I’m a windows loser looking to make the plunge into Linux. I was thinking of switching my gaming PC to Linux in the near future. Before I make up my mind, I’ll probably try out VMs of distros.

I’ve lurked a few Linux communities here and on lemmy.ml, some I’m gonna regurgitate some things I half remember in the hope of being being corrected and starting discussion about what I should be doing.

  • Ubuntu isn’t good
  • Mint is good despite being based on Ubuntu. Made with former windows users in mind
  • Debian is good because of their packages or package manager or something. Recently sold out, but there are spinoffs that don’t use proprietary software like Duvian.
  • Fedora seemed to get some good word but I can’t remember why.
  • Arch and it’s spinoffs require a shit ton of finagling to get right but can do a lot of cool things
  • There are different desktop environments like GNOME, Cinnamon, and … others? I honestly don’t know what a desktop environment is.
  • Wine (or the fork Proton) can run windows native games on Linux
  • There are snap, flat something or other, and … other ways for installing software.

I’m sure I’m missing a lot and got some things wrong. Any help getting started is appreciated.

Edit: I ended up going with a KDE plasma spin of Fedora 36. Once I figured out how to get the nvidia drivers set up it was smooth sailing.

  • Arsen6331 ☭
    91·
    2 years ago

    Ubuntu isn’t good

    It’s fine. I personally don’t like it, but as a new user, it would be a great option for you.

    Mint is good despite being based on Ubuntu. Made with former windows users in mind

    Mint is always a good option. I recommend either Mint or Pop OS. Both are great for new users.

    Debian is good because of their packages or package manager or something. Recently sold out, but there are spinoffs that don’t use proprietary software like Duvian.

    I wouldn’t use debian as a new user. It is a great distro, but they package only free (open-source) software, so various drivers and codecs will not be available without some tinkering.

    Fedora seemed to get some good word but I can’t remember why.

    Fedora is made by Red Hat, and Red Hat contributes a lot to the Linux community. As a result, most new standards get implemented in Fedora first, as Red Hat likely had a part in them.

    Arch and it’s spinoffs require a shit ton of finagling to get right but can do a lot of cool things

    If you’re familiar enough with Linux to install Arch without relying on a GUI installer, you can easily use it. EndeavourOS is a good choice if you want to use Arch but don’t feel comfortable installing it manually, but DO NOT use Manjaro. It claims to be more stable by being 2 weeks out of date compared to Arch, but that ends up lowering stability. They’ve also messed up a lot. You can read more about that here: https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/.

    There are different desktop environments like GNOME, Cinnamon, and … others? I honestly don’t know what a desktop environment is.

    A Desktop Environment is a collection of programs that, when used together, create a desktop. For example, when you start Windows, you see a bar at the bottom, there’s a start menu, there are icons on the screen, there’s a file explorer app, etc. This is all handled by the Desktop Environment. The most similar to Windows out of the box would be Cinnamon and KDE.

    Wine (or the fork Proton) can run windows native games on Linux

    WINE runs Windows software in general on Linux. Proton builds on it for games specifically

    There are snap, flat something or other, and … other ways for installing software.

    Snap, Flatpak, and AppImage are likely what you mean. So, when you install software on Windows, you go to a website and download it, then run the installer. This causes problems as the website could be compromised, or you can click on an ad that looks like a download button, etc. and you’ll end up with malware. On Linux, you use a package manager. Which one depends on the distro. A package manager has repos, short for repositories, which are essentially a list of software as well as a place to download it from. The package manager will find the software you want, download it, cryptographically verify that it hasn’t been tampered with, install it, and then keep track of everything that’s been installed for you so you don’t have to do any work. Just sudo apt install software to install, sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade to upgrade all your software automatically, and sudo apt remove software to uninstall. The problem is that all distros use different package managers, have different naming/versioning conventions, etc. This is why things like flatpak and appimage exist. What they do is utilize containerization to bundle everything into one package that they can then install on any distro, regardless of its package manager. This means one package works on all distros, but it takes significantly more disk space, and adds overhead, causing things to sometimes be slower.

    A note on snap: while it does work, and it works well, many Linux users, including myself, don’t like it because Canonical, the company that makes it and Ubuntu, has made the backend proprietary. Canonical itself has done really stupid things from advertising Amazon on every Ubuntu install, to spying on its users. Some users call it the “Microsoft of Linux”.

    • holdengreen
      3·
      2 years ago

      I think snap is going in the right direction in a couple of ways tho…

      AppImage’s are supposed to be simple to package and they always work easily in my experience. Been using them for years because they just work. But they are less convenient to update because you generally have to go back to the site again to re-download.

      But I am liking guix and I have been trying to package my first application using their lisp dialect. But it’s great how brutally simple the AppImage’s are where it’s download, double click, GUI, click install. Like in Windows. Don’t underestimate that when you try to spread your app the users.

      Even .deb files require running dpkg -i in the terminal in my experience because of dependencies.

      I hope that virtualization and containers get to the point that it is trivial to package and run complex graphical, permissioned, applications for any system.

      • Arsen6331 ☭
        5·
        2 years ago

        I think snap is going in the right direction in a couple of ways tho…

        Kind of. I like flatpak more. Both due to the fact that snap has a proprietary backend, and because flatpak just works better in my experience.

        AppImage’s are supposed to be simple to package and they always work easily in my experience.

        That is true. AppImages are great for software that just doesn’t want to work on your computer. I’ve been using them for Cura.

        But I am liking guix and I have been trying to package my first application using their lisp dialect.

        Guix is interesting, but I don’t particularly like lisp, though that’s just personal preference.

        Even .deb files require running dpkg -i in the terminal in my experience because of dependencies.

        I’d personally prefer to install deb files using apt. That way, it will handle dependencies, conflicts, etc. whereas dpkg is the low-level package manager that only installs and configures the software.

        Speaking of cross-platform packaging tools, I recently made something interesting in that field about a month ago: https://github.com/Arsen6331/lure.

        • Cassilda
          11·
          2 years ago

          I’d personally prefer to install deb files using apt. That way, it will handle dependencies, conflicts, etc. whereas dpkg is the low-level package manager that only installs and configures the software.

          Yeah, apt is for normal users, and for sysadmins trying to solve particular problems that apt won’t solve for some reason. But a new user, like OP, should be using synaptic (or some other GUI front-end for apt). I think Mint does a good job of surfacing it?

          • Arsen6331 ☭
            4·
            2 years ago

            Package managers really aren’t difficult to use. They’re quite simple, especially apt. To install, just do sudo apt install software. To remove, sudo apt remove software, etc.

            I encourage new users to use the command line for basic tasks from day one, so that they can learn about it, rather than just using GUI forever.

            • Cassilda
              2·
              2 years ago

              I mean, i agree that package managers aren’t difficult to use, and I live in the command line (or actually in Emacs), but there’s a widespread perception that you have to use the terminal to use Linux. It helps to dispel this perception by pointing people at reasonable GUI tools like synaptic.

              • Arsen6331 ☭
                2·
                2 years ago

                Yeah, I agree, but there’s also a perception that the command-line is scary, which I would also like to dispel.

                • CannotSleep420OP
                  2·
                  2 years ago

                  I haven’t even made the switch yet and I don’t know why people would see the command line as scary.

    • federico3@lemmy.ml
      2·
      2 years ago

      I wouldn’t use debian as a new user. It is a great distro, but they package only free (open-source) software, so various drivers and codecs will not be available without some tinkering.

      This is false. You can easily enable contrib and non-free at install time.

      • Arsen6331 ☭
        1·
        2 years ago

        I have never used Debian’s graphical installer, so if that’s true, I didn’t know.