this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023

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Advice for a middle-age, moderately pc knowledgeable person to finally switch to or become proficient with Linux? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This is my third attempt. Partly to rage quit Windows, and partly to gain utility and control with some professional AV software.

I have converted an old Asus netbook to Ubuntu netbook remix and used it for a while. I was impressed with how much better that tiny thing ran with Linux than Windows. But in the end it still had less power than a TI-84. So I stopped using it, and never really learned Linux proper.

I dual boot my Chromebook, so I can use gimp for photos on vacation, but everything I do with the Linux partition is cut and paste from articles by people who know what they're doing. (I was motivated to post here by a meme about that.)

I'm thinking of dual booting my main desktop, because I need Windows for some fairly processor intense A/V software I use for work. So what would be a good distro to look into for a novice and where should I look for a tutorial? I would ultimately like to see if I can use Linux to run my AV software in emulation and add drivers for some professional audio interfaces. I'm fed up with windows and trying to see how far I can get without it. Your help is appreciated in advance, and if this is inappropriate for this topic, let me know and I'll delete it.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I personally finally made the fulltime switch in November 2021 after years of on again off again attempts. The one I was finally able to stick with was Endeavour OS with KDE desktop. It's basically just an arch distro with a good installer and som QoL apps. Easy to maintain and a good community if you need assistance.

And with the creation of Bottles running windows software has been surprisingly easy. I do some home studio recording and just got EZdrummer setup as a vst in Ardour, and it just works.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Eh, just use a super really easy linux distro like ZorinOS or Mint and stick with it.

t. Currently 39 years old and been using Linux since around 10 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I just made the full time switch to pop os and I've been happy so far

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Get a pre-owned Thinkpad or Dell Latitude for cheap. Upgrade it if you want, especially with SSD & RAM. Get some Linux on it -- I recommend Linux Mint for ease of use.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The best advice I can give is to just use Linux. Back in early 2006 when I started switching over to Linux I would dual boot, and any time I ran into something that was hard to do on Linux I would just boot into Windows to save time. Eventually I decided to stick with it and not reboot when that would happen. Linux back then was not as user friendly as it is now, so for the most part this should be the exception and not the rule. Obviously some software is going to be Windows specific, but the best thing you can do to learn is just stick with Linux and use it.

As for distros, whatever is the most used which is probably Ubuntu right now, will be best as people will have plenty of answers and questions that will cover what you are going through compared to a niche distro. When you get more experience with Linux, you will get a better sense for what you want out of a distro like rolling releases like Arch, functional package management like with NixOS or whatever else may be important to you. So just stick with Ubuntu or whatever is more popular right now and reevaluate after you get to the point your comfortable with command line tools.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Consider reading the content on Linuxjourney.com

[–] Barbarian 2 points 1 year ago

Second this, really great site.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I use OpenSUSE, because it has YaST, which is basically the Control Panel in Windows. Without it, I'd have to use the terminal. It also installs on just about anything.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Install Linux Mint in a virtualbox VM. It gets up and running so quickly, and works extremely well.

I have been focusing more on learning Linux at work, between some Fedora VMs we use for various things, and the Mint VM I spun up myself. It’s great because jumping between windows and Linux is a simple matter of moving the mouse cursor to a different monitor. I usually just leave Linux Mint running full screen on one of my monitors.

I’m not experienced with lots of distros, but Mint is damned impressive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Apparently ChatGPT is really good as a personal tutor. You can ask it specific questions and it will answer with detailed tutorials and step-by-step guides.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a 40 something who's used Linux exclusively a few times before but always came back to windows for one reason or another, I now use a MacBook as my primary. I hate the ads served in windows and the poor handling of focus.

MacOS to me has been like a more polished Linux with broader support for applications.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I dislike anything that comes out of the Apple ecosystem. Keep that in mind when I say that I agree here insofar as MacOS being a better user option than Windows at this point.

That being said, I would encourage OP in their pursuit to see if Linux can fit their needs. Anecdotally, I've been using Linux (Fedora, KDE) as my daily driver for years now. I find it quite polished and have no issues with finding applications that fit my needs.

Realistically though, application support can be problematic. If a specific proprietary piece of software is required or important to you and it's not available in Linux, that could certainly be a non-starter. You could fuss about with wine and try getting that stuff working, but no guarantee it'll stay working so I wouldn't rely on that. I know OP is interested in A/V stuff. That's not an ecosystem I'm very familiar with. I know it exists, but I don't know how good it is. No harm in trying though, all it costs is time.

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