So, Im Ditching Windows And Moving Fully To Linux...

[HMS_Dave]

Have you had the covid jabs? Bill Gates is controlling you.

Ever since i had my covid jab, ive been waking up in a pool of sweat to the Windows 98 crash noise, shortly followed by the infamous windows 98 login jingle. I've been posting this to the Daily Mail scientist contributors for ages now and others are reporting similar instances.

 

[HMS_Dave]

This is an interesting thread for a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user.

I did a quick search “What is the best Linux for a Windows user?” and each result suggested a different one.

What do the experts on here thin?

I just want it to work without too much intervention. I know there will be many changes, but I don’t want to fiddle around too much.

Ubuntu seems to be the most user friendly. But i have had good experiences with Mint also. I currently use Pop!OS and again nothing out of the ordinary. What i personally recommend is to boot it off of a USB stick and you can try it out without effecting your current installation of Windows and get familiar with it.

 

[Edwardoka]

This is an interesting thread for a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user.

I did a quick search “What is the best Linux for a Windows user?” and each result suggested a different one.

What do the experts on here thin?

I just want it to work without too much intervention. I know there will be many changes, but I don’t want to fiddle around too much.

Before taking the plunge I recommend looking at a few different Live CDs which let you try without making any changes to your setup - a point which @HMS_Dave also made while I was writing this post.

The question of "which linux distro should i use" has as many answers as answerers. I use Ubuntu* for historical reasons, namely that the servers my code ran on used the same package manager so I could be assured version compatibility. It's fine. Pretty user-friendly.

Oddly I never switched when my job changed and suddenly I was developing for CentOS servers which use an entirely different package manager, but if I were going to start again for a new desktop machine, I'd try Fedora.

* A major Ubuntu release changed the desktop environment (the user interface) from Unity to GNOME, and I didn't like it at all, so I changed GNOME to KDE and now have a hybrid that exists somewhere between Ubuntu and kubuntu.

 

[yello]

What i personally recommend is to boot it off of a USB stick and you can try it out without effecting your current installation of Windows and get familiar with it.

Agreed.

There are loads of flavours of linux out there so I'd start by narrowing the choice down.

Linux has what are called desktop environments - basically the GUI stuff, the menus etc - and some of those need more memory than others. Have a read up on the different desktop envirponments (look at screen shots etc) and decide which one you like the look of - then make sure your existing PC has the memory to run it. Generally speaking, most recent PCs have enough memory for the most hungry desktop environments but something like Cinnamon will be pretty slow on an old old PC with only 2GB of memory. There are some DEs that will run on sod all memory, so there are always options.

Then there's graphics cards, wifi... If you have anything out of the ordinary then make sure your chosen flavour of Linux will support it out of the box. These days, most flavours of Linux will support most everything but it wasn't so in 10 years ago. Ubuntu is particularly good at having the bases covered, though other flavours are just as good these days.

But again, whatever you have, there will probably be an option somewhere. I have an old PC that I run Debian on, with the XFCE desktop. It has a cheap old WiFi dongle that I was able to find the drivers for and compile up.

But you shouldn't need to go to those lengths, I do it because I like the challenge. My point is that it's possible, such is Linux. Smply booting up the chosen Linux version from a USB stick will tell you if it'll run on your PC or not.

My own fave is Mint, I find it stable and well supported. My only niggle with it is file sharing overing the network using SAMBA. And it's not even due to Mint, it's due to changes in the SAMBA software. But again, such is Linux, there are more than acceptable workarounds/solutions.

Give it a whirl, it's not as daunting - nor as different - as you might think.

 

[KneesUp]

I had a Mac many years ago - it was an aluminium Powerbook G4 12" so (checks Wikipedia) it must have been 2003. It lasted a long time - I think it was 2008 when it retired hurt, but I dropped it many times. In the end it needed a new keyboard and a new battery and so I decided to replace it.

I couldn't justify the price of a new Mac so I bought a Windows laptop but got rid of Windows almost immediately and used Ubuntu instead. What followed was a few cheap-ish Windows laptops, all with Windows removed and Ubuntu or some other flavour of Linux installed, all of which fell apart sooner rather than later - being self employed my laptops get moved from work to home a lot. The last one, an HP Elitebook, which was actually quite well made, was dual boot because some bits of software I needed I couldn't replicate with Ubuntu. Windows 8.1 was ok. Sort of. The Elitebook allowed you to install two hard drives, so the boot drive was split, Windows had 2/3 of the drive and Ubuntu 1/3, and then all my data was on the other drive. Windows filled it's drive. Ubuntu got nowhere near filling it's drive. I've used Ubuntu or other flavours of Linux as my main OS for 10 years or so and it's been great.

Anyway, the Elitebook was also getting a bit long in the tooth and as much as I got to the point where I nearly didn't mind Windows 8.1, it was always a bit less slick that Ubuntu - Windows Explorer in particular is hideous. And Windows laptops are generally dull and ugly and badly made - and in contrast to when my Powerbook gave up, I looked at Mac prices and thought that, with the new M1 processor, the prices weren't that bad, considering the performance you get. So given that I needed either Windows or OSX (Mac OS) to run some of the software I need for one of my contracts, I went back to Mac. There are very few things you can't do with Ubuntu, but some specialist software might be an issue particularly if you are not the one who gets to choose what software you use.

That said, I did like Ubuntu / Linux and I have a virtual Debian install on my Mac, just for old times sake. I never had any reliability issues, although in the early days I had a few problems with it not connecting to the wi-fi after sleep - I can't even remember the details now but it was an easy command line fix, i..e. I had a line of text saved on the desktop that I just pasted at a command prompt to restart the wifi. I can see how that sort of thing is off putting, but it was no bother really, and as I say it was maybe 10 years ago. I've not had a similar problem with later versions / other hardware.

As others have said, the live USB is a great way to try different flavours. I mainly used Ubuntu but also used Lubuntu (very low hardware requirements) Mint and PopOS! a fair bit too.

 

[CharlesF]

Thanks for the help, I need to take time to re-read is all. I have a 28gb USB and I will try setting up Ubuntu on that, to give it a shot.

 

[DCBassman]

My only niggle with it is file sharing overing the network using SAMBA. And it's not even due to Mint, it's due to changes in the SAMBA software.

Mint 20 onward has some new thing for sharing, but only between Mint machines, will check it out later.

 

[mustang1]

All software has bugs. As software gets released and updated, it's inevitable that an operating system will develop bugs. The speed in which they are rectified is very important. I personally haven't experienced any bugs myself, but more expert users, who delve deep may.

This is what I really dislike about consumer products (and business products because they use the same software): how easily bugs are introduced and that it's alla bout features.

In other industries like medical, airplanes, rocket launches, radar cruise on cars, things like this would never be tolerated and the quality of code is far superior. I know Tesla used some off-the-shelf products but then they were modified.

Consumer stuff is all just meh.

 

[yello]

Mint 20 onward has some new thing for sharing, but only between Mint machines, will check it out later.

Yes, it does doesn't it? You've got me scouring my mind now, the name won't come...

I have occasional problems with nemo and have to use nautilus instead, or even an ftp application (my choice is filezilla) I should really try out some other file managers really

 

[yello]

My talking about desktop environments earlier has taken me back to when I used to try out and mess around with them. I had an old netbook that I ran Crunchbang (remember that? #!) on. That didn't have a 'desktop environment' as such but you could mess around with the windows manager (openbox?) no end and customise/tweak/hack all manner of things. I used to have a number of personalised conky scripts that made the desktop all look very tech. Eye candy really, even if of some (limited) use.

Then, on another machine, I messed about with compositing (particularly compbiz) and had a very funky desktop (that gobbled up limited memory) but that only lasted until the next OS upgrade (I was probably using Ubuntu then) I remember I had a devil of a job getting the Ubuntu to play nice with the graphics (Nvidia GeoForce) on that machine.

Ah yes, brings it back. Oh such fun I was having!

These days, I don't bother with such whizzo front end stuff and most of my playing is 'under the hood'. But, out of interest, I did a quick search of the desktop environments available today.... my word, there's a number! AND some interesting looking new distros. I'm no longer in the playing mode (as I say, I've settled on Mint) but I could have hours of fun downloading distros, flashing USB sticks and trying things out. In truth, some of my trials only lasted 10 minutes or so before I crossed the name off my list of trialists - most for no other than aesthetic reasons. I, to this day, cannot fathom why someone would use Puppy Linux!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

If you are okay with Windows 10 that of course has Linux built into it. So you can switch between windows and Linux commands at the drop of a hat without rebooting or firing up virtual machines or containers.

The reason there are so many flavours of Linux is that the core (the kernel) is actually very small. Then you install what you additionally need on top via the package managers. What the flavours have done is pre installed a selection of packages , added a flavour of desktop and added a nice initial setup process.

The Windows approach is to throw in many of the “packaged apps” into the core. So you get features whether they are useful to you or not. So for instance you get teams for video calls whether you want it or not. Teams starts on boot whether you want it or not.

Some flavours of Linux are very light and very secure without a desktop. Some are around 5Mb total size and can sit and run easily in memory. These flavours are often to be found running your Internet router / WiFi or suitable for raspberry pi

 

[Scotty55]

I’ve installed Kubuntu, the version of Ubuntu with the KDE desktop.

Linux is usable out of the box, but you can get under the hood and tinker. Kind of like driving a car and being able to do your own maintenance.

 

[HMS_Dave]

I got Elite Dangerous running last night. Required a simple command in protontricks. I find it difficult to tell the difference from windows in terms of looks and performance. I understand that while it isn't a simple install and hit play experience most will want, it took me all of 2 minutes to find a community that had the solution. Elite has no linux native support at all. Proton really is brilliant.

For those that are full on gamers, you can check https://www.protondb.com/ to see what others say about how your games will run...

 

[Craig the cyclist]

Bet this thread turns into a "you should use the OS I use, you're all wrong".

I'm only reading it in the hope that @HMS_Dave comes on and says he meant to say he is ditching windows and moving fully to Velux.

 

[tyred]

Personally I think hardwood windows are best.