Every time I see a headline like "Windows introduces thing, nobody asked for it but it's coming to all versions and can't be uninstalled"

me too

idont think so mac is closed source

welcome

My Surface Pro 7 was perma nagging me about going to W11. Screw it, just installed LMDE 2 days ago, chose Mint Debian Edition as I use it on my desktop for the last 13 months.

goodjob bro i use arch but with gnome i used it with kde for a lot of times but now im using gnome

Getting an SSL protocol error on that link.

If steam deck runs it, linux runs it.

They're all steamos

I wish Debian wouldn't try to autoinstall updates out of the box like Windows. Especially when it doesn't have the disk space to do that and bricks itself

Mint is the way I went (13 months ago). Linux Mint Debian Edition in particular.

Mint.

I'll be very honest with you. It's not fancy, it's not snazzy computing. It's simple, designed with a graphical interface in mind, and a good operating system for someone who A) does not know Linux, or B) does not want to fiddle.

Without a doubt, the most user-friendly distro is Linux Mint. Although, if you are a gamer, you might appreciate a distro like Bazzite more, since it comes with everything you will need for gaming pre-installed.

Mint, some people will criticize me for sugesting it but I belive it's the most user friendly distro that you can just search an error on google and get a solution instantly since it's so widespread. I was going to say Ubuntu but they have made some questionable decisions regarding ads.

Stick with something popular. People like to argue about distros, but beyond their package manager and some settings, it's the same thing under the hood (not saying these difference are nothing, but still). For a beginner, or really for anyone just looking to use their system instead of tinkering with it endlessly, a popular, well supported distribution will do the job.

Ubuntu fits that bill, although they made some very weird decisions recently, so I'd suggest starting with Mint if you're new to this. Most everything should work out of the box if you have common hardware, and there's a decent community around in case something goes wrong.

I'd also advise jumping to anything too new, flashy, or promising stuff that should really, really not be distribution dependant. My position on things is that if there's a common tool that's available everywhere to do something, and some distributions decides to make "their own" which does the same thing but is very specific, that's just wasting time. Hence the disdain for raw ubuntu, among other.

If you do ANY gaming at all: Bazzite KDE

If you don't: Fedora KDE

I'd recommend Ubuntu. I've never tried Mint like others have suggested, but one of the strengths of Ubuntu is that it's one of the more popular distros, which means if you want to install a program, it probably has an easy install version for Ubuntu/Debian, or specific instructions, or just a lot of people online who have had the same errors as you and can give you suggestions when something starts causing issues

As already said, Mint is the only sane choice for the common user. The only thing I'd add is to select the MintDE edition which is built off Debian instead of Ubuntu.

You won't notice any real difference between either variant but you should encounter fewer issues on the Debian version.

Talking by experience, the one distro that let me just install it, then use my computer without to care about what distro it was using, was Fedora Specifically the XFCE spin

The best that I can think of that fits those requironments would be Linux mint. When downloading you can select between 3 different Editions, whose only difference is the desktop, all this boils down to is how it looks, so just select whatever looks best to you.

Now something to keep in mind when switching to linux; while you will be able to do all that youd want on a PC on linux, some software that you might use and be accustomed to (like the adobe suit) might not be supported on linux (like the adobe suit) so youd need to find alternatives. Linux was designed around terminals, 'cmd' on windows, so while you can do most in a GUI, you will more often than not find tutorials using said terminals. And unlike on windows with guis, terminals have both direct system access, as well was expect you to know what you are doing, so read what it prints, its important.

Ubuntu is one of the easiest distro to get into Linux in my experience.

I am currently running Linux Mint and it had a lot of issues one both my machines (laptop and PC). Never had these issues with Ubuntu. I am waiting to finish my client's project before I am dropping Linux Mint.

I've been using Pop!_OS, and I'm quite pleased. I would definitely recommend it for Linux newcomers.

Pop! _OS, provided you know how to find specific wifi modules (drivers) for laptops like Macbook or Broadcam devices in general.

I've got some documentation somewhere on the topic let me see if I can find it.

In any case for now I suggest looking it up, it can be installed on literally anything. I installed it on multiple Macbooks using Ubuntu WiFi drivers (both free and non-free WiFi modules) to gain full functionality Wifi-wise.

For the most part "wl" will be available for your device (foss wifi module) so for most devices you'll be fine right outta the box. And, in the event bluetooth is missing, by installing "blueman" for Bluetooth capabilities.

For most if not all Windows devices (amd64, amd86, intel, NVidia, etc) it can be installed in one fell swoop.

Best part, you can encrypt your data using the same password you use to login. It's one of the first things you see before confirming the installation to your device.

And the installer is intuitive and really user-friendly.

In terms of DE's it is as versatile as Ubuntu, it is after all, compatible with most - if not all, Ubuntu repositories.

You can use the default DE GNOME to make your device look like Windows Vista.

You can, alternatively use KDE Plasma to make it look like it's Windows 7 using the sddm display manager.

It's as versatile as any other distro but with an easy installer, you literally just press buttons. Obviously you've gotta wipe the data on the drive. So here's to hoping you've either made backups or, have made peace with the death of that drive.

In any case, failing drives are as easy to fix as telling the drive to ignore the damaged sectors.

Pop!_OS is like Ubuntu if it had Debian's stability IMO. It's been fantastic thus far and I highly recommend it. They also have very extensive documentation!

Endeavour OS. It may be a bit more hands on than something like Ubuntu/Fedora but there are ways less abstractions, better document and community support that makes it simpler over all.

Pick up a note-taking application like Joplin or something and write down solutions to problems and you'll be fine.

I'd recommend against Ubuntu/Fedora/Mint etc. tbh, they are simpler on the surface but there are no ing parts that make it more complex when things break.

Play around with distrobox and docker too, that makes a lot of stuff easier.

I like Kubuntu tbh

I didn't like Mint all that much.

If you have an old laptop you can try a few out and see what works, they'll run faster than windows. If you're on windows you might have access to Hyper-V Virtual Machine and then you can just run some Linux Distros in a virtual machine to see if they're nice. You can even try moving some files into the VM and see if you can still work with them after a migration from windows.

no you would miss a day

I was trying or Linux for gaming... But I found using mods too difficult or annoying and switched back to Windows. That's only for my gaming machine though...I use a Linux laptop for everything else

Yep. Used to be cautious about it working, having to check protondb before buying/installing/playing and what have you..

but I havent done that in a year.

I just install a game, even a new game, and it just works. No thought, no concern,no issues.. OS related, that is, it obviously doesnt make buggy games not buggy, so buggy games are still buggy, but thats the games fault, and you'd run into that regardless of the OS.. Like Cities Skylines 2 bad performance, or modded minecraft crashing due to mod things.

Want to be specific so someone doesnt follow my post with a predictable "WELL I PLAYED insert known buggy game AND IT STILL CRASHED AND I DIDNT GET A BLOWJOB FROM BETTY WHITES GHOST OR ANYTHING, YOU LIAR!"

All the games I play regularly worked with zero configuration. I can count on one hand the number of times I had to tweak something to get a game running. Gaming on Linux is amazing these days.

However, there are a few popular games still broken. I don't do online competitive, so this doesn't impact me.

I was absolutely amazed that the new Overwatch game (Marvel Rivals) ran out of the box with GloriousEggroll v23. Kind of a wild sentence.

The servile corporate wageslaves who disregard their rights and throw a fit whenever they need to troubleshoot something,

This is what drives me fucking nuts. Somehow everyone seems to forget that they are constantly troubleshooting "the computer" for the people that they would have to troubleshoot "Linux" for. And why is that such a complaint? After all:

and asking users to click a button or type a word “is just too much.” It’s freaking sad.

Nobody who has had to deal with computers has gotten away from going through some esoteric help website with commands like "win+R," then "sysinfo" or "regex" or whatever, clicking through a five layer deep directory, and changing something. Alternatively, you might have been forced to uninstall a driver and reinstall an older version, or update bios with a usb. The only difference with linux is the instructions you'll be following will be for a terminal line, MAYBE. Just as an example of what you'll find if you're searching for help with linux. They have instructions for if you have no earthly idea what you're doing. No one can tell me that you had that much hand holding when you were having to figure out why the hell the windows update wouldn't install without giving you a bluescreen of death.

I'm more of a proponent for running some Linux distro for my main OS and then virtualizing Windows if desired for things that are broken in WINE/Proton somehow but work fine in Windows, at this point.

I don't trust Windows enough to run it baremetal in a dual-boot anymore though, virtualization at least isolates it from the host where it counts, where in a dual-boot, even if it generally doesn't happen, there's still the looming threat of Windows screwing up the Linux install somehow, where that isn't a problem when virtualizing since, as I said, it's isolated where it counts, even if paravirtualization is a thing for storage drivers and networking and the like, and hardware passthrough is a thing for things like GPUs.

Yeah i still use reddit alongside lemmy as well, and i started noticing that the pcmasterrace subreddit had more and more post complaining about linux users. It got so annoying that i ended up leaving the subreddit. It was kinda ironic because they kept complaining about how linux users bring up the fact that they use linux, but it seemed to me like i saw more posts of people complaining about it instead of actual linux users talking about linux lol

I installed Pop!_OS on a Thinkpad and made it my main work computer. It is the most boring computing experience ever. Nothing ever breaks. It just works.

The Steam Deck was the reason I changed. Used the Deck as my only PC for a couple of months and liked the experience so I changed.

I've had OpenSUSE on my PC for over a year now and really like it..... But I'll be honest, the move and troubleshooting problems for setup was a pain in the ass. But it's stable and steady since I've gotten over setup pains.

They say they're the distribution for humans. Apparently, it is so!

Don't need it to be the year of the Linux desktop for me to switch to use it myself.

year +1

The only way Linux ever becomes viable for the mainstream is when there is a single distribution that covers every feature and is as streamlined and user friendly as possible.

• No command lines ever for anything
• huge software compatibility
• hardware compatibility of the newest and oldest of hardware
• easy troubleshooting even your nan can follow
• and most of all: every Linux user agrees it is the best Linux distribution (unless you are into niche stuff)

So until even you guys can agree on one distribution being the best, it will not be the year of the Linux ever.--

I switched a few years ago, and recently spun up a secondary Windows install because I was planning on checking out Game Pass. I couldn't make it more than a couple hours, Windows 11 is a hot mess now and it felt really gross to see all the ads everywhere. Even the login screen isn't free of them anymore!

I honestly don't know how people use that shit, I wouldn't force it on somebody I hated.

Or when an insurance company CEO somehow transitions to an "unalive" state...

I came 1.5 years ago when reddit fucked up big. Read about Linux here a lot, but not engaged much with it. But since I can't make the switch to Windows 11 I tryed out Linux Mint two weeks ago. Haven't booted into Windows since then, but for one game i have to start using a mod Manager and that won't run in Linux. Every other game I play, even with mods, works just fine. It's fucking cool. And it's so damn nice that I can decide exactly how it looks and feels. So, thanks for that Lemmy.

If ur new to Linux try mint. Dont try arch or gentoo or some other distro cos someone said it was cool. Take the basic Linux mint and get urself comfortable with it first.

Yes, I'm new to Lemmy, ex-Reddit, and now I'm looking at what else I can do. I ran Linux Mint on an old laptop for many years, but that was when I was still working and I also had a company laptop on Windows if I needed it. So now I'm retired and currently I only have a refurbished Lenovo with Win 10, which goes out of support soon. I suppose I could do dual boot on that machine, but I'd rather have Windows in a VM for the rare occasions when I can't get something to run in Wine. I have no idea where I'd buy a copy of Win 11, but presumably Microsoft have a store.

I've read that modding many games is a total bitch-and-a-half on Linux, too. No idea if that's true or not, but still. I'm a sicker for fuckin' with games and if stuff breaks on Linux that works fine on windows, that's a problem.

Yeah, but then someone does the same with systemd, am I right?

/ducks and runs

noice

What made you choose Void?

still didn't reach that level im stuck at arch level how do find void is it good and from which point

I also did dual boot for 'da gamez'... but then found that I've never had to boot into Windows for any game whatsoever. It's been a few years now. So apparently I didn't need dual boot after all.

If you want Steam OS on a desktop, install Bazzite. It's the closest your going to get and it's great.

What do you expect from SteamOS 3?

Kinda same. Using windows only for League of Legends. Yes, I am hooked on that. Best thing I can do is find other games to take up some time. I just installed ZenlessZoneZero via sleepy launcher yesterday on my Mint install. Time to dive into those gachas!

Neither of those is going to happen...

My whole family uses Linux Mint and they are normal people.

I use podman like a normal human.

MusicBee not working on Linux is maybe the biggest thing holding me back. I want my play counts preserved, damnit. Also Age of Empires 2 DE doesn't seem to even have a Proton option.

It wasn't shit from the start though, was it.

Back when Windows 95 was a new thing it blew everything else out of the water. Suddenly there was an operating system that even regular people were paying attention to and getting excited about, and it actually deserved the hype.

Windows was a product at that time, where Microsoft made their money by people purchasing the operating system. And so the incentive was to make a great product that people wanted to buy and use.

This was true all the way through the Windows XP and 7 days, and only with the release of 8 and especially 10 did we start to see things change.

Microsoft - who used to put so much effort into trying to prevent people installing cracked Windows - suddenly didn't seem to care so much anymore about enforcing that. They'd realised that the true exploitable value was in the online ecosystem and the data, not the product, and that was the turning point for everything.

have you tried bottles? I've great luck with using it for windows only software and it's way more user friendly than wine by itself.

You could dual boot, or virtualize a few machines.

I agree with you in principle, but I kind of liked XP. It had some great features for retro gaming, which I don't recall seeing before then.

It has a hundred desktops

Are you referring to distros? Just pick one that's widely used and that's it.

An absence of major software like ms office. Adobe and autodesk suites

You can use it online. Or, even better, use something like LibreOffice. For adobe and autodesk you're SOL but that's very intentional and it sucks. The only solution is a VM.

and not being able to avoid the command line when shit hits the fan.

I don't really get this. You can't avoid using cmd on windows either when shit goes wrong. There's nothing strange there.

You can't even use Windows without running some sort of cleanup script that stops half the crap on it.

It really depends on your use-case, your criticism is valid though. In general it would be way better for new users to not learn about it as something that gets slapped onto a Windows machine, but on fair grounds for comparison (meaning on a machine from hardware vendors like System76, Tuxedo, Slimbook etc).

For Software it really is a hen-and-egg problem. Big companies won't support Linux until enough people are there, and enough people won't come until known software is available. This however changes gradually; The Software Store is receiving payment features in the future (almost any distro uses Flatpaks in the background), so there will be more viable paths to monetize your software product for companies. Meanwhile the amount of users rises more and more for years now thanks to 1. Valves push with SteamOS + Hardware and 2. India and China who got comparably high Linux userbases (I think in India it's 13% of all desktop PCs).

So yeah, not there yet. But not "far from ready", really. It just needs some software improvements that are in the works, and for the device vendors to become more known.