Honestly, at this point I’m so done with window’s bullshit. Their operating system is damn near unusable. All the convenient stuff is hidden in weird places. The constant whining about having to buy their crap. Or worse trying to get me to use the horrible software that comes with the new versions.

My excuse used to be, but I can’t play games on it. This is no longer the case for the games I love. So Windows can suck it. At this point I’m switching away from a lot of stuff I used to use. (x-box became Steam-deck, twitter became blue-sky and reddit is becoming Lemmy) As a kind of computer illiterate person, this has been a worth while transition but a difficult one. Let’s just say I had to learn a lot of new stuff.

So I’m a total Linux newbie but thanks to my Steam deck I’ve become somewhat used to using it. Not like an expert, but I have run wine to create separate environments for running pokémon fangames. And have taken a look around the Linux environment. I like it and think I’ll be able to get used to it with practice. It reminds me weirdly of windows XP in how easily I can get everything to work the way I want. It takes a bit of doing and some research, but it works. Which is all I want in an operating system.

I am looking for tips as to where to start searching, because I am converting my windows computer to Linux. I just don’t know what version.

Any user experience is welcome, I have no idea where to begin. I mostly use the computer I’m installing this on as a glorified typewriter, that I play movies, music and retro-games on.

A user friendly version is preferred, I find it hard to parse out from the various versions I have seen so far how easy they actually are to use. Extra points if a large amount of the information has easy to find tutorials on the internet. I don’t always know where to start looking and as I learned while getting wine to work, some of the names/terms are completely different. (And kind of a lot at once if you are just getting started).

Any resources you might think are useful for a newbie are also highly appreciated.

tl;dr: I (a Linux noob) am looking for a recommendation for what version of Linux to use for my needs. And any tips tricks or other info that I might need to know before I switch. Because windows sucks.

I’m sorry if this has already been asked and answered. I did try to find an answer through searching, but as I already mentioned. My lack of terms and knowledge is holding me back.

  • Vittelius@feddit.org
    14·
    19 hours ago

    Since you are already familiar with the Steam Deck, I would go with a distro (that’s Linux-speak for version) that uses KDE Plasma, as that’s the desktop environment used by Steam OS. My recommendation therefore is Bazzite or Aurora. Both OSs are developed by the same team using the same core technology. Bazzite is more “gamer focused” (a.k.a. they are pre-installing steam) while Aurora targets more of a developer audience. But I would argue that the differences are, at the end of the day, mainly cosmetic. Aurora is still pretty noob friendly and you could still develop on Bazzite.

    Both systems are “Atomic” which basically means that a system update can’t screw up your system. And if you screw something up, then you can “rebase” the system which reinstalls the OS but keeps all your data and installed apps*. It uses flatpak with flathub as its appstore so you have the same apps available as on the Steam Deck.

    Now for the downsides: Some apps are a bit harder to install. Mainly apps that need deeper system access such as vpn apps can take a couple more steps to install here than on other distros. There is also no live system. Many distros have a “live mode” where you can test the system before installing. This allows you to check if your hardware is supported. Aurora and bazzite don’t have that.

    Lastly the userbase is growing, but other disros such as Mint are still more popular. You therefore might find less specific documentation and tutorials on the internet for it than with other options.

    *Technically it’s more complicated than that, there are edgecases of apps that don’t survive a rebase, but don’t worry about that.