So it begins.

I’ve been flashing my USB often enough that it’s now worth it to keep all my ISO’s neatly to use them when I need them. I plan on buying 10 USB sticks to just have ready when ever I need a specific version.

I’m visiting family now, so time to upgrade their Linux Mint to Kubuntu

  • thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    91·
    8 hours ago

    Maybe not Kubuntu? It’s not de-Canonical’d like Mint or Pop!_OS, so it’ll have weird bad things like Snap or the not-yet-ready Rust coreutils.

  • Sunsofold@lemmings.world
    3·
    9 hours ago

    If you’re wanting to use software that’s most easily available on different distros, why not just use Distrobox? If you are just wanting to change the UI, why not just switch DEs? If you really need to be able to randomly switch away from/to system level differences, what are you doing? What would necessitate that?

  • grue@lemmy.world
    403·
    18 hours ago

    Uh… you do know that people don’t literally save a bunch of Linux ISOs, right? It’s a euphemism for collecting less legit things, like pirated media or porn.

    By the time you want to install the same distro again, it’s likely that a new version will be out and you’ll want to re-download it anyway.

  • Labna@lemmy.world
    74·
    21 hours ago
    1. you need Ventoy to stop formatting you’re USB sticks
    2. Keeping lot of ISO is a bit useless just the few that you use daily.
    3. If you’re keeping this ISO anyway, get them by torrent and keep sharing for helping the community
      • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
        6·
        19 hours ago

        Is there a simple guide to checking checksums? It doesn’t seem like it should be complex but half the time the distro’s instructions don’t work for me!

        • Kory@lemmy.ml
          10·
          19 hours ago

          First you need to download the provided file from the distro page. Something with Checksum in the name most of the time. The website should provide instructions. Please note that does not validate the gpg key.

          Quick Method Terminal: Open the terminal at the location of the ISO file or go there with cd. Type sha256sum NameOfIsoFile.iso - it takes a moment depending on your system. Copy the output (some long numbers/letters). Compare it with the downloaded checksum-file - open the file, press ctrl-f or whatever you have for find and paste it. If it’s found, it’s the same.

          Method KDE: Right click the file, open properties, then go to tab “Checksums”. Paste same number/letter combination from above into the provided space “Expected checksums…” - if it’s green, it’s correct.

          • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
            5·
            19 hours ago

            Thanks, that does sound familiar. Maybe it was the gpg bit that confused me before.

        • floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          4·
          19 hours ago

          Just use the appropriate command for the hash type, i.e. sha256sum <filename> (iirc, might be wrong, man is your friend)

    • Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world
      11·
      21 hours ago

      Ventoy is great, it’s my go to tool, boots on basically everything (even my MacBook) but… wasn’t there a scare about possibly being compromised because it builds itself from hundreds of modules on github or something like that?

  • bizdelnick@lemmy.ml
    66·
    22 hours ago

    Your family will hate you if you’ll change their distro and DE every time you visit them. Distro hopping is normal for the first couple of years, but do it on your own machine.

    • erebion@news.erebion.euEnglish
      5·
      12 hours ago

      First couple of years? I was in my early teens when trying out many distros within a couple weeks, for example Puppy Linux, Ubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, OpenSuse… Then I settled on Ubuntu and used that from 2008 to 2022, when I was fed up with Canonical shoving snapd down my throat and me having to uninstall it all the time. Since then I’ve used Debian exclusively, previously I only had it on some machines.

      (I’ve also toyed a bit with the BSDs, but was missing systemd, so those never stuck with me.)

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
      11·
      20 hours ago

      I’ve been using Linux for like 18 years and I still hop. I got a better idea of what I like to use for different situations though…but there are so many great builds/derivatives now. I’m pretty well settled into Bazzite and Nobara, or regular Fedora and Fedora Blue, depending on specific needs now though.

  • FoundFootFootage78@lemmy.mlEnglish
    22·
    7 hours ago

    Don’t “upgrade” to Kubuntu. I’m on it and want to upgrade away because Ubuntu. Fedora Kinoite is probably the best bet if you want KDE for a tech novice.

    KDE is really annoying though. Kate is a horrible text editor if you’re not a programmer, and Kwrite has weird default shortcuts without any preconfigured “Gnome/Windows style” available. The Dolphin File Explorer doesn’t allow you to sort and group by different things. And Kparted isn’t as easy to use as Gnome Disk Utility. Still, I like how KDE had better themes than Cinnamon and how it actually lets me move programs to different categories in the start menu.

  • Kory@lemmy.ml
    141·
    19 hours ago

    I don’t mean to crash the party, I used to love Ventoy too. But then the blob issue came up and it was met with silence for over a year by the maintainer, that made me a bit uncomfortable. They have responded to it a while ago, but it’s no trivial task to solve as I understand it: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/3224

  • realitaetsverlust@piefed.zipEnglish
    31·
    23 hours ago

    I can assure you, you will never need them.

    I got a USB stick with ventoy installed, got a gparted and an arch linux iso on that thing, I do use those regularly.

  • rozodru@pie.andmc.caEnglish
    25·
    23 hours ago

    10 USB sticks? why? just use ventoy and throw them all on an external SSD or something. that’s what I do. can even use that with specific dotfiles you need for each distro along with ventoy. much easier to deal with than 10 usb sticks.

    • radswid@feddit.org
      8·
      21 hours ago

      isn’t it the other way? Ubuntu/Kubuntu -> Mint -> Arch-based (Manjaro, …), Arch … -> “btw”

      • thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        8 hours ago

        manjaro -> ubuntu -> most other distros

        There are no “outstanding good distros”, there are bad ones to avoid, and ones suited or not suited for your use case

  • Magister@lemmy.world
    16·
    23 hours ago

    Use Ventoy, you can have dozens and dozens of ISO on one stick only, when you boot on it you can select the one you want.

    • nil@piefed.caEnglish
      6·
      22 hours ago

      The drawback of using Ventoy is that it doesn’t support systems that has too old BIOS installed. Otherwise it’s great.

  • a14o@feddit.org
    16·
    23 hours ago

    If I saw that folder name while using a friend’s machine I would know not to click on it to respect their privacy.