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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   865 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 23, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'll be installing Linux on my laptop finally and my parents celebrate their 28th anniversary tomorrow. Do drop distro and or gift suggestions.

Linux always seemed appealing but I never got around to using it as I was always scared that I'd break things irreparably. Plenty of people toy around with their machine and make it pretty fast or aesthetic (unixporn is a cool sub). Does anyone do the same?

I'm a CS prof and I use debian. If you're into programming at all, then I'd recommend ubuntu (which is based off debian but designed to be "less ideological" and more "beginner friendly"). Most tutorials for programmers (and thus most advice from LLMs) assumes debian/ubuntu.

I'm a noob wannabe hacker who's doing this to become better at what I do and be employed via remote jobs or start indie hacking.

The constant breaking of things and hard ceilings on wsl meant that switching to Linux full time would help me get better.

Also cool to meet a prof, my dad's a second gen prof to, political theory though. Good to see academics here!

I'm using manjaro because my mentor recommends it, if it keeps breaking, I'll switch to another distro. I had Ubuntu on my wsl.

I'm a noob wannabe hacker who's doing this to become better at what I do and be employed via remote jobs or start indie hacking.

Install Linux from scratch. Distros are for people who just want to use Linux without necessarily understanding it. There's nothing wrong with that--it's why I mostly stick with WSL these days--but setting up an LFS install will teach you things about Linux that carry over to any distribution you choose to (or are forced to) use in the future.

Great suggestion, I look forward to doing as soon as I can. I enjoy the process of learning and ultimately wish to be a really good hacker, be really competent and aware of as many relevant working parts as possible or necessary.

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