this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Just dive in head first. You will likely find things you miss about windows but if you give Linux a fair chance I promise you in the end it pays off.
My switch was first a dual boot but I quickly realized I was rarely booting into windows and eventually just formatted the drive to purge all Microsoft from my system.
These days even games only built for windows run just finez if not better than Linux.
LibreOffice is great alternative to MSOffice and most other windows software will run with some form of wine (wine is not a windows emulator).
Freedom isn't free. But it sure as heck is worth the extra steps to get there.
Linux Mint is a great starter Distro.
Agree about linux mint but need to be aware that he bought new laptop and kernel in version 21 quite outdated for modern hardware ,recommendly would be for him to wait for 22 version already i guess.
linux mint has an edge version, which comes with a way newer kernel
Yeah,but we definitely need tell him about it existence :)
Seconding Linux Mint!
I came to linux because I was building a new pc at the time win11 came out, and I saw how much more like apple it looked.
I wasn't afraid to try linux because I'd already done some easy mods to my steam deck (decky and retropi). Using the steam deck's computer desktop was almost like using older windows to me; I appreciated that.
Downloading programs was like android to me; using the system's app store, or sideload an app or a second app store, or follow the dev's readme.txt. Easy, fun, free, ad-free.
I downloaded different linux distributions to a bunch of spare thumb drives and tried them one at a time. I figured, the moment I had a problem that lasted more than an hour with one distro, I'd move on to the next. If I couldn't hack it past four tries, I'm going back to windows 10.
Linux Mint was the second attempt, and it's pretty intuitive to use, imo. It feels like the ease of using android, but with a desktop and my beloved windows-style taskbar.