I started using Linux at university, and my first distro at home was SuSE in 1997, because my father got the CDs at work. Then I ran RedHat for a while, because that’s what my friends were running, then Mandrake, then Knoppix, then Debian. Loved Debian and AfterStep.

About 10 years ago I moved to Ubuntu because I had a hardware issue that was solved in Ubuntu but was a pain to fix in Debian. I liked that as well.

But this year I bought a second-hand ThinkPad T490, and it was randomly locking up (mouse still moves but nothing else responds). Googling and trying to troubleshoot by looking through logs wasn’t working, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a pure hardware issue, because I’ve got it as a dual boot system because my girlfriend’s son uses windows on it, and hasn’t had any issues.

So yesterday, I decided to back up my home directory and install Debian Forky. It feels like coming home. And so far, no lock-ups…

  • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
    381·
    3 days ago

    For me the reason to drop Ubuntu were snaps. They install snap version of Firefox by default which was messing up directories when uploading/downloading files. After installing normal version from apt Ubuntu would for override with snap after each update. Fuck that. That’s not how OS should behave.

    • chelly__1@lemmychan.org
      1·
      1 day ago

      Ubuntu just can’t help but shoot themselves in the foot. Amazon ads, snaps, MIT utils, and even locking security updates behind paywalls for their most recent versions.

      Not sure why anyone would use them these days when they could use Debian instead without all the corporate bullshit.

    • DetachablePianist@programming.dev
      7·
      3 days ago

      Same. That snap-by-default issue (last year?) pushed me from kubuntu to pure Debian and I haven’t looked back. Technically you can just remove snaps from Ubuntu to get around it, but it’s an incorrect assumption that users want that forced down their throats when upgrading in place. Left a bad taste - Debian is my goto stable OS now.

  • ruuster13@lemmy.zip
    35·
    3 days ago

    I hadn’t heard the name Forky yet and went down a mini rabbit hole to figure it out and discovered for the first time that DEBIAN RELEASES ARE NAMED AFTER TOY STORY CHARACTERS!

  • rozodru@piefed.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    I was recently using PikaOS (Debian based) and I really liked it. I’ve slept on Debian for so long I might just go ahead and install it now.

    this past week I installed Fedora to try out again and give 44 a go. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, and this is probably user error but it’s made my machine incredibly unstable. hard reboots or just straight up shutdowns, locking up when loading into fedora, freezing, etc. Might be because of my Nvidia GPU I don’t know but I cant’ do anything on it with Fedora because I know a freeze or lockup is coming. the two weeks or so I was using PikaOS it was smooth as silk and very fast.

  • Slashme@lemmy.worldOP
    3·
    3 days ago

    One thing I really miss about AfterStep was that they had a widget that showed you your virtual desktops next to each other, with rectangles for all the windows. You could even drag them around from there.

    • UnityDevice@lemmy.zipEnglish
      7·
      3 days ago

      Both gnome and plasma have that feature. Plasma even lets you move the windows, I think in gnome you can only drag them from one workspace to another.

  • stravanasu@lemmy.ca
    3·
    3 days ago

    Thanks for sharing. I’d be happy if you posted updates on other stuff that works or that gives you problems after the OS change.

    • Slashme@lemmy.worldOP
      5·
      3 days ago

      Well, the middle button above the touchpad was working fine for pasting in the terminal etc, but wasn’t working to rotate the view in Blender, and also in Blender, two-finger scrolling was raising and lowering the view instead of zooming, so I had to go into GNOME tweaks and disable middle button scrolling on the pointing stick, and tell Blender not to use multi-touch gestures.

      But the touchscreen works out of the box (even in the graphical installer!) as does the wi-fi module, and everything else I’ve tested so far.