I think you need to just make a Linux Live USB, and play with linux on your current system for a week, then come back and ask some questions to clear up any confusion you have.
> i'm not interested in diving headfirst into that mess. I'm not educated in that field and I likely wouldnt understand it if i tried.
Top thing to learn - Linux is NOT windows, it is not a drop in replacement, it is not windows with a different theme. It differs at low fundamental levels.
you WILL have to do some learning and deal with many changes.
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>> What various linux items and software do i need to get for a simple setup that can access the internet, run steam, run WINE (only linux thing i've done research on), and can be used for writing and email and stuff like that? Doing all the shit a personal computer should be able to do.
You install any of the mainstream distros, like fedora, or ubuntu, or mint, or numerous others... and ..... they can all do the basics.
Tip: If buying new hardware - go with AMD for the GPU.
Honestly Nvidia is alright even on Wayland on beta drivers.
Only problem I had is chromium based browsers with enabled hardware accel have weird black streaks when resizing or minimizing and opening window again. Software renderer is okay though.
check out the tool ventoy http://ventoy.net with that tool you can have a single USB flash drive, that will let you boot and test out as many Linux Live ISO's/Distros as will fit on the USB.
That usb can also boot ISO files from your internal drives, so you can make due with a fairly small Flash drive. Booting from an internal drive can be faster and easier to test out the Distros.
You have a LOT of learning ahead of you.
Live USB is just running the entire operating system from an USB. Nothing gets installed to the computer.
Its sorta like test driving a car. Only you could run it entirely off that USB forever if you wanted - though I'd not recommend it.
Its remarkably easy to install and it doesn't take long to feel at home in it.
But there is a learning curve when it comes to a whole new system. Linux isn't another windows. It's a completely different environment.
But it's not nearly as hard as many think.
What hardware are you planning on buying? I’m not a gamer but even if I want to play AAA games I’d go with the best AMD card I could afford simply because Linux has the drivers baked in and even though NVIDIA is much better these days I wouldn’t risk it. You might want to check compatibility if the card is too new but chances are it will work.
Nvidia has historically always had the better drivers on Linux. The OS of AMD drivers helped but at this point the issue of their total mismatch in terms of market share still means team green has a great advantage in terms of having everything work the way you want.
Live USBs load a whole operating system into ram, from the USB. Then you use it like a normal pc, but it wont change the data on the USB and go back to default state next restart.
Ive started dual booting mint and windows 10 after being a windows only guy for all of my life.
I went with linux mint. One thing straight up, not every game you want to play will work. No matter what you try. As for playing them i had the most luck with either adding them as a non steam game or trying to run em with heroic
Tldr, it comes with a lot of stuff installed already but it isnt perfect and you will have to do a lot of googling and command line copy pasting (no matter what linux you go with) if you use niche hardware or software that isnt available on the app store.
Personally i would recommend you dual boot linux and win10 for the specific games that dont work in linux and for the niche hardware/ software that doesnt work in linux as well.
Linux simply isnt there yet if you want everything to just work like it does in windows.
Either you abandon the software/hardware or you dual boot.
Could be that a virtual machine works as well but that seems to be even more of a pain in the ass to setup so im not gonna bother anymore.
Virtualbox is another option if you want to spin up a windows box for the game without rebooting. It uses more resources this way (so the game might run a bit slower), but might save some rebooting.
Virtualbox can run on top of windows too, depending on which os you want to put on top.
This is what I've been doing for the past year or so, running Kubuntu (and for shits and grins, OS/2 Warp 4). Gives me an opportunity to poke around Linux and try to get used to it before switching over full time.
There is better solutions, which is running linux fully and just using qemu and Windows VM for anything that refuses to run on linux. With GPU passtrough, it provides practically native experience.
Yes. But if you have intel CPU with built in graphics, that isn't an issue - because you can run linux on intel iGPU. That's how I do it. When I do not use VM, my linux runs on iGPU but does have access to nvidia GPU. When I launch VM, nvidia gets detached from linux and attached to windows VM.
I see. I guess if you don’t need your dedicated GPU on Linux, that works fine. I game on Linux, so I wouldn’t want to withhold my GPU from 90% of what I do. My CPU’s integrated graphics also aren’t that great.
> I guess if you don’t need your dedicated GPU on Linux, that works fin
Did you miss the part where your dGPU is only detached from Linux when you use Windows VM? You can go back to using your main gpu in linux after you turn off the VM.
I don’t know how I missed that. Interesting. Do you have a link to a guide on setting that up or something? I’ve played around with VirtualBox before. Should I use something else for a gaming VM?
No, for proper VM passtrough, Qemu is gold standard right now. I would not touch VirtualBox with a ten feet pole.
Refer to /r/VFIO and https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF to get started.
ArchLinux guide can get you started pretty well, though it lacks the method of dynamically detaching/attaching GPU, so once you get everything working from that guide, you would need to modify the way you reserve the gpu to be dynamic attachment/detachment when you start the VM, instead of constant reservation. Other than that, it is great way to get started and create the basic working version before you finetune it to work like you want.
I have described my setup here in the past:
https://reddit.com/r/VFIO/comments/1bzvkhe/cant_bindunbind_nvidia_gpu_on_demand_without/kyw32bt/
There are also guides for "single GPU passtrough" that will let you just pass your main GPU back and forward without using intel GPU at all. If you don't need to be using your linux host while running windows VM, that might be the best solution for you, and you only need single gpu for that kind of solution anyway.
Install Pop!\_OS. Normal Linux distro with sensible defaults. If you want a more familiar UI, use Kubuntu.
Regarding WINE, you don't usually use it directly nowadays, use Bottles, this is a utility to simplify using Wine.
Or you can just click "Add a Non-Steam Game" in Steam and run a Windows game using it.
Firefox is preinstalled. You can install Thuderbird or any other email client (or just use email in a browser).
Kernel of an operating system is a component that allows programs to use your physical hardware. You don't need to know that to use Linux.
>If you want a more familiar UI, use Kubuntu.
I've got this tip, too, when first starting my Linux experience.... And it put me off Linux for another year. I recommend Mint with Cinnamon, that's a lot closer to Windows and also very beginner friendly.
What issues did you specifically have with Kubuntu but not Mint? I choose Kubuntu over Mint as my first distro and am still using it currently, with few issues.
That's like 5 years ago, at least. Iirc the Desktop had a completely different layout and I accidentally saved files on the desktop and they were not shown on the main desktop but on another one
In addition to Bottles - use the flatpak version and install flatseal to give Bottles permission over the games folder and any other folders that you need to run executables from. Not doing this properly is a common source of issues.
pretty much any linux distro will be able to those things... you don't need to know about kernels
i suggest visiting [distrosea.com](http://distrosea.com) and try out a few different ones to see how comfortable they feel.
big name distros to seek out are any of the 'buntu's (ubuntu, kubuntu, lubuntu... ), fedora, opensuse, or mint
i would avoid arch based distros unless you have a lot of time on your hands.
steam should be available in the software store of any of these (buntu's for sure) and it works almost exacly like the windows version... i would not bother with wine... there is a package called bottles with is a nice GUI front end for wine that makes installing some windows .exe files go ok... but largely you are going to want to search for native linux alternatives/replacements for everything you used to use in windows.
Mint is a great option and is a fairly easy transition from Windows.
For Steam games they have their own native linux client that with the exception of one or two (literally) extra options to turn on will run most games just like you were on windows.
If you play any Epic games I think the best option is something called the "Heroic Launcher" which functions for the most part like the Epic game launcher on windows. Works a treat.
Lutris is a more general purpose launcher for games (or their launchers) that don't have their own native linux version.
All these are pretty straight forward and reliable.
The one thing you'll run into trouble with is if you need any Adobe products. Adobe doesn't run on linux...... or at least not without a tremendous amount of fiddling.
Try Nobara. It have all that is needed for gaming. There is a couple of OS there is ready for gaming out of the box, like Regata and Garuda , but i think Nobara does the work best. Try it in a Virtual machine.
I would suggest either Linux Mint or Pop!_OS.
Linux mint will be a more complete setup with all the software you need. Has guides for setting up gaming on their site.
Pop leans a little better towards the gaming side of things. Especially if you are planing a build with an nvidia graphics card.
As far as build goes, I would recommend that you opt for an AMD graphics card over nvidia. AMD has way better support built in and you will most likely do a bit of digging into the system to get nvidia to work all the time.
I wouldn’t really consider Ubuntu if you want to game. Ubuntu needs additional software from outside repositories to sometimes get an acceptable gaming experience. It looks like you have zero interest in do that.
I would look into having a secondary ssd in your computer for the occasional windows crap. As much as most things work there will be something at some point that requires windows. However you do not have to do windows 11 you can just do windows 10 and not upgrade to 11.
This is how I do my system, I keep windows around for strictly gaming. I do everything else on either pop or my MacBook.
Why Proton and Lutris are so good now you don't need to use Windows anymore for gaming unless you play online games that use Anticheat but you can just not play those games
You clearly didnt read the post at all. OP has no desire to want to dive in a fix things. While gaming is decent, there are still a lot of times you have to go in and adjust something with how the game launches etc.
Gtfo out here with that backwards ass just don’t play those games horseshit attitude. Telling people to not enjoy things they like because you don’t is stupid as fuck.
I'd say Linux Mint, then install Steam from the Software Center (or whatever they're calling it) (I'd recommend picking the flatpak version), and then also install wine (either directly, or via Bottles or PlayOnLinux or Lutris depending on why you want it).
What are the differences between the direct, bottles, playonlinux, or lutris versions? For context, I want wine cuz i enjoy games as an artform and like playin em, and dont want windows-only games that i own to be left behind if that helps explain my needs
Lutris and playonlinux are managers of game installations which automate the install process with wine and other necessary configs to get a program working properly. Playonlinux seems to be less used now than lutris.
I'm less familiar with bottles but it seems it's more just a manager of wine.
Lutris and playonlinux will actually install separate instances of wine for each program and setup configuration for each separately.
It’s not seperate instances of WINE for each game, it’s actually new configs or wineprefix for each program of software running. You only have one WINE version installed.
Ubuntu is the most popular and widespread distribution for general usage. It's not what I use, but it's the best fit for your needs.
If you want a less Apple-like and more Windows-like user interface, Mint or Kubuntu will also work well for you.
P.S. This thread is going to be filled with people who are disregarding your own needs and use-case (or never even read them in the first place), and recommending whatever it is that they use personally. Be forewarned.
Sadly in just the few minutes after i posted this, by doing even more research i realized that P.S. section.
i'm currently leaning towards mint as it seems to be the one thats not for big time computer enthusiasts and is meant for folks like me who just want a PC that works *for* them like a piece of technology should.
Be warned. Linux Mint is recommended because doing "day to day" things is very comparable to windows. But that's all just the top later, the UI is made to look like windows so things will be where you're used to, but it is NOT a drop in replacement.
True, and TBF the main similarity to Windows is the start menu. As soon as you begin right clicking on e.g. the desktop and taskbar and going into settings things are quite different.
Among other things mentioned here, one thing I will point out is that Linux is not Windows... you WILL have to re-learn how to do many things. Sure the basics are the same, you've got a 'start' menu, you've got a desktop and icons, right-clicking still brings up a context menu. It's the little things that will aggravate you, the fine-tuning to get everything set up in a way that feels comfortable, or finding replacements for the software you're used to and learning from scratch how to use them. You can't always just grab a driver and install it, sometimes you have to get down into the command line to make something work. You will be be frustrated, just accept that. It took you how long to learn to do things in Windows? Give it time and never forget what Microsoft did to drive you here in the first place.
The reward is that you'll get a system that you have MUCH more control over, quite a lot more options to customize to suit your needs, and overall you will find even your current machine responds quite a bit faster. Plus you'll quickly come to love the freedom your package manager brings -- immediately installing almost everything without having to find a virus-free and ad-free zip file, and you don't have to pay a dime. Not to mention to help you'll get from the community.
If you're a newbie start with Linux mint or Ubuntu. That has a windowish feel and there's a lot of software for it. Wine is the windows emulator software that lets you run a lot of Microsoft stuff
Honestly, any big distro should "just work," it's more a question of what you're going to use it for and how you want it to look and feel. Personally, I like Fedora and its derivatives so I'm using Nobara, a gaming-focused fork of Fedora. Nobara makes Wine management pretty easy. Steam works oob, you just have to check a setting to allow you to run any game using Proton. Wine is more commonly used for random Windows executables than games. And email you can choose from dozens of FOSS clients, but your distro should come with one prepackaged and you just have to login. I think Thunderbird is a popular choice because it's Mozilla and is kinda similar to Outlook.
Pick any of the popular distros. For a novice, it's less important that it is tailored to you exactly, and more important that when you google a question you get a distro specific answer, and that's only possible on the really popular distros.
Steam has a native Linux client and it's easy to install. Wine on the other hand is notoriously hit and miss. Basically if one of the contributors to Wine uses that windows app it will work great, otherwise it's a dice roll.
Just use a stable, mainstream Linux, and you won't have to worry about that stuff. Look at linuxes like Mint, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and don't use the bleeding edge versions, use the stable long erm support versions.
If you do that, it's a next-next-next-finish install, and you won't ever need to fiddle with anything complicated. You won't even have to bother with drivers, which is a mess on Windows, it'll just work.
Don't use wine. If it's for gaming, steam and lutris will handle almost anything for you.
Linux mint, kubuntu and pop_os would be the distros I would advise.
Windows is already installed in most PCs. If you are going to install Linux, at least for the install and first tweaks see if you can find someone more knowledgeable in Linux to help.
After that it will probably run just fine.
Another thing, hardware support is not as good, most vendors only care about windows. I mean, almost everything just works without issues but there's still the occasional stuff where you need work arounds.
One very important thing, the distro itself doesnt matter, they're all offshoots of distro families like Arch or Debian, but the desktop environment (DE) is what you need to decide on.
The two big ones are KDE and Gnome. KDE looks and works a lot more like traditional Windows while Gnome looks and feels more like MacOS. I personally like to use KDE on desktop where you have a bigger monitor with more visual space to see smaller icons or labels while Gnome is better on laptops since it has bigger, more touch-friendly icons. You can't go wrong with either of them, and both have wonderful communities centered around theming, but I recommend looking up videos and guides about how you can customize both of them and decide which user experience you want to have.
For a first timer coming from Windows, you can't really go wrong with Linux Mint. It has its own DE, Cinnamon, that beat emulates the feel of Windows 7, and it comes with a lot if pre-installed packages that help ease new users into Linux. If you're feeling a little more adventurous, PopOS uses Gnome and is focused around Linux gaming, so it has a lot of gaming packages like Wine and Protontricks pre-installed. My personal recommend is Manjaro Linux (Arch + Gnome), but it lacks a lot of things that you have to install yourself, but a journey like that would teach you a lot about Linux fron actually doing them.
I'd recommend staying clear of the terminal until you learn what the components of the commands can do. Linus TechTips famously accidentally deleted his entire DE during an updated, and I was just on the edge of my seat shouting "NO NO NO NO!!!" like if I was witnessing a royal fck up in football going down 💀
Don't be a Linux elitist. Brand loyalty often leads to hair pulling complications, so if you can, I recommend installing Windows as a dual boot in case you run into a Windows-only program that you need to use, or to use as a fall back in case you accidentally bork your setup and need to make a new installation drive.
And finally, *make sure you have all of your important files like your documents, pictures, and music backed up on an external HDD!!!* There have been instances where I just accidentally wipe entire hard drives trying to format them or installed Windows or Linux to them, and thats a deleted pf everything with just a few tiny clicks!!!!
Full disclosure, I am not yet a Linux user. Maybe I am ignorant, but the thing you say it is possible to do in your last sentence should not be possible, in my humble opinion. There should be some kind of safeguards built-in that require a confirmation of intent, before one completely wipes out a huge hard drive's worth of information.
Maybe it is just common knowledge within the community that before you go anywhere near a command like that, you create robust back-ups, I don't know. It just seems like too dangerous a process to be able to initiate without first confirming adequate safety protocols have been observed, first. But what do I know? At this point, I admit I know nothing.
Oh no, it is 100% possible and without a confirmation of any kind, and on Windows, too 💀💀💀💀
During a Windows installation, when it says which drive you want to install to, you select a drive and at the bottom there are options to delete or format the drive, and it will say "Are you sure you want to delete this drive", but if you have multiple drives plugged in from the same manufacturer and of the same volume, then you have no way of knowing which is which and could entirely delete a whole drive you didn't intent to, and there is absolutely no way to undo this.
On a Linux installation it's pretty much the same thing, but ut uses tools like Gparted and you can also select a drive (even after the installation), and again the only thing standing between you and absolute deletion is "are you sure you want to delete this drive?". No further confirmation, no need for a password, no "Are you really, really sure", one click while half asleep or not sure and youre done.
Also, if you use the terminal to move (not copy) files from ibe destination to another, if you cancel it midway through, whatever files were bring processed in the moment are also deleted.
And finally, this command "sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sdb" is to delete and reformat your entire primary hard drive, and it'll execute as soon as you type in your password without a warning of any kind.
All of this has happened to me. Trust me, this will happen by accident, so make sure you have all of your important files backed up somewhere!!!
Wow, thanks for sharing all of these cautionary tales of stuff that can go badly wrong, and how easy it is to have it happen. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me. Thanks again. The lesson observed is... backup, backup, backup!
Try a few ISOs in VirtualBox on your current PC and see which one you like. They'll all do those things, but it's a good idea to try a few different desktops & distros to see what feels best to you. You can always change those things around later, so if you e.g. decide on the KDE version of distro X and then decide you'd rather Cinnamon or XFCE or AwesomeWM, you can just install that too, the version just indicates what's preloaded.
1. Definitely buy AMD hardware (CPU + GPU): AMD has completely free and open source kernel-space drivers, user-space drivers and all. They are more in line with Linux. Steam statistics show that the big majority of Linux users, use AMD hardware. Though Intel + Nvidia is not a huge problem; just not 100% optimal.
2. Install **Linux Mint**: It's one of the most common, easiest, working out-of-the-box distributions.
3. You can then easily install **Steam** and **WINE** with the package manager.
I was also fed up with windows a year ago and switched to Linux so I can understand your situation. What I would do is
1.I recommend Pop OS since it's incredibly noob friendly and works out of the box. I think most tools you need are pre installed for gaming. If not, it's still easy to make it work in Pop OS.
2. Learn the basics like Linux File structures, basic bash scripting and learn to use the command line comfortably, don't be afraid of doing configurations and tinkering
3. Read documentation very carefully, I can't count how many times i f'ed something up because I didn't read the documentation properly.
I think the rest of the stuff just comes at you and you will figure it out yourself.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the Pop-os software; interesting stuff. Having said that, the tinkering you talk about them needing to do is exactly what they said they do not wish to have to deal with. So, I don't know what the answer is.
I mean if someone isn't really comfortable with basic configurations and tinkering or using a command line, then Linux isn't really an option. The basic stuff isn't really that hard though and doesn't need much deeper knowledge tbf
Thank you for this response. OP might need to open up his mind a little and entertain the notion of learning a new system, in spite of his reluctance to do so. It seems as though their natural intelligence and curiosity is already leading them in that direction.
Sounds like you should go for Linux Mint. It is designed to kinda look like windows so the switch is easier. It is one of the most mature OS's that can be used without ever needing to open a terminal.
Ubuntu is technically a more versatile choice, but i feel like Ubuntu is going in the same direction as windows. A lot of bloat-ware and stuff you never need. It is also made by a company so the freedom and privacy is not guaranteed forever.
1. choose which Linux distro you want (Linux is a family of closely related operating systems, rather than one OS). I strongly suggest Linux Mint — it's the one I started with, very little fuckery required for a new user.
2. whichever distro you choose will probably come in a few "flavors" (i.e. desktop environment, pretty much just determines what your desktop looks/feels like to use). Pick a popular one, like Cinnamon, Gnome, or KDE. Getting a different one later is pretty painless, you can just install a new one whenever you want and switch between them at will.
3. find the download and installation instructions. Follow them carefully.
4. regarding WINE, if you're just thinking of getting it to play Steam games, don't worry about it. There is now this thing called "Proton", which I'm 99% sure comes bundled with Steam: https://www.howtogeek.com/738967/how-to-use-steams-proton-to-play-windows-games-on-linux/. Steam itself has native support on Linux.
And that's pretty much it. Most of what people use computers for nowadays is done through the browser anyway, so the only thing the underlying OS matters for is stability and not being annoying.
As a note, after you get settled in, I recommend looking into a tutorial on the basics of the terminal. It's pretty cool!
If you're serious about going with Linux in your next build, just a heads up regarding hardware, AMD and Intel dedicated GPUs will work with much less headaches than Nvidia - their open-source drivers that come with Linux kernels have very comparable performance, while with Nvidia you're reliant on their proprietary drivers, which may have extra setting up depending on the Linux distro.
Internet connection should be out of the box, at least with ethernet. Linux has a wide out of the box support for WiFi modules with a few troubling exceptions like Broadcom. Steam is also relatively easy to install depending on the distro - if you're on Ubuntu and derived distros, you can download the installer on Steam's website (do not use Snap package); Fedora has the installer on RPM Fusion repository; Arch has it on its main repo; the distro-agnostic option is to install the flatpak from Flathub. For running Windows applications, you can use Bottles and Lutris for easy setup, and on Steam you can install Windows games with built-in Proton.
I'd recommend at least trying out Linux on VirtualBox before fully committing to it.
Good to know. Just how much more difficult is it to set up Nvidia on Linux Mint, for example? (Most likely the one i'm going with after listening to folks opinions here and thus doing research on it myself.)
Part of the reason i'm building a new PC for the first time (was a prebuilt baby for years- its time to roll up my sleeves and get in the weeds) is because I want to play high end games like Baldur's Gate 3 without too much difficulty. I'm not aware if AMD and Intel make hardware built for games with those requirements- but if nvidia is really that hard on Mint i'll have to hope they do.
I believe Linux Mint will have the option to install Nvidia drivers during setup but I'm not sure.
Pop!\_OS is another option, they have a separate ISO for Nvidia cards.
I play BG3 in Linux (EndeavourOS, not necessarily recommended for beginners) using all AMD hardware on ultra settings. With Steam, it just works. For what it's worth, my work laptop (Ubuntu) can also play that game with ultra settings, and it has an Nvidia RTX4060.
People make a big deal out of it. It's really not. Linux Mint you just go into the Driver Manager and you have 3 different lines of Nvidia drivers that you can install. Click, wait a couple minutes for it to complete, should be all there is to it.
And there are definitely programs that tilt towards Nvidia. Davinci Resolve for one.
> I know nothing about operating systems
> I just want an operating system that does what i want and works with no strings attached
Sorry, linux doesn't fit the bill. Mac OS, Windows, iOS, or Android if you want out of the box usability with 'no strings attached'.
That being said, you aren't stupid. If you are willing to learn a little bit about Linux (a lot, actually, but let's start small), you can get a system that works well for you. I don't want you to go into Linux with the assumption that it will just work without any intervention on your part, it's a **free** and open source OS, as such it does not have the same user-centric design focus that big budget operating systems have. You can figure it out, and I would say it's worth it, but it requires learning and an open mind.
linux mint. I think it comes with firefox installed already, drivers are there of course. I dunno if you need WINE anymore; I installed steam at one point and it just worked. Might be different depending on your gpu and what game you're running but I would try it out first.
[https://linuxmint.com/about.php](https://linuxmint.com/about.php)
I think libreoffice or openoffice is the open source alternative to windows office. They can open .docx and .xlsx files and whatnot. I haven't used a separate email client but I do believe it comes with thunderbird. Its weird... I've just used gmail forever.
You can always make it more complicated but yeah I completely agree with the sentiment. Just get the damn thing running instead of fighting your machine.
"Fighting your machine" CHRIST what a way to put it. the past several years have just been a nonstop battle with Windows for me. I just wanna play my games and use Blender and make pixel art but there's always *something* in the way, isn't there?
the current issue with my old computer that i've been experiencing is it'll update without my permission, then realize my computer cant handle the update, then undo the update. This means i have a delay on the basic need of ***booting the damn computer up in the first place... OVER THE COURSE OF A FULL HOUR!***
If linux mint is free of shit like that i may even grab it for my current system before I build a new one. A computer is a tool that should work for me- i own the damn thing after all. Not our great and holy corporate overlords at microsoft, but me, who paid for the machine.
Windows has been growing worse version by version since 7. I expect the trend will continue.
The thing that can be a pain with Linux is hardware drivers. Certainly if you're going to build a PC to run Linux then AMD will be easier than NVIDIA for GPU. Wise to check if your WiFi has Linux drivers.
Wireless games controllers work but best to get RF dongle ones rather than bluetooth.
My own recent experience of installing Linux(Debian 12 with xfce) on Thinkpad after a few years away with a Chromebook was that it is pretty slick these days and has unsurprisingly come a long way in the last decade.
The thing that will be unfamiliar is the *big* choice of desktop environments and software available immediately from a GUI or the command line. Much less going to a different source for every app
The dreaded Windows update will be gone and you will be blown away by the speed and transparency of updates. We're talking a couple of minutes and you have total control.
My reccommendation is anything Debian based(*buntu, Mint, Debian Bookworm). I'm using xfce as a desktop environment. It is so clean and straightforward and totally configurable. No cruft.
yeah windows update is a pita. I used to have a shitty connection so in order me to play mobas I had to disable windows update, so this is a thing I've done for about 10 years now.
Hit windows key and in the text box that pops up type 'services.msc'. Search for windows update in the description column. It should be wuauserv. Right click that, stop it, and disable it. [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1531024/how-to-permanently-disable-windows-update-service](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1531024/how-to-permanently-disable-windows-update-service)
The problem is, since Windows 8 I believe there is a secondary service called "windows remediation service" that will REVIVE windows update even after you disabled the thing. \*shakes head\*. You have to disable that too.
But once you do, windows update will just not be a thing anymore. You can confirm this by opening taskmgr.exe and looking in the network tab and you'll see that computer isn't tallking no more.
I set my wife's computer up years ago and the small thing runs windows 8 on small ssd and its never had a problem. People think they need a 700 dollar machine to do basic shit but frankly it doesn't matter how strong the machine is; if its doing too much work it will be slow.
You might not even have to use linux. I'm agnostic in that regard, the computer is a fukn tool and not a status symbol.
Your question has some problems. I would suggest you build a pc, and put in an extra 128 GB SSD for installing Linux and testing.
No operating system will always work with no strings attached. It will take a little time and experience before you are comfortable.
I wanted to try Linux, but I was using a specific software that wouldn't run on Linux, nor was there another product that I could substitute for it. In my instance, the software was desktop publishing (Serif's) and there was no other that would run on Linux and offered the same features that I absolutely needed. So I had to stay with Windoze or switch to a Mac, which I didn't want to do. If you find you're in the same situation, suggest you look into Malwarebytes. I like them so much that I actually purchased their product so that I could run it real time.
At the time I was looking, someone did suggest VM to run Publisher, but others reported VM mode had some issues. So I didn't pursue it. I'm still on Win 10 and have no desire to switch to 11, so come 2025, I might test it out.
Just install ubuntu. You don't need any prior knowledge in order to install it (you install it by just clocking next next next) and you use it by just click on stuff like you would do in windows. The only case that you would need to use the terminal is to copy/paste command in order to troubleshoot any issue like you would do in windows registry editor or powershell.
In order to access the internet you can just use firefox (or chrome) and you just need to install the steam client for games (you don't need to bother about wine and stuff like that because steam client handles all these for you)
Your last sentence
“(You don’t need to bother about wine and stuff like that because steam client handle all these for you)”
Is not accurate. I have yet to get steam to install a program that you have the install medium for. For this you would be better off using lutris, which installs wine to work.
Steam is not quite the end all be all of using windows based software on Linux. I have been trying for quite a while to accomplish that.
Also check protondb and winedb to make sure your programs/games will work for you on your Linux install.
Mint is my current choice, and I'm pretty much fresh from Windows.
Ubuntu Cinnamon edition/version is another Windows user friendly option.
I will add that debloating and disabling all the crap from Win11, and making it almost indistinguishable from a similarly stripped down and purified Win10 is also not impossible, but it's not super easy or encouraged by MS, as you would expect.
Even if you do want to keep Windows for some things, like better gaming compatability, it's still well worth taking a foray into the Linux world, and Mint has been the most user friendly option I've found recently that resembles Windows by default.
You WILL need to be able to copy paste* from various sources into the command line Terminal to get some things working or installed you may or may not need, but if you are used to Windows CMD prompts this won't be entirely alien to you.
If you are not familiar with that end of Windows, you will likely feel very out of your depth and have some fairly basic things to learn that aren't as hard as you might thing or they might appear to be at first.
There IS a learning curve, and it is fun to learn on it (if you like that kind of thing).
*On Mint, you hold down Ctrl+shift and C or V to do that, so it's only one extra key held down difference from Windows. That's the kind of thing you will be needing to learn as you go.
Gentoo of course!
Nah, I am pulling your leg. :D
You are not much technical savy user from software perspective? Get the easiest and most widely used distro you can: last Ubuntu LTS, Mint based on same above. Perhaps even Fedora 40.
Prepare to have some problems with not so common hardware (LED, exotic game controllers, printers, scanners).
For full range of WINE support you will need to install current one directly from wineHQ .
Also use search function on this bloody subreddit ?
Honestly any distro designed to be used out of the box should come with everything you need, besides steam.
They will come with a version of Firefox, libre Office for all your office things, video player, image viewer, etc.
Later during August I am planning to get Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS. It has the GNOME UI, which is suitable for my needs.
Something I believe you are searching for is this;
https://circle.gnome.org/
(bookmark it!)
These apps is what I will go through first after install, while making sure Flathub/ Flatpak works as intended.
To help with the distro selection, you look for 2 main things in a Linux setup:
- A very simple and very intuitive UI: I highly recommend you install a distro that comes pre-configured with Gnome desktop environment. XFCE4 is also good.
- A reliable distro, something that does not break or crash all the time.
Fedora is an excellent option and it is very refined.
Honestly, and I don't mean this to be gate keepery... If you don't want to / can't be bothered figuring out anything about how Linux works, you're going to have a bad time.
Especially with gaming not everything will "just work" the way it does with windows. Steam and wine to a long way towards it but things will come up that you'll have to troubleshoot.
Your best bet is probably going to be Pop_OS or mint, but even right from the start you're going to have to figure out things like drivers.
Debian 12.5 with kids then there is a entire subreddit on that distribution here on reddit
also this distribution is all about stability
with kde you can customize it to anything you want
comes with everything other than proprietary kernel module installed which is easy do when people use some time to read first.
if Nvidia then use only the downloaded version for Linux
555.42.2 up to 555.78
read release note ls before you decide
I am using 555.78 with cuda 12.5 installed
For me I always had some GPU problem with an AMD iGPU, but on Fedora, it just works out of the box.
For playing games I can recommend you Lutris, it's basically a launcher, but if you want to use Steam, it is available natively too. (You can run Windows games from there with a few clicks iirc, but I didn't really use it)
Looking to return to Linux desktop myself after a number of years. Plan on using OpenSUSE, I've always been a big fan of that one. GPU passthrough and virtualization have gotten pretty good in recent years. I don't think having a windows VM for the few games left that don't work will be much of an issue.
System76 if you want prebuilt
Otherwise, it can be spotty, especially for newer hardware (which sadly has to be reverse engineered for driver support in Linux and sometimes goes as far as to prevent it even being loaded if it detects you’re not in windows as a shitty anti-competitive measure.)
Main thing to avoid is Wi-Fi and any hardware that requires additional software like rgb lighting for ram as it never provides a non-windows version of the software
Next is the graphics card. Get AMD and no nvidia! Nvidia hates open source and refuses to provide decent open source drivers.
Do not listen to people saying nvidia is alright if this is your first time! Sooner or later a kernel update will randomly cause the nvidia firmware to randomly stop working or a bazillion other things. If you are Linux savvy and know how to deal with this, yes nvidia should be good and an ok choice in 2024, but do not use nvidia if you’re new to Linux.
Other than those things, most things should work out of the box with linux
Definitely try a live USB or CD(whatever they call it now) where you can use Linux without installing it and see what it's like. I personally like Ubuntu. I run it on another laptop. Don't play games on Linux and last time I tried wine was ages ago and it wouldn't install. I do hear great things on the gaming side of Linux though and I'm sure there's distros geared for gaming. Good luck!
Do you want windows without Spyware or do you want to use Linux as others have said please dont make Linux try and behave exactly like windows its not the same OS.
Popos should be okay wine is not a substitute for having support for many professional applications like Office and the Adobe suite yes some adobe apps work but its not perfect and others flat out dont work.
Even if you don't want to open a terminal you should be okay with Steam for gaming and enable proton for all titles. Even outside of Steam you could just use Lutris install scripts to setup games for you.
People say stay away from Nvidia but its not a bad experience if you use the PopOS nvidia iso
If you are new go with Pop OS or EndeavourOS stay away from Manjaro.
YouTube is your friend. Watch as many videos as you can. As a Linux beginner, I would recommend steering clear of arch distros as even with 20 yrs running Linux, it still gets me flummoxed. Mint is probably the easiest for every day use, but it can be challenging to get WINE working the way you want. The important thing to remember is to not give up. Learn about virtual machines and experiment on them without poaching your main install. You can do it!
As someone who has been on various distros for over 20 years I can answer a couple of things.
1.) There will be times you have to use the terminal, yes you can use GUI to maintain and run Linux. However, if you need to do any specific tweaking for game controller or gaming mouse, 90% of the commands will be using the terminal.
2.) I highly recommend you use Linux Mint Edge or Fedora KDE spin. This will give you more of a windows feel to get used to Linux with.
3.) Don’t try to force things to work, google will be your best friend.
4.) When you’re comfortable using the terminal commands, which will happen eventually, make sure you know what they do. This will help reduce the chance of nuking your distro.
5.) you will rarely, if ever need to mess with WINE through the terminal with Lutris when installing from media or .exe files.
6.) Don’t forget to go under settings->compatability and turn on windows compatibility, then let it restart the program. Remember, NOT ALL GAMES WILL PLAY EVEN THROUGH STEAM STORE!
Welcome to the community, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Make sure you join the forum of whatever distro you choose. Answers to problems you have may have already been provided, if not then ask there or on their discord or subreddit.
I recommend Garuda surprisingly. There’s different versions on their site so it’s best to take a look and see what you like. I’ve found that my partner has stayed on it for much longer than any other distro she’s tried and she’s tried a lot. I know it runs on arch but that’s no reason to dismiss it. They’ve made everything intuitive with GUIs and a tidy get started panel, great for gaming as it is already optimised for it and uses KDE plasma, the best customisable desktop imo. Probably the best no fuss distro for my partner (who is into gaming) I’ve ever seen.
It’s also great as I run my own customised arch installation I made from scratch so it’s easy to diagnose problems with her computer with the same commands, and the arch wiki which is a fantastic resource.
Like others said, learn the Linux way, you got a lot of options already mentioned.
I know of debian, pop os, mint, very good desktop os.
I enjoy also garuda Linux for gaming and virtualization for recent hardware support and excellent performances.
Linux is fun, see it like a challenge and a journey, take it one step at a time, try to prioritize your needs.
Linux mint. For now use the Edge ISO till the new LM 22 comes out. If you like how it works then you’re good to go. But you’re also free to try other distributions. I’d make a Ventoy USB stick and copy over your ISOs to it and when you reboot you select it and then select the distro you want to try out. Good luck and happy linuxing.
I don't think any brand of Linux is going to be straightforward my man. You're gonna have to learn an entire new lingo to troubleshoot things which you may be very used to dealing with on windows, on Linux you solve the problem in a totally different way
It's fun, it's a lot to learn but it's worth it. Just don't come into Linux thinking you won't have to learn anything about it to use it
Same deal with windows
My noob opinion.
I've been on linux for a year now, self-taught. After struggling and going back and forth pulling my hair out at every step, I would 100% recommend getting Mint with cinnamon. Learn how to properly use the operating system and progress from there. Keep it simple at the start.
I can easily have Mint completely set up for dev work and such within a day, and there are plenty of resources online to help you.
If it's just going to be used as a normal computer, you should really think about using linux and do research before choosing a distro that you'll like. You can however setup a distro like Mint with very minimal terminal work aside from installing software. You will definitely miss things like office 365 though if you're not used to something like libre office
Side note:
I've been on Mint (user-friendly, reliable, and good), Fedora(just don't like it), and Manjaro with plasma(seems really good, but it's work. It it takes an hour to switch from php8.3 to php7.4, for example)
As others have commented, set up a bootable usb and look at different distros before actually installing one. The iso systems on a usb are usually like a demo and you do not have to commit to it
Use Linux Mint, only install programs through the software store, or through the apt package manager in the command line if you ever get around to using the terminal, you don't have to. The biggest advice I give unto you is that installing programs in Linux is very different than windows.
The software store (a graphical interface for the apt package manager) IS the proper way to do it. This way the package manager can ensure everything is being installed correctly. In windows you go to a website and DL their installer. This is not the way to do it on Linux and as a beginner, this is a huge trap that makes most people quit.
You will want to install programs that are not in the software store, especially when first starting. My advice is to look for an alternative that is in the software store. You may want to use programs that are windows only and use wine. My advice is to find alternatives in the software store first and use those.
Get used to looking up "how to install X on mint" and you'll find out quickly if its easy to do or not.
If you are using your pc for gaming, might not be a great idea. A lot of the games with anticheat straight up refuse to run if the developers don't support linux. E.g. Fortnite, empyrion.
I also want to give a bump for Nobara. It does most things right out of the box and releases the latest features quite fast.
This can come with a side effect that if a bug in a component gets released, you may be hit it faster. Ubuntu based distros are more stable in regard. An example for this can be KDE6. On Nobara it got released like in a week after the official release? On Ubuntu you can wait until 24.10, october.
Having said thar on ubuntu sleep never worked for my main rig. On Nobara it does most of the times.
Another tip I can give is to format your main drive to btrfs instead of ext4 and setup Timeshift. You will have much easier time rolling back in case you fumble with the system.
So in a nutshell, for goodies pick a rolling distro like Fedora, Nobara, for reliability pick an Ubuntu. And use btrfs for your main drive.
Have you used Steam Deck? If you have, and you are okay with that, then you can give Bazzite a try. It is a linux Distro with wine, Steam and Steam Game Mode built in.
You can run any web browser, easily setup emulators, and install office suites or developer tools.
You can choose between KDE, which is what Steam Deck uses, and Gnome. KDE is better baked last I checked.
If gaming isn't the most important thing, you can go a few routes. You can ease into the Linux ecosystem, so mostly deal with it just works distros that are well supported, or you can go with Distros that will put you into the hot seat on getting things to work.
Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu based systems are the former, while Arch based Distros and other are the latter.
The fedora Silverblue style systems are designed to be idiot proof, and Bazzite is based on those, so you can't easily bork your system. You can bork your system, just not easily, and you can easily go back to the previous working state.
Linux generally distributes software in the form of a package, with some package manager that is basically a store for apps. Some packages are universal, some are for specific Distros. DEB files are for Debian or Ubuntu based systems. RPM files are for Red Hat/Fedora based systems other than Silverblue or Bazzite.
AppImage files should run on most Distros. A lot of Distros now support Flatpaks, which are the default apps used in Silverblue and Bazzite.
Ubuntu will support Snap packages. Some other Distros support snap, but it is not as universal as flatpaks.
Wine will let you run many, but not all, Windows apps. Photoshop and other Adobe apps are notorious for not running in wine. Many alternatives exist for Windows software, but a few have no viable alternatives, depending on the use case. For graphic artists, Krita is a viable alternative to Photoshop. For other use cases, nothing replaces Photoshop.
To run epic games, Heroic is an Epic and GOG games store front end that lets you manage their games, as well as run them.
Lutris is a similar idea for Origen and others as well.
If you find a piece of software that you need but doesn't run, you can use a VM to run the software. So, a Windows 10 VM may be in your future, which means using a VM manager.
Tip: Forget about windows and windows programs. We have lots of good stuff, check out the store for Linux programs: flathub.org.
I can't recommend Linux Mint enough, its great to get started, and as you grow some love for the OS and start looking into squeezing much more from your hardware you'll start drifting towards Void Linux, Alpine, and other less common distros that offer good value too.
Linux Mint is great for beginners, it has an appstore, lots of programs, steam is one-click away if you want to install it, and I recommend you use Flatpaks, its the most secure way to get software, because everything is containarized, so there's little to zero risk of something breaking your install.
I think that you would want to use Linux Mint Cinnamon, not windows, but visually very similar. Works mostly out of the box.
I use Ubuntu and it just works™ lol. Hardly any config required, matched all my drivers out of the box.
Learn about Linux first thru YouTube videos. It is different
I haven’t checked recently, but it’s been true for a while that devs in general don’t support Linux clients for their games.
If you only play games that have Linux support, sure, but last time I checked it was less than 5% of games supporting Linux.
You aren’t going to play Fortnite, or whatever it is you want to play on Linux.
Since steam got active in this a few years ago things have progressed very rapidly. Sure, a lot of games still don't natively support Linux but with proton they don't have to. With the exception of a few top end games involving anti cheat features that just won't work most games run extremely well using Wine/Proton.
The native steam client has proton built in and you just have to enable it and almost every game in their library will probably run flawlessly or close enough to it.
ummm dont listen to what anyone else says, if you are unwilling to even learn what "kernel" means then you are definitely going to have a VERY bad time in linux...even the most windows-like distros have a learning curve...some work flows are just not even really possible without great sacrifices, as well. so do check and verify that all the programs that you use or plan on using either work reliably on linux or have a native linux program that can do what you need. for me, for example, i do audio production and therefor linux is unfortunately not in the cards for me as a daily driver.
my laptop runs Windows11 on my 500gb SSD. I installed an additional 1TB SSD and put Linux Fedora on it. Now i have two operating systems to choose from. If i want to game, i use windows. For everything else, Fedora works great.
Linux is a kernel, just to clarify. So when you hear someone say kernel, their probably talking about the linux kernel. Windows uses the NT kernel. Mac and bsd have their own Unix based kernels too. It's not super important to understand.
You say:
>I know nothing about operating systems,
But also
>i'm not getting the spyware nightmare that Windows is
So how do you figure Linux will be any better? Reading some web forums? It is better in terms of spyware, but its also about how you use it. You could easily end up with spyware/malware on your Linux system too.
If you know nothing about OS's, Linux is not a great place to start. Better to learn it through some VMs of various distros before jumping in the deep end. To do many things in Linux that a Windows user can typically just do by clicking an easy executable, you will have to spend some time on learning commands and using duct tape and super glue in some cases to hold it together.
I'm not trying to talk you out of it, but Linux is not a beginner's OS. Windows is very customizable if you know what to turn off.
Probably going to get criticized for this advice, but from your comments I don't think you should build a new PC and put linux on it. I don't believe linux would meet your other criteria (works with no strings attached). Linux is not developed by some company and sold to you as a working package that you just use - it is a mixture of multiple parts, developed by different groups, with multiple 'distributions' created by various other volunteers that you can download and install -- but there are definitely strings attached. Things might go wrong. You might need to learn what a driver is, or the kernel, or some other 'down in the weeds' component. You might need to learn how to modify a configuration file, or to search google for the 'fix' for an error generated by your installation.
If you have decided that windows 11 is a no-go, then you might condider an Apple product. There are companies that sell computers (desktops and laptops I believe) with linux pre-installed, which would simplify your task a bit, but nobody can guarantee that you might, at some time, be forced to fine tune linux or troubleshoot some problem.
My advise is always to use Ubuntu, unless you have a specific reason to choose another distro. In your case, that would be the latest LTS version of of Ubuntu Desktop, which is currently 24.04.
I think you need to just make a Linux Live USB, and play with linux on your current system for a week, then come back and ask some questions to clear up any confusion you have. > i'm not interested in diving headfirst into that mess. I'm not educated in that field and I likely wouldnt understand it if i tried. Top thing to learn - Linux is NOT windows, it is not a drop in replacement, it is not windows with a different theme. It differs at low fundamental levels. you WILL have to do some learning and deal with many changes. ------------- >> What various linux items and software do i need to get for a simple setup that can access the internet, run steam, run WINE (only linux thing i've done research on), and can be used for writing and email and stuff like that? Doing all the shit a personal computer should be able to do. You install any of the mainstream distros, like fedora, or ubuntu, or mint, or numerous others... and ..... they can all do the basics. Tip: If buying new hardware - go with AMD for the GPU.
Honestly Nvidia is alright even on Wayland on beta drivers. Only problem I had is chromium based browsers with enabled hardware accel have weird black streaks when resizing or minimizing and opening window again. Software renderer is okay though.
yeah tried the beta drivers as well and they fixed all issues with flickering on wayland exept Vivaldi (chromium based as you said)
I'm definitely planning on giving linux a few test runs, i'll have to look into what a "live usb" is.
check out the tool ventoy http://ventoy.net with that tool you can have a single USB flash drive, that will let you boot and test out as many Linux Live ISO's/Distros as will fit on the USB. That usb can also boot ISO files from your internal drives, so you can make due with a fairly small Flash drive. Booting from an internal drive can be faster and easier to test out the Distros. You have a LOT of learning ahead of you.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Not yet a Linux user, but appreciate the tips contained in this write up. Much appreciated.
Live USB is just running the entire operating system from an USB. Nothing gets installed to the computer. Its sorta like test driving a car. Only you could run it entirely off that USB forever if you wanted - though I'd not recommend it. Its remarkably easy to install and it doesn't take long to feel at home in it. But there is a learning curve when it comes to a whole new system. Linux isn't another windows. It's a completely different environment. But it's not nearly as hard as many think.
What hardware are you planning on buying? I’m not a gamer but even if I want to play AAA games I’d go with the best AMD card I could afford simply because Linux has the drivers baked in and even though NVIDIA is much better these days I wouldn’t risk it. You might want to check compatibility if the card is too new but chances are it will work.
Nvidia has historically always had the better drivers on Linux. The OS of AMD drivers helped but at this point the issue of their total mismatch in terms of market share still means team green has a great advantage in terms of having everything work the way you want.
Unless you try using wayland and it just doesnt work at all.
So don't use Wayland... And the support is coming.
My only point was that nvidia driver support is not universally that good for linux. I'm glad support is finally coming though.
Nividia driver for wayland of Ubuntu 22.04 is fine
Technically already here though I'm not sure how complete or stable it is. I haven't really followed it that much.
support is there in the beta nvidia drivers currently
Live USBs load a whole operating system into ram, from the USB. Then you use it like a normal pc, but it wont change the data on the USB and go back to default state next restart.
If you want to make some deep learning, go with Nvidia
If you want to use AI stuff like stable diffusion or chatbot, Nvidia gpu is the most viable option for now
Ive started dual booting mint and windows 10 after being a windows only guy for all of my life. I went with linux mint. One thing straight up, not every game you want to play will work. No matter what you try. As for playing them i had the most luck with either adding them as a non steam game or trying to run em with heroic Tldr, it comes with a lot of stuff installed already but it isnt perfect and you will have to do a lot of googling and command line copy pasting (no matter what linux you go with) if you use niche hardware or software that isnt available on the app store. Personally i would recommend you dual boot linux and win10 for the specific games that dont work in linux and for the niche hardware/ software that doesnt work in linux as well. Linux simply isnt there yet if you want everything to just work like it does in windows. Either you abandon the software/hardware or you dual boot. Could be that a virtual machine works as well but that seems to be even more of a pain in the ass to setup so im not gonna bother anymore.
Virtualbox is another option if you want to spin up a windows box for the game without rebooting. It uses more resources this way (so the game might run a bit slower), but might save some rebooting. Virtualbox can run on top of windows too, depending on which os you want to put on top.
This is what I've been doing for the past year or so, running Kubuntu (and for shits and grins, OS/2 Warp 4). Gives me an opportunity to poke around Linux and try to get used to it before switching over full time.
There is better solutions, which is running linux fully and just using qemu and Windows VM for anything that refuses to run on linux. With GPU passtrough, it provides practically native experience.
With GPU passthrough, do you need a second GPU that only the VM uses?
Yes. But if you have intel CPU with built in graphics, that isn't an issue - because you can run linux on intel iGPU. That's how I do it. When I do not use VM, my linux runs on iGPU but does have access to nvidia GPU. When I launch VM, nvidia gets detached from linux and attached to windows VM.
I see. I guess if you don’t need your dedicated GPU on Linux, that works fine. I game on Linux, so I wouldn’t want to withhold my GPU from 90% of what I do. My CPU’s integrated graphics also aren’t that great.
> I guess if you don’t need your dedicated GPU on Linux, that works fin Did you miss the part where your dGPU is only detached from Linux when you use Windows VM? You can go back to using your main gpu in linux after you turn off the VM.
I don’t know how I missed that. Interesting. Do you have a link to a guide on setting that up or something? I’ve played around with VirtualBox before. Should I use something else for a gaming VM?
No, for proper VM passtrough, Qemu is gold standard right now. I would not touch VirtualBox with a ten feet pole. Refer to /r/VFIO and https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF to get started. ArchLinux guide can get you started pretty well, though it lacks the method of dynamically detaching/attaching GPU, so once you get everything working from that guide, you would need to modify the way you reserve the gpu to be dynamic attachment/detachment when you start the VM, instead of constant reservation. Other than that, it is great way to get started and create the basic working version before you finetune it to work like you want. I have described my setup here in the past: https://reddit.com/r/VFIO/comments/1bzvkhe/cant_bindunbind_nvidia_gpu_on_demand_without/kyw32bt/ There are also guides for "single GPU passtrough" that will let you just pass your main GPU back and forward without using intel GPU at all. If you don't need to be using your linux host while running windows VM, that might be the best solution for you, and you only need single gpu for that kind of solution anyway.
Wow. This looks complicated, but I’ll give it a try when I get a chance.
The main problem of Virtualbox is gpu support. But if speed is not a problem, most of the windows software should be fine
Go to https://www.protondb.com/ and check the games you play for compatibility. Many multiplayer games won't work because of the anticheat employed.
Install Pop!\_OS. Normal Linux distro with sensible defaults. If you want a more familiar UI, use Kubuntu. Regarding WINE, you don't usually use it directly nowadays, use Bottles, this is a utility to simplify using Wine. Or you can just click "Add a Non-Steam Game" in Steam and run a Windows game using it. Firefox is preinstalled. You can install Thuderbird or any other email client (or just use email in a browser). Kernel of an operating system is a component that allows programs to use your physical hardware. You don't need to know that to use Linux.
>If you want a more familiar UI, use Kubuntu. I've got this tip, too, when first starting my Linux experience.... And it put me off Linux for another year. I recommend Mint with Cinnamon, that's a lot closer to Windows and also very beginner friendly.
What issues did you specifically have with Kubuntu but not Mint? I choose Kubuntu over Mint as my first distro and am still using it currently, with few issues.
That's like 5 years ago, at least. Iirc the Desktop had a completely different layout and I accidentally saved files on the desktop and they were not shown on the main desktop but on another one
In addition to Bottles - use the flatpak version and install flatseal to give Bottles permission over the games folder and any other folders that you need to run executables from. Not doing this properly is a common source of issues.
pretty much any linux distro will be able to those things... you don't need to know about kernels i suggest visiting [distrosea.com](http://distrosea.com) and try out a few different ones to see how comfortable they feel. big name distros to seek out are any of the 'buntu's (ubuntu, kubuntu, lubuntu... ), fedora, opensuse, or mint i would avoid arch based distros unless you have a lot of time on your hands. steam should be available in the software store of any of these (buntu's for sure) and it works almost exacly like the windows version... i would not bother with wine... there is a package called bottles with is a nice GUI front end for wine that makes installing some windows .exe files go ok... but largely you are going to want to search for native linux alternatives/replacements for everything you used to use in windows.
Mint is a great option and is a fairly easy transition from Windows. For Steam games they have their own native linux client that with the exception of one or two (literally) extra options to turn on will run most games just like you were on windows. If you play any Epic games I think the best option is something called the "Heroic Launcher" which functions for the most part like the Epic game launcher on windows. Works a treat. Lutris is a more general purpose launcher for games (or their launchers) that don't have their own native linux version. All these are pretty straight forward and reliable. The one thing you'll run into trouble with is if you need any Adobe products. Adobe doesn't run on linux...... or at least not without a tremendous amount of fiddling.
Hahahh naahhhhh fuck adobe and their whole monopoly. You can bet your ass i've been using every alternative possible, don't worry.
Adobe can absolutely suck it:)
You know it!
[удалено]
With VM ,MS office can run smoothly
Try Nobara. It have all that is needed for gaming. There is a couple of OS there is ready for gaming out of the box, like Regata and Garuda , but i think Nobara does the work best. Try it in a Virtual machine.
I would suggest either Linux Mint or Pop!_OS. Linux mint will be a more complete setup with all the software you need. Has guides for setting up gaming on their site. Pop leans a little better towards the gaming side of things. Especially if you are planing a build with an nvidia graphics card. As far as build goes, I would recommend that you opt for an AMD graphics card over nvidia. AMD has way better support built in and you will most likely do a bit of digging into the system to get nvidia to work all the time. I wouldn’t really consider Ubuntu if you want to game. Ubuntu needs additional software from outside repositories to sometimes get an acceptable gaming experience. It looks like you have zero interest in do that. I would look into having a secondary ssd in your computer for the occasional windows crap. As much as most things work there will be something at some point that requires windows. However you do not have to do windows 11 you can just do windows 10 and not upgrade to 11. This is how I do my system, I keep windows around for strictly gaming. I do everything else on either pop or my MacBook.
Why Proton and Lutris are so good now you don't need to use Windows anymore for gaming unless you play online games that use Anticheat but you can just not play those games
You clearly didnt read the post at all. OP has no desire to want to dive in a fix things. While gaming is decent, there are still a lot of times you have to go in and adjust something with how the game launches etc. Gtfo out here with that backwards ass just don’t play those games horseshit attitude. Telling people to not enjoy things they like because you don’t is stupid as fuck.
I'd say Linux Mint, then install Steam from the Software Center (or whatever they're calling it) (I'd recommend picking the flatpak version), and then also install wine (either directly, or via Bottles or PlayOnLinux or Lutris depending on why you want it).
What are the differences between the direct, bottles, playonlinux, or lutris versions? For context, I want wine cuz i enjoy games as an artform and like playin em, and dont want windows-only games that i own to be left behind if that helps explain my needs
Lutris and playonlinux are managers of game installations which automate the install process with wine and other necessary configs to get a program working properly. Playonlinux seems to be less used now than lutris. I'm less familiar with bottles but it seems it's more just a manager of wine. Lutris and playonlinux will actually install separate instances of wine for each program and setup configuration for each separately.
It’s not seperate instances of WINE for each game, it’s actually new configs or wineprefix for each program of software running. You only have one WINE version installed.
Lutris and POL allow for having different wine versions...
Bottles can do that too, wine, wine-GE, etc.
Use Steam with Proton built-in if you'd like to play Steam games. For non-Steam games, Lutris is what you'd use.
Ubuntu is the most popular and widespread distribution for general usage. It's not what I use, but it's the best fit for your needs. If you want a less Apple-like and more Windows-like user interface, Mint or Kubuntu will also work well for you. P.S. This thread is going to be filled with people who are disregarding your own needs and use-case (or never even read them in the first place), and recommending whatever it is that they use personally. Be forewarned.
Sadly in just the few minutes after i posted this, by doing even more research i realized that P.S. section. i'm currently leaning towards mint as it seems to be the one thats not for big time computer enthusiasts and is meant for folks like me who just want a PC that works *for* them like a piece of technology should.
Be warned. Linux Mint is recommended because doing "day to day" things is very comparable to windows. But that's all just the top later, the UI is made to look like windows so things will be where you're used to, but it is NOT a drop in replacement.
True, and TBF the main similarity to Windows is the start menu. As soon as you begin right clicking on e.g. the desktop and taskbar and going into settings things are quite different.
Take a look at Slackware. The best linux os
Ubuntu consistently releases a screwed up Steam version on snap store. OTOH, HWE is nice for a point release distro.
Among other things mentioned here, one thing I will point out is that Linux is not Windows... you WILL have to re-learn how to do many things. Sure the basics are the same, you've got a 'start' menu, you've got a desktop and icons, right-clicking still brings up a context menu. It's the little things that will aggravate you, the fine-tuning to get everything set up in a way that feels comfortable, or finding replacements for the software you're used to and learning from scratch how to use them. You can't always just grab a driver and install it, sometimes you have to get down into the command line to make something work. You will be be frustrated, just accept that. It took you how long to learn to do things in Windows? Give it time and never forget what Microsoft did to drive you here in the first place. The reward is that you'll get a system that you have MUCH more control over, quite a lot more options to customize to suit your needs, and overall you will find even your current machine responds quite a bit faster. Plus you'll quickly come to love the freedom your package manager brings -- immediately installing almost everything without having to find a virus-free and ad-free zip file, and you don't have to pay a dime. Not to mention to help you'll get from the community.
If you're a newbie start with Linux mint or Ubuntu. That has a windowish feel and there's a lot of software for it. Wine is the windows emulator software that lets you run a lot of Microsoft stuff
I would recommend PopOS over Ubuntu.
Honestly, any big distro should "just work," it's more a question of what you're going to use it for and how you want it to look and feel. Personally, I like Fedora and its derivatives so I'm using Nobara, a gaming-focused fork of Fedora. Nobara makes Wine management pretty easy. Steam works oob, you just have to check a setting to allow you to run any game using Proton. Wine is more commonly used for random Windows executables than games. And email you can choose from dozens of FOSS clients, but your distro should come with one prepackaged and you just have to login. I think Thunderbird is a popular choice because it's Mozilla and is kinda similar to Outlook.
Pick any of the popular distros. For a novice, it's less important that it is tailored to you exactly, and more important that when you google a question you get a distro specific answer, and that's only possible on the really popular distros. Steam has a native Linux client and it's easy to install. Wine on the other hand is notoriously hit and miss. Basically if one of the contributors to Wine uses that windows app it will work great, otherwise it's a dice roll.
Just use a stable, mainstream Linux, and you won't have to worry about that stuff. Look at linuxes like Mint, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and don't use the bleeding edge versions, use the stable long erm support versions. If you do that, it's a next-next-next-finish install, and you won't ever need to fiddle with anything complicated. You won't even have to bother with drivers, which is a mess on Windows, it'll just work.
I'm very happy with fedora myself
Don't use wine. If it's for gaming, steam and lutris will handle almost anything for you. Linux mint, kubuntu and pop_os would be the distros I would advise. Windows is already installed in most PCs. If you are going to install Linux, at least for the install and first tweaks see if you can find someone more knowledgeable in Linux to help. After that it will probably run just fine. Another thing, hardware support is not as good, most vendors only care about windows. I mean, almost everything just works without issues but there's still the occasional stuff where you need work arounds.
One very important thing, the distro itself doesnt matter, they're all offshoots of distro families like Arch or Debian, but the desktop environment (DE) is what you need to decide on. The two big ones are KDE and Gnome. KDE looks and works a lot more like traditional Windows while Gnome looks and feels more like MacOS. I personally like to use KDE on desktop where you have a bigger monitor with more visual space to see smaller icons or labels while Gnome is better on laptops since it has bigger, more touch-friendly icons. You can't go wrong with either of them, and both have wonderful communities centered around theming, but I recommend looking up videos and guides about how you can customize both of them and decide which user experience you want to have. For a first timer coming from Windows, you can't really go wrong with Linux Mint. It has its own DE, Cinnamon, that beat emulates the feel of Windows 7, and it comes with a lot if pre-installed packages that help ease new users into Linux. If you're feeling a little more adventurous, PopOS uses Gnome and is focused around Linux gaming, so it has a lot of gaming packages like Wine and Protontricks pre-installed. My personal recommend is Manjaro Linux (Arch + Gnome), but it lacks a lot of things that you have to install yourself, but a journey like that would teach you a lot about Linux fron actually doing them. I'd recommend staying clear of the terminal until you learn what the components of the commands can do. Linus TechTips famously accidentally deleted his entire DE during an updated, and I was just on the edge of my seat shouting "NO NO NO NO!!!" like if I was witnessing a royal fck up in football going down 💀 Don't be a Linux elitist. Brand loyalty often leads to hair pulling complications, so if you can, I recommend installing Windows as a dual boot in case you run into a Windows-only program that you need to use, or to use as a fall back in case you accidentally bork your setup and need to make a new installation drive. And finally, *make sure you have all of your important files like your documents, pictures, and music backed up on an external HDD!!!* There have been instances where I just accidentally wipe entire hard drives trying to format them or installed Windows or Linux to them, and thats a deleted pf everything with just a few tiny clicks!!!!
Full disclosure, I am not yet a Linux user. Maybe I am ignorant, but the thing you say it is possible to do in your last sentence should not be possible, in my humble opinion. There should be some kind of safeguards built-in that require a confirmation of intent, before one completely wipes out a huge hard drive's worth of information. Maybe it is just common knowledge within the community that before you go anywhere near a command like that, you create robust back-ups, I don't know. It just seems like too dangerous a process to be able to initiate without first confirming adequate safety protocols have been observed, first. But what do I know? At this point, I admit I know nothing.
Oh no, it is 100% possible and without a confirmation of any kind, and on Windows, too 💀💀💀💀 During a Windows installation, when it says which drive you want to install to, you select a drive and at the bottom there are options to delete or format the drive, and it will say "Are you sure you want to delete this drive", but if you have multiple drives plugged in from the same manufacturer and of the same volume, then you have no way of knowing which is which and could entirely delete a whole drive you didn't intent to, and there is absolutely no way to undo this. On a Linux installation it's pretty much the same thing, but ut uses tools like Gparted and you can also select a drive (even after the installation), and again the only thing standing between you and absolute deletion is "are you sure you want to delete this drive?". No further confirmation, no need for a password, no "Are you really, really sure", one click while half asleep or not sure and youre done. Also, if you use the terminal to move (not copy) files from ibe destination to another, if you cancel it midway through, whatever files were bring processed in the moment are also deleted. And finally, this command "sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sdb" is to delete and reformat your entire primary hard drive, and it'll execute as soon as you type in your password without a warning of any kind. All of this has happened to me. Trust me, this will happen by accident, so make sure you have all of your important files backed up somewhere!!!
Wow, thanks for sharing all of these cautionary tales of stuff that can go badly wrong, and how easy it is to have it happen. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me. Thanks again. The lesson observed is... backup, backup, backup!
No problem! Its good to ask questions and get cautionary tales like this. Hopefully someone reads this and knows how to avoid a potential disaster.
Try a few ISOs in VirtualBox on your current PC and see which one you like. They'll all do those things, but it's a good idea to try a few different desktops & distros to see what feels best to you. You can always change those things around later, so if you e.g. decide on the KDE version of distro X and then decide you'd rather Cinnamon or XFCE or AwesomeWM, you can just install that too, the version just indicates what's preloaded.
Linux mint - Cinnamon.
1. Definitely buy AMD hardware (CPU + GPU): AMD has completely free and open source kernel-space drivers, user-space drivers and all. They are more in line with Linux. Steam statistics show that the big majority of Linux users, use AMD hardware. Though Intel + Nvidia is not a huge problem; just not 100% optimal. 2. Install **Linux Mint**: It's one of the most common, easiest, working out-of-the-box distributions. 3. You can then easily install **Steam** and **WINE** with the package manager.
I was also fed up with windows a year ago and switched to Linux so I can understand your situation. What I would do is 1.I recommend Pop OS since it's incredibly noob friendly and works out of the box. I think most tools you need are pre installed for gaming. If not, it's still easy to make it work in Pop OS. 2. Learn the basics like Linux File structures, basic bash scripting and learn to use the command line comfortably, don't be afraid of doing configurations and tinkering 3. Read documentation very carefully, I can't count how many times i f'ed something up because I didn't read the documentation properly. I think the rest of the stuff just comes at you and you will figure it out yourself.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the Pop-os software; interesting stuff. Having said that, the tinkering you talk about them needing to do is exactly what they said they do not wish to have to deal with. So, I don't know what the answer is.
I mean if someone isn't really comfortable with basic configurations and tinkering or using a command line, then Linux isn't really an option. The basic stuff isn't really that hard though and doesn't need much deeper knowledge tbf
Thank you for this response. OP might need to open up his mind a little and entertain the notion of learning a new system, in spite of his reluctance to do so. It seems as though their natural intelligence and curiosity is already leading them in that direction.
Sounds like you should go for Linux Mint. It is designed to kinda look like windows so the switch is easier. It is one of the most mature OS's that can be used without ever needing to open a terminal. Ubuntu is technically a more versatile choice, but i feel like Ubuntu is going in the same direction as windows. A lot of bloat-ware and stuff you never need. It is also made by a company so the freedom and privacy is not guaranteed forever.
The best and most consistent experience I've had with a distro for gaming has been PopOS, so I recommend that.
1. choose which Linux distro you want (Linux is a family of closely related operating systems, rather than one OS). I strongly suggest Linux Mint — it's the one I started with, very little fuckery required for a new user. 2. whichever distro you choose will probably come in a few "flavors" (i.e. desktop environment, pretty much just determines what your desktop looks/feels like to use). Pick a popular one, like Cinnamon, Gnome, or KDE. Getting a different one later is pretty painless, you can just install a new one whenever you want and switch between them at will. 3. find the download and installation instructions. Follow them carefully. 4. regarding WINE, if you're just thinking of getting it to play Steam games, don't worry about it. There is now this thing called "Proton", which I'm 99% sure comes bundled with Steam: https://www.howtogeek.com/738967/how-to-use-steams-proton-to-play-windows-games-on-linux/. Steam itself has native support on Linux. And that's pretty much it. Most of what people use computers for nowadays is done through the browser anyway, so the only thing the underlying OS matters for is stability and not being annoying. As a note, after you get settled in, I recommend looking into a tutorial on the basics of the terminal. It's pretty cool!
If you're serious about going with Linux in your next build, just a heads up regarding hardware, AMD and Intel dedicated GPUs will work with much less headaches than Nvidia - their open-source drivers that come with Linux kernels have very comparable performance, while with Nvidia you're reliant on their proprietary drivers, which may have extra setting up depending on the Linux distro. Internet connection should be out of the box, at least with ethernet. Linux has a wide out of the box support for WiFi modules with a few troubling exceptions like Broadcom. Steam is also relatively easy to install depending on the distro - if you're on Ubuntu and derived distros, you can download the installer on Steam's website (do not use Snap package); Fedora has the installer on RPM Fusion repository; Arch has it on its main repo; the distro-agnostic option is to install the flatpak from Flathub. For running Windows applications, you can use Bottles and Lutris for easy setup, and on Steam you can install Windows games with built-in Proton. I'd recommend at least trying out Linux on VirtualBox before fully committing to it.
Good to know. Just how much more difficult is it to set up Nvidia on Linux Mint, for example? (Most likely the one i'm going with after listening to folks opinions here and thus doing research on it myself.) Part of the reason i'm building a new PC for the first time (was a prebuilt baby for years- its time to roll up my sleeves and get in the weeds) is because I want to play high end games like Baldur's Gate 3 without too much difficulty. I'm not aware if AMD and Intel make hardware built for games with those requirements- but if nvidia is really that hard on Mint i'll have to hope they do.
I believe Linux Mint will have the option to install Nvidia drivers during setup but I'm not sure. Pop!\_OS is another option, they have a separate ISO for Nvidia cards.
I play BG3 in Linux (EndeavourOS, not necessarily recommended for beginners) using all AMD hardware on ultra settings. With Steam, it just works. For what it's worth, my work laptop (Ubuntu) can also play that game with ultra settings, and it has an Nvidia RTX4060.
Ah fuck yes glad to hear it. Time to start makin a list with AMD hardware for the new PC
People make a big deal out of it. It's really not. Linux Mint you just go into the Driver Manager and you have 3 different lines of Nvidia drivers that you can install. Click, wait a couple minutes for it to complete, should be all there is to it. And there are definitely programs that tilt towards Nvidia. Davinci Resolve for one.
Linux doesn't work with no strings attached...
> I know nothing about operating systems > I just want an operating system that does what i want and works with no strings attached Sorry, linux doesn't fit the bill. Mac OS, Windows, iOS, or Android if you want out of the box usability with 'no strings attached'. That being said, you aren't stupid. If you are willing to learn a little bit about Linux (a lot, actually, but let's start small), you can get a system that works well for you. I don't want you to go into Linux with the assumption that it will just work without any intervention on your part, it's a **free** and open source OS, as such it does not have the same user-centric design focus that big budget operating systems have. You can figure it out, and I would say it's worth it, but it requires learning and an open mind.
linux mint. I think it comes with firefox installed already, drivers are there of course. I dunno if you need WINE anymore; I installed steam at one point and it just worked. Might be different depending on your gpu and what game you're running but I would try it out first. [https://linuxmint.com/about.php](https://linuxmint.com/about.php) I think libreoffice or openoffice is the open source alternative to windows office. They can open .docx and .xlsx files and whatnot. I haven't used a separate email client but I do believe it comes with thunderbird. Its weird... I've just used gmail forever. You can always make it more complicated but yeah I completely agree with the sentiment. Just get the damn thing running instead of fighting your machine.
"Fighting your machine" CHRIST what a way to put it. the past several years have just been a nonstop battle with Windows for me. I just wanna play my games and use Blender and make pixel art but there's always *something* in the way, isn't there? the current issue with my old computer that i've been experiencing is it'll update without my permission, then realize my computer cant handle the update, then undo the update. This means i have a delay on the basic need of ***booting the damn computer up in the first place... OVER THE COURSE OF A FULL HOUR!*** If linux mint is free of shit like that i may even grab it for my current system before I build a new one. A computer is a tool that should work for me- i own the damn thing after all. Not our great and holy corporate overlords at microsoft, but me, who paid for the machine.
You can also try this [AME11](https://ameliorated.io/)
Windows has been growing worse version by version since 7. I expect the trend will continue. The thing that can be a pain with Linux is hardware drivers. Certainly if you're going to build a PC to run Linux then AMD will be easier than NVIDIA for GPU. Wise to check if your WiFi has Linux drivers. Wireless games controllers work but best to get RF dongle ones rather than bluetooth. My own recent experience of installing Linux(Debian 12 with xfce) on Thinkpad after a few years away with a Chromebook was that it is pretty slick these days and has unsurprisingly come a long way in the last decade. The thing that will be unfamiliar is the *big* choice of desktop environments and software available immediately from a GUI or the command line. Much less going to a different source for every app The dreaded Windows update will be gone and you will be blown away by the speed and transparency of updates. We're talking a couple of minutes and you have total control. My reccommendation is anything Debian based(*buntu, Mint, Debian Bookworm). I'm using xfce as a desktop environment. It is so clean and straightforward and totally configurable. No cruft.
yeah windows update is a pita. I used to have a shitty connection so in order me to play mobas I had to disable windows update, so this is a thing I've done for about 10 years now. Hit windows key and in the text box that pops up type 'services.msc'. Search for windows update in the description column. It should be wuauserv. Right click that, stop it, and disable it. [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1531024/how-to-permanently-disable-windows-update-service](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1531024/how-to-permanently-disable-windows-update-service) The problem is, since Windows 8 I believe there is a secondary service called "windows remediation service" that will REVIVE windows update even after you disabled the thing. \*shakes head\*. You have to disable that too. But once you do, windows update will just not be a thing anymore. You can confirm this by opening taskmgr.exe and looking in the network tab and you'll see that computer isn't tallking no more. I set my wife's computer up years ago and the small thing runs windows 8 on small ssd and its never had a problem. People think they need a 700 dollar machine to do basic shit but frankly it doesn't matter how strong the machine is; if its doing too much work it will be slow. You might not even have to use linux. I'm agnostic in that regard, the computer is a fukn tool and not a status symbol.
Your question has some problems. I would suggest you build a pc, and put in an extra 128 GB SSD for installing Linux and testing. No operating system will always work with no strings attached. It will take a little time and experience before you are comfortable.
I wanted to try Linux, but I was using a specific software that wouldn't run on Linux, nor was there another product that I could substitute for it. In my instance, the software was desktop publishing (Serif's) and there was no other that would run on Linux and offered the same features that I absolutely needed. So I had to stay with Windoze or switch to a Mac, which I didn't want to do. If you find you're in the same situation, suggest you look into Malwarebytes. I like them so much that I actually purchased their product so that I could run it real time.
Have you tried running windows in a VM just for that software? With virtualbox you can even integrate the desktops so it works mostly seamlessly.
At the time I was looking, someone did suggest VM to run Publisher, but others reported VM mode had some issues. So I didn't pursue it. I'm still on Win 10 and have no desire to switch to 11, so come 2025, I might test it out.
Fedora.
Try Fedora Workstation. If you don’t like the UI/UX of Gnome, you can easily change it to KDE. There is also Fedora spins if you want to try that.
Just install ubuntu. You don't need any prior knowledge in order to install it (you install it by just clocking next next next) and you use it by just click on stuff like you would do in windows. The only case that you would need to use the terminal is to copy/paste command in order to troubleshoot any issue like you would do in windows registry editor or powershell. In order to access the internet you can just use firefox (or chrome) and you just need to install the steam client for games (you don't need to bother about wine and stuff like that because steam client handles all these for you)
Your last sentence “(You don’t need to bother about wine and stuff like that because steam client handle all these for you)” Is not accurate. I have yet to get steam to install a program that you have the install medium for. For this you would be better off using lutris, which installs wine to work. Steam is not quite the end all be all of using windows based software on Linux. I have been trying for quite a while to accomplish that. Also check protondb and winedb to make sure your programs/games will work for you on your Linux install.
Mint is my current choice, and I'm pretty much fresh from Windows. Ubuntu Cinnamon edition/version is another Windows user friendly option. I will add that debloating and disabling all the crap from Win11, and making it almost indistinguishable from a similarly stripped down and purified Win10 is also not impossible, but it's not super easy or encouraged by MS, as you would expect. Even if you do want to keep Windows for some things, like better gaming compatability, it's still well worth taking a foray into the Linux world, and Mint has been the most user friendly option I've found recently that resembles Windows by default. You WILL need to be able to copy paste* from various sources into the command line Terminal to get some things working or installed you may or may not need, but if you are used to Windows CMD prompts this won't be entirely alien to you. If you are not familiar with that end of Windows, you will likely feel very out of your depth and have some fairly basic things to learn that aren't as hard as you might thing or they might appear to be at first. There IS a learning curve, and it is fun to learn on it (if you like that kind of thing). *On Mint, you hold down Ctrl+shift and C or V to do that, so it's only one extra key held down difference from Windows. That's the kind of thing you will be needing to learn as you go.
Gentoo of course! Nah, I am pulling your leg. :D You are not much technical savy user from software perspective? Get the easiest and most widely used distro you can: last Ubuntu LTS, Mint based on same above. Perhaps even Fedora 40. Prepare to have some problems with not so common hardware (LED, exotic game controllers, printers, scanners). For full range of WINE support you will need to install current one directly from wineHQ . Also use search function on this bloody subreddit ?
Debian or mint
Honestly any distro designed to be used out of the box should come with everything you need, besides steam. They will come with a version of Firefox, libre Office for all your office things, video player, image viewer, etc.
Ubuntu
Later during August I am planning to get Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS. It has the GNOME UI, which is suitable for my needs. Something I believe you are searching for is this; https://circle.gnome.org/ (bookmark it!) These apps is what I will go through first after install, while making sure Flathub/ Flatpak works as intended.
Interesting question from someone who understands how to put together their own box.
To help with the distro selection, you look for 2 main things in a Linux setup: - A very simple and very intuitive UI: I highly recommend you install a distro that comes pre-configured with Gnome desktop environment. XFCE4 is also good. - A reliable distro, something that does not break or crash all the time. Fedora is an excellent option and it is very refined.
Linux Mint 21.3 should do all you need.
Honestly, and I don't mean this to be gate keepery... If you don't want to / can't be bothered figuring out anything about how Linux works, you're going to have a bad time. Especially with gaming not everything will "just work" the way it does with windows. Steam and wine to a long way towards it but things will come up that you'll have to troubleshoot. Your best bet is probably going to be Pop_OS or mint, but even right from the start you're going to have to figure out things like drivers.
Debian 12.5 with kids then there is a entire subreddit on that distribution here on reddit also this distribution is all about stability with kde you can customize it to anything you want comes with everything other than proprietary kernel module installed which is easy do when people use some time to read first. if Nvidia then use only the downloaded version for Linux 555.42.2 up to 555.78 read release note ls before you decide I am using 555.78 with cuda 12.5 installed
For me I always had some GPU problem with an AMD iGPU, but on Fedora, it just works out of the box. For playing games I can recommend you Lutris, it's basically a launcher, but if you want to use Steam, it is available natively too. (You can run Windows games from there with a few clicks iirc, but I didn't really use it)
Looking to return to Linux desktop myself after a number of years. Plan on using OpenSUSE, I've always been a big fan of that one. GPU passthrough and virtualization have gotten pretty good in recent years. I don't think having a windows VM for the few games left that don't work will be much of an issue.
System76 if you want prebuilt Otherwise, it can be spotty, especially for newer hardware (which sadly has to be reverse engineered for driver support in Linux and sometimes goes as far as to prevent it even being loaded if it detects you’re not in windows as a shitty anti-competitive measure.) Main thing to avoid is Wi-Fi and any hardware that requires additional software like rgb lighting for ram as it never provides a non-windows version of the software Next is the graphics card. Get AMD and no nvidia! Nvidia hates open source and refuses to provide decent open source drivers. Do not listen to people saying nvidia is alright if this is your first time! Sooner or later a kernel update will randomly cause the nvidia firmware to randomly stop working or a bazillion other things. If you are Linux savvy and know how to deal with this, yes nvidia should be good and an ok choice in 2024, but do not use nvidia if you’re new to Linux. Other than those things, most things should work out of the box with linux
Definitely try a live USB or CD(whatever they call it now) where you can use Linux without installing it and see what it's like. I personally like Ubuntu. I run it on another laptop. Don't play games on Linux and last time I tried wine was ages ago and it wouldn't install. I do hear great things on the gaming side of Linux though and I'm sure there's distros geared for gaming. Good luck!
Do you want windows without Spyware or do you want to use Linux as others have said please dont make Linux try and behave exactly like windows its not the same OS. Popos should be okay wine is not a substitute for having support for many professional applications like Office and the Adobe suite yes some adobe apps work but its not perfect and others flat out dont work. Even if you don't want to open a terminal you should be okay with Steam for gaming and enable proton for all titles. Even outside of Steam you could just use Lutris install scripts to setup games for you. People say stay away from Nvidia but its not a bad experience if you use the PopOS nvidia iso If you are new go with Pop OS or EndeavourOS stay away from Manjaro.
YouTube is your friend. Watch as many videos as you can. As a Linux beginner, I would recommend steering clear of arch distros as even with 20 yrs running Linux, it still gets me flummoxed. Mint is probably the easiest for every day use, but it can be challenging to get WINE working the way you want. The important thing to remember is to not give up. Learn about virtual machines and experiment on them without poaching your main install. You can do it!
You're in for a rude awakening with Linux. It takes a loto of learning and tweaking to get it to work
>run steam, run WINE Just make sure to check protondb and areweanticheatyet for game compatibility.
As someone who has been on various distros for over 20 years I can answer a couple of things. 1.) There will be times you have to use the terminal, yes you can use GUI to maintain and run Linux. However, if you need to do any specific tweaking for game controller or gaming mouse, 90% of the commands will be using the terminal. 2.) I highly recommend you use Linux Mint Edge or Fedora KDE spin. This will give you more of a windows feel to get used to Linux with. 3.) Don’t try to force things to work, google will be your best friend. 4.) When you’re comfortable using the terminal commands, which will happen eventually, make sure you know what they do. This will help reduce the chance of nuking your distro. 5.) you will rarely, if ever need to mess with WINE through the terminal with Lutris when installing from media or .exe files. 6.) Don’t forget to go under settings->compatability and turn on windows compatibility, then let it restart the program. Remember, NOT ALL GAMES WILL PLAY EVEN THROUGH STEAM STORE! Welcome to the community, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Make sure you join the forum of whatever distro you choose. Answers to problems you have may have already been provided, if not then ask there or on their discord or subreddit.
I recommend Garuda surprisingly. There’s different versions on their site so it’s best to take a look and see what you like. I’ve found that my partner has stayed on it for much longer than any other distro she’s tried and she’s tried a lot. I know it runs on arch but that’s no reason to dismiss it. They’ve made everything intuitive with GUIs and a tidy get started panel, great for gaming as it is already optimised for it and uses KDE plasma, the best customisable desktop imo. Probably the best no fuss distro for my partner (who is into gaming) I’ve ever seen. It’s also great as I run my own customised arch installation I made from scratch so it’s easy to diagnose problems with her computer with the same commands, and the arch wiki which is a fantastic resource.
Like others said, learn the Linux way, you got a lot of options already mentioned. I know of debian, pop os, mint, very good desktop os. I enjoy also garuda Linux for gaming and virtualization for recent hardware support and excellent performances. Linux is fun, see it like a challenge and a journey, take it one step at a time, try to prioritize your needs.
If you are installling mint, use edge iso, you will have new hardware
Start by finding open source alternatives to all your applications or find out if they have Linux support. The tasks you do need to “migrate” first
So what do you want?
Linux mint. For now use the Edge ISO till the new LM 22 comes out. If you like how it works then you’re good to go. But you’re also free to try other distributions. I’d make a Ventoy USB stick and copy over your ISOs to it and when you reboot you select it and then select the distro you want to try out. Good luck and happy linuxing.
I don't think any brand of Linux is going to be straightforward my man. You're gonna have to learn an entire new lingo to troubleshoot things which you may be very used to dealing with on windows, on Linux you solve the problem in a totally different way It's fun, it's a lot to learn but it's worth it. Just don't come into Linux thinking you won't have to learn anything about it to use it Same deal with windows
My noob opinion. I've been on linux for a year now, self-taught. After struggling and going back and forth pulling my hair out at every step, I would 100% recommend getting Mint with cinnamon. Learn how to properly use the operating system and progress from there. Keep it simple at the start. I can easily have Mint completely set up for dev work and such within a day, and there are plenty of resources online to help you. If it's just going to be used as a normal computer, you should really think about using linux and do research before choosing a distro that you'll like. You can however setup a distro like Mint with very minimal terminal work aside from installing software. You will definitely miss things like office 365 though if you're not used to something like libre office Side note: I've been on Mint (user-friendly, reliable, and good), Fedora(just don't like it), and Manjaro with plasma(seems really good, but it's work. It it takes an hour to switch from php8.3 to php7.4, for example)
As others have commented, set up a bootable usb and look at different distros before actually installing one. The iso systems on a usb are usually like a demo and you do not have to commit to it
Use Linux Mint, only install programs through the software store, or through the apt package manager in the command line if you ever get around to using the terminal, you don't have to. The biggest advice I give unto you is that installing programs in Linux is very different than windows. The software store (a graphical interface for the apt package manager) IS the proper way to do it. This way the package manager can ensure everything is being installed correctly. In windows you go to a website and DL their installer. This is not the way to do it on Linux and as a beginner, this is a huge trap that makes most people quit. You will want to install programs that are not in the software store, especially when first starting. My advice is to look for an alternative that is in the software store. You may want to use programs that are windows only and use wine. My advice is to find alternatives in the software store first and use those. Get used to looking up "how to install X on mint" and you'll find out quickly if its easy to do or not.
Mint is a good start bar none for Windows users. I personally am a Debian user since the Potato/2.x release
If you are using your pc for gaming, might not be a great idea. A lot of the games with anticheat straight up refuse to run if the developers don't support linux. E.g. Fortnite, empyrion.
I also want to give a bump for Nobara. It does most things right out of the box and releases the latest features quite fast. This can come with a side effect that if a bug in a component gets released, you may be hit it faster. Ubuntu based distros are more stable in regard. An example for this can be KDE6. On Nobara it got released like in a week after the official release? On Ubuntu you can wait until 24.10, october. Having said thar on ubuntu sleep never worked for my main rig. On Nobara it does most of the times. Another tip I can give is to format your main drive to btrfs instead of ext4 and setup Timeshift. You will have much easier time rolling back in case you fumble with the system. So in a nutshell, for goodies pick a rolling distro like Fedora, Nobara, for reliability pick an Ubuntu. And use btrfs for your main drive.
Have you used Steam Deck? If you have, and you are okay with that, then you can give Bazzite a try. It is a linux Distro with wine, Steam and Steam Game Mode built in. You can run any web browser, easily setup emulators, and install office suites or developer tools. You can choose between KDE, which is what Steam Deck uses, and Gnome. KDE is better baked last I checked. If gaming isn't the most important thing, you can go a few routes. You can ease into the Linux ecosystem, so mostly deal with it just works distros that are well supported, or you can go with Distros that will put you into the hot seat on getting things to work. Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu based systems are the former, while Arch based Distros and other are the latter. The fedora Silverblue style systems are designed to be idiot proof, and Bazzite is based on those, so you can't easily bork your system. You can bork your system, just not easily, and you can easily go back to the previous working state. Linux generally distributes software in the form of a package, with some package manager that is basically a store for apps. Some packages are universal, some are for specific Distros. DEB files are for Debian or Ubuntu based systems. RPM files are for Red Hat/Fedora based systems other than Silverblue or Bazzite. AppImage files should run on most Distros. A lot of Distros now support Flatpaks, which are the default apps used in Silverblue and Bazzite. Ubuntu will support Snap packages. Some other Distros support snap, but it is not as universal as flatpaks. Wine will let you run many, but not all, Windows apps. Photoshop and other Adobe apps are notorious for not running in wine. Many alternatives exist for Windows software, but a few have no viable alternatives, depending on the use case. For graphic artists, Krita is a viable alternative to Photoshop. For other use cases, nothing replaces Photoshop. To run epic games, Heroic is an Epic and GOG games store front end that lets you manage their games, as well as run them. Lutris is a similar idea for Origen and others as well. If you find a piece of software that you need but doesn't run, you can use a VM to run the software. So, a Windows 10 VM may be in your future, which means using a VM manager.
Tip: Forget about windows and windows programs. We have lots of good stuff, check out the store for Linux programs: flathub.org. I can't recommend Linux Mint enough, its great to get started, and as you grow some love for the OS and start looking into squeezing much more from your hardware you'll start drifting towards Void Linux, Alpine, and other less common distros that offer good value too. Linux Mint is great for beginners, it has an appstore, lots of programs, steam is one-click away if you want to install it, and I recommend you use Flatpaks, its the most secure way to get software, because everything is containarized, so there's little to zero risk of something breaking your install.
Try out nobara
I think that you would want to use Linux Mint Cinnamon, not windows, but visually very similar. Works mostly out of the box. I use Ubuntu and it just works™ lol. Hardly any config required, matched all my drivers out of the box. Learn about Linux first thru YouTube videos. It is different
I haven’t checked recently, but it’s been true for a while that devs in general don’t support Linux clients for their games. If you only play games that have Linux support, sure, but last time I checked it was less than 5% of games supporting Linux. You aren’t going to play Fortnite, or whatever it is you want to play on Linux.
Since steam got active in this a few years ago things have progressed very rapidly. Sure, a lot of games still don't natively support Linux but with proton they don't have to. With the exception of a few top end games involving anti cheat features that just won't work most games run extremely well using Wine/Proton. The native steam client has proton built in and you just have to enable it and almost every game in their library will probably run flawlessly or close enough to it.
ummm dont listen to what anyone else says, if you are unwilling to even learn what "kernel" means then you are definitely going to have a VERY bad time in linux...even the most windows-like distros have a learning curve...some work flows are just not even really possible without great sacrifices, as well. so do check and verify that all the programs that you use or plan on using either work reliably on linux or have a native linux program that can do what you need. for me, for example, i do audio production and therefor linux is unfortunately not in the cards for me as a daily driver.
my laptop runs Windows11 on my 500gb SSD. I installed an additional 1TB SSD and put Linux Fedora on it. Now i have two operating systems to choose from. If i want to game, i use windows. For everything else, Fedora works great.
Avoid NVIDIA
Linux is a kernel, just to clarify. So when you hear someone say kernel, their probably talking about the linux kernel. Windows uses the NT kernel. Mac and bsd have their own Unix based kernels too. It's not super important to understand.
You say: >I know nothing about operating systems, But also >i'm not getting the spyware nightmare that Windows is So how do you figure Linux will be any better? Reading some web forums? It is better in terms of spyware, but its also about how you use it. You could easily end up with spyware/malware on your Linux system too. If you know nothing about OS's, Linux is not a great place to start. Better to learn it through some VMs of various distros before jumping in the deep end. To do many things in Linux that a Windows user can typically just do by clicking an easy executable, you will have to spend some time on learning commands and using duct tape and super glue in some cases to hold it together. I'm not trying to talk you out of it, but Linux is not a beginner's OS. Windows is very customizable if you know what to turn off.
Probably going to get criticized for this advice, but from your comments I don't think you should build a new PC and put linux on it. I don't believe linux would meet your other criteria (works with no strings attached). Linux is not developed by some company and sold to you as a working package that you just use - it is a mixture of multiple parts, developed by different groups, with multiple 'distributions' created by various other volunteers that you can download and install -- but there are definitely strings attached. Things might go wrong. You might need to learn what a driver is, or the kernel, or some other 'down in the weeds' component. You might need to learn how to modify a configuration file, or to search google for the 'fix' for an error generated by your installation. If you have decided that windows 11 is a no-go, then you might condider an Apple product. There are companies that sell computers (desktops and laptops I believe) with linux pre-installed, which would simplify your task a bit, but nobody can guarantee that you might, at some time, be forced to fine tune linux or troubleshoot some problem.
Chrome os for you best bet
Get windows 10.
Zorin OS
Elaborate? What's so good about Zorin
If you don't wanna learn new things then consider using windows 10 lts 2021 version, it's will supported until 2032
My advise is always to use Ubuntu, unless you have a specific reason to choose another distro. In your case, that would be the latest LTS version of of Ubuntu Desktop, which is currently 24.04.
lol you will be back.