I bought a laptop yesterday, it came pre-installed with Windows 11. I hate win 11 so I switched it down to Windows 10, but then started considering using Linux for total control over the laptop, but here’s the thing: I keep seeing memes about how complicated or fucky wucky Linux is to install and run. I love the idea of open source software and an operating system without any of the bullshit that comes with Windows, but most of the open source stuff I have is on my android and fairly easy to install. Installing and using Linux just feels like it’ll be a whole different beast that’ll eat up most of my time and I’m kind of intimidated by it.
TL;DR Linux scawy, how does a barely computer literate scrub like me who’s used nothing but windows since the dawn of their life get started with Linux?
Distro choice doesn’t matter. Alternately, just use Debian.
It’s hard to use a different computer and nothing will make that easier. If you’ve ever been plopped down in front of a Mac you probably already know this.
Pay attention during the install process and ask questions when you don’t understand something. Don’t be afraid to bail out if you’re worried about messing something up. Make a backup so you can’t lose anything when you do mess something up.
Dual booting is what you’ll do to start with, but windows updates tend to break the system that allows you to choose Linux or windows at boot time. The first time it happens you’ll have to figure out a way to fix it.
If you only get your stuff from homebrew, Distrobox of Flatpak, yes.
Debian has severely outdated packages, like 2 years old on Bookworm. I would never recommend anyone to run outdated software.
Not every software vendor publishes LTS releases. Firefox, Thunderbird all fine. But the rest is randomly frozen, and this will result in unfixed errors for years.
I get what you’re saying, but that’s bad advice for a new user. They’re already gonna be having to relearn how the computer works and how to fix stuff that breaks/make it do what they want.
It’s more important to have a broadly supported and used system with ample documentation in that situation than it is to have the most recent packages.
It is important that you get fixes to packages that occured in the last like 2 years.
It is generally not really nice to run outdated software, even though it works kinda well.
If you use Debian you really need to use Flatpaks, and Mozillas PPA for regular Firefox. Then yes, probably a good OS.
I started on MX Linux because some strange Distrowatch bump. My IT support told me my Nextcloud version was outdated, and I didnt know Flatpak back then.
It depends on the package really. Sometimes you’re better off without the fixes that occurred in the last 2 years if it means avoiding the new bugs in the last 2 years.
IMO the more you try to stick to the latest releases, the more important it is to continue to stay updated. but every upgrade is a chance for new bugs or just breaking changes, so for new users starting with a stable distro is a good choice.
… except for browsers, where you both need the newest features but REALLY need the newest fixes.
Browsers are just bundles of lots of internetfacing software. Not the only one by far, but for sure a big part.
I agree that some stuff has gotta stay up to date, I guess I see that more as part of learning how the system works and how to break it/weld shit onto it problem instead of starting from a rolling release.
Dont know if I understood that sentence.
Testing packages is fine. But randomly stopping updates from upstream maintainers makes no sense. If you develop the software you can freeze packages. Or if upstream has dedicated LTS/ESR variants. But not if you dont.
Now I’m not sure I’m the one who understands!
I was saying that it’s better for a new user to come to the understanding that their system has its own version of everything and learn how to work around that when they need to rather than start from a rolling release where everything is as new as possible.
I mean software devs release software when it is ready. Fedora also is semi-rolling and especially the older release has some form of held back packages.
But knowing “my distro ships packages with some random frozen number and these issues will simply not be fixed in a long time” is not really helpful.
Also, people dont know this from anywhere. Android, macOS, Windows all have separated software that is officially maintained and uses the latest stable version. Only Linux distros use this strange packaging form.
So I think using Flatpaks is way better, as they are often officially maintained. A lot of them are not, but they manage the separation from the system very well, so you actually run the latest versions without any chance to break the system.
I guess if you think flat packs and snaps and rolling releases are gonna replace the usual way Linux distributions have done things then that would be good advice for a new person.
No matter the merits of either position, I think the better advice for a new user is to learn how things are now rather than learning the rolling way.
It’s worth noting that neither way is directly analogous to how windows or macOS handle software updates because… they generally don’t! Aside from software out of either systems store, user downloaded software is now expected to run its own update when it’s launched.
Maybe that’s more like snaps because doesn’t snapd periodically run and check for stuff?