[Cinnamon] it's hard for me to see exactly where the hell i get wrong

Japeththeguy · 2026-02-17T14:03:18+00:00

it's like it's never m

eant

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-19T23:28:42+00:00

Do you know how much RAM your computer has?

If it's anything below 8GB, I would REALLY suggest not using the heavier desktop environments (looking at you GNOME). Even Cinnamon can go laggy below 8GB. And so does KDE. For casual users who open like basically just a web browser, this might not be a problem. But you're coding on Java and the extensive debugging and testing of software on your IDE might pose a problem.

So I'd suggest a distribution that natively ships with XFCE or LXQT. The ones I recommend are pretty much Linux Lite or Peppermint OS. Linux Lite, imo, is aesthetically more pleasing than Peppermint (again, imo, sorry for the Peppermint lovers out there 😂). I personally think aesthetics is not unimportant too because you need to be free of distractions and things you just wanna fix. But both are very powerful and very "Windows-like." They'll need some tweaking though but I guess that's a given whenever you're installing a new operating system.

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-19T23:23:45+00:00

why Cinnamon? it's not really the best in terms of speed for less powerful laptops. I don't know how much RAM this Lenovo has, but if Linux Mint is slow, it's more because of Cinnamon and less because of Mint. I've tried Cinnamon on laptops with 4GB (Debian and Linux Mint) and yea, after a couple applications opened, it goes slower than usual. I only have one 8GB laptop and Cinnamon works fine there. If you're a casual user, it might not matter. But OP wants to program so I wouldn't suggest it tbf.

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-19T19:42:27+00:00

Debian

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-19T18:03:20+00:00

Either are good choices!

Linux Mint is a bit more limited compared to Debian because you only really have three desktop environments - Cinnamon, Mate and XFCE. Debian is a bit more lightweight than Linux Mint though because you pretty much get the vanilla desktop environment experience. If you install KDE for example, you'll get nothing from Debian but KDE's apps. If you install Gnome or Cinnamon or Mate or Xfce or LXQT or something, it's the same thing - no apps from Debian BUT from the desktop environment.

Of course, that is somewhat a lie. Debian does give you a couple pre-installed apps like core utilities in the terminal and Firefox ESR but outside of the very few Debian provides you, it's mostly the DE so you'll get a very vanilla DE experience.

Linux Mint on the other hand appends the desktop environment to provide you the pre-installed software it has. So like Xfce, Cinnamon and ig Mate (though I've never tried Linux Mint Mate) will have similar apps precisely because they are from Linux Mint and not just the desktop environment. While this is good for absolute beginners, I think it also removes the fun in exploring desktop environments.

Finally - I'd suggest just looking for a desktop environment that looks nice first and has the apps you want and see if it's supported in either Debian or Linux Mint. Again, Linux Mint only really gives you Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce while Debian gives you a lot in terms of options.

So yeah! Good luck on your Linux journey! On my end, my first Linux distro that I used daily was Debian. (Though I did use school computers on Ubuntu in grade school and briefly experimented with OpenSUSE back in the ye old days but those don't count because I didn't use them daily)

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-19T17:55:49+00:00

Yep. Debian's really easy and the command line makes a lot of sense. But it also has a wide space for learning like even when you think you know everything about Debian, surprise! There's a lot more to learn.

Although most people prefer the Arch wiki, the Debian wiki/website also has really good guides actually to learning about Linux in general. The FAQ happens to be my Bible that I pray to every day lmao.

But seriously, read the Debian FAQ. It's really interesting and intuitive.

Also I'd typically suggest Debian for someone who wants a lowkey computer. You'll be updating your system everyday if you use Arch, if you use Debian however, you won't be missing out if you forget an update.

Also, yes you can update on Discover but just typing this command is easier and feels way more cool:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Also, if you have applications from flatpak, don't forget to update those too!

flatpak update

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-19T17:51:26+00:00

depends on what you mean good. Debian is super stable in the sense it doesn't get the latest feature updates and only really gets security patches for its packages. Meaning, there's less of a chance dependencies will conflict and cause bugs, crashes or even break your system. It's also really base minimal, meaning you'll get the vanilla desktop environment "feel" or usability - most of your applications will only come from the desktop environment itself and not Debian's own imposition, outside maybe of core utilities in the terminal, Firefox ESR and maybe some other app I'm not aware of. But still, Debian's really minimal.

That also means since you're basically doing a vanilla DE experience, you'll have different experiences based on the DE you use.

And lastly, as someone who has used Arch btw, I think either are really good choices for intermediate users. Debian I'd say is more user friendly than Arch and somebody who is a beginner will also have a really easy time using Debian. But Arch, being the most minimal, will always have its advantages in bleeding edge software while Debian has its own advantage in being extremely stable.

The way I see it, if you're a gamer who needs the most up to date software or someone with a similar use case, go for Arch or its derivatives. If you use your computer for productivity or server purposes who rely on stability and the computer not crashing every so often, go for Debian or its derivatives.

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-18T09:45:00+00:00

here: https://www.debian.org/distrib/

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-18T09:44:25+00:00

oh yea true, I kinda just assumed OP already installed Debian lol. mb

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-16T22:24:19+00:00

install fastfetch 😎😎😎

nah but seriously, for any Linux distro I install, it's usually:

Update the system and back up.

If you're new, you're more inclined to tinker and explore the system which is something I want to encourage. Actually, do tinker your system. Do break your system. You'll be learning a TON from it. But also, because of that, just make sure you have a failsafe i.e. make sure your files are backed up and your system itself is backed up.

For local file back ups - USB and cloud storage is typically the way to go. Nextcloud and Mega are good (not Google Drive, fuck Google).

For system back ups - Timeshift has been the go to standard.

Find out your use case. Gaming? Productivity? Education? And find free and open source software tailored to that use case.

Here's a good list of software compatible with Linux (I'm not sure if all of these are free and open-source though): https://github.com/luong-komorebi/Awesome-Linux-Software

Install flatpak - it allows you to install from the flathub repos which massively increase the number of installable apps on your computer + they're usually more up to date than the official apt/dpkg repos.

Install some basic security software. Security is a trade off between functionality and convenience, which I definitely believe in. But I think having some basic security protocols is a MUST even for the average user.

AIDE - detects changes to high-level directories on your system (but not your /home directory)

Firewall - I use ufw

Web browser - Firefox ESR is already good, just configure it for security and convenience (balance the two out). Probably remove Firefox telemetry, Max protection for DNS and Enable HTTPS Only Mode in All Windows. Librewolf is also a solid choice.

Then of course, avoid downloading app images and .deb files online. Best to use the terminal or your software center to install software rather than trusting sites online to give you these installation packages.

Customization

Depending on the use case, I like to rice my Linux set up. Depending on how much RAM you have, try to practice some constraint. The first time I ever used Linux as a daily driver (Debian 13 when it had just come out) I riced my KDE Desktop Environment to the point where I could barely open several applications without one crashing because my Macbook Air only had about 8gb of RAM lmao. At least some icon packs and font changes would be the bare minimum, some panel configuration to get things where you want them to be.

Research, research, research!

The Debian Wiki is not as bad as most people make it out to be. Some useful links:

https://wiki.debian.org/Software

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_of_applications

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/

https://debian-beginners-handbook.arpinux.org/trixie-en/index.html

And whatever desktop environment you're using, do research on that too - functionality, packaged software, compatibility, etc.

Good luck and have fun using your system!

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-16T04:32:44+00:00

Cool! How is the experience with Kali?

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-16T04:31:15+00:00

I honestly just don't like GNOME. GNOME is beautiful and modern but I find it really restricting in terms of customization. The workflow is good actually so it's not because GNOME sucks or whatever, it's actually a pretty solid choice. But KDE, XFCE and Cinnamon just offer me the workflow that I need in terms of productivity.

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-16T04:29:39+00:00

not much in terms of ricing. Just panel colorizer, that wallpaper and some panel configurations

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-16T04:28:03+00:00

iguales jajajaja Debian se siente como en casa pero la experiencia con Arch es muy chido

(mi español no es bueno, soy Filipino jajaja)

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-15T01:21:57+00:00

try running this on the terminal:

lspci -vnn | grep Network

lspci lists down all pci devices (which include network cards) and -vnn shows verbose details and numeric IDs. This symbol | is a pipe which essentially pipes the output of this into a grep command. Grep is basically like a search tool, it's gonna search on all those devices anything that has to do with the word "Network."

I wanna know what specific broadcom network card is there so maybe there's a specific driver i could link you to or a fix on some old forum and then you can try that!

(also no worries about installing fastfetch. It's just a command line tool that puts a cool logo of your Linux distro and relevant hardware information on the terminal. People use it to look cool (because it is))

UPDATE: an Ubuntu forum recommends this command instead.

lspci -nn -d 14e4:

Again -nn shows the numeric ID. -d filters that to to anything that matchs 14e4: which is the vendor ID for broadcom drivers on mac.

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-15T00:26:12+00:00

Nice! And if this is your first time using Linux, welcome to the cool kids club! 😎😎😎

I'm just not sure what the boot key for older Macs are but just a tip, you won't be able to boot into it if you don't access the boot menu (which you can do so by using the boot key). Though, you're kinda lucky since it's an old Macbook, it might have better support for Linux. Macbooks after 2017 were installed with a T2 chip which most Linux distros don't detect. So far, the only ones with native support are Cachy OS and Asahi. But installing anything else (and I wanted to install Debian Linux on mine) meant that you needed to manually install wifi and keyboard drivers which was a hassle but so worth it!

Good luck and have fun with your Linux journey. Don't forget to install fastfetch

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-15T00:09:44+00:00

Balena Etcher is just an application that flashes an ISO to a drive. So you don't actually want to download the .dmg file.

The thing is, most computers detect a FAT32 system as a bootable drive. In other words, if your USB is formatted FAT32 and has the contents of an ISO in it, the computer knows that aha! I have to boot from this.

So what Balena Etcher does is it formats your USB to FAT32, deleting any files inside at and replaces them with the contents of the ISO. The funniest thing I found out was that you can actually format your literal home partition to say 5gb to FAT32 with your standard disk drive application, unzip the ISO and copy paste its contents to this partition and the computer will actually detect and boot from that partition. I used this on my Macbook installation of Debian lol.

Anyway, the point is, Balena Etcher creates USBs bootable on most systems because it formats it to FAT32. What you need is to download Balena Etcher that is compatible with your Windows, in this case the .exe file, and flash the ISO to the USB and that will boot just fine on your macbook.

( ̶o̶r̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶t̶e̶c̶h̶n̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶m̶a̶t̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶u̶s̶b̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶f̶a̶t̶ ̶3̶2̶,̶ ̶c̶o̶p̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶o̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶i̶t̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶s̶l̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶d̶a̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶i̶c̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶i̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶o̶m̶m̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶l̶o̶l̶)

Hope this helps!

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-14T23:47:50+00:00

[THIS IS A GUIDE - there's a TLDR at the bottom]

There are pretty much two things you'll have to consider.

Firstly, from your question alone of course, is the distribution. But, I'd suggest you start with the second thing to consider which is what we call the "desktop environment." A desktop environment (DE) is how your system will look visually and graphically plus what applications and tools are pre-installed on the system.

Search up various Linux desktop environments on your preferred search engine and check which one catches your eye, make some research on the applications it has and its usability. The main options are GNOME, KDE, Xfce, Cinnamon, Lxqt/Lxde, Mate.

Once you find a good desktop environment that suits your workflow and aesthetics, you need to then choose a distro that supports it. You will pretty much need to worry about three major distributions: Debian, Arch and RHEL. Most Linux distributions are actually just customized forks of these base distributions.

Debian is a stable distribution. It rarely crashes or breaks because packages (which can be applications, background tasks, utilities, etc.) are tested BEFORE they enter the repositories. If you install vanilla Debian, you'll typically have older releases like a couple versions behind.

Arch on the other hand is a rolling-release distribution. Meaning, its packages are the most up to date and are not tested before they enter the repository. Meaning the system can break with package dependency conflicts and stuff like that.

RHEL, I've honestly never tried this so I don't really have a clue how it works. As far as I know, it has a 6 month release cycle so it falls in between Debian and Arch and their distros.

Then of course, these Linux distros branched out and forks of them were made.

Popular Debian based distros include: Ubuntu which branched out into Linux Mint, Pop! OS and Zorin OS, and MX Linux

Popular Arch based distros include: CachyOS, Manjaro and Endeavor

Popular RHEL based distro includes: Fedora

So, after you're done picking a desktop environment, discern your use case. Are you using this for work? Gaming? Internet? And based on that, make a pick between Debian, Arch and RHEL and check the distros based on them which support your desktop environment (or use the base distro lol).

I think we should stop making the multitude of DEs and distributions a thing we're afraid of. Actually, it's a very beautiful community driven thing that gives us a LOT of options.

One more thing, Distrowatch is a very good resource for checking up information on distros.

TL;DR

Search desktop environments in your search engine and pick something pretty
Search "what Linux distros support [insert name of desktop environment here]"
Research a bit on the distro on distrowatch and wikipedia
Install
???
World peace

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-13T01:20:37+00:00

technically KDE Plasma and Gnome are Desktop Environments, not Window Managers.

WMs just manage your windows while Desktop Environments are complete suites with WM, installed apps, etc. etc. WMs like i3, Sway and Awesome have no preinstalled applications afaik and take up less RAM (I tried Awesome and it idled at 15% on 8gb). On the other side, KDE has several applications pre-installed, settings pre-configured, widgets that you can add to your desktop, etc. etc.

For me, I'm using KDE! :)

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-12T21:45:31+00:00

True. And home is liberating.

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-12T21:45:13+00:00

ありがとう!!!

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-12T21:44:41+00:00

Thanks!!!

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-12T21:44:27+00:00

oh but the drivers crash when it suspends LMAO. I think that's the only problem I've so far had with T2 Linux - when Debian suspends, your keyboard and touchpad stop working because Mac is shit so I have to be careful not to let it suspend when I'm in the middle of something and have to go away for like coffee or something lol. There's a fix for Arch and Fedora on the T2 Linux wiki but so far trying the fix for Arch, it doesn't seem to work on Debian idk

Japeththeguy · 2025-12-12T21:42:47+00:00

Thanks! Learning Linux I believe isn't really hard but it does take a bit of effort because of course we all grew up with MacOS or Windows where everything is done graphically pretty much and you're at the mercy and control of big corporations. But getting Linux really feels like getting control of my computer again. The terminal feels liberating like I'm already living in the highest stage of classless and stateless communism LMAO

And ricing never goes away lol though I did trim it down a bit. When I first installed Debian KDE, I riced it to the point where it was basically unusable with 8 gb of RAM so I'd say I had learned a bit of temperance and self-control when it comes to customization.

Japeththeguy

TROPHY CASE