[kwlug-disc] linux distro for nontech windows user

[Doug Moen]

Fedora and Mint both support flatpak, and neither has snap support in the default install. I don't like snap because it isn't open source and Ubuntu takes away user control that you get with flatpak, and that lack of control was creating issues for me. I switched from Ubuntu to Mint to get away from Snap.

Mint has an in-place upgrade just like every other traditional Linux distro. It's just risky and flaky. Major version upgrades are a nightmare process, an attribute that Mint inherits from Ubuntu. The Ubuntu documentation has similar scary warnings to Mint about backing up your data before attempting a major version upgrade, in case the upgrade fails or breaks packages and you have to do a clean install to repair it. I had problems with Ubuntu too.

Getting away from that Ubuntu upgrade nightmare was my motivation for installing Kinoite. We will see if I continue to be positive about Kinoite after I update from 42 to 43 (I will wait until 43 is out of beta). I will install weird software from 3rd party repos into the core os before the upgrade, because I have needs, and we'll see if that causes any problems during major version upgrade. If the system-level packages I plan to install create a conflict with v43, then I hope that the "package layering" feature of Kinoite will allow me to resolve the conflict without wiping the SSD and reinstalling from scratch, as I would need to do with Ubuntu. I'll just remove the conflicting package and reboot.

Right now, I see that some of the papercuts I had with Mint are resolved in Kinoite, and I haven't found any annoying problems yet.

I am cautiously optimistic that immutable distros are the future of desktop linux, and that they will help make linux a more attractive option to users who would like to migrate from Windows and Macos. Worry free upgrades are necessary before Linux is a serious contender, IMO.

Doug.

On Mon, Oct 20, 2025, at 8:19 AM, Ron wrote:
> Doug Moen wrote on 2025-10-19 21:20:
>
>> One thing I managed to do a while back was corrupt the C compiler, 
>> clang, after an OS upgrade.
>  >
>  > ...
>> 
>> and there's no way to fix it other than wipe the disk and do a clean OS 
>> install.
>
> Ouch. Condolences.
>
>
>
>> The Mint docs say you are particularly at risk when you use 3rd party 
>> package repositories.
>
> Yet they refuse to support snaps as a viable alternative for exactly 
> this situation.
>
>
> I never got the appeal of Mint, but "whatever".  Now I'm kind of opposed 
> to it.
>
>
> The lack of upgrade-in-place was the first domino.
>
>
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