Windows users have recently begun mass-reporting that Microsoft's Defender antivirus program, which is integrated into Windows 10 and 11 by default, is
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.
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 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.
Haha, I had a partition on my pc for the longest time to put Linux on it. But I do a lot of game dev stuff, so I’ve been reluctant to switch from windows.
Real question. Is gaming (not game dev) significantly better than it was 5 years ago on Linux? I really want to switch, but I also really don’t want to give up everything “just working” and doing it smoothly when gaming on windows.
I’ve even considered having 2 PC’s for my 4 monitors, and having the middle monitor run windows and the other 3 on a Linux box. I used to use a program that could simulate my mouse moving from one pc to an entirely different one even across windows and Linux, and also share the clipboard. I could try that again.
But if the gaming experience is sufficient and convenient on Linux I might switch entirely.
It’s vastly better than it was 5 years ago. You can get an idea by going to protondb.com and looking at games. Basically, most games work out of the box with minimal to no issues. Even most new games work on release without major issues.
The biggest issue is anti-cheat and DRM. That can be a show stopped for some users, but for me it hasn’t been an issue.
That’s what a lot of Linux people miss. They’ve been dealing with it for a while already so a lot of them are like “it’s so easy!” and then they have to start explaing repos and containers to people and the person just sticks to Windows.
If you play a lot of competitive multiplayer games, it would be better to keep a windows partition for them (overwatch is the only game that I had a good experience on Linux).
I used to play some competitive Apex, I was overjoyed when I heard anti cheat support is available on Linux, and quickly installed it. I tried it a couple of times since then, the most recent being last month - The game is playable but not on a competitive level imho. The smoothness is just not there. Then again this might be because of my low spec hardware.
Games like Valorant just won’t work because of their kernel level anticheat. (But hey we have Conter-Strike 2 now)
AAA games run just fine for the most part, its playable and I usually get performance similar to windows.
The steam deck uses a custom Linux distro made by valve specifically for it. So it’s at least good enough for gaming that valve trusted it for their mainstream handled gaming PC.
I’ve got one and tbh it’s pretty good. As long as you stick to games that are rated as either verified or playable on steamdeck you’ll probably have a good time.
Wine basically let’s you run windows-only software on Linux by making a directory that emulates windows, installs needed dependencies, etc. Most windows programs can be run smoothly using wine in my experience, the main ones that can’t are games with kernal-level anticheat. If you’ve heard of Proton, that’s valves fork of wine that they’ve built up specifically for games
I have heard of Proton. Just didn’t realize it was for gaming. Thanks for the info! I’m seriously thinking about switching now. Just gotta figure out what to do with all my current game repository on windows.
You’ve made me remember that quite not long ago I wanted to play on Linux (precisely on Mint, but I’ve also tried pop os), and I had three results:
1 - Game not even trying to launch/wine error (usually related to graphics) (did happen once or twice, tested few games): Factorio, without magic wine parameters and magic overall
2 - Game runs, but graphical glitches makes it unplayable: Factorio after tweaks
3 - Game running fine, fps lower or equal than on windows: Minecraft, Kerbal space program
(Yes, now I know Factorio also had Linux version, but it’s too late for that)
So while it may be playable for some 9999 IQ rice master couch-looking moderator after just touching the demon named Wine, I don’t have the brains, patience or time tweaking every little parameter/environmental vars/wine prefixes on top of each other to make a game play at 2 fps. It also didn’t help that when trying to resolve apt conflicts, Mint just killed itself (looking at you aptitude). My overall experience of Linux isn’t bad, it may be good for customization masters, but for me, which would like having things “just working”, and maybe after that some trial and error tweaks, Windows is closer to that wish. Although when MS forces W11 onto me, I’m jumpshipping to Linux, no matter how shitty my UX is (at least I hope so)
Edit: forgot that there is markdown, formating fix
Probably a good move on your part. When they try to force windows 11 on me, that’s when I will be moving to Linux.
My new hardware is literally incompatible with Windows 11. They’re doing me a kindness I don’t want all this AI shit on my PC
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.
Excuses.
Haha, I had a partition on my pc for the longest time to put Linux on it. But I do a lot of game dev stuff, so I’ve been reluctant to switch from windows.
Switch to Linux! If nothing else, run stuff with wine and most things will work seamlessly
Real question. Is gaming (not game dev) significantly better than it was 5 years ago on Linux? I really want to switch, but I also really don’t want to give up everything “just working” and doing it smoothly when gaming on windows.
I’ve even considered having 2 PC’s for my 4 monitors, and having the middle monitor run windows and the other 3 on a Linux box. I used to use a program that could simulate my mouse moving from one pc to an entirely different one even across windows and Linux, and also share the clipboard. I could try that again.
But if the gaming experience is sufficient and convenient on Linux I might switch entirely.
It’s vastly better than it was 5 years ago. You can get an idea by going to protondb.com and looking at games. Basically, most games work out of the box with minimal to no issues. Even most new games work on release without major issues.
The biggest issue is anti-cheat and DRM. That can be a show stopped for some users, but for me it hasn’t been an issue.
That’s what a lot of Linux people miss. They’ve been dealing with it for a while already so a lot of them are like “it’s so easy!” and then they have to start explaing repos and containers to people and the person just sticks to Windows.
If you play a lot of competitive multiplayer games, it would be better to keep a windows partition for them (overwatch is the only game that I had a good experience on Linux).
I used to play some competitive Apex, I was overjoyed when I heard anti cheat support is available on Linux, and quickly installed it. I tried it a couple of times since then, the most recent being last month - The game is playable but not on a competitive level imho. The smoothness is just not there. Then again this might be because of my low spec hardware.
Games like Valorant just won’t work because of their kernel level anticheat. (But hey we have Conter-Strike 2 now)
AAA games run just fine for the most part, its playable and I usually get performance similar to windows.
The steam deck uses a custom Linux distro made by valve specifically for it. So it’s at least good enough for gaming that valve trusted it for their mainstream handled gaming PC.
I’ve got one and tbh it’s pretty good. As long as you stick to games that are rated as either verified or playable on steamdeck you’ll probably have a good time.
Oh cool, I didn’t realize that was a thing. If I can run Unreal Engine on Linux, that’s pretty much the only thing stopping me from switching.
Yep! Quick search turns this up, looks like you don’t even need wine for it which is even better.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/SharingAndReleasing/Linux/BeginnerLinuxDeveloper/SettingUpAnUnrealWorkflow/#:~:text=Whether you downloaded the Unreal,located on your hard disk.
(Unreal engine also has a specific Linux page, but I don’t have an epic games account so I can’t view it - https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/linux )
Wine basically let’s you run windows-only software on Linux by making a directory that emulates windows, installs needed dependencies, etc. Most windows programs can be run smoothly using wine in my experience, the main ones that can’t are games with kernal-level anticheat. If you’ve heard of Proton, that’s valves fork of wine that they’ve built up specifically for games
I have heard of Proton. Just didn’t realize it was for gaming. Thanks for the info! I’m seriously thinking about switching now. Just gotta figure out what to do with all my current game repository on windows.
You’ve made me remember that quite not long ago I wanted to play on Linux (precisely on Mint, but I’ve also tried pop os), and I had three results:
1 - Game not even trying to launch/wine error (usually related to graphics) (did happen once or twice, tested few games): Factorio, without magic wine parameters and magic overall
2 - Game runs, but graphical glitches makes it unplayable: Factorio after tweaks
3 - Game running fine, fps lower or equal than on windows: Minecraft, Kerbal space program
(Yes, now I know Factorio also had Linux version, but it’s too late for that)
So while it may be playable for some 9999 IQ rice master couch-looking moderator after just touching the demon named Wine, I don’t have the brains, patience or time tweaking every little parameter/environmental vars/wine prefixes on top of each other to make a game play at 2 fps. It also didn’t help that when trying to resolve apt conflicts, Mint just killed itself (looking at you
aptitude). My overall experience of Linux isn’t bad, it may be good for customization masters, but for me, which would like having things “just working”, and maybe after that some trial and error tweaks, Windows is closer to that wish. Although when MS forces W11 onto me, I’m jumpshipping to Linux, no matter how shitty my UX is (at least I hope so)Edit: forgot that there is markdown, formating fix
Edit2: bad brain, missing word fix
Proton is incredibly simple to use, and gaming on Linux is pretty seamless for like 3/4+ of games now. Including Factorio.
Nono, please do hurry to switch to Linux.