Honestly, at this point I’m so done with window’s bullshit. Their operating system is damn near unusable. All the convenient stuff is hidden in weird places. The constant whining about having to buy their crap. Or worse trying to get me to use the horrible software that comes with the new versions.
My excuse used to be, but I can’t play games on it. This is no longer the case for the games I love. So Windows can suck it. At this point I’m switching away from a lot of stuff I used to use. (x-box became Steam-deck, twitter became blue-sky and reddit is becoming Lemmy) As a kind of computer illiterate person, this has been a worth while transition but a difficult one. Let’s just say I had to learn a lot of new stuff.
So I’m a total Linux newbie but thanks to my Steam deck I’ve become somewhat used to using it. Not like an expert, but I have run wine to create separate environments for running pokémon fangames. And have taken a look around the Linux environment. I like it and think I’ll be able to get used to it with practice. It reminds me weirdly of windows XP in how easily I can get everything to work the way I want. It takes a bit of doing and some research, but it works. Which is all I want in an operating system.
I am looking for tips as to where to start searching, because I am converting my windows computer to Linux. I just don’t know what version.
Any user experience is welcome, I have no idea where to begin. I mostly use the computer I’m installing this on as a glorified typewriter, that I play movies, music and retro-games on.
A user friendly version is preferred, I find it hard to parse out from the various versions I have seen so far how easy they actually are to use. Extra points if a large amount of the information has easy to find tutorials on the internet. I don’t always know where to start looking and as I learned while getting wine to work, some of the names/terms are completely different. (And kind of a lot at once if you are just getting started).
Any resources you might think are useful for a newbie are also highly appreciated.
tl;dr: I (a Linux noob) am looking for a recommendation for what version of Linux to use for my needs. And any tips tricks or other info that I might need to know before I switch. Because windows sucks.
I’m sorry if this has already been asked and answered. I did try to find an answer through searching, but as I already mentioned. My lack of terms and knowledge is holding me back.
I think Mint is great for beginners and advances users alike.
If you’re feeling more confident, you could try Debian. Debian will have older software and be harder to setup, but you’ll get a better feel for the Linux ecosystem by using it over Mint.
Manjaro is for practical usage. You’ll have more up-to-date software and access to a massive user repository of install scripts for anything that isn’t in the official software repositories.
Your choice of Desktop Environment will have a big impact on how you use your computer. I recommend KDE for those coming from Windows. With a small amount of configuration, you can have it set up like a traditional desktop environment with the start menu on the left, show desktop on the right, notifications towards the right, etc.
KDE has a lot of stuff, but you can only choose what you need and you’ll notice it’s great at being a basic DE even though it’s capable of more.
Manjaro is possibly the very worst distro of all time, famously this document details a bunch of the incredibly incompetent things they’ve done:
https://github.com/arindas/manjarno
Really there’s just no usecase for manjaro, if you want a simpler arch… use fedora. Manjaro shouldn’t exist, to be honest, i have never found a valid usecase for it. Trying to turn arch into a simple distro is a lofty goal created for absolutely no reason and they broke everything along the way repeatedly. If you insist on something arch based, use endeavoros, or just use the arch installer which isn’t that hard anymore anyway.
🥱
Is there anything the distro could feasibly do to be a worse choice?
Go for a popular/“beginner” distro (basically mint or fedora or fedoraKDE, or Bazzite for gaming) so you can search up anything you need, and before you install anything test it all out with the live boot disk you created; keep backups and don’t be afraid to fuck up, at worst you reinstall and you can script much of the set up process; and do not be afraid of the terminal, learn its secrets, watch a “bash beginner” and “linux terminal beginner” video or a few on youtube and follow along like it’s a class, you’ll be fine.
That’s it, you’ll have specific questions later, but for now that’s all you need.
Bro you’re messing with wine prefixes? You already know more than most and clearly have the motivation and ability to do what you want. You’ll go far, just google what you need when you need it like the rest of us :)
I’ve been daily driving linux since the late 90s and have no idea what wine prefixes are!
Think of them as a simplified mimic to the windows file system, they create this fake C: drive & user directory with basic windows paths (user, app data, program files, etc) an you can choose what firmware gets installed to prefixes (like .Net frameworks) an all this is how people can run .exe executables on Linux.
When you run
wine ./something.exea prefix is automatically created and the application uses that prefix to make it think it’s using the windows fs.
I’m in a very similar situation like you are. I too have started to be annoyed with the Big Tech products and the Internet in general.
I have switched to Lemmy, shut down my gmail account and opened a Proton Mail, and switched from using Google search engine to Qwant.
I too have switched to Linux Mint, and I’m loving it. TBH my IT colleauges talked me into buying refurbished Thinkpad laptop and told me to install Linux Mint. Boy am I glad I did that.
The next step for me is switching to Fairphone :D
I can’t imagine just…shutting down my email. It’s 20 years old and is integrated into a lot of my life.
I suppose I should look into other options.
MIne was from 2007. So not as old as yours. Yes, there are many things connected to it, but you can’t imagine what a feeling of relief that is.
you can import all your mail into proton or another, and then set up autoforwarding in gmail until you update the email in the most important services.
you don’t have to delete the address, but deleting all mails there (after importing them to a new service and getting a full local backup) might be a good idea
Same. But I opened a Proton Mail and forwarded all my emails there. Now I am slowly (when bored) updating all my services to the new email. You can do it. Step by step over many years. But start now
Unfortunately my email is also linked to a lot of court and custody stuff… I’d have to submit all new paperwork to my lawyer and the courts. Oi…
I really like Debian. There’s a version of Linux Mint called Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) that I recommend for people new to Linux. My wife has been using it for about 6 months.
The easiest way to install is by using the live image on a USB drive. I recommend installing Ventoy on the USB first if you like the idea of having a dedicated USB for boot images. Totally not necessary, but can be useful.
I much prefer LMDE over any Ubuntu-based distro. I don’t like the way Canonical has been going for a while now, and dealing with Ubuntu PPAs and other weird Ubuntu shit just doesn’t work with me anymore. Gimme a repo to put into /etc/apt/sources.list and leave it at that.
Why PPAs instead of repos? Why…
I always hated the concept of PPAs and it’s a major reason why I never use Debian-based distros for my PC.
The AUR is just too valuable.
afaik regular mint doesn’t have that clusterfuck either
Oh it does. I have it on an old MacBook. I’ve been meaning to replace it with LMDE.
MX linux
I was in your shoes last year, OP.
I first installed Mint (because everyone recommended it as the newbie distro) on a laptop that I took with me on summer vacation, to see if I can do some summer course work and finals on it. It worked flawlessly for that. Then I installed Steam and the paw patrol game for the kids, with controller support, and again everything worked flawlessly.
This basically gave me the confidence to just axe windows on my home desktop and fail horribly over and over again to get Arch working. Until I didn’t. I’m still Linux illiterate, but the Arch wiki, their IRC channel and duck.ai & asking every available LLM through it for consensus, helped a ton with resolving anything I have encountered. I’d probably go for something more stable though next time.
So yeah tl;dr try on old laptop first for a month, then switch your main PC.
Absolutely go with bazzite, I have 15 years of experience and am willing to do unlimited troubleshooting for free if you message me on matrix.
as for why bazzite? it’s immutable, which means there’s a core set of stuff that is read only and can’t be broken, which is massively beneficial for new people and is very up to date, and has the fixes for certain patent related stuff built in (fedora doesn’t as do any other american based distros) that make twitch and some other websites work properly out of the box
For the uninitiated, bazzite isn’t really a battle-tested distro or a mainstream one. I just started hearing about it within the past few months.
It kind of came out of nowhere and looks to be getting shilled hard, similar to mx linux. The amount of shilling you may see for it does not correspond with usage among the community at all.
Be careful what you install on your computers, guys.
This isn’t really true since it’s just a slightly modified atomic fedora. Even if bazzite completely evaporated it wouldn’t matter even a little to someone who currently has it installed. They’d just continue getting fedora updates like nothing happened.
And to say fedora isn’t battletested/mainstream is insane.
the only differences are minor qol improvements that fedora doesn’t have for legal reasons, and steam being installed.
🥱
And to say fedora isn’t battletested/mainstream is insane.
I said bazzite, shill.
Linux Mint is the obvious “newbie” choice, and not just because everyone says so.
Now, I’m no Linux expert, but Mint is great for the huge amount of tutorials availiable. The catch is: most of them aren’t aimed at Mint itself, but Ubuntu or Debian, from which it “inherits” a lot. So, if you have a problem and can’t find a fix for Mint specifically, chances are one aimed at Ubuntu (or even Debian) will work flawlessly.
Additionally, GenAI chatbots impress me with how helpful thay are. Just by asking them how to do stuff will teach you a lot.
I highly recommend you save the info which seemed most useful somewhere for future reference. In my experience I had to do a few dozen things repeatedly and ended up remembering them. They’re mostly simple commands like
apt install,apt update,apt upgrade,cdand my favourite<app_namewhich opens the app invoked without “hijacking” the terminal.As most in the Linux community say, some things are lightning-fast to do in the terminal once you know the proper incantation.
As others said, the Mint install is incredibly simple, and much faster than the Windows one. You don’t need a guide, just reading the on-screen prompts and instructions will guide you through it. During the install I highly recommend checking the “Install proprietary drivers” box because depending on your exact hardware, some things (especially Nvidia) may not play well without it.
You will be able to do almost everything without the terminal, although many tutorials do utilize it, so using it is pretty much inevitable at some point of your Linux journey.
Now, some hearsay: I’ve heard that Windows doesn’t play nice with dual boot (although I’ve never experienced it fist hand), so you should back up your files just in case.
But, before you do that: For starting, if you’ve got the time, I’d recommend getting an old machine to dip your toes into Linux on it first without fully committing. I’d recommend you do this even though you have the Steam Deck since there are some differences between SteamOS and Mint, so it wouldn’t hurt to try.
I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.
I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.
The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).
How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.
Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.
Cinnamon doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.
and my favourite `` which opens the app invoked without “hijacking” the terminal.
lemmy sanitized it out, did you mean the ampersand?
Yup. For me it renders fine (Thunder)
Reguarding apps, you said typewriter, movies, music, games. Office suite look at LibreOffice. Movies and music if it is online just Firefox or any other browser you choose. Firefox is good at working with PDFs too. Any distro should come with a document viewer, photoviewer, video player, and music player. You can choose from tons of other or more advanced tools. Debian for example comes with over 60K packges and Ubuntu and Mint are similar. There are also 3rd party sources too. Flathub or Snapcraft for example if you want something not in the repos.
If you go with a Debian based distro with a lot of apps in the repos, you probably my not need these other app souces, but some people like smaller distros, something special just not in the repos, or a newer or different version of app. For example I use Joplin which is a notes app that is not in the Debian repos.
For apps finding an app name and starting links https://alternativeto.net is your friend. For distros, https://distrowatch.com is your friend. Strongly favor a distro in the top 10 on distro watch unless you have some special need.
Edit: You will notice that the top 10 are all Debian, Arch, Fedora, or SUSE based in that general order of more to less popularity. Linux distros tend to be based on these base distributions. For example Mint is based on Debian and so is Ubuntu.
Arch and Mint are the two most-used distros (Arch with double the Mint users) behind SteamOS(Steamdeck).
Installing Arch from the install medium is daunting for people so I’d recommend EndeavourOS. It’s Arch but using a graphical installer and sane defaults for a desktop PC.
It seems intimidating because there’s a lot of new terms and workflows seem to always involve the terminal. Learn to love the power of the terminal, don’t be one of those “I use Linux but am scared of terminal commands” people.
If you’ve figured how to use wine then you’re capable of searching your way to any solution I’m Arch (it’s probably on the Wiki).
I love working in the terminal, I usually have a window open for it any time I’m working on a Linux machine. The only thing I don’t like about it is people who tell you commands to run for troubleshooting and refuse to elaborate on what those commands actually do. That and
sed… That shit is black fucking magic.
Mint is a safe bet, I would also suggest you have a look at Pop! OS and CachyOS once you feel a bit more comfortable with Linux and are curious at all. They have a bit more cool stuff to offer that you don’t really get from windows imho
Switching to something else because you’ve had it up to here with existing is a bad reason. Your mind is biased and loaded for prejudgement.
make it as easy for yourself to reinstall as possible
The best advice I can give you is to switch to Linux is don’t right away. Switch the applications you use to open source or Linux compatible alternatives that also run on windows. Then after you get used to those on windows then make the switch.
I would also recommend not dual booting at first since it’s too easy to jump ship at the slightest issue vs sticking with it to figure out the issue just like you would with a problem on windows. It’s a real thing I have experienced it in reverse as a long time Linux user that tried Windows 11 i kept jumping back to Linux every time I ran into issues that caused frustration.
Agreed, switch the applications first. I like using https://alternativeto.net/ to find replacements.
This is some very solid advise.
I dual booted and I rarely ever used windows when i was starting, mostly because windows takes a while to reboot.
Are you me? Lol. Ever since I started bootinf Linux (through a standard speed pendrive, mind you) I barely boot into windows.
In fact, I’m pissed whenever I accidentally boot into windows because windows is too the automatic option when booting, haha. I foresee that changing very very soon.
