These days the learning curve for Linux isn’t all that steep; I’ve tricked people into thinking my Linux Mint machine was running “Windows 9.” What you should expect are culture shocks. We’re going to call things different names, some things are done differently. Where Windows has “shortcuts” Linux has “Links” (to files) and “Launchers” (to run programs). Same functionality, two concepts instead of one. We actually use our app store, but since everything in there is free we don’t call it a “store,” we call it a “package manager.”

As for the ‘terminal “language”,’ let’s demystify this a bit. Yes, the Command Line Interface does consist of a more or less complete programming language with loops and conditionals and such, but all that isn’t really necessary to use it as a basic user interface. It’s actually pretty simple.

You type the name of a program, hit enter, and it runs that program.

Like if I want to open VLC from the terminal, I can just type vlc and hit enter.

There are some nuances to it but that’s generally it.

For example, let’s say I want to listen to the very hottest new track by my favorite band in VLC, and for some reason I want to use the terminal instead of clicking the mouse a bunch of times. I can type vlc /Music/don't_you_want_me_baby.mp3 into the terminal and VLC will open and immediately begin playing that track. But what if just one run of the song isn’t enough? What if I want to hear the groundbreaking sound of The Human League over and over? I can add --repeat to the command as an option, and it will repeat the track endlessly. Options will either be one dash and one letter, or two dashes and a word. -R is the same as --repeat in this case. If you want to know what the options are for a given program, you can type [program name] --help. I used vlc --help to find out about the --repeat option.

That’s mostly how you’re going to use the terminal at first, by typing the name of the program you want to run, and maybe some options or arguments (–repeat is an option, the name of the file is an argument).

You can, of course, open up the file explorer to your Music folder and double click the file you want to hear, or launch VLC from the app menu and drag and drop the file, or click Open and deal with the dialog, the GUI exists for a reason. Where you’re probably going to encounter the terminal early on in your Linux journey is when you’re having some problems, and you ask for help on a forum or Lemmy community or something. The experienced Linux users who offer to help will ask you to run a terminal command and copy-paste its output. Because it’s fast and easy for you to copy-paste the command I want you to run, and the text it spits out as output. Compared to “Right click on the task bar and click Properties, then go to Devices and click Driver Manager…”

As for whether a noob like you will survive on Linux for gaming: At this point it still depends on your taste in games, because especially competitive multiplayer shooters often exclude Linux on purpose because “something something anticheat.” I play a lot of indie and small studio games, single player or cooperative multiplayer, stuff like Stardew Valley, Factorio, Subnautica, Unrailed. These work great, and to get up and running I have to do less on Linux than on Windows.

My recommendation: Download VirtualBox, download Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition, and run Linux in a virtual machine. Give it a try. You might like it.

Mint with Cinnamon is very Windows like from the UI. You probably won’t need to touch the terminal for running steam games - there’s a GUI for pretty much anything a normal user would need.

The learning curve is not as bad as it used to be. Almost everything can be done through the GUI, many tutorials exist, and steam will run almost any game without tinkering with it. ProtonDB is your friend.

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Yes. Most things can be done without the terminal, and when it’s required, 99% of the time you’ll easily find a guide with instructions you can just copy/paste.

I wouldn’t recommend it for my 78 year old mother who needs me to add her email account to her tablet, but anyone remotely computer-savvy can handle the transition.

The Linux community is generally very helpful and welcoming. If ever you can’t figure something out, someone somewhere will probably be willing to help.

There will be things to learn and unlearn, but modern Linux distros are fairly smooth sailing for basic tasks if your hardware supports Linux well. Laptop support is a little more spotty, where there may be issues with suspend, or the Wi-Fi needing 3rd party drivers, but desktops will probably work without much fuss (and there are plenty of laptops with no issues).

Gaming has been made much easier thanks to wine and proton, particularly valve’s contributions. For steam games, many of them will just work out of the box or after ticking a checkbox. ProtonDB is invaluable for quickly seeing how well a game will run on Linux.

But as you’ll see as you read some of the reports on ProtonDB, there will likely be a more troubleshooting than you’re used to on windows. As long as you know how to Google the name of your distro + the problem you’re seeing, you’ll usually find a solution.

You don’t need to be a terminal master to use Linux nowadays. But most things are easier to explain with terminal commands than with step by step gui instructions, so many guides online will have you use the terminal to some degree.

Honestly, the best advice I can give is just try it. If you have a spare drive (internal or usb), just go ahead and install Linux to it. If you want to be extra sure you won’t do anything to your existing windows install, remove the windows drive first (or disable it in bios). Then play around with things and see how it feels.