this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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I find myself actually considering paying 30$ a year for prolonged windows 10 support because I find the switch to linux really overwhelming. Like being sent grocery shopping, but all lables are in traditional chinese. Some things you can figure out very easily, but troubleshooting anything takes me days.
Fair disclosure, I personally run OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, BUT...
Honestly for this situation I think Linux Mint might be your on-ramp. It's very familiar from a user experience perspective from someone coming from Windows, and everything can be done with GUI apps.
It updates the entire system smoothly through an "app store" so it stays nice and secure. "Cinnamon" is also a highly attractive and smooth desktop environment.
I've switched a few people to it who were sick of Windows on older machines, but NOT computer people at all, and they've enjoyed it a lot! The nicest thing is it will feel like your computer again, not like you're leasing it from Microsoft.
Don't try and "completely switch over" in one go.
Look up how to try Linux in a virtual machine on your existing setup (so you don't have to risk anything!) and just try it and play around with installing and using it.
An old laptop or something is also a great way to try it out.
You can always dual-boot if you want. I sure did for a while until Win10 started BSODing for no discernable reason, and refused to let me "refresh this PC" because "Sorry, can't. Goodbye."
I still have it, just in case, but it's been most of the year since I've even bothered logging into it.
If you game: you'll want Heroic Launcher for your GoG/EA stuff, and Steam of course, and maybe Bottles to run your old CD/DVD games maybe. :)
Sometimes things take a little tweaking, but Mint's community is fantastic and helpful. You really will start to learn a lot about computers just by using Linux a little and trying things, while Windows makes every effort to hide things from you. ("wE'rE gEtTiNg ThInGs ReAdY" who's "we"?!)
As you start to get comfortable with it, it will grow with you. You can start trying to get the hang of the terminal, or jump to another distro once you learn why you might prefer to.
But you really can't go wrong just trying Mint out. It's overall just a pleasant OS.
ProTip: You'll be asked about a file system when you install any distro. I spent COUNTLESS HOURS on researching this question. BTRFS can be a bit of an advanced file system, but if you just "set it and forget it", it has the ability to take incremental snapshots without taking a ton of space! So if something really goes south, you can use an app called "Timeshift" to just roll back.
This is great for your root drive / partition, but I wouldn't suggest it for your home folder. :)
(Just like Windows rollback used to do, but...more reliable lol)
Lol sorry for the ramble but I hope this might help you feel a little less lost at the grocery store. ;)
Thank you for your detailed comment. :)
I am dual booting Linux Mint Cinnamon, and you are totally right. The "app store" is very nice and I was honestly impressed how much control Cinnamon offered and made it accessible for beginners through GUI. It felt more streamlined than Win10 in some places. Steam's Proton is also a huge deal, as most games work great with it enabled out of the box. I do however often feel lost. I didn't expect that but the thing most difficult for me is basic stuff, like navigating the start menu. I really like the customization Win10 offered and miss it dearly.
I guess it is part not having a feeling on how Cinnamon works yet. After using Windows since 2006 I know my way around it failry well, and I don't have that "gut-feeling" in Linux yet. It will come with time, but atm I am feeling a little defeated.
If you send me a message on matrix or a dm here I can help you with that unlimited no strings attached, I have over 10 years of experience and am very free!
That's very nice of you!
Nah, I have ulterior motives, the more people on linux, the more support linux gets, the easier it is to move people to linux, the more support it gets...
And I can't stand using windows.
I knew it was to good to be true xD I managed to troubleshoot a few things over the past days so I am good atm. But thank you for your offer :)
You could try OpenSUSE, it has Yast2 GTK GUI control panel for everything, no command line needed. Assuming CLI is what you find troublesome.
And GUI package manager
I personally won't pay for the extra security updates, and will switch to Linux, but like you said, it'll be very overwhelming at first. I've used kubuntu on my laptop for a while now, but it's hard to rewrite my own software for Linux because it uses native system APIs.
I get it. I also don't want to signal to Microsoft that switching to a subscription model is valid, for an OS I already payed for. I worry they'll adapt it for all services released in the future, which are declining in quality. They are basically becoming Adobes ugly sibling.
I know, this is a contradictory statement to what I have written before which was driven by frustration mainly. Managed to troubleshoot a few things since then.