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 ☭
    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@lemmygrad.ml
      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.

          • Johnny Mojo
            2•2 years ago

            Not scary, confusing. You can’t just click around to find what you’re looking for, you have to memorize a certain amount of basic commands. For someone who has a hard time making a Skype call without assistance, it can be impossible.

    • Johnny Mojo
      0•2 years ago

      Many people just want to USE their computer, and need simpler interfaces or they get lost. I don’t mind using dnf or even building from source, hell, I use Vim to write emails, but my ex-wife likes Gnome Software, and GUIs, and relies on me to do any tweaking. I think it’s fine for people to stick to graphic interfaces if that works for them, it’s part of the reason why GNU/Linux desktop is getting more popular with regular non-techie users, which are the vast majority of potential users.