Linux is interesting to me, but I’ve never dipped my toes into it because it seems really intimidating (and a lot of loud people act pretty snobbish about it towards non-Linux users, making it seem even more intimidating to get into; I’d rather not be bullied for my choices in software or my ignorance in others).
It seems so complicated to me, and there’s so many types, and so much lingo that I’m not versed in, so that when I consider getting into it I just feel so overwhelmed I can’t even think.
My understanding of Linux is bare bones to say the least. I understand it’s highly customizable. I understand it’s a lot of manual work, though, at least… it sounds like it? From what I’ve seen people say, it seems like you need to remember a lot of codes and functions to do basic things unless you install interfaces for things? Again, I’m really ignorant about this stuff, so excuse my lack of proper terminolgy and such.
I also am under the impression that Linux isn’t the greatest for most games? Or at least, that’s what I heard a lot years ago, I don’t know if it’s still true (or if it was even true back then). If that’s still a thing, is it because Windows is just what everyone defaults to when designing software? How viable is gaming on Linux?
And how does one even… go about setting up Linux? How do you choose what er… version? Type? Ah, distro? Again this… terminology is foreign to me, I’m not fully sure what I’m saying. Would I have to whipe a laptop of Windows to install Linux on it? How would I do that?
I am fascinated by the concept of Linux but like I said, there’s just so much. I have ADHD and Autism and combined, the whole idea of jumping into this is so goddamn overwhelming to consider figuring it out all by myself.
Sorry if this is out of place, by the way.
ETA: Thanks for all the help so far everyone. I’m gonna start playing with various distros using an older laptop of mine. I bought it real cheap and used a few years ago and it has mainly just been used as my own personal tv that only plays Whose Line Is It Anyways? with Drew Carry every moment of every day, virtually nonstop… and the poor thing can do that on Linux just fine, too.
ETA2: After backing up the Whose Line episodes off the laptop, I tested out Ubuntu using virtual box on my regular laptop but it didn’t entice me much, so I searched for something else and found “Live Window Maker”, a uh, fork(? is that the right term?) of Debian and installed it onto the laptop. So far, successful! I havent explored it much since I finished my backup last night and installed the distro before I left for work, but I’m excited to start playing with it. I really enjoy the classic windows interface styling of this one, so I’m looking forward to playing with it.
Download a widely supported Linux distribution like Ubuntu and put it on a USB stick.
Now boot from that stick. It will load (slowly) but it will not touch your disk.
You can have a look around and kick the tires. Check out the default apps. Install some more apps.
You can reboot and remove the USB pen to get back home to Windows.
Now download something else and repeat.
Do this until you feel that Windows is not your home anymore.
That was my journey, maybe it is yours too.
Everything you’ve said about Linux is pretty accurate. Great job!
There’s a lot of complicated Linux distros, but obviously they’re not for 99% of people starting out. To start out on Linux, back up all your files (or don’t), and install it! Easy as… well it’s not that easy, but people pretend it is.
There’s lots of distros, but one that will probably have the most agreement on from the community will be Ubuntu: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop#1-overview
You can follow that link, and if you get stuck, just make a post saying “Windows sucks but I can’t do X”, and 1,000 angry Lemmies will try their hardest to help you
I know literally nothing about computers and I’ve been daily driving Linux for well over a decade. I just use Ubuntu and I’ve been pretty much using all the default settings, apart from some customization here and there. There was a time years ago when I wanted to learn and tinker, but in reality I never learned to use the command line for more than running updates (I still sudo apt-get update cause it makes me feel like hackerman).
My point is, Linux is super easy to just set up and run. If you want to learn more, there’s plenty of opportunities for that. But it’s not something to be intimidated by at all. A lot of the community is enthusiasts (who’ve I’ve found extremely helpful back when I used to have problems) so you’ll hear more jargon in these spaces. But I’m sure there are tons of others like me that use Linux just fine day to day without understanding a ton about computers.
I’m fairly new to Linux as well, but have some experience. I’ll try to share my first steps.
My very first step was gathering information: what are Linux distros? What’s the difference between them? Which is easiest to learn? There are a bunch of articles and forum pages dedicated to these topics. I learned that you can dual boot (i.e. no need to wipe Windows drive), that installation happens with a bootable media, like USB, and that gaming is generally not a problem. My first distro was Pop!_OS, which I don’t regret: it’s based on Ubuntu, meaning old, stable foundation, uses Gnome by default (look up “desktop environments”) which is gorgeous and very extensible, and had Nvidia drivers pre-installed, which is apparently a big thing.
My personal method of learning is as-I-go: say, I just installed Linux, and now I want to install Firefox. How do I do that? I apparently can’t just run a .exe file like in Windows. So I googled it, and found out about package managers, and how to use them. My very first command wasn’t successful, but with time, I learned to use it without looking it up, simply from recurring use.
If you do decide to install Linux, you may want to look up something like “top 10 things to do after installing [your distro]”, sometimes these help deal with some annoying quirks out of the gate.
If jumping into the deep end isn’t for you, then the best resource to find all about Linux is the Arch Wiki. Don’t try to navigate it from the home page, it’s like a maze. Instead, whenever you look up information, try to find a page about whatever you’re looking up in the wiki.
Here’re a list of things to look up for your convenience, to cover your base:
- dual boot
- desktop environments
- Linux begginers friendly distros
- Linux gaming reddit
That’s just off the top of my head.
It’s gonna be tough. Stuff won’t work as you want it to, and sometimes you’ll end up scrounging the web for hours because you searched the wrong words. Linux isn’t plug-and-play like Windows is, it demands a lot of attention at first, and maintenance later on. But at the end of the day, you’ll have an operating system that works for you, not the other way around. You’ll have a gorgeous desktop that everyone who doesn’t use Linux will be jelaus of. And you’ll have a deeper understanding of technology, which today is priceless.
I hope this helps you, even a little. Oh, and don’t pay attention to the snobbish Linux users. If at the end of the day you find yourself struggling too much, not wanting to invest the needed amount of time and energy into it… there’s no shame in coming back to Windows. I admit, it’s very convenient and easy to use, and with enough know-how you can customize it too. Just don’t give up at the first sight of trouble.
Good luck :)
Linux isn’t really like this anymore depending on the distro you install. I switched to linux around 2 years ago when windows 11 was announced, switched to Pop!_OS. My idea was to dualboot with windows 10 until I don’t need it anymore but messed up during the installation and eradicated windows. Best mistake of my life. I don’t do much heavy gaming, most of the games I play are native and the one’s that aren’t run perfectly with proton. Really, I never needed windows in the first place. I slowly learned to do stuff on the command line but most popular distros have graphic interfaces for installing software, updating, etc.
Very easy to use, other than since PopOS uses the gnome interface it doesnt have a similar workflow to windows, a bit more similar to mac, actually. Takes a while to get used to but I’ve lesrned to love it. You can also install other interfaces like KDE and cinnamon that look more like windows by default easily with 2 commands you can get from a youtube tutorial.
I used a virtual machine to try out different linux systems until I found one I liked.
You might like Zorin, Mint, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, or Pop!OS. They’re all very easy to set up and feels a lot like an easier and faster windows installer nowadays.
