How the heck am I supposed to get into Linux?

If you're fine using what you're using, you don't need to switch. If not, then go ahead and do it. It's just software, friend.

A general rule of thumb when dealing with technical advice on the Internet: if anyone is super opinionated about software, and doesn't back it up with logical reasons as to why, ignore them.

In your specific case of being confused, it sounds like you just need to try it out for yourself with LiveCDs. Distros don't matter until you find something about one you don't like, and then you can just address that.

For your other points:

• AMD will be EASIER on Linux vs Nvidia, that's just a fact. Performance is about your hardware.
• Absolutely nothing wrong with dual booting, it's personal preference
• If you're just wanting a Linux desktop, sure, it's easy. You don't even need to touch the CLI unless you really want to. It's just a desktop.
• Most things will certainly work out of the box, but newer hardware will be the exception. Run a LiveCD to see if everything works, and you're golden.

Is your version of Windows a Pro? Find out in Settings -> System -> About. If so, you can install the Optional Feature (under Apps, Windows Features in 10 or System -> Optional Featues -> More Windows Features on 11) called Hyper-V.

If you do not have Pro, then install VirtualBox. Either one will let you create a Virtual Machine (VM), which lets you test drive anything as an operating system running as an app in an operating system (Xzibit meme here). From here, I would strongly recommend the mainstream linuxes, which are typically in the "just works" category and support Secure Boot out of the box, which lets you install it alongside Windows. These are:

Ubuntu Linux (preferably Kubuntu for the best Windows-like interface or Lubuntu if your computer is not very powerful)

Ubuntu is old reliable. A lot of Linux users are salty because a major corpo (Canonical) runs Ubuntu, and they've made design choices in the past and present that a bunch of Linux users are salty over (particularly by explicitly not supporting the now popular flatpak app format in favor of their own snap format), but reality is, Ubuntu works on just about everything I've ever put it on with the least amount (read: none) of dicking around to get it working. Ubuntu and its base, Debian, are very well supported and extremely stable. Most programs with a deb installer are designed for one or the other. Note that unlike Debian, Ubuntu is a bit newer with stuff, but still a bit behind compared to the frontier option below. This is the tradeoff for stability. Less cutting edge.

If flatpak support is more important to you, Linux Mint is a good interim between Ubuntu and Debian. It's community run, has a very Windows-like simple desktop design, and supports Flatpak natively. However, Mint is behind on the latest shift in Linux backend systems, known as the great Wayland migration, among other things. They're still working on it.

Fedora Linux (also preferred the KDE Spin, see above)

This is the bleeding edge Linux, maintained by another major corpo, RedHat. A lot of Linux users are salty about Fedora because RedHat is proprietary, and they recently killed off CentOS, a source code clone of RedHat a lot of people relied on, by buying it up and changing it from a clone to a testbed, probably to try and force users onto buying RedHat Enterprise Linux. However, Fedora is very up to date on the latest Linux tech, but is packaged in a very good "least pain to install and run every day" manner. They have very good support, due to being a cutting edge testbed for RedHat Enterprise, and anything that has an rpm package is probably for Fedora or RedHat. They also support flatpak natively, which makes it more likely whatever you want is going to be here. In addition, Fedora runs Wayland (the new, better performant graphics backend), which means it's already future proofed. In addition, Fedora really really hates anything that isn't 100 percent Vegan GPL FOSS, so if you want hardware accelerated video encoding for example, or support for anything that is even remotely proprietary, it means diving into a wiki to figure out how to install rpm-fusion and "flip" several packages to get that support.

Any other Linux you use will make you jump hoops to get Secure Boot working. I also know that there will be 12,000,000,000 replies of people saying Secure Boot is evil Microsoft conspiracy and stuff and you shouldn't use it, but you need it for Windows dual boot, and platform security is something that people ignore until it becomes a problem, at which having it in the first place would have prevented the issue, as it's too late after the fact to address it.

Once you've checked out the Linux of your choice in a VM, next is to get a USB stick and use Rufus to make a live boot stick, to see if it works on your PC. From the live stick, you can also install the linux on it.

Note that in many cases, if you're not using the Linuxes above, you may have to disable Secure Boot, then do some linux magic (it's different for every linux, which means googling or wiki searching, which is why I am not recommending everyone's favorite distro, Arch, which is like a pro race car driver telling a person who's never driven a car before "it's easy to drive a stock car" or "it's easy to drive an F1 car") after installation to get it enabled.

As for Windows eating the boot loader in dual boot configuration, this should not happen if you have UEFI, which every computer since Windows 8 is configured to boot with and uses Secure Boot, unless you changed that yourself in the bios or installed on ancient (pre-2012) hardware. What happens is when a boot loader is updated, either in Windows or Linux, it will establish itself as the King of Boot and be the first one to boot. Both boot loaders are still there in the EFI boot partition, but you may occasionally have to go into your UEFI Firmware Settings and change the boot order to your preference.

The reason I am pushing KDE versions is that both the mainest stream Linuxes push GNOME as their default desktop environment (DE). GNOME is nice, but it's been trying to reinvent the wheel for a solid decade now with a completely unique interface, and coming off Windows, KDE is lighter weight on the system resource-wise and feels more familiar, with the bottom taskbar and start menu on the bottom left layout (you can still move it to another side if you're one of those people).

The reason I have not recommended Pop!_OS is that they run LTS Ubuntu (which is older but supported for years version), they use a GNOME-like interface, and most importantly, they do not support Secure Boot at all.

From there, have fun. Linux is like a kit car, it's made of lots of custom parts somehow working together in chaotic harmony.

Ahhh, it seems like you're experiencing the dichotomy of Linux. The best part about Linux is the community, and the worst part about Linux is the community.

I've been using Linux off and on for over 30 years, and have been using it full-time for the last 7 or so. I'll try to cut through some of the elitist bullshit out there and answer your questions, and hope it helps.

Distro: Honestly, what really makes a distro a distro (from a new user perspective) is the package manager, and the DE. Yes, I know you can change the DE, but a new guy won't. I would try a bunch of distros in a Virtual Machine and try out the various different package managers (apt, yum, dnf, etc) and see which one clicks. Of course, this is only going to be used at the command line, but at some point - once you get your feet under you, you'll be using the command line. I prefer apt, therefore, I use an Ubuntu based distro.

Gaming: Honestly, it's hit or miss. A lot more hits as of late. However, if you're into online multiplayer games that enforce a kernel level anti-cheat, you'll be sorely disappointed. Look at protondb.com and look up the games you play, and see how well they work. If it's silver or better, you'll probably be happy with it.

Nvidia: This would tend to get into the weeds. AMD has native drivers in the kernel. Plug and play, unless you want to install proprietary drivers for Machine Learning, and even that can be a hassle sometimes. Nvidia has open source, but not great. Their proprietary drivers are better, but the compositor may cause problems.

Dual Boot: If you do (I do), do it on a separate drive. Microsoft can fuck with your bootloader if it's on the same drive. I've had no problem dual booting.

Easy to Learn: Depending on distro and hardware, you don't really have to know how to do anything other than install via a usb drive. You can do everything with a GUI if you want. It's not like you have to jump in feet first, set up a VM and play around.

Everything works OOB: This is mostly true. However, it is important to understand that most stuff's drivers are written for Windows. As you build/buy hardware, you'll get used to looking to see if it works with Linux. Some stuff does, some stuff doesn't, some stuff needs some "hacking" to get it to work.

I love Linux, would love for you to join us, but if you're getting overwhelmed, I can understand. I would start fiddling with them in VMs, see if you even like the idea of it. After that - start looking at your hardware and see if it works with Linux and you want to go bare metal - go for it. But keep your windows drive ready to swap in. Eventually, you'll be calling guys noobs and bitching about them not reading the Arch wiki... :D

10

I’m slightly exaggerating

no, no, you're pretty much on point

(and I have been on linux for over a decade)

People are giving good advice generally. I really think Linux Mint is the best for a beginner. I installed it on my elderly neighbor's computer because I truly think it's simpler than windows. I don't use it personally, I use arch BTW. And Debian. The gaming and Nvidia issues I think are at least somewhat related: if you have an Nvidia graphics card, you may find it more difficult to game on Linux. If you use steam for all your games, it's probably just as easy to game on Linux as on windows. If you use other launchers e.g. I play trackmania which uses ubisoft, it will require more setup like using an intermediary launcher such as lutris. I don't recommend this if you are after a "no fuss no muss" experience.

Don't feel guilty if you don't want to join our cult! Getting into Linux more than surface level generally involves spending some time with a search engine asking how to do certain things, and trying different methods to fix issues. I find it fun, your results may vary. Good luck!

I started getting into Linux in 2006, and made the switch in 2008. I’ll tell you a few things I’ve learned in the last 16 years using Linux:

• It doesn’t actually matter which distro you start with, because you’ll probably switch later anyway. I’m not even gonna tell you one. Just pick whichever one you want and start there.
• Linux is easy to start learning, but there’s always more to learn, so you’re only “done” until you wanna do something new. This isn’t really any different than Windows or Mac.
• Nvidia cards mostly work just fine. You’ll need the Nvidia drivers. Get them from your OS’ package manager, not Nvidia itself.
• Gaming is good on Linux now, for most games. Some games still require Windows.
• Windows used to overwrite your boot loader sometimes when it updated. That was back in the MBR/BIOS days. Now, with UEFI, you can dual boot without worry.
• Not everything works out of the box. You’ll need to research your hardware before you buy it. Like it’s 2001 again.

One of the awesome things about Linux, and probably one of the things that’s currently putting you off about it, is how many different options there are for how you can have your system work. It’s like Linux is the Cheesecake Factory menu and Windows is the In-N-Out menu.

It sounds to me like you're overthinking it. Download the ISO (or ISOs) of your choice and set up VMs in VirtualBox. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. Experiment and try it out with no risk at your leisure.

Your rant is on point. Whatever hate you get for this, from me you'll only get love! Rock on.

When you have a windows question there is a concrete answer...

Oh boy, that is not my experience. My experience is canned responses on the Microsoft forums.

Anyway, part of the tradeoff of not having a monoculture is that there is variety. This is a good thing, but it is also a bad thing.

No one is forcing you to do anything, if you want to try stuff do it.

Pretty much all of the major distros support live booting. Stick ventoy and a bunch of ISOs from distros you are considering on a USB stick and go make up your own mind.

(too long of an answer, had to split it up, second part will be a reply to this)

Hahahaha man, you are so right you don't even know how much, the community is great but also very passionate and opinionated. I'll try to be as beginner friendly as possible, if I mention something you don't understand don't hesitate to ask.

• It doesn't matter what distro you use, but also you absolutely should not use that one!! Use that one it's much better trust me!

For someone who's been in Linux for decades like myself, it doesn't matter what distro I use, they're all essentially the same under the hood, however when you're first starting it ABSOLUTELY matters. If you're looking for. Distro recommendation, I'll suggest Mint, but do I use Mint? No. Why do I recommend it then? Because Mint is very user friendly, it will auto setup a lot of stuff for you, and will be a relatively easy experience. Why don't I use Mint then? Because being user friendly is not something I care about, instead I care about my system being more updated (even if that means possible problems), I prefer my system being more barebones (even if that means I have to do a lot of the legwork myself), but for a beginner those things won't matter as much, having a nice experience matters more. When we say distro doesn't matter, it means that under the hood they're all the same, once you're comfortable in one Linux you're comfortable in all of them, and there's nothing one distro can do or use that others can't, but the experience you get out of the box is completely different.

• Gaming is good on Linux now, but also it's super shit and you should keep windows if you want to game

Gaming is good, but also some games purposefully break compatibility. Mainly multiplayer games have anticheats that detect you're running on Linux and close the game, but also some single player games have DRM that does the same. Does this happen on every multiplayer game? Nope, but since we don't know what you're playing it's a safe bet to tell you to keep Windows just in case. If you want to know specifics check protondb it lists all games on steam and people report how it works on Linux so you can make an assessment for yourself if you want to keep Windows or not. But my personal recommendation is to keep it just in case, it's easier to keep it and not need it than need it and not have it, eventually you might realize you haven't booted windows in a year and wipe it out (that's what happened to me many years ago)

• Sure you can use Nvidia cards, but also no you can't because nothing will work with them

Let me preface this by saying, for the past 11 years (up until last week) I've used Nvidia on Linux exclusively, and never had any issues. The majority of people that I see having issues with Nvidia tried to install the drivers manually instead of using their distribution package manager, this is a common error for beginners, and leads to lots of headaches.

Also some background: Linux is open source, Nvidia refuses to open source their drivers and in fact actively harms open source driver performance. This causes some conflict, and it doesn't help that Nvidia's drivers don't support lots of things they need to in order to be used fully on Linux.

With that in mind, Nvidia open source drivers (which are the default on some distros) are SLOW (not because of the drivers fault, but because nvidias literally check for the driver and run slower on them), so gaming on them is not feasible. On the other hand proprietary drivers work, you get very good performance, but they only support an old technology stack. See, there's a program on Linux called X11, this program essentially is used to draw EVERYTHING, but it's old as fuck, and being so old it has lots of issues (nothing you should care about, but technically there are issues there), so there's been a push for YEARS trying to replace it with a more modern alternative called Wayland, and recently some distros have made the jump and use Wayland as default. The problem is that Nvidia's proprietary drivers don't support Wayland, and so if you have an Nvidia card those distributions don't fully work and you get lots of weird errors (Mint still uses X11, that's part of the reason why I recommend it)

• Just dual boot if you're not sure, but also no don't dual boot because windows will erase your shit if you do

Just dual boot if you want to, this comes from an old problem where Windows would erase the Linux boot drive when it updated. Afaik this doesn't happen anymore because most systems use UEFI to boot. Even if it did it's an easy fix, nothing of actual value gets deleted, it's just the program that allows you to choose windows or Linux, so all you need to do is boot a Linux USB drive and reinstall that program (which might be difficult for someone just starting, which is why when this used to happen to me back in 2004 I would just reinstall Linux since there are ways to do that without losing your data if you prepared ahead).

The key to avoiding all that BS is trying stuff on your own. As long as you dont give up, eventually you'll have a working Linux setup!

You may be surprised how far you can get without looking up a solution to a problem. Sometimes its better to avoid the noise and 'community' until you have a chance to form your own opinion.

Three words:

Trial-and-error.

The worst thing about Linux is the community.

I got into it by installing Ubuntu, playing around with it to figure out how it worked and googling anything I didn't know.

Don't overthink it. Just install and go from there. You can always go back.

You’re overthinking it. It’s not like you’re committed to one OS for life. You sound like you’re contemplating a divorce, haha. In the time it took you to organize your thoughts and write this post you could’ve installed Linux on any random pc you have collecting dust in your closet. Or buy a SBC (e.g. raspberrypi)

Try pop_os! That’s my go-to for the various Linux boxes I have scattered around my house

True change only comes when the pain of staying the same is worse the pain of changing.

Switching to Linux is likely going to be painful. When I switched about 5 years ago, it did not come without its challenges, some pains. Even now, Linux can be a pain in the ass. In spite of those pains, I believe that I am in a better place than I was.

"Life is pain, highness. Anyone's who says differently is selling something." I'm not trying to sell you something. I've felt the pain of Windows. When you are ready, this imperfect community will help you transition from the pain of Windows to the pain of Linux. Just be aware that it may get worse before it gets better. Like ripping a band-aid off it will cause some discomfort but lead to a better outcome.

I hope this helps.

I think a big reason for the disparity in opinions is that linux has not been a consistent experience for everyone. I've used various distros on a lots of different hardware, and I'm daily driving it so it has to cover all of my use cases. Some of my experiences could have led me to say that it works perfectly and you're stupid if you can't figure it out, and some of my experiences could have led me to say that it's broken and it's stupid how much work is needed just to make it work. Since I've had both extremes I know not to say any of the above, but I get why other users don't understand that both sides exist. As frustrating as it might be to be told your problems aren't real or they are your fault, remember that you might be speaking to a person whose reality contradicts what you're saying.

If you are interested in Linux for any reason, find some way of having fun with it. Don’t use it in a way that will ruin that fun (unless you are getting paid).

I run linux in VMs on a Windows machine. I use it for some externally facing stuff, plus I just like messing around with technical stuff. Linux is super easy to install on a VM and I never end up with my fun stuff broken.

I haven't dug as deeply as you, but this is more or less the general feeling I get. I use Windows because it's familiar and I know my programs work. I'm not super techy and don't want to force a tech hobby by switching to Linux. I want to play on Steam, learn Photoshop and who knows what else. I get that folks all have their preferences and passionate people like to banter about them but it does leave things confusing for us noobs.

My personal opinion: it isn't Linux itself that becomes less appealing, its just a portion of the community.

My advice: don't try to learn from reddit, lemmy, or anything similar when you're first starting out. Boot into a live cd, or install on a second drive/an old laptop and just start using it. Do a trial run of what you'd normally do with a computer. When you encounter issues, go to the wiki of the distro, or the documentation of the program in question (may be included in the program, on the programs github page, etc). This will help you learn from the ground up.

As for the whole "distros don't matter, but wait they actually do" paradox, I think I can speak to that. Yes, all distros can do the same things. Some can do those things out of the box, or be made ready for them easily, some take lots of setup. Point is, for an experienced user who understands linux, the difference in distro comes down to having your starting line at a different point. The finish lines can really all be pretty much identical.

Personally, there are two distros I recommend to a newbie to research first, then make an educated choice about what you want to use. Arch and Debian. At a glance, they have the exact opposite approach and philosophies. Cutting edge rolling release, vs outdated but stable point release. The reason I recommend looking at these two in particular is two-fold.

1. They've both been around for ages. They're proven, the documentation is excellent, etc.

2. They're barebones distros with numerous other projects based on each. Some add loads of features to the base install, some just make one big change to an underlying system. Point is, you could choose a basic system and work your way up, or start with some creature comforts pre-loaded

Edit: reason #3. Even if you end up choosing another distro, ie Fedora, by looking into these two "families" of linux, you'll come to better understand some of the elements that are considered fundamental to a given distro, how different release models work, different package managers, etc.

DE = desktop environment VM = virtual machine CLI = command line interface WM = window manager PM = I'd say private message but check the Wikipedia ambiguity page on this

Go with a live medium (sth that runs off a USB stick) as others suggested or install on a separate disk if unsure, not going to recommend anything here.

The real scenario lie between these extreme polar opposites of opinions

People new to a hobby (e.g switching to Linux) usually are more active and post more about their personal opinions and difficulties in the first months after getting into it. Then eventually the OS is just another thing working on their lifes, they move on to read and post about other things.

So what you read is usually the opinion of people who barely know what they are doing

If you want to switch, choose a way - any way is good enough - and follow through it. Choose any distro and desktop environment among the top discussed and you will be fine. Eventually you will understand that a "distro" is just a set of default configurations, and that the biggest differences are usually what package manager (the thing that installs/delete programs) and what Desktop Environment (the thing that display graphics and applications in a certain way) they use, and the same result may be achieved throughout most of them

I don't think those are contradictions, those who advocate for something and those who advocate against are two different sets of people. I don't think you'll find any community that doesn't disagree on things. I would say ignore opinions without motivation, the argument is more important than the position for you can reason if it applies to you. A big point of Linux is freedom so it will never be a monolith like Windows or Mac, this is a feature. There will always be many different distros, way to do things, philosophies, etc. As long as people have the freedom to disagree and do things their own way, they will!

Your problem is similar to that of people who plan/prepare/debate endlessly on what the best programming language is to learn at first. The best advice is (in my opinion) to just pick one that appeals to you and go for it. If it is not the right choice for you, you will find out quickly. You can always switch, you are not set for life. When I started I just picked a distro that sounded like it would fit me and went for it. I'm not on that one anymore but that doesn't matter. What matters is that you get started.

Just use Mint.

I'm not a Linux distro nerd who rices and configs his distro all day (look those two terms up if you don't know).

I'm a system admin working with Linux servers, I use Linux and BSD (sometime) and I like FOSS. This is going to be from my perspective.

You seem to be confused by some material posted around forums on Linux, and find it to be complicated because of information overload. I can see that happening, and whilst I don't think Linux is necessarily hard (there are many hard things on Windows too, FYI - really understanding MS AD is some work), it definitely works differently.

1. The basis of hardware interacting with software on your computer is the kernel. The kernel has drivers which enable translation between your clicks and keystrokes and intentions to what hardware should do (amongst other things that a kernel does). The reason why people say that the distro (distribution) doesn't matter is because at the end of the day, most of them run the default Linux kernel. If you have ever used version control (git) before, then you will be better equipped to understand the custom kernels that some distros might use, and the term "bleeding edge".
2. I'll address nuances of 1, along with 2 and 3 here. The reason why someone might point you towards a distro is for something like your use-case. For example, Pop OS bundles some patches + proprietary drivers from Nvidia to make sure that your Nvidia cards work 99% correctly. Nvidia is a POS (piece of shit) who doesn't like to help the community and like to steal people's work, so Linus Torvalds and the rest of community have strong feelings towards their proprietary software. As such, to get Nvidia working on any distro is a pain, but it is doable. Pop OS does the work for you, because of which people recommend it for gaming.
3. Windows destroying your boot partition is a Windows problem, and mo matter what fixes the community puts in, Microsoft intentionally fucks it for everyone. I'm sure you could guess their motivations. There are workarounds but I don't care because I'm retiring Windows from my life soon.
4. Linux takes patience. There's a good reason for the many RTFM comments towards new users; many things will become clear once you go through relevant portions of good documentation, like the Arch wiki, the Gentoo wiki, the Debian wiki and the FreeBSD wiki.
5. Use distros which do work OOTB (out of the box). Ubuntu/Pop OS/Mint if you don't want to do too much of setup. Again, different distros for different use-cases. But their underlying infrastructure is the same, it's just how the devs of the distro envisioned it. Considering how shit the Windows installer is, I think you'll love the simpler installers of Mint and Pop OS.
6. Use ChatGPT for if you don't understand something. It might not be 100% accurate but for simpler things like "how do I edit my .xinitrc?" It is plenty good.

You're going to have to give me examples of things you don't understand if you'd like help. In essence, the reason Linux takes effort because you inadvertently start working closer with Operating System than on Windows and MacOS who dumb it down. Not saying that it's a bad approach, and you could probably live without a terminal on the beginner-friendly distros too. Actually run a live-install, see how you like it, and make a habit of reading documentation. The skills I've picked up with my interest in Linux got me jobs, which makes a forever advocate of the process.

Good luck!

The best way is to flash literally any distro and try to use it. I use Ubuntu w KDE but the packages are kinda out of date which bothers me. Might flip to Fedora which is more up to date.

Vent. I’ve been switching from macOS to Linux for about 11 years now. Started with a raspberry pi and trying to run it headless. Had to learn stuff out of necessity. Info was a whole lot easier to find and more condensed back then. I really feel for anyone trying to learn this now, so many opinions and options.

My main advice, if you are looking for any, is set a goal that you want with your Linux build. Distros matter to newbies, in my opinion, because it lowers the amount of time and headaches the end user needs to deal with when setting up a purpose build. If you are using hardware on hand, you sometimes have to go with certain distros if you want the headaches to be lower as well, as in some distros deal with Nvidia drivers better than others if you have an nvidia card. There are only so many distros that will run on a raspberry pi out of the box as well. Finding reliable information sources is essential as well. Which, as stated above, is a nightmare right now.

Good luck on your journey

While funny this skit by ProZd is also accurate about what any community can be like.

before and after you discover the subreddit for a hobby

I'd just install something and ignore people until you are more familiar with things. You don't have to stay with the first distro you install, and you can install many at once and see what fits. Stay away from the complicated ones until you're further along on your journey.

As for the dual boot thing, Windows had (has?) a habit of blowing out the Linux bootloader if it's installed on the same physical drive as windows. IDK if this still happens, but when it did it was annoying for someone that isn't too familiar with how bootloaders work. To be safe, using a second drive for your linux stuff and then just choosing which drive to boot from at your BIOS boot chooser (often accessed by hitting F12 at boot) is the safe way to get around this. Then you aren't messing with the drive Windows is on at all and there's no chance for drama if Windows Update decides to do that.

There's a few good beginner distros that work well enough with nVidia; Ubuntu, PopOS, Mint are all good choices for beginners. EndeavourOS and Manjaro seem to get along with nVidia if you want something Arch based if your inclination heads that way eventually. Glorious Eggroll, one of the main contributors to Proton, the gaming backend Valve is working on, builds a distro called Nobara that has most of the gaming/video tweaks preinstalled on a Fedora base, and in my experience it's one of the easiest distros to get started with gaming on Linux. PopOS is a Ubuntu-based distro that's put a lot of effort into being a gaming capable distro as well.

Whatever you choose, realize that Linux is like any other interest on the internet; there's a lot of people that like to lift themselves up by pushing others down. Ignore the donkeys and do what works for you. If that means using Windows, then I guess that's what works and that's fine, too.

TL;DR: Want consistancy? Setup a server. Want a desktop? Pick a distro which seems fine, you can easily switch and distro hop. Don't let others decide, you are _libre_

Every experience is different, that's the beauty and the curse of Linux, you may be able to get consistent results on the same hardware (or similar), but it also depends on your own choices.

You may get 5 laptops in which Linux Mint works better than anything you have seen before so you say "I'll try this on my main laptop!" But sound disappears... weird thing is, 1 hour before you were on Arch, listening to music while playing Minecraft with your friends.

Yes, the last example is taken from my own experience. Personally I think you should start picking a distro that looks pretty and easy to pick up, pick Manjaro if you want, don't let others decide for you. And, if you have the chance or money or whatever try to setup some servers, could be a RaspberryPI a random laptop or even a PC you found in the trash (again, yes, I did found a computer on the trash).

If you really want to learn linux you must learn by experience, that's why everyone contradicts themselves unless you get on server administration, NixOS, etc. You can get consistent, if you want that, start at server administration, install any distro and setup some services! How could you use rsync to make backups? Are you sure you want SMB? Why not iscsi? Why not benchmark them? Have you ever tried playing a game storaged in a server in your network? Well, iscsi and 1 Gb networking can make that work!

On the other side, if you just want a desktop you should try distros by yourself, for most of them a VM or Ventoy is enough, do you like Mint Cinammon because it's Windows like or want a Mac like feel with CuteOS? Maybe wanna try something different with Manjaro Gnome? Why not test all? Arch intrigues you? Pick a VM and the Arch wiki! If you want to try distrhoping I advise you to make a separate home partition and backuo your files. Not "if" you mess up but for when you do, cause you will.

From my point of view, Linux lacks consistency.

Each version functions differently. Then after you install one, It's rare to get a 'setup' file from a website like you do on Windows where there's just one choice (typically an exe file) - instead you might end up with a deb, a flat pack, a tar ball, a snap, a docker, a shell script. Then you double click it and end up with a message saying there's nothing to open this file, or it loads one of multiple software 'stores' and either crashes it, says it's not compatible or some such. Or you end up with two copies of the app - the one that came with your distro but can't be updated via the about window, and another that is a plain file icon that nonetheless is the newer copy of program now running from your downloads folder.

That said, they're all good in their own ways. It is freeing to be out of the Microsoft spyware world, and not have your CPU fan spinning constantly as a "compatibility telemetry service" Hoovers through your system repeatedly.

For many people it's probably more practical to decrappify Windows with various tools such as Winaero Tweaker.

So real for this

It doesn't matter what distro you use, but also you absolutely should not use that one!! Use that one it's much better trust me!.

It doesn't matter what distro you use, the fundamentals are the same, use the distro that best fits your needs out of the box, it's that simple...
Those with experience may help you via suggestions to try something else more fitting to your use case and hardware.
Those who gatekeep are either inexperienced, trolling, memes btw (arch), or have self-awareness stat zero.

Gaming is good on Linux now, but also it’s super shit and you should keep windows if you want to game

What a complete misrepresentation.
Gaming on Linux is great because of Valve's Proton, SteamDeck & VKD3D, WINE, DXVK, GloriousEggroll's Proton GE and many other combined efforts across the ecosystem. It's just not flawless, that's why we have ProtonDB, AreWeAntiCheatYet & many other resources.

And for fucks sake please type the whole words when speaking to beginners. How am I supposed to know what a DE, a VM, a CLI, a WM, PM, or all that other stuff is?

What a non-issue...
Have you ever considered this amazing thing called, asking. It takes 2s to clarify : DE VM CLI WM.
PM doesn't have an established meaning, possibly Power Management but not common enough to be considered established.

Really this whole post is you conflating the differing opinions from diverse people of an entire massive community into the straws you're grasping at.

_{Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)}

Well, I guess we don't really know about everything on Windows either. Lots of people who use Windows haven't even heard of PowerShell or registry. It's not a requirement to know what they are and how to use them. They're just optional tools. You don't need to know absolutely everything to use Linux. There are many people who like (or need) to know about the more complex stuff, but when I tried Linux Mint, there was no need for any of that. It worked out of the box, and I enjoyed it. (Not saying Linux Mint is the best one! Distros are like colors, not everyone likes the same.)

There's good parts and bad parts to using a Linux distro. A polished user experience is not one of them.

There's good parts and bad parts to using a Linux distro. A polished user experience is not one of them.

Try to setup a good backup. Examples:

• filen.io
• syncthing with home server
• external ssd / extra ssd with an app, and automatically save your important files (ex. Pika backup)

If you have setup backups, then just try it. My personal recommendation of distro is openSUSE Tumbleweed.