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this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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Why wait, do it now.
I jumped ship to Linux when Win 7 died, cause I'd rather be fucked by a rusty fencepost than be forced to use 10, and 11 is right out.
Looking to move an older Windows 7 laptop to Linux this week, any suggestions? Feels like there’s so much.
I've been doing the same thing, trying out distros on an old laptop in anticipation of moving all my machines over to Linux.
Linux Mint is by far the most popular for noobs on older hardware, has a clean if simple interface, and will run on tiny amounts of RAM, so if you have no other suggestions and don't know much about Linux, I'd say start there.
Linux Mint is not Ubuntu, but based on it, so there's a lot of support. As a Windows and Mac user I found the Linux Mint "Cinnamon" desktop environment easy enough to navigate, it's solid in terms of broad hardware support, and there are a LOT of resources if you have questions, want to watch a tutorial, or need a helping hand, all pluses for a noob. (And I don't think I had to touch the command line once, when I had it installed: bonus.)
But the cool thing is that most Linux distros have a "LiveUSB" install, meaning that you can load the .iso of your choice onto a 4GB USB drive, boot off the USB, and take the hardware for a spin without installing anything. LiveUSB means you can try as many distros as you like until you get tired of making USB drives, and all for free.
Somebody else here suggested "Ubuntu" to you without saying another word about it, but there's a lot more to it than that. You still have to pick a desktop environment, for example, and while there's nothing wrong with plain Ubuntu, I honestly don't think that's the most user-friendly distro you could start with.
Try it, see if you like it. Most distros are completely free, including Ubuntu. But if you're just looking at finding ONE to start with, again, try Linux Mint: it's popular for Linux noobs for a reason, it's stable, and even if you find you don't like it, it's a great place to dip your toe in and see how Linux works for you personally.
I agree with every point you make except for the desktop environment front end.
While it is nice to install a distro with a given desktop environment OOTB, you can always change it, and even have multiple ones installed at the same time. This is typically a better approach to testing out desktop environments because you don't have to reinstall every time.
I am testing both, so for me a mix of both is best.
This is true for Debian, but not for many others. Even Fedora ships with preloaded DE "spins" now. And changing it post-install requires more than beginner level knowledge, specific to that OS. For someone coming over to Linux directly from Windows/Mac, that's not really feasible upfront.
If you just need a general purpose desktop and it's your your first time, I would suggest just picking a popular and stable one with lots of documentation like Debian, Mint or Ubuntu.
I'm leaning towards Debian myself. I don't like the direction Ubuntu (mint is essentially Ubuntu too) is going. Ubuntu is ran by a for profit company, and it is only going to get worse after snaps.
From what I've read Debian is about as new user friendly as Ubuntu is.
As someone who switched a year ago and started from Debian - yes, it absolutely is beginner-friendly)
How's the gaming support on debian?
I only play Team Fortress 2, and it runs with no issues) But when it comes to normally-windows games, people say it's mostly fine. Haven't yet tried myself though.
Yeah I would definitely choose Debian in that case. Enjoy :)
Fedora saved my old Windows laptop and it was a pretty smooth switch from Windows for me (though I had a bit of Linux experience). That thing became quicker than when I first bought it haha.
Choose a variation of Mint. They have a lighter weight build that is perfect for older hardware just read their site. Mint operates and feels extremely close to w7 and its easy to use! Promise you'll like it
Ignore all the “this distro is the best”
Just use Ubuntu to start until you know what you wish was different
I agree with the first part but Ubuntu is pretty much the worst distro you can recommend.
It’s what proprietary software tends to target, so for someone just coming from Windows, it’s a decent first choice.
OpenSUSE/Fedora don’t support media codecs without knowing you need to add Packman/RPMFusion
Debian just released Bookworm, so it might be an okay recommendation for now, but as a general rule it’s probably not the best first distro
For someone used to Windows staying the same for years, jumping straight to a rolling release like Arch or its derivatives is a massive change
NixOS is too much configuration for a first time user
Linux Mint is maybe a better first recommendation, but it’s still downstream of Ubuntu (I wouldn’t recommend LMDE for a first time Linux user)
Your response is exactly why people find it so difficult to pick a distro to start. Ubuntu may not be the perfect distro for you or I, but there’s a decent reason it’s one of the biggest, and it has conservative defaults
Until that user knows what things bother them about it or what more they need, we’d just go back and forth all day about upsides and downsides of each distro
Because Linux is a giant pain in the ass for anyone who is not a software engineer.
In what way?
In the way that you will be expected to memorize a plethora of commands that you then type into a text-based interface the same way you would have with Windows DOS in 1998.
Linux does have desktop environments.
No shit. It doesn't matter because any type of troubleshooting and most installations require you to dive into the CLI or download an appimage, open the properties and select an executable. This is not remotely intuitive. I mean I could go on and on and on with this but anyone who uses Linux knows it already. I just don't understand why they can't see how incredibly unintuitive the entire system is, with seemingly no plans to make it easier.
That's a lot like how on windows you have to download a zip and open it to select an executable.
I think it depends on what you're trying to do. Normal stuff like web browsing, email and working with documents is fine. For example, my partner has been running her business from a Linux laptop for the last year or so and I don't think she ever touches the terminal.
It's not that it's unintuitive at all if you pick a simple distro, it's just slightly different from Windows which has been shoved in your face throughout your entire education and career.
Yes there is some small amount of learning involved, but there are many Linux distros nowadays that are setup for ease of use and require no CLI knowledge or use from the user. There are many desktop environments that mimic Windows versions to make the switch pretty seamless, too.
If you first tried Linux many years ago, I could understand you saying that it's unintuitive, but nowadays that just isn't the case.
I'd like to add that you should just pick the OS you prefer. I'm not one of those needs that look down on anyone who chooses to use Windows over Linux. I personally have both on my machine because games. I just wanted to clarify that it isn't unintuitive at all, just different than what you were forced to learn in school.
No. It is not "slightly different". In my 30 years of using Windows I have never used the CLI, which you have to use on a regular basis on Linux to complete basic tasks. I detailed this example elsewhere. There's absolutely nothing intuitive about the CLI.
You don't have to really use the CLI on the simpler Linux distros nowadays is what I am getting at. Mint and Ubuntu for instance. My grandparents use Mint, and believe me, they don't know what the terminal is.
Also, windows installers run Command Prompt stuff in the background. You are basically doing the same process but clicking buttons to setup a CLI command. They are more similar than you think.
You are just used to the GUI way of doing things, and you can get by fine on Linux nowadays. If you were forced to learn Linux growing up, you would think Windows was the unintuitive OS.
I'm not trying to convince you one is better than the other, just telling you that it is not unintuitive.
Yes. You do.
How do you not realize how clicking a bunch of sensibly-labeled buttons is one thousand times easier and more intuitive than memorizing a library of commands and when and how to use them?
And I'm just telling you that you're wrong.
No you don't have to use the CLI on Linux at all You are just wrong about that. Modern Mint and Ubuntu come with completely GUI driven package managers for installing and updating. It hasn't always been like this but it is now.
The only reason you would have to use the CLI is if you are doing some power user stuff that you would have to do on CLI or powershell in windows, as well.
You do realize this is just your opinion and not a fact. Your opinion is that is unintuitive. My opinion is that it is not, its literally impossible to be wrong here. I can find tons of people who think Windows way of doing things is more unintuitive. The only fact here is that neither of them actually are unintuitive in reality. People just have preferences and biases because of what they are used to.
You sound awfully close minded and angry for some reason too.
Okay and...what about the cornucopia of software that is not available in those repositories?
No it's not. You're just wrong about that and I don't understand why you feel the need to lie about it. Any kind of diagnostics or troubleshooting you try to find support for Linux will be almost guaranteed to send you into the CLI.
I am not closed-minded but I am angry because people throw around "it's easy" all the time with zero concept of what a typical person is capable of. So idiots like me dive into it and spend hours and hours trying to make it work until we just give up and then have to go back and undo all of it just to get shit working again, which is just a giant fucking waste of time.
Sort by approximate number of pre-compiled packages. AppImage etc. are on top of that.
You have to hunt for software on windows way more than on Linux. And it also doesn't always have a CLI installer: Say you want to control a Huawei E3372 not via its web interface (which sucks). Where do you go? You find a project on github, install go via chocolatey, then compile the project, then drop the exe somewhere.
Linux, at least, does not fucking de-install the graphics drivers while I'm playing a game. The level of jank on Linux is high, yes, with Windows it's incomprehensibly high.
No you don't. No one uses the Windows store. You just go to the website that makes the software and download and open the .exe
That's literally hunting for the software dude. You gotta open up a web browser, and if you don't know the webpage already you gotta search for it, find the download page on that website, get passed the likely popups and other crap and then finally select the right version of the software to download.
Package managers are 10000% better. Even Microsoft knows this, it's why they created winget.
Putting in winget search software name Copying the package name from the search result Putting in winget install pasted package name is significantly fewer steps. No Google search, no finding the download page, no popup crap, and no fake download button ads trying to get you to install malware. You just install the software in less time than it would take to even write your crappy comment.
Which is all 1000x easier and more intuitive than installing an appimage or tar.gz or whatever other 1000 Linux filetypes need to be installed using the CLI. It honestly boggles my mind that you can't understand this.
Yes I agree but we were specifically discussing software that's not found in package managers, which is a lot of it.
WTF is a winget?
If you are installing software from websites with pop-up ads and malware, that is a whole other problem not related to the OS.
Winget is the command-line package manager Microsoft made for windows 10/11 recently.
As I said: You have to hunt for software. That, precisely, there, is hunting for software. Where do you get that software from? Random .zip domains? And
.exeinstallers? People don't even manage to use, or demand,.msis.I even had to install drivers on windows. Drivers. The only hardware-related thing I dealt with manually in the last I think decade on Linux was a usb mode switch daemon... precisely for that Huawei modem I mentioned, actually. Because apparently Windows does not come with bog-standard USB network drivers those things first register as USB mass storage, offering you drivers to install, then with some magic switch to USB network mode. So the reason I need to lift a finger on Linux is because companies are hacking around Windows deficiencies by making their devices act in bonkers ways, "here, windows, autostart this, install drivers, then start this program to bit-bang the usb interface to switch modes".
Oh I also had a look into reversing the stereo channels of my headphone output because I messed up and soldered my cable backwards, before realising implementing a software bodge was a rather stupid idea especially with the soldering iron still hot.
And don't get me started on Explorer's performance -- I know it's not ntfs' fault, or even the vfs, nushell has no issues listing gigantic directory structures, recursively, in seconds. Still slower than the same operation on linux but at least it's tolerable. Explorer takes minutes to sort a single large directory by modified date. In currentyear. On an nvme.
The only reason I still have a windows install is because some people insist on using it and I can't exactly test windows builds on wine. Well, I do, but occasionally you have to try the real deal. I use Linux because it just works.
And as I said, we're discussing software not found in package managers, which is a lot of it. The only way to find it is to "hunt for it", which usually involves typing the name into a search engine and clicking the first link that pops up and then clicking the "download" button.
The difference is there is no download button for Linux, just a bunch of code you're expected to type into the CLI that doesn't work.
LOL like you don't on Linux? I mean sometimes you don't because they literally don't exist. Like pretty much any fingerprint reader or Nvidia graphics card?
I don't know what Explorer is other than a shitty SUV.
That is just the most hilariously incorrect nonsense. If it were true, no one would pay money for Windows and Microsoft would go out of business.
Do you have any specific examples in mind or are you planning on leaving that as an assertion?
AppImage. All the user-friendly distros are configured so that installing/running those is a button click.
I have never used a fingerprint reader by in case you're interested, my graphics tablet works more seamlessly under linux, both x11 and wayland, than with windows. Can't say much about NVidia Graphics cards but they do, in fact, have drivers. If you're running the likes of Ubuntu it's going to use FLOSS drivers by default (which are getting better and better) and installing the proprietary ones is a couple of clicks.
It's the fucking file manager. Have you ever used windows. Also the desktop shell, actually.
Oh my sweet summer child.
If you need examples, you've probably never used Linux. The majority of programs I use have to be installed through CLI or appimage while the same software on Mac and Windows are installed with a simple executable file or installation wizard.
You're lying again. You have to download them and then enable them to run as executable, and then everyone one of them launches with a generic image, you can't pin them to your launcher, and you can't launch them on startup, you have to launch them from within the file manager. The system does not treat them as an app at all. Just a random file.
Yeah. We just call it a fuckin file manager.
Okay so just to be clear, you believe that people pay extra money to use Windows, even though Linux is just as good, or better? This is the position you want to take?
Honestly it's hilarious that you pointed out drivers on Windows because that is a massive sore point on Linux and further solidifies your delusional nature.
What the hell are you using, then. Seriously. Especially stuff that you wouldn't have to download manually on Windows. I'm waiting. Name them.
They do? I might've had snap or flatpack in mind. I don't keep track of that stuff everything I need is actually in nixpkgs. Distro integration may differ. What are you basing your whole opinion on, here, Linux from Scratch?
No. Windows has a head start on the Desktop due to Microsoft's FUD, illegal bundle deals with computer stores, and whatnot. Schools teaching MS Office. People thinking it's the only thing -- heck many users don't even know what an OS is, they equate PC and Windows, the other thing being Mac, which is different hardware.
Okay fair points. Like I said earlier. I am not knocking your choice of windows or anything, I am just trying to add that I have had the opposite experience with noob users on Mint, especially. There is not a single application that I could think of that noob users would want to use that aren't in the included repositories to begin with. I just don't want people to be scared away from trying Linux just because they are unexperienced.
I feel like you may be a step above your average noob and can figure out how to do some advanced things on windows, but you just don't want to put in the time to relearn what you already know. That's completely fair.
I think it depends, I guess you "just" need the right distro and compatible hardware (e.g. a Thinkpad). I started as a complete Linux noob too, but most problems I encountered I could easily solve in no time because a lot of things are nicely documented or someone else had them before and documented their solution on the internet. But depending on your usecase and other factors I understand Linux can be a pain in the ass.
Mainstream distros are just as easy to use as windows or MacOS.
As a Linux user I mostly agree...
... until you try to play any competitive multiplayer game and wonder why any anticheat doesn't work or flags your system and account.
Nowadays I use my Windows 10 mostly for games and video editing.
EAC depending on the title works out of the box from what I've seen, I don't have much time these days to play many competitive shooters or games in general but Battlebit and PlanetSide look to work fine through proton.
Let me tell you a little story about yesterday:
My Signal app on Linux keeps crashing. I write to them for support. They suggest I install the Beta version. Why would they suggest I install a version that openly state is "for users who do not mind discontinuity in service and are willing to work with us to understand and test issues." to fix an issue, I haven't the slightest, but I take a look regardless.
"To install on MacOS, download and install this file"
"To install on Windows, download and install the file"
"To install on Linux open a terminal and copy and paste these commands".
So I open the terminal and copy and paste the commands and I get some generic error message I don't understand and now I...fuck off because I'm not a software engineer and don't know how to fix this shit. That's before even getting into the 2 other commands I'm supposed to run that I don't understand what they are or what they do.
My ProtonVPN client on Linux is incredibly basic and unstable, and has been for many years while the Windows client is beautiful and functions perfectly in the background with zero interaction.
People who think Linux is fine for the general public are, frankly, delusional. I don't have another word to explain how you can be under that impression.
You make a fair point. ProtonVPN was a nightmare for me to set up and get working too but I think that's Proton's fault more than Linux's. I have many other applications that I simply installed with one click from the Software application and then have never needed to touch again. It seems not all app developers are equally motivated to make their stuff easy to run.
To the end user, it doesn't matter.
Yes, that is the point. Many developers don't care to rewrite their software for the 1% of people that daily drive Linux .
I agree. Still, I can't help but expect better from Proton.
Oh yeah 100%. You would think a company built on privacy and security would have better support for the most private and secure OS.
There's still a lot of little things that are still a pain for someone who doesn't know how things work. Many are not the OS' fault but still, different experiences.
For example, say you're running discord. Next week there's a discord update, it'll not apply the update automatically, it'll only download a deb file. An user familiar with windows may try to open the deb file... And it'll launch the package manager, but the only option available is to uninstall. In order to install the update you'll need the terminal.
There are a lot of little things like this. This one is just something you need to learn, but others are a real pita when you have no experience.
And if you have a 4k screen and Nvidia gpu when you try Linux for the first time, I guarantee you're going to hate the experience.