Things To Know Before Switching To Linux

[gnulectures]

Hi everyone! Hope you're all well, just a few things I wanted to point out real quick.

First of all, the advice in this video is largely subjective. It's my opinion and I know people will disagree with the points I bring up. Particularly in regards to dual-booting and web applications (I do not like either of them, but they do work for a lot of people).

[croozerdog]

my grandma ran linux mint on her shitty old computer for a decade and terminal use was never needed, hats off to the devs

[TehObLiVioUs]

plus bonus tip
if anything is steam deck verified on steam then it's probably definitely going to work on your linux installation since steam deck is linux based

[DaffyDaffyDaffy]

To my surprise, my grandparents asked me unprompted to install linux on their laptop. I installed Linux Mint, Wine, and added a few shortcuts to the desktop as well as explained how the graphical package manager works. No complaints. If anything, they've said "We have a computer again" which just made me so happy. My grandfather in particular is really pissed at microsoft for their privacy practices, and who could blame him. That's why I hopped ship since windows 7 lost support.

[geoman]

If my wife who hates computers managed to move (6 years ago) from Win7 to Linux Mint in just two days, you all can... 🙂

[emty]

printers are famous for working better on linux than on windows. a better example of finicky drivers is really specialized hardware like studio audio equipment.

[amazing_bobson]

I switched to Linux less than a year ago. I'm 80 years old and didn't want to have to buy new software to stay with Windows. All I wanted was an office program and to get on the internet. I have used Firefox for way long and I had Free Office by Soft Maker on one of my old computers. Liked it a lot so all in all it wasn't too hard to change. The big thing is all the updates, which are like everyday, and if you look to see what the updates good luck with that. You have to know how to speak Linux, which I don't but I just install them and go about my business. You can always go back to Windows if you don't get along. I'm happy but would be happier if I could still run Windows 7 safely. That was my favorite. I still have one I run off line because I need it for my old hardware and software. Have a good day all!!

[fckyu]

Jumped over to Linux last year and I love it. Now that I actually own the OS, I'm never going back!

[ajamessssss]

I switched to Linux mint few days ago without doing any research. I just thought Linux looked neat. Now I'm watching videos like these

[AshnSilvercorp]

important note on the dual boot option, if you do decide to do it on the same PC, split it to two different drives if possible. Both Linux's bootloader update process and Windows' bootloader process can end up targeting each other, overwriting and wrecking that partition. (including one Linux distro targeting the options of another Grub instance).
If you really need to swap between them, let your boot order inside of BIOS do that, not your bootloader's themselves. They are often not built to recognize each other's existence.

[Michael-itgb]

Ive used Linux Mint for many years and I avoided typing anything in the Terminal command and was 99.99% successful. It's user friendly and a popular Linux distro for that reason.

[SnakePlissken]

Finally, someone that mentions the important point that it's not Windows and that expecting it to work like Windows is an unreasonable expectation.

[DampusOnCampus]

I switched to Linux about 8 months ago from Windows.
Never looked back.

[netrodex]

I agree on one thing. Mint it's truly fast and easier to use for small things such as watching a video, or downloading it and surfing the web.

[kensmith]

A couple of additional points:
Think in terms of what you want to do and not the program you want to run. An example would be "I want to do a spreadsheet" and not "I want to run excel". LibreOffice has a spreadsheet program and it works fine but it is not called "excel"
There is no "C:" drive. Your files are in "/home/yourname" in almost all cases.
Generally the disk you booted from is just "/"
Depending on the Linux distro, if you have other dives other than the one you booted from, when in use, they just look like a directory/folder somewhere. The OS takes care of remembering what drive things are on. Your "USB-Stick" can appear as needed. Remember to "eject/unmount/safely-remove" a drive when you are done with it.

[pyrolyzed]

Also if you dislike the look of the distro you chose, you don't have to change distro! Anything can be changed on any distro. Desktop environments are easily changed. For example, Linux Mint packages the Cinnamon DE (Desktop Environment), if you want something like GNOME (A different DE) you can simply do "sudo apt install gnome" inside a terminal.

[dreanki]

I'm a game dev and there are a lot of us including myself who hate windows. We are developing our game to work with Linux, as that was one of the main reasons why i didn't switch. i love Valve for helping to bring gaming to Linux

[NatjoOfficial]

For most people, Linux at this point is “good enough”, it’s now a case that general people prefer familiarity and the command line is a huge turn off to the not-as-tech-savvy people.

This might sound strange considering windows did this and people didn’t like it, but if you’re new to Linux and want to get into it, or you have family you want to get into it, add a hyperlink to chatGPT or ClaudeAI or another text ai to the desktop and name it “support” or “ask for help”. My journey into using Linux has been massively improved thanks to tools like those, able to give advice on things I don’t know or being able to point me in the right direction. Hell, it can be really useful to help install software I don’t know how to or require the command line for.

Also another thing I’d say is to avoid Arch. The “Linux is made by devs and not people” and “Linux is a broken mess” stereotype, in my opinion, come directly from people using Arch and its branched distros like Manjaro. Arch is more for advance users who fail to realise most users don’t want to do gymnastics with their systems and mostly want to use them to browse the internet or write up a document.

[VGamingJunkieVT]

I did notice something. When I tried to run a certain program in just Wine, it ran but it was pretty slow. I added it as Non-Steam Game to Steam to take advantage of Proton and it runs MUCH better, since Valve added a lot of things to it to excel it beyond Wine by itself. If you need a Windows Program to work and it's not working well through just Wine, give Proton a shot.

[smashpro]

Thanks, Microsoft. You've finally managed to push me into dive headfirst into Linux after years of dipping my toes into the water.