I ran Manjaro Linux as my daily driver a few years ago but slowly phased it out for Windows for some reason, and I’m finally back using Linux (currently Linux Mint). I gotta say, I don’t know why I ever switched back to Windows. There’s just so much freedom Linux gives you right off the bat that Windows is just plain stubborn about. The final straw for me was a couple weeks ago when Microsoft added a Copilot (Bing AI) Shortcut to my Windows 11 taskbar. They’d already added ads to my start menu and preinstalled a bunch of garbage that should be opt-in, not opt-out, so I was just fed up with it at that point. Plus, Linux is so much more customizable. Been running Mint for about a week and a half now, and honestly, I don’t think I’ll be using Windows much anymore.
Where would you recommend a complete Linux noob start after having used Windows his entire life?
I’m in your boat: I want an OS that works (more or less) and will let me browse, listen to music and occasionally fire up a game or two without forcing new money grabbing crap down my throat.
I enjoy troubleshooting strange issues now and then, but if it’s a daily occurrence I’m not interested.
Thank you in advance!
just grab Ubuntu or Linux Mint, and ignore everyone who seems mad about things.
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, but it’ll feel more at home for a windows user. Ubuntu is a good base because they include drivers that make hardware work, but aren’t open source. a lot of linux os’s don’t do that and it just makes life harder.
Aside from that, if you have a Nvidia gpu it’s going to be a pain and there’s not a lot you can do about it, nvidia sucks on linux. If you want to install an app, use https://flathub.org/ - it’ll make life easier in the long run to just install things from there.
Cheers!
I’ll dual boot Mint then.
I’d say Debian has closed the gap, now that Bookworm and onwards include nonfree firmware by default
While Nvidia isn’t as great on Linux as other cards. It generally works. It’s pretty much fine on Xorg, slowly getting there with Wayland. At least using Nvidia with Hyprland which wlroots based Wayland compositor worked for most cases.
this is the part where it doesn’t work well and you are doing all these hoops to try and get something usable ;) what you consider “pretty much fine”, “getting there”, “worked for most cases” is all annoying and broken for others
compared to intel and amd, nvidia on linux is awful and full of roadblocks - i’ll always recommend people stay away if they are going to use linux unless they are comfortable with all the pain