
Most modern Linux distros are still not run by companies, that's why they don't force the data collection, ads, ai etc down your throat.
That said: Linux is made from thousands of interlocking programs, scripts, services and libraries, made mostly by some guys or gurls in their free time. So with a lot of stuff you need to fit it to your needs, as granular customization is to troublesome to have working out of the box for every different usecase there could be. So with most stuff you should not be afraid to learn the basics of terminal commands (packet manager, editor, foldermanagment)
Some OS like Ubuntu and manjaro do a lot for you, but if you have weird double monitors, you may need to manually do some stuff.
If you want as much as possible easy install options I would go with manjaro - then you can install everything where users made an AUR (arch user repository) package. Check if they have all programs you want, if not look for alternatives.
If you want a more stable system but with a bit less possibilities, go for Ubuntu, debian, popOS or something like that.
Some things may never run, for example for my music daw(ableton) with low latency and not native support on Linux or the htc vive wireless (where there isn't a driver for the PCI card for Linux) I keep a win machine around. Day to day use is on debian on my side
It was, that was the kind of information I needed, as it helps to differentiate what kind/level of privacy I have and what kind/level of privacy different actors can circumvent etc.
As I am mostly looking at not generating useful data for shitcompanies like amazon, google, Microsoft etc. The always onvpn and no cookies except YouTube should be more than sufficient. If my country decides that my political opinion is no longer permitted I should nevertheless be using Tor and check if I'm unique (fingerprint wise).
Thanks for the detailed response. I'm sure my IP is most relevant in tracking me, but if I'm tracked while visiting Lemmy/YouTube it would do no harm, while correlating my YouTube activity with my e.g. me reading websites the government doesn't like would do harm.
I use mullvad, and previously read using tor through a VPN doesn't really make sense. I have Firefox set to not save cookies, but I have made an exception for YouTube as it is to troublesome to log in with 2fa all the time.
My thought was that it may be easier to match up the fingerprint of @somelemmyuser accessing lemmy with the fingerprint of @somelemmyuser downloading capitalist propaganda while living in China if they come from the same VPN in a similar timeframe, while it would be harder to match the fingerprint of @somelemmyuser acsessing Lemmy from an normal ISP to the fingerprint of @somelemmyuser accsessing capitalist propaganda from a VPN, as you would need both datasets to find matches.
And since me accessing Lemmy is not a problem but my lemmy account could be tracked back to me as a physical person, it could be smart to not do it with the same VPN.