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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[Question] From MacOS to Linux, need advice on best software packages (lemmy.ml)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hello Everyone,

as you can see on my screenshot, i am using an intel based mac for years now, which i customized to my needs. However i have reached the limits of this machine in terms of customization options and would like to move to linux to test it out as a daily driver. I'm actually quite happy with mac from the pov that everything just works, however there are certain things that annoy me, but apple does not allow me to change them.

As a newbie in terms of desktop linux (i've used ubuntu roughly 12 years ago as a daily driver and am familar with headless linux), i'd like your advice.

Specifically I am looking for:

a minimal, fast system
keyboard / shortcut based - all interactions can be done from keyboard (within common sense limits)
all keys can be custom mapped (i have muscle memory of my custom keys for certain actions, so i'd like to keep them)
all can be configured from dotfiles (worse case shell scripts and ansible)
very low ressource consumption, snappy system with no delays.

I'd like to try NixOs due to it's unique configuration ability, however on a headless server it was a buggy pain just weeks ago (for example user passwords just vanished/changed without any external influence, not allowing access anymore), so i'm open to alternatives.

What i am looking for in advice is:

a minimal, configurable (file based for git) tiling window manager
a top status bar like you see in the screenshot that i can freely configure
as much terminal emulator based as possible (i honestly mostly only need a browser and the terminal, most other apps have a TUI that i can use with the keyboard, see the above requirement)
terminal based package management as easy as brew (maybe Nix?)
custom keyboard layout (I am not a native english speaker, so i mapped all non-english characters to my option keys with the english layout as the base)
Option to use 2 keyboards at once (come by default when using Karabiner Elements) as i combined 2 small keyboards to one to a fake split keyboard ;)

My current stack on macos is Hammerspoon for heavy customization, Karabiner Elements, yabai, kitty (and alacritty, for ssh, as kitty is bad with ssh in my personal experience), sketchybar. firefox (customized for privacy)

Any good recommendations or dotfiles? Anything i should look out for as a MacOs User?

Thanks in advance!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'd suggest Linux Mint.

Simple UI
(Xfce version specifically) is very fast (within reason; it's still a modern OS)
It's already pretty keyboard-centric and it can be improved further if you like tinkering (my reason for dropping Windows was precisely lack of keyboard-centric controls, so if I stick to Mint, I guess it's good on that front)
Keys can be custom mapped, although I guess most bigger Linux systems allow that either out of the box, or through 3rd party software
Unsure what a "dotfile" is, so can't comment on that
And Mint is still slowly adding animations to its functions (to some people's dismay), and I don't feel lag when alt-tabbing around, so I guess it is snappy too

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

dotfiles are the hidden files and folders in your home directory like .bashrc or .config/.