Can anyone recommend a very beginner friendly Linux OS for someone who only knows what Linux is but doesn’t have experience with it and has never used anything but windows? Even Apple’s OS is confusing to me. But windows is trying to force this most recent terrible update every time we turn on the computer, and I’ve had enough.
Pop! _OS, provided you know how to find specific wifi modules (drivers) for laptops like Macbook or Broadcam devices in general.
I’ve got some documentation somewhere on the topic let me see if I can find it.
In any case for now I suggest looking it up, it can be installed on literally anything. I installed it on multiple Macbooks using Ubuntu WiFi drivers (both free and non-free WiFi modules) to gain full functionality Wifi-wise.
For the most part “wl” will be available for your device (foss wifi module) so for most devices you’ll be fine right outta the box. And, in the event bluetooth is missing, by installing “blueman” for Bluetooth capabilities.
For most if not all Windows devices (amd64, amd86, intel, NVidia, etc) it can be installed in one fell swoop.
Best part, you can encrypt your data using the same password you use to login. It’s one of the first things you see before confirming the installation to your device.
And the installer is intuitive and really user-friendly.
In terms of DE’s it is as versatile as Ubuntu, it is after all, compatible with most - if not all, Ubuntu repositories.
You can use the default DE GNOME to make your device look like Windows Vista.
You can, alternatively use KDE Plasma to make it look like it’s Windows 7 using the sddm display manager.
It’s as versatile as any other distro but with an easy installer, you literally just press buttons. Obviously you’ve gotta wipe the data on the drive. So here’s to hoping you’ve either made backups or, have made peace with the death of that drive.
In any case, failing drives are as easy to fix as telling the drive to ignore the damaged sectors.
Pop!_OS is like Ubuntu if it had Debian’s stability IMO. It’s been fantastic thus far and I highly recommend it. They also have very extensive documentation!
Mint, some people will criticize me for sugesting it but I belive it’s the most user friendly distro that you can just search an error on google and get a solution instantly since it’s so widespread. I was going to say Ubuntu but they have made some questionable decisions regarding ads.
I’m going to second Linux Mint, I installed it on my grandma’s computers recently and she’s had no complaints in the last 6 months.
Other than trying to get her Epson printer to work (which I only found out about this morning because she uses it so little) so I’m going to try to get it to work for her tomorrow.
I did mention that I’d happily buy her a new printer but she’s insisting on keeping her current one. I’m praying I can get it working.
Linux Mint and maybe Fedora
Amazing, thank you so much. I’m going to check it out right now!
I’ve been using Pop!_OS, and I’m quite pleased. I would definitely recommend it for Linux newcomers.
As already said, Mint is the only sane choice for the common user. The only thing I’d add is to select the MintDE edition which is built off Debian instead of Ubuntu.
You won’t notice any real difference between either variant but you should encounter fewer issues on the Debian version.
The best that I can think of that fits those requironments would be Linux mint. When downloading you can select between 3 different Editions, whose only difference is the desktop, all this boils down to is how it looks, so just select whatever looks best to you.
Now something to keep in mind when switching to linux; while you will be able to do all that youd want on a PC on linux, some software that you might use and be accustomed to (like the adobe suit) might not be supported on linux (like the adobe suit) so youd need to find alternatives. Linux was designed around terminals, ‘cmd’ on windows, so while you can do most in a GUI, you will more often than not find tutorials using said terminals. And unlike on windows with guis, terminals have both direct system access, as well was expect you to know what you are doing, so read what it prints, its important.
I tried Mac os and I thought it was cool until I got docker and it made me make an account. It also in order to change things in the desktop environment you had to pay for apps and I’m cheap. Windows is annoying to me after being on Linux for so long even if they have wsl. My computer broke and I ended up needing Linux to make an old MacBook we had work again is the only reason I switched originally. Developing software I appreciate that the ide and terminal are super convenient to use. Normal people for Linux… Nope. Getting my Bluetooth to work was a 3 hour journey. Normal people use their PC that much in a month where as I use mine 12 hours+ a day.
My whole family uses Linux Mint and they are normal people.
Yea and I bet you installed it for them. If you provide IT support for people than yea totally doable. I switched to android and people call my phone a cheap phone or laugh at it granted the people I hang out with me included are middle class at best and I have a flagship phone and they are rocking iPhone 11s and stuff. Point being marketing is key and open source doesn’t have a Nike like following
I did, because when you buy a PC, Linux is not installed by default. If it was, I wouldn’t have had to install it for them.
Ever since moving everyone to Linux, I haven’t had to do any IT support. Honestly.
I use podman like a normal human.
I’ve been moving over a few machines but some software isn’t easy to just switch. I have at least a dozen more to move, and a few machines I’m going to keep on Windows for now.
have you tried bottles? I’ve great luck with using it for windows only software and it’s way more user friendly than wine by itself.
You could dual boot, or virtualize a few machines.
if the best time to switch is always today then if i put it off till tomorrow it will be even better right?
no you would miss a day
the best time to switch to linux is a few years ago.
the second best time is now.
Y’all, for real, I was on Windows for gaming. Gaming on Linux really does seem to “just work” now. I’m using CachyOS. It just works. The only tweak I had to do was to tell Helldivers 2 to use the vanilla version of Proton instead of Cachy’s version. So literally if I was on a more traditional distribution I’d have to do less.
I was trying or Linux for gaming… But I found using mods too difficult or annoying and switched back to Windows. That’s only for my gaming machine though…I use a Linux laptop for everything else
I play all kinds of old games, Japanese games that require patching, and use mods. That technical stuff is why I haven’t tried Linux yet, because things are already irksome with a well-known OS. I don’t want to imagine what edge cases on Linux could be.
Unfortunately, I might be forced to make the switch if Microsoft decides to ally with the Trump Regime. 😱
Yep. Used to be cautious about it working, having to check protondb before buying/installing/playing and what have you…
but I havent done that in a year.
I just install a game, even a new game, and it just works. No thought, no concern,no issues… OS related, that is, it obviously doesnt make buggy games not buggy, so buggy games are still buggy, but thats the games fault, and you’d run into that regardless of the OS… Like Cities Skylines 2 bad performance, or modded minecraft crashing due to mod things.
Want to be specific so someone doesnt follow my post with a predictable “WELL I PLAYED insert known buggy game AND IT STILL CRASHED AND I DIDNT GET A BLOWJOB FROM BETTY WHITES GHOST OR ANYTHING, YOU LIAR!”
My aunt bought some Wal-Mart $200 Lenovo like 8 years ago. It ran Windows 10 like I run a mile…eventually. I put what upgrades into it I could (added some RAM and an SSD) and threw Linux Mint on it, perfectly usable.
Last week: “Hey, can my Linux computer run The Sims? They just released a bundle with Sims 1 and 2.” I got to looking at it, “no info” on steam deck compatibility, system requirements require a newer GPU than her laptop, like they call out Intel HD 620 and she’s got Intel HD 520.
Proton will almost certainly run it, but that machine’s iGPU won’t. I got to blame the hardware and not Linux!
saving her some headaches, I think.
I’ve heard the rereleases are very buggy and crashy.
EA? Being lazy and publishing a subpar product? In this timeline? You don’t say.
my favorite thing is that you can only get the proper UI scale and zoom level at 1440p in the rerelease Sims 1.
Its just mindboggling.
This year totally is the year of Linux, guys!
Trust me!
Don’t need it to be the year of the Linux desktop for me to switch to use it myself.
The only way Linux ever becomes viable for the mainstream is when there is a single distribution that covers every feature and is as streamlined and user friendly as possible.
- No command lines ever for anything
- huge software compatibility
- hardware compatibility of the newest and oldest of hardware
- easy troubleshooting even your nan can follow
- and most of all: every Linux user agrees it is the best Linux distribution (unless you are into niche stuff)
So until even you guys can agree on one distribution being the best, it will not be the year of the Linux ever.–
Does this apply to Windows as well? Haha
For Linux to go mainstream is simple. Have Linux be default on every computer sold in stores.
Something like 99% of people who go to a store and buy a laptop, does so because they need a device to access their online bank or watch funny videos on YouTube. Maybe check their mail and open a PDF or two.
It seems like what you want is a tablet.
Disclaimer: when I say “bullshit”, I do not mean “you are brainless fool”, I only mean “this idea is so ridiculously wrong it is time we put it to rest at last”
No command lines ever for anything
This annoys me so much I literally registered to answer: bullshit. Stop with that strawman, will ya all, Linux enthusiasts
easy troubleshooting even your nan can follow
Same level bullshit. Watch win (and mac?) being hell to debug
every Linux user agrees it is the best Linux distribution
Bullshit. See Win XP times with many custom-made “flavours”. That did nothing to make windows less popular
when there is a single distribution
Bullshit number one. Linux will become major thing as a result of people pushing back against corporate wall-gardening and spying and/or when it starts coming pre-installed (see Android phones for the latter). All the scary-command-line whining is just elitist bullshit
Hell people still argue about the best version of Windows lol (I miss XP and 7) people will never agree on a single Linux distro
I was going to make a crack about you inventing MacOSX, which is at least “Linux adjacent”, but I don’t know how to work without a command line on either Windows or Mac. Some functionality is just so much more inconvenient or even impossible through the GUI, even on those
“How do I do X on Mac”
“First install homebrew, and then install this plugin”
50 plugins later
“There, now I can finally use the GUI”
So Macs run Gnome now?
So, Ubuntu 10+ years ago? For normie usage you don’t need to worry about any of those things. It comes with firefox.
I worked in a PC repair shop until a few years ago. Most people didn’t want to buy MS office. Most of what they did is in a web browser. But most people that came in to buy a boot USB wanted a windows one rather than Linux, either way I just copied what ever ISO they wanted to it. Copy/paste doesn’t cost anything.
I used Linux on and off over the years and will probably switch back to using it when Windows 10 is no longer supported. Linux will never be mainstream but the user base would grow if every Steam game ran on Linux seamlessly. That’s probably never going to happen, though. There will also never be “the one” distro to rule them all. Mint and Ubuntu come pretty close.
It’s honestly getting there. The major barrier at this point is kernel level anti-cheat, which is a bad idea people shouldn’t be using anyway.
year +1
some days ago switched to void linux. It’s awesome
What made you choose Void?
I wanted to try something new and different than debian, ubuntu or fedora, but at the same time do not try something like arch. A few days ago at work I’ve mounted a VM with void linux and start reading its handbook , and wow, the OS is very intuitive, if you combine its practicity along fish you got a very handy system, but again, I tried because I wanted to try something different, I really didn’t try to satisfy a need. By the time, I should be able to tell if has the speed and performance to carry a selfhosted server; yesterday I started to migrate everything to void in my Lenovo Think Centre mini.
Nice. I hope it works out for you.
I’m a full-time Nobara daily driver since January 2024. It perfectly suits my gaming needs and also is working very well for my home audio production needs. Might have been better off with a slower moving distro for that stuff but so far so good!
still didn’t reach that level im stuck at arch level how do find void is it good and from which point
please, read my answer to @[email protected]
I still alternate because not everything works as it should on Linux.
I usually host a local mumble server, I haven’t been able to make it work, same for ZeroTier and xlink kai.
DRG crashes constantly, seems I need a new GPU… I don’t have that kind of money and I won’t have it for a while.
I’m still looking for a music player that has an UI like MusicBee, specifically its file explorer because I have my own organisation and most players just shove every album together (Elisa comes closer but it isn’t the same).
Along Music Bee I have a plugin that searches for missing lyrics (lrc). On the same line, I don’t know if there’s something like mp3tag so I keep going back.MusicBee not working on Linux is maybe the biggest thing holding me back. I want my play counts preserved, damnit. Also Age of Empires 2 DE doesn’t seem to even have a Proton option.
Did you enable Proton for all titles in your Steam settings?
There’s still the odd game that’s somehow broken in WINE that isn’t broken by anticheat or DRM, but by just being crusty code, but those edge cases will do fine in a Windows VM /w a spare GPU being passed through to it.
Anything that uses kernel anticheat, so basically any modern multiplayer title, is platform-locked into a baremetal Windows install, but since I have no interest whatsoever in modern multiplayer titles and thus no interest in anything with a kernel anticheat, I can do just fine virtualizing Windows in that scenario while using a Linux host for everything else.
(which, Soulbringer, one of my previous edge-case titles, works great in Proton /w dxwrapper+DXVK, but Civ3’s audio is still broken in Proton even if C3X fixes the graphics, so that’s still being ran in a Windows VM, which I currently have Win11 LTSC running in a VM /w my Vega 56 being passed through to it for just that very purpose, while I’m using an RX 6600 for my host card)
As for apps like Maya, Blender is actually competitive with it nowadays.
As an addendum relating to modern multiplayer titles, those are the few titles where it would make more sense to play them on console instead of PC anyways since the way in which they’re locked down goes against PC’s main selling point: the fact that you actually own your system to a degree where the consoles are effectively locked into the PS, Xbox, or Nintendo walled garden.
I’ve read that modding many games is a total bitch-and-a-half on Linux, too. No idea if that’s true or not, but still. I’m a sicker for fuckin’ with games and if stuff breaks on Linux that works fine on windows, that’s a problem.
That depends, the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are easily modded regardless of OS, and I’ve had good luck with HedgeModManager too for Sonic Generations, and even for Civ3, C3X fixes the black map bug however I haven’t found a good fix for the crackling and popping audio.
This is why I use linux!
Yeah, but then someone does the same with systemd, am I right?
/ducks and runs
noice
The better time is always yesterday
Edit: A little bit of a cathartic rant to people who will understand lol. I love you all. <3
Echo chamber or not, I’m happy to finally be back on Lemmy and see some damn community positivity about Linux for a change. It isn’t perfect but it’s beautiful and it’s worth it and it’s ours.
It’s a resistance instrument over ever-entitled, creeping corporate control over our lives, it’s not “better Windows”, it’s just better.
I just got super bummed out reading a bunch of those bizarre “Normal people can’t be bothered and it doesn’t instantly just work with a single button push so it’s too complicated and everyone will hate it forever.” Tirades… You know the ones…
The kicker… That was after I stumbled from an unrelated link into /r/linux !!, when someone was asking how to help people not be “so scared” to try Linux.
Huge, angry posts about how it can’t stand up to proprietary capital-ware, and asking users to click a button or type a word “is just too much.” It’s freaking sad.
I dunno if the reddit brigading just got super bad or they’re all self-loathing over there. But it was weird. And bitter.
I’m happy with our operating-system punk movement, where we invite artists and gamers and coders and family members to learn something and have their computing experience back, since we can’t go back to the 00’s when computing was an activity and the Internet was a place.
The servile corporate wageslaves who disregard their rights and throw a fit whenever they need to troubleshoot something, can keep their bloated service-appliances and their self righteous corpo-simp attitudes, whilst loudly announcing “tHe DeSkToP iS dYiNg” and “aNdRoiD iS LiNuX.” They can keep it.
Meanwhile we welcome the curious, and the seeking, and those wanting something more.
I don’t care if we’ll never get “critical mass adoption.” Part of me hopes I never see Linux getting talked about in mainstream TV news or something, because that’s when the grifters will descend like vultures and corporations and states will be wanting a piece of it.
But hey I’ll gladly take the time to help someone discover it and enjoy it as much as possible so it can be even greater than it is today. I’ll gladly release my work to be Linux compatible and donate to software that changes my life for the better every day.
I’ll gladly troubleshoot a little, and be patient, and donate when I can, and report bugs, and share what I’ve learned. Because we’re in this community together, and Open Source belongs to all of us, and you’re doing a great job.
I’m more of a proponent for running some Linux distro for my main OS and then virtualizing Windows if desired for things that are broken in WINE/Proton somehow but work fine in Windows, at this point.
I don’t trust Windows enough to run it baremetal in a dual-boot anymore though, virtualization at least isolates it from the host where it counts, where in a dual-boot, even if it generally doesn’t happen, there’s still the looming threat of Windows screwing up the Linux install somehow, where that isn’t a problem when virtualizing since, as I said, it’s isolated where it counts, even if paravirtualization is a thing for storage drivers and networking and the like, and hardware passthrough is a thing for things like GPUs.
Yeah i still use reddit alongside lemmy as well, and i started noticing that the pcmasterrace subreddit had more and more post complaining about linux users. It got so annoying that i ended up leaving the subreddit. It was kinda ironic because they kept complaining about how linux users bring up the fact that they use linux, but it seemed to me like i saw more posts of people complaining about it instead of actual linux users talking about linux lol
If there’s any new Lemmy users here, coming from Reddit (feel like I’m opening a seance), and if you’re wondering what else you might decide to change during this era of change -
Try Linux! It’s easy now, and frankly just better :)
I came 1.5 years ago when reddit fucked up big. Read about Linux here a lot, but not engaged much with it. But since I can’t make the switch to Windows 11 I tryed out Linux Mint two weeks ago. Haven’t booted into Windows since then, but for one game i have to start using a mod Manager and that won’t run in Linux. Every other game I play, even with mods, works just fine. It’s fucking cool. And it’s so damn nice that I can decide exactly how it looks and feels. So, thanks for that Lemmy.
Yes, I’m new to Lemmy, ex-Reddit, and now I’m looking at what else I can do. I ran Linux Mint on an old laptop for many years, but that was when I was still working and I also had a company laptop on Windows if I needed it. So now I’m retired and currently I only have a refurbished Lenovo with Win 10, which goes out of support soon. I suppose I could do dual boot on that machine, but I’d rather have Windows in a VM for the rare occasions when I can’t get something to run in Wine. I have no idea where I’d buy a copy of Win 11, but presumably Microsoft have a store.
If ur new to Linux try mint. Dont try arch or gentoo or some other distro cos someone said it was cool. Take the basic Linux mint and get urself comfortable with it first.
Fedora is pretty nice too.
I switched a few years ago. I’ve been using windows for over 30 years. They changed a bunch of random shit I had used in the past. I figured I’d give it a shot.
I never went back. I’m not a coder. I don’t even like tech very much. I’ve been really happy with Ubuntu for years.
I wanted something that just worked. It has.
The Steam Deck was the reason I changed. Used the Deck as my only PC for a couple of months and liked the experience so I changed.
I’ve had OpenSUSE on my PC for over a year now and really like it… But I’ll be honest, the move and troubleshooting problems for setup was a pain in the ass. But it’s stable and steady since I’ve gotten over setup pains.
I hear you. I spent a while switching to OpenSUSE too because it seemed so easy, I’ve installed OSs plenty!
But I like to partition and stuff, and have a lot of drives from over the years. Oh, what filesystem? Well geeze that might as well be an epic RPG’s “choose a name” screen!
Now it’s easy: Their perfectly fine default of BTRFS because snapshots and I might try dedup, thank you very much. Lol but I still feel like I had to wade through way too much to reach that conclusion.
Once it’s installed and configured though? Man, everything I throw at it is just fine. Love my Tumbleweed. Haven’t looked back in like 4 years. :)
Tumbleweed brotherhood ✊
It doesn’t get used or recommended enough.
Tumbleweed.💖
Although for my relatives I’ll rather recommend Slowroll once it’s our of beta (or even Leap for older family members). Just that little bit more stable. 🙂 Still, OpenSuse does a fantastic job. I’d love to see them available directly from device vendors like Tuxedo, System76 or hell, even Framework.
I installed Pop!_OS on a Thinkpad and made it my main work computer. It is the most boring computing experience ever. Nothing ever breaks. It just works.
I’m surprised how well my thinkpad was supported in the Fedora plasma spin. Everything just worked out of the box. No drivers were needed. Even the fingerprint reader works.
I thought it would just be for login, but even terminal will use it when I need to sudo.
How awesome!
It’s been my daily driver for years now. The two computers os have literally never failed, no software issues other than some bugs I myself introduced.
