Ahh another sophisticated LetsGameItOut enjoyer. Right on. :D

“Got it, got it, goooot it…” (DrKonqi coredump) “Perfect!” (Fanfare)

Man this picture is such a vibe lol. Love it. :D

That’s so weird at first look on this picture I was like: “What’s O…P…D? 🤔” LOL

Simple, elegant, rock solid. Very nice. :) Love your decals too!

Wait I see EMT piping for that printer frame… Did you convert an Anet A8 to an “EMT-8” like I did!? :D

Just seemed like a neat coincidence!

The stock A8 was such a scary fire hazard lol.

OMV has such a nice Docker management interface too. I really feel spoiled with it.

I was planning on all my services running in ProxMox or something, but my OMV VM handles all of them except PiHole basically lol. OMV is snazzy. :D

Oh yes the bright red rotary phone…I imagine if it’s ringing, something has gone terribly wrong.

I’m so glad it was helpful! You’re very welcome! I try to spread the word since NextCloud’s default photo app…scares people away frankly lol.

I now use an extension to customize the menu, so Memories effectively replaces the default app from a user point of view.

Using Memories in Nextcloud AiO simplifies things a bit, but I seriously consider it NextCloud’s “killer app.” It’s got EXIF editing, albums, user sharing, folder organizing, facial (and object!) recognition done locally, geo tagging map view…all local. The face recognizing stuff isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely good enough for the most part.

It’s also very easy to send to people outside NextCloud, but I run it behind TailScale so it’s not exposed to the open net at all. Copying and sending images through something like Signal also works fine. :)

It even has a neat Android app that sends my pictures to my server whenever I plug my phone in. (And moves them to my SD card in case something goes awry…but I learned I need to manage the cleanup of that part better lol)

Given all the other neat things NextCloud does, I like how it keeps photo managing in one place too.

Gonna also throw in: Nextcloud Memories.

It makes the photo organizing part of NextCloud AMAZING. I’m so happy I got to dump Google Photos for good.

If you wanna try Arch + KDE without hassle, well Arch has an easier installer now, but I use EndeavourOS. It’s a lovely smooth Arch experience!

Very easy installer with lots of options to choose from. :)

Yes! Great way of putting it. It’s hard to explain how just using an OS can be a fun hobby in itself.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed does it all for me. I work and play games on it and stuff, but my laptop is less mission critical, so I run EndeavourOS on it and experiment with fun layouts and everything is all “frutiger-aero-esque”. It feels like how I nostalgicallyremember those WinXP-7 days!

Snapper rollbacks with BTRFS are incredible for letting you play around with an OS you actually use, and still giving you a cushion to fall back on. :D

My little media streamer / guest PC has Mint. Nice, maybe a little boring, predictable, reliable. Ahhh simplicity. :)

Also OP, if you want pretty and Cinnamon can’t do it for ya, you can always install KDE (my fav!) or GNOME or what have you right on top of your existing system.

Research before doing so! But it’s possible. :)

I also love Tumbleweed and rock it as my daily driver!

To complement this point, OP, you can also get that sweet rollback functionality in any distro! Usually the easiest way is selecting BTRFS as your file system on install, and installing a software called “TimeShift” that will manage snapshots for you.

BTRFS can be complicated, but basically, it allows remembering the changes in files, without needing to copy the ENTIRE file. This saves a ton of space. (You don’t need to get into the weeds deep diving if you don’t want to. Snapshots are great, everything else is great, as long as you aren’t doing crazy specific RAID setups or something lol)

Otherwise, on EXT4 for insurance, your rollbacks would just literally be copied files, which can eat your storage fast. :)

Tumbleweed is known for rolling (heh!) this in quite smoothly by default, but this is just an example how any distro can be tweaked how you like! (Highly recommend setting up Timeshift on ANY install.)

I absolutely second the advice in this comment: Try some live USBs or virtual machines and just play around for what feels right. Distro hopping can be lots of fun, but you’ll find one that “feels like home.”

:)

I agree with most folks here that usability-wise, both are truly fine! Mainly I think philosophy is where Mint might have an edge here.

Ubuntu, run by a corpo named Canonical, has had some controversial decisions in the past, such as inserting amazon ads into the system’s search feature, or “opt out” analytics being default, and lately, a system called “snap.”

Snap is controversial because it has a closed source backend, but effectively works just like its open-source counterpart, the “flatpak.” It’s packaged so the software has everything it needs to run.

Some people say they work great, others hate them, but Ubuntu doesn’t make it very easy for you to have a choice in the matter.

If you don’t like the idea of snaps, it’s a bit of a pain to get rid of it. And otherwise, Ubuntu will sneakily use it as the default way to install most software. Philosophically, this can feel a lot like why people left Windows behind!

Long term, that’s why I favor and recommend Mint to most newcomers: It doesn’t play those games, sometimes the drivers work even better, the community is fantastic, and the vast knowledge that works on Ubuntu should work on Mint too.

So that’s mainly where the difference will lie.

Either way, I wouldn’t sweat it too much while you’re learning, as long as it does what you want! And purple-orange is pretty snazzy. ;)

Mint just feels a little “cleaner” in my humble opinion. Most software you’d want the latest of, like GIMP or Discord, will be found as a Flatpak in Mint’s app store.

Hope this helps you get a clearer view!

I like that idea, although I think we need some simpler guides as to what exactly one might he getting into if they’re setting up an instance that’s not just a domain name. (Costs, potential usage blowing up, legal issues with content, etc…)

Also, I really think there needs to be a smoother way to navigate between instances. I guess, so you’re still aware of “jumping nodes”, but also don’t feel locked in there. (Although maybe I’m just a newb still haha)

Truuue!

I probably engage here a little much too, but I’m glad there’s not a ton of “You also might like based on where your mouse hovered 0.4 seconds longer” panels on every single page!

Dammit, Manjaro. Why you gotta be WEIRD?! I used to love their branding, but they keep doing crazy things that would clearly alienate the userbase that’s left…

NGL on pretty much any install, I’d end up looking up pros and cons of every filesystem AGAIN…

… It’s BTRFS now. Simple. Easy. Lol

But it was a lotta research to reach that conclusion. So yeah I get that newbie apprehension!

I’ve actually considered starting a Friendica or other instance exclusively for friends and family to share pictures and communicate, invite only…

… But even if I managed the insane technical aspects and convinced people to try it, I only fear the mainstream social media giants have already trained them to be their worst selves at this point. I can see the bickering drama threads now, eating up my gigabytes…

I just hate how fragmented and walled the most connected Internet ever is…I felt more connection when I had everyone between Yahoo and MSN Messengers, or took the time to check out friends’ MySpace pages.

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