It's been a while since I used ubuntu and popOS was only for a few days so maybe I was just mistaken, I remember it being somewhat comparable to a classic desktop at the time but it could have been that cosmic shell thing. And tbh until so far I thought cinnamon is gnome so it seems like I was just outright wrong about that one, thanks for clarifying

I'm definitely willing to try bazzite's gnome3 for a while, i just wasn't sure what's the default anymore and if it's bazzite doing something out of the norm or if the ubuntu based distros did.

tl;dr KB+M and no touchpad here so that might have something to do with it, I prefer more compact and colorful UIs, and different behavior between LMB and RMB.

I'm not a big fan of the Nautilus file manager, all the rows seem too big and too padded. There is no compact mode and from what I've read changing the default file manager is a big no-no in linux since the OS depends on it (and I did try to install Dolphin just to compare but the theme was unusable with bazzite). I can't even pin other drives to the left navigation pane, only folders? The monochromatic theme is neat but just makes it more difficult to tell things apart, gimme some color please yellow folders.

I know the no desktop decision is "since they always get cluttered anyways", but making me use a folder instead will just force me to use a cluttered folder instead, or more likely keep stuff in Downloads. At least with the desktop I can visually arrange it.

I miss the taskbar for switching apps. I do agree pressing the win/command button is neat and practical but sometimes I just want to switch to a different app on my second monitor using mouse only (or see notifications from it) without moving my keyboard hand.

Then it's the small things - I did install the clipboard manager gnome extension (because copyq doesn't work with wayland apparently) but it always opens it in a corner, not on my mouse location.

Systray - left and right mouse buttons do the same thing and doubleclicking does nothing? For example to open the steam window from it I always have to click it, go down to library and click again, this is the default behavior of RMB in other OSes and here it's the only behavior.

Minimizing something and then immediately alt-tabbing doesn't bring that window back up, some focus issue? Two monitors issue? Dunno but annoying.

I'll give it a try, thanks. Maybe I was just messing around with domains too much, could be that part is more strictly defined here compared to win

I wonder what kind of support for development do you get? Honestly I've only had obstacles when I switched, for example the docker installation was much more complicated on linux than on windows+wsl. Even installing python was problematic because apparently 'upgrading it yourself can brick the system', at least if an older version comes with the OS?

And lastly it's the simple thing that pretty much all tools work on windows natively but on linux you have to find workarounds, which is definitely a problem when it comes to productivity.

So what are the benefits, what does linux have that windows doesn't in this context?

Thank you very much for such a detailed answer! This is exactly the type of stuff I wanted to learn in advance from some generalist tutorial because honestly, I feel bad constantly asking such basic questions and there's no guarantee there will always be someone like you to answer them. In retrospect it's probably the smarter and simpler option to just google the command docs online, I just wanted to do it "right" since I heard all the praise about man command and you never know if you're working offline.

I'll check out nala, could be a good learning tool, thanks!

I'm trying out popOS and even the native package manager (popOS shop?) installs most applications as flatpaks afaik? I have no idea where they end up being compared to windows' program files or what kind of defaults they install with. I started putting my custom downloaded AppImages into the ~/Applications folder and then used AppImageLauncher to actually have them show up in search.

Then I will run into something like docker which is not in the shop and has a ton of commands you have to run in order to get it to work, like uninstalling conflicting packages, installing some certificates and keyrings and i dont even know what - it was supposed to work better than on windows but it is nowhere near as neat as there!

Then I install samba (again, not available in the popOS shop) and I have it running but i have no idea whether it's set to automatically run or not. Searching for it with GUI tools doesn't show it as installed anywhere so in this case i have to rely on the terminal. The popOS store does have a list of installed apps but the search field gets disabled when you go into this screen because it's only used for browsing the shop, not through your installed apps?

I’d say that the best learning resource you can have is a spare computer specifically dedicated to exploring Linux, with which you can install and break and configure and break again without worry. Learning Linux can be like playing a roguelite, and I mean that also in the sense that it can be fun.

This is what I do but the issue is that I have no feedback on whether Im doing the right thing or if im making the life unnecessarily difficult for me. Games will slap you and make you redo something if you fuck it up, linux just makes you live in agony until sometimes breaks and you dont know why.

Isn't there a lot of overlap though, at least between OSes that are of the same type (like debian/ubuntu)? How to set up users, knowing that you need to manually configure automatic mounting of your drives, knowing how/when to use flatpak or apt or .deb, where to install apps... These are not really intuitive things, especially for someone coming from windows, and most "how to install linux" guides don't really go into these in any meaningful way.

For instance at first I thought I could just keep a list of apt commands and make an "easy to reinstall" linux script at one time, and that lasted for whole of 10 minutes before I realized every app needs manual intervention in one or another way, or has a different way of installing. Also, as many people I just prefix everything with sudo to get it to install, but who knows if that is the correct thing to do? not me at least

Oh didn't see that one, thanks! Of all the advice there did anything stick with you and help in the end?

Having a prepared grid helper for AoC is a 150IQ move 😁

I'm stuck on one of these intricacies now! I saw some of the ideas on how other people did it but i honestly have no clue what i did wrong. Got any tricky examples to share?

If you find or run into that article later please share it, I'd definitely like to read it!

Ah sorry, forgot to mention it here because I originally posted it on csharp and then crossposted. I'm specifically thinking about c#, EF and .net core for web dev.