Quick Rundown on Linux

[serpentwalker666]

Here I will detail a straight-forward guide towards switching to Linux from Windows for members that need this, as it can be important to have a solid path for doing this effectively, and examining your use case.

Microsoft Windows has become a very terrible platform for anyone who is concerned about their security, privacy, and doesn't want big tech breathing down their neck with access to everything you have and do on your computer.

The unfortunate and very scary reality is big tech and modern software stacks, programs, and web browsers are all extremely invasive. If I wanted to make a guide for being completely secure, this is not possible unless you unplug your computer and smart phone and take a hammer to it.

Since we can't do that for obvious reasons, we have to consider the next best option, switching to Linux and using a decent distribution.

When it comes to a beginner user and someone new to Linux, I would recommend Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu Linux.
In the off chance you hate Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu and you feel strongly against this suggestion, the good thing is we have other distros to choose from.

Anything that is based on Debian, Arch or Ubuntu is typically fine for a newer Linux user.


These can be some excellent choices for dipping one's feet into Linux, I have tested many Linux systems on different machines,
these are often the most reliable choices when starting out:

Debian -- The Universal Operating System

www.debian.org

Home - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable desktop operating system.

linuxmint.com

Home - EndeavourOS

Start your Endeavour with a lightweight Arch-based system ready to personalise and a stellar community at your side Click on...

endeavouros.com

Xubuntu

Xubuntu – Xubuntu is an elegant and easy-to-use operating system.

xubuntu.org

Fedora, OpenSuse Tumbleweed, or Rocky Linux can be a decent choice depending on your system,
so I will include them as possibly options to transition to if you decide to after gaining more experience and don't like the above choices:

https://fedoraproject.org/

openSUSE Tumbleweed

Learn about the openSUSE distributions and download them for free

get.opensuse.org

Rocky Linux

Rocky Linux is an open enterprise Operating System designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Enterprise Linux.

rockylinux.org

(Manjaro Linux is often recommended as a good starter choice, however to put it bluntly, the developers have made some retarded decisions over the years, and I have personally had graphical displays completely crash down and have to manually pull back up everything and maintain it manually from a command line.
Because of this I cannot possibly recommend it to any of you. If you still like it and want to run it, I strongly recommend putting it on a secondary machine and having a solid state or hard drive with all your data copied to that you can use to restore.)


Keep in mind Arch is a more advanced distro, but it now has an arch-install utility if you have access to either wifi and or a wired connection.
It is NOT the painful process it used to be, you'll have to learn a bit of commands and methods, so I would recommend this only after you get used to Linux and have been using it for awhile:

Arch Linux

archlinux.org

(More advanced distros like Gentoo, Devuan, Artix, NixOS, and Slackware will be elaborated on in a different post. I don't recommend these for a beginner, for a multitude of reasons. Once one gains experience they are viable choices however depending on your use case)

Once you have decided on your distro of choice, you will need a decent usb drive to write the iso,
then you can boot the install iso from the boot menu on your computer's bios. Some general good options are as follows.

These three are typically solid choices for writing iso files:

Win32 Disk Imager - Download [Official Site]

Download Win32 Disk Imager a Fast, Secure & Reliable tool to Write Windows 10 or Windows 11 ISO Image to the Removable drive eg. Pendrive.

win32diskimager.org

balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives

A cross-platform tool to flash OS images onto SD cards and USB drives safely and easily. Free and open source for makers around the world.

etcher.balena.io

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Rufus: Create bootable USB drives the easy way

rufus.ie

These two can be buggy depending on the use case, but can be useful nonetheless,
just make sure you have a good reason for using them, I will list them just in case:

UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads

unetbootin.github.io

YUMI

YUMI lets you create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive containing multiple OS, antivirus utilities, disc cloning, diagnostic tools, and more.

www.techspot.com

Typically you will either cycle through booting your machine and press F9, F12, or F10.
This varies based on the machine you use, and you have to just try what key at startup before the splash screen
let's you boot into the usb drive.

A good decision when first starting out after you pick your distro, write to an iso and install it, is to ahead and watch a few videos on the installation process.

Sometimes even for long term linux users one can make a mistake at install, or partition a drive incorrectly. For this reason, I'd recommend referring to the endless multitude of install videos for your distro of choice. This would be better for anyone reading this guide, as there is hard to find bugs, and terrible glitches that can pop up on one system, and may not be the case for another.

A good install video for Linux Mint:

Installing Debian, goes over the installer:

A guided walk-through for the arch-installer on arch linux:

Another Good Video on Fedora Linux by the same creator of the arch-install walk-through:

(This circumstance of running into issues at install is uncommon, don't worry! However, I have ran into all sorts of issues over the years with distros and different systems, so I figure it would be best to make sure this is known)

After you have your system installed, it's usually very good to get familiar with the terminal and your distributions package manager, this is where you will maintain your linux system and install new packages.

For debian, and ubuntu based systems some helpful commands are:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

apt search

For arch and arch based distros:

sudo pacman -Syu

For Fedora or Rocky linux:

sudo dnf check-update

sudo dnf update


Some examples of installing packages and example packages:

sudo apt install wine

sudo apt install vulkan-dev micro gcc

or

sudo pacman -S wine

sudo pacman -S luakit vim sbcl

or

sudo dnf install wine

sudo dnf install ratpoison dmenu tmux



(More advanced distros like Gentoo, Devuan, Artix, NixOS, and Slackware will be elaborated on in a different post. I don't recommend these for a beginner, for a multitude of reasons. Once one gains experience they are viable choices however depending on your use case)

Alright, I will wrap this guide up for now, I am keeping it short.

Let me know if this is helpful, or what you would like to see next.

 

[AFODO]

What is an operating system? What is Linux? What differs with Linux and windows? What is a distribution? Why is there distributions? How to use Linux? How to install stuff on Linux? How to delete stuff on Linux? How are Linux systems built in short? What is a terminal? What commands do I need to live on the terminal only? Why is Linux more secure and private? How do I know what apps are available for Linux? What apps are recommended to have on a Linux machine? What are some alternatives to windows only programs?

Some questions one might have.

 

[april]

...

quick question, i went through your neocities page and saw that u mentioned that systemd takes away a lot of your security; could you elaborate a bit on this? (i dont know much about linux packages)
i assume its a form of "all in one" bloat and also has a lot of features that try to improve ease of use while simultaneously weakening your security

 

[DezFranky]

Anyone’s best guess when needing help with Linux is to just use ChatGPT and explore. Otherwise people are just going with path of least resistance here.

People should have some sense of distrust, your computers have back doors installled on them. VPNs are only as trustworthy as they’re legally allowed to be. Just like when PIA got bought out by an Israeli firm. These people are most likely gathering your data and selling to somehow.

If you use linux, you’re limiting your attack surface/surveillance by some degree. However, this should not mean we’re going Amish. Buy a laptop specifically for which activities you would like more privacy and security on.

If none of this applies then don’t waste your time. Linux is a fun OS to play with and using the CLI can get you inspired to learn coding and do something good.

 

[serpentwalker666]

quick question, i went through your neocities page and saw that u mentioned that systemd takes away a lot of your security; could you elaborate a bit on this? (i dont know much about linux packages)
i assume its a form of "all in one" bloat and also has a lot of features that try to improve ease of use while simultaneously weakening your security

I would ask these questions to BrightSpace666 concerning their neocities page on the issues with systemd, they could better explain and elaborate on these points.

I don't have a neocities page and you have me and him confused.

 

[MarsUltor666]

GNU/Linux is very much a serious OS, and I think people should not underestimate it.

Too many people have the mentality that it's only meant to be used on servers, etc., or that it's only for programming, specialized purposes, or whatever. This is simply false. Nowadays, I don't have a single use for Windows, at all. I have a dual-boot set up, but I can't remember the last time I booted it. Perhaps if one is a gamer, or if they need special software which only runs on Windows, then yes. But nowadays, with the advent of Proton on Steam, Wine, or of course native support, I'd say it's becoming less necessary. There are a lot of GNU utils which do what you need out of the box, often in a much better way than Windows, without having to go on websites to download and install random third-party software that is usually full of bloat and/or anti-features.

And even if software doesn't work on Linux, or it doesn't work well, it's the developer's fault for not supporting it, or not cooperating with the open source community (NVIDIA, anyone?).

Admittedly, yes, some technical knowledge is needed. But when you learn how to use it, you discover that it is superior in every way to Windows. I firmly believe the future is open source; Microsoft is an evil old dinosaur with a bloated, badly-designed, proprietary OS full of spyware, which I don't honestly believe will stand the test of time.

Anyway, this is a good guide - thanks for posting. I think that guides like this could be very useful. Personally, I use Arch, but I'd consider myself a more advanced user - I installed it via the normal ISO, where you are simply given a root shell. The great thing about Arch is that installing it is very educational, and you learn a lot about how Linux works. It also gives you more freedom to customize your system as you please. But nowadays, there are many distros out there, are you have mentioned, some of which are very beginner-friendly.

On the semi-related topic of browsers: I saw in another thread someone mentioning LibreWolf. I'm tempted to give it a try. I use Brave, but I've always wondered if there's any sketchy "features" doing things in the background...

 

[serpentwalker666]

What is an operating system? What is Linux? What differs with Linux and windows? What is a distribution? Why is there distributions? How to use Linux? How to install stuff on Linux? How to delete stuff on Linux? How are Linux systems built in short? What is a terminal? What commands do I need to live on the terminal only? Why is Linux more secure and private? How do I know what apps are available for Linux? What apps are recommended to have on a Linux machine? What are some alternatives to windows only programs?

Some questions one might have.

Thank you. I will see what I can address when it comes to these questions in a future post.

If there is anything you or anyone else would like to see, you are also always welcome to send me a message with a list of potential questions.

 

[april]

I would ask these questions to BrightSpace666 concerning their neocities page on the issues with systemd, they could better explain and elaborate on these points.

I don't have a neocities page and you have me and him confused.

oh yeah I just realized
my bad, your names are really similar.

Personally, I use Arch

"I use Arch btw" but yeah no it truly makes you learn a lot, definitely agree on that. I've also been thinking about Arch, tried Blackarch for a while, which is basically the Kali version of Arch. But I've seen BrightSpace666 mention slackware on his blog and OP also mentions it so I'm planning to look into it.

On the semi-related topic of browsers: I saw in another thread someone mentioning LibreWolf. I'm tempted to give it a try. I use Brave, but I've always wondered if there's any sketchy "features" doing things in the background...

Ungoogled Chromium or LibreWolf would be the most solid choices imo, I've mentioned it in the browser thread already, but I think every overhyped and "marketing" focused/shilled browser is spyware, such as Brave or OperaGX. You can never be too sure but free and open source browsers are always a good starting point

 

[AFODO]

quick question, i went through your neocities page and saw that u mentioned that systemd takes away a lot of your security; could you elaborate a bit on this? (i dont know much about linux packages)
i assume its a form of "all in one" bloat and also has a lot of features that try to improve ease of use while simultaneously weakening your security

Yes it's mainly because of the all in one bloat that isn't aligned with the unix philosophy. I also heard that someone found some questionable lines in it's code, furthermore, red hat Linux have been making some bad choices and overall they are not the most reliable company. (They made systemd).

Overall, currently it's not the end of the world, but it's much more secure to use an alternative init system. The only pro is that there are some apps that relies on systemd, and might not find an alternative for other init system.

Furthermore, it's better to use some other core library, instead of the GNU library, and making your system anti-GNU, because the founder of GNU is a Jew. Brightspace said that he supports the GNU project, perhaps the whole project is not that bad, but the founder, CEO is a Jew, I don't know if he knows that.

software that sucks less | suckless.org software that sucks less

software that sucks less | suckless.org software that sucks less

But you don't have to be bothered too much by that.

The free and open source thing also attract a lot of commies and some other low level people. Free and open source software is just a temporary solution for the Jew ruled closed source scams. Otherwise, it's a completely normal thing. Just like freemasonry is good, when it's not practiced by Jews.

 

[SatAnon]

When making a thread on Linux, it's important to mention its downsides too:

1)Linux fonts generally suck, so your interface will look much worse than Windows

2)It depends heavily on the command line, and you will need to use at some point or another, especially if your system crashes or you get a problem (which occurs very often in Linux). Contrary to Windows, there aren't any graphical interface troubleshooters to fix them, so you will have to do a lot of Googling and command-line typing.

3)If you are using a laptop, your battery will drain much faster on Linux. Yes, even if you use a command-line program called TLP, which optimizes laptop battery, it's still much worse on Linux.

4)If your computer is new or unusual, it's likely that you will have major trouble unless you use a bleeding edge distribution that includes the latest kernel version, as your device drivers aren't supported yet by most major distributions.

5)It's almost impossible to update your BIOS in Linux (unless you use some Dell laptop models). To update it you either have to dual boot Windows or use a Windows PE USB stick, add the bios executable there and boot it.

6)Most programs used as a replacement for Windows apps generally suck. Libreoffice is much worse than MS Office and GIMP is much worse than Photoshop. Only VLC media player is good.

7)If you are a gamer, tough luck as you will not find your favorite games in Linux. Steam is supported in Linux, but still most popular video games are Windows-only.

For me, those disadvantages weren't worth it, so I switched back to Windows.

 

[Ozobeus]

Here I will detail a straight-forward guide towards switching to Linux from Windows for members that need this, as it can be important to have a solid path for doing this effectively, and examining your use case.

Microsoft Windows has become a very terrible platform for anyone who is concerned about their security, privacy, and doesn't want big tech breathing down their neck with access to everything you have and do on your computer.

The unfortunate and very scary reality is big tech and modern software stacks, programs, and web browsers are all extremely invasive. If I wanted to make a guide for being completely secure, this is not possible unless you unplug your computer and smart phone and take a hammer to it.

Since we can't do that for obvious reasons, we have to consider the next best option, switching to Linux and using a decent distribution.

When it comes to a beginner user and someone new to Linux, I would recommend Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu Linux.
In the off chance you hate Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu and you feel strongly against this suggestion, the good thing is we have other distros to choose from.

Anything that is based on Debian, Arch or Ubuntu is typically fine for a newer Linux user.


These can be some excellent choices for dipping one's feet into Linux, I have tested many Linux systems on different machines,
these are often the most reliable choices when starting out:

Debian -- The Universal Operating System

www.debian.org

Home - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable desktop operating system.

linuxmint.com

Home - EndeavourOS

Start your Endeavour with a lightweight Arch-based system ready to personalise and a stellar community at your side Click on...

endeavouros.com

Xubuntu

Xubuntu – Xubuntu is an elegant and easy-to-use operating system.

xubuntu.org

Fedora, OpenSuse Tumbleweed, or Rocky Linux can be a decent choice depending on your system,
so I will include them as possibly options to transition to if you decide to after gaining more experience and don't like the above choices:

https://fedoraproject.org/

openSUSE Tumbleweed

Learn about the openSUSE distributions and download them for free

get.opensuse.org

Rocky Linux

Rocky Linux is an open enterprise Operating System designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Enterprise Linux.

rockylinux.org

(Manjaro Linux is often recommended as a good starter choice, however to put it bluntly, the developers have made some retarded decisions over the years, and I have personally had graphical displays completely crash down and have to manually pull back up everything and maintain it manually from a command line.
Because of this I cannot possibly recommend it to any of you. If you still like it and want to run it, I strongly recommend putting it on a secondary machine and having a solid state or hard drive with all your data copied to that you can use to restore.)


Keep in mind Arch is a more advanced distro, but it now has an arch-install utility if you have access to either wifi and or a wired connection.
It is NOT the painful process it used to be, you'll have to learn a bit of commands and methods, so I would recommend this only after you get used to Linux and have been using it for awhile:

Arch Linux

archlinux.org

(More advanced distros like Gentoo, Devuan, Artix, NixOS, and Slackware will be elaborated on in a different post. I don't recommend these for a beginner, for a multitude of reasons. Once one gains experience they are viable choices however depending on your use case)

Once you have decided on your distro of choice, you will need a decent usb drive to write the iso,
then you can boot the install iso from the boot menu on your computer's bios. Some general good options are as follows.

These three are typically solid choices for writing iso files:

Win32 Disk Imager - Download [Official Site]

Download Win32 Disk Imager a Fast, Secure & Reliable tool to Write Windows 10 or Windows 11 ISO Image to the Removable drive eg. Pendrive.

win32diskimager.org

balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives

A cross-platform tool to flash OS images onto SD cards and USB drives safely and easily. Free and open source for makers around the world.

etcher.balena.io

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Rufus: Create bootable USB drives the easy way

rufus.ie

These two can be buggy depending on the use case, but can be useful nonetheless,
just make sure you have a good reason for using them, I will list them just in case:

UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads

unetbootin.github.io

YUMI

YUMI lets you create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive containing multiple OS, antivirus utilities, disc cloning, diagnostic tools, and more.

www.techspot.com

Typically you will either cycle through booting your machine and press F9, F12, or F10.
This varies based on the machine you use, and you have to just try what key at startup before the splash screen
let's you boot into the usb drive.

A good decision when first starting out after you pick your distro, write to an iso and install it, is to ahead and watch a few videos on the installation process.

Sometimes even for long term linux users one can make a mistake at install, or partition a drive incorrectly. For this reason, I'd recommend referring to the endless multitude of install videos for your distro of choice. This would be better for anyone reading this guide, as there is hard to find bugs, and terrible glitches that can pop up on one system, and may not be the case for another.

A good install video for Linux Mint:

Installing Debian, goes over the installer:

A guided walk-through for the arch-installer on arch linux:

Another Good Video on Fedora Linux by the same creator of the arch-install walk-through:

(This circumstance of running into issues at install is uncommon, don't worry! However, I have ran into all sorts of issues over the years with distros and different systems, so I figure it would be best to make sure this is known)

After you have your system installed, it's usually very good to get familiar with the terminal and your distributions package manager, this is where you will maintain your linux system and install new packages.

For debian, and ubuntu based systems some helpful commands are:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

apt search

For arch and arch based distros:

sudo pacman -Syu

For Fedora or Rocky linux:

sudo dnf check-update

sudo dnf update


Some examples of installing packages and example packages:

sudo apt install wine

sudo apt install vulkan-dev micro gcc

or

sudo pacman -S wine

sudo pacman -S luakit vim sbcl

or

sudo dnf install wine

sudo dnf install ratpoison dmenu tmux



(More advanced distros like Gentoo, Devuan, Artix, NixOS, and Slackware will be elaborated on in a different post. I don't recommend these for a beginner, for a multitude of reasons. Once one gains experience they are viable choices however depending on your use case)

Alright, I will wrap this guide up for now, I am keeping it short.

Let me know if this is helpful, or what you would like to see next.

This is a really rich and very informative article! Keep up the good work on posting more articles like this.

I feel inspired to soon switch to Linux. It's much more secure than mainstream OSes

 

[serpentwalker666]

Yes it's mainly because of the all in one bloat that isn't aligned with the unix philosophy. I also heard that someone found some questionable lines in it's code, furthermore, red hat Linux have been making some bad choices and overall they are not the most reliable company. (They made systemd).

Overall, currently it's not the end of the world, but it's much more secure to use an alternative init system. The only pro is that there are some apps that relies on systemd, and might not find an alternative for other init system.

Furthermore, it's better to use some other core library, instead of the GNU library, and making your system anti-GNU, because the founder of GNU is a Jew. Brightspace said that he supports the GNU project, perhaps the whole project is not that bad, but the founder, CEO is a Jew, I don't know if he knows that.

software that sucks less | suckless.org software that sucks less

software that sucks less | suckless.org software that sucks less

But you don't have to be bothered too much by that.

The free and open source thing also attract a lot of commies and some other low level people. Free and open source software is just a temporary solution for the Jew ruled closed source scams. Otherwise, it's a completely normal thing. Just like freemasonry is good, when it's not practiced by Jews.

The GNU library for the most part is fine to use, I wouldn't be so quick to turn to alternatives on this unless you are very concerned. Most of the software stack is relatively fine to use, and doesn't appear to have anything malicious.

You have options for other libraries if you are concerned though and I get that. As for the GNU Projects founder, Richard Stallman, yes he is Jewish.

Anywhere you look in the field of computer science, you will see certain degrees of jewish influence on operating systems and software, this is very unavoidable at this point unfortunately.
I would advise caution, but if someone uses the GNU stack and doesn't have issues with that, there's no sense in changing.

You can point out nearly a jew here and there with any stack of software at this point in time.

 

[Egon]

7)If you are a gamer, tough luck as you will not find your favorite games in Linux. Steam is supported in Linux, but still most popular video games are Windows-only.

You can still install Steam OS which is also Linux, or run Bottles into your Linux to run Windows games or whatever apps for professional purposes like advanced image or video editors that don't run natively on Linux,

 

[serpentwalker666]

GNU/Linux is very much a serious OS, and I think people should not underestimate it.

Too many people have the mentality that it's only meant to be used on servers, etc., or that it's only for programming, specialized purposes, or whatever. This is simply false. Nowadays, I don't have a single use for Windows, at all. I have a dual-boot set up, but I can't remember the last time I booted it. Perhaps if one is a gamer, or if they need special software which only runs on Windows, then yes. But nowadays, with the advent of Proton on Steam, Wine, or of course native support, I'd say it's becoming less necessary. There are a lot of GNU utils which do what you need out of the box, often in a much better way than Windows, without having to go on websites to download and install random third-party software that is usually full of bloat and/or anti-features.

And even if software doesn't work on Linux, or it doesn't work well, it's the developer's fault for not supporting it, or not cooperating with the open source community (NVIDIA, anyone?).

Admittedly, yes, some technical knowledge is needed. But when you learn how to use it, you discover that it is superior in every way to Windows. I firmly believe the future is open source; Microsoft is an evil old dinosaur with a bloated, badly-designed, proprietary OS full of spyware, which I don't honestly believe will stand the test of time.

Anyway, this is a good guide - thanks for posting. I think that guides like this could be very useful. Personally, I use Arch, but I'd consider myself a more advanced user - I installed it via the normal ISO, where you are simply given a root shell. The great thing about Arch is that installing it is very educational, and you learn a lot about how Linux works. It also gives you more freedom to customize your system as you please. But nowadays, there are many distros out there, are you have mentioned, some of which are very beginner-friendly.

On the semi-related topic of browsers: I saw in another thread someone mentioning LibreWolf. I'm tempted to give it a try. I use Brave, but I've always wondered if there's any sketchy "features" doing things in the background...

Yes, you hit the nail on the head here, things are really good at this point on the Linux side of the fence, personally I would like to see completely new operating systems emerge in time that are not unix-like and just better in general with compatibility for Linux and BSD software stacks and the userland. Unfortunately this will take a LONG time, so Linux is the best option for now.

In regards to NVIDIA, there is some good developments that will be useful in the future. You have open source drivers for nvidia cards being written and implemented in rust, so this will make the nvidia experience on linux mostly ironed out once these are mature enough to use and daily drive with.

As for Browsers, I would just use what works for you and be mindful of any sketchy things, and just switch accordingly if this bothers you.

I'm very much more in the center when it comes to security, just because I see how insecure things are at this point. Unless you disable hyper-threading, and ditch 9/10ths of programs and software stacks to then move over to OpenBSD, things will be insecure. Even then if you were to just hop over to OpenBSD and sacrifice an arm and a leg to achieve a great degree of security.. at that point i can't say it would be worth it, at least in my opinion.

When making a thread on Linux, it's important to mention its downsides too:

1)Linux fonts generally suck, so your interface will look much worse than Windows

2)It depends heavily on the command line, and you will need to use at some point or another, especially if your system crashes or you get a problem (which occurs very often in Linux). Contrary to Windows, there aren't any graphical interface troubleshooters to fix them, so you will have to do a lot of Googling and command-line typing.

3)If you are using a laptop, your battery will drain much faster on Linux. Yes, even if you use a command-line program called TLP, which optimizes laptop battery, it's still much worse on Linux.

4)If your computer is new or unusual, it's likely that you will have major trouble unless you use a bleeding edge distribution that includes the latest kernel version, as your device drivers aren't supported yet by most major distributions.

5)It's almost impossible to update your BIOS in Linux (unless you use some Dell laptop models). To update it you either have to dual boot Windows or use a Windows PE USB stick, add the bios executable there and boot it.

6)Most programs used as a replacement for Windows apps generally suck. Libreoffice is much worse than MS Office and GIMP is much worse than Photoshop. Only VLC media player is good.

7)If you are a gamer, tough luck as you will not find your favorite games in Linux. Steam is supported in Linux, but still most popular video games are Windows-only.

For me, those disadvantages weren't worth it, so I switched back to Windows.

1. Fonts are easily changed, if you want to be picky you have many options.

2. Yes this can be a major adjustment, but in the end it's worth learning to a good degree. Past a certain point you don't have to do a whole lot, just enough to maintain and install a few programs. Most issues are solvable in a good majority of cases, as with anything.

3. Laptops running Linux are decently documented at this point. If you want to run linux on a laptop, even something higher end, then one should look into what's compatible at this point. Some are hit and miss, some are fine, others are a complete dumpster fire and incompatible. This is a shame and I get what you are referring to, I agree.

4. This depends on how new we are talking. I have a Ryzen 7950X, with 64gb of DDR5 Ram with an AMD 6800xt, running on Devuan Daedalus with a 6.1 kernel, completely plug and play, bluetooth and wifi on the motherboard and all. Yes, one can run into some issues in this area, and they should spec out and see how compatible their system is, I probably should make that a point and clarify in a new post, thank you.

5. This I cannot verify for certain, I'll have to read more into this and see.

6. This is just simply not true unless you need ONE specific program you had on windows to work on linux. In that case you have dual booting as an option or gpu passthrough. I have not had any issues with the linux side of things here. Things seem to work fine and I've used these programs you describe on Windows as well on ocassion.

7. This is where dual booting or VFIO-passthrough is very handy. It depends on the person though. All my games on steam, emulators, and software I enjoy all are compatible with Proton and Wine in it's current state. Other things one would have to dual boot with windows for.

 

[serpentwalker666]

You can still install Steam OS which is also Linux, or run Bottles into your Linux to run Windows games or whatever apps for professional purposes like advanced image or video editors that don't run natively on Linux,

Yes, wine is at a very good point of development and compatibility.

I could see if this was like 2 years ago or something, but now things are much different then even a year or two ago, everything is very much ready.

 

[AFODO]

1)Linux fonts generally suck, so your interface will look much worse than Windows

Not really, and there are millions of free fonts you can download (besides the hundreds that are already installed), and set as your default font. As I know it's possible to install windows fonts too, but I would stay with free open source ones.

2)It depends heavily on the command line, and you will need to use at some point or another, especially if your system crashes or you get a problem (which occurs very often in Linux). Contrary to Windows, there aren't any graphical interface troubleshooters to fix them, so you will have to do a lot of Googling and command-line typing.

I wouldn't say that, I haven't used the command line for 4 months other than catting out my password. If you want to make changes on your system, you might need to do this, but if you have set up your system that just works and basically there is nothing else to do things with it, other than installing stuff, you will not need to us it. There is a learning curve of course.

4)If your computer is new or unusual, it's likely that you will have major trouble unless you use a bleeding edge distribution that includes the latest kernel version, as your device drivers aren't supported yet by most major distributions.

There is nothing wrong with bleeding edge distributions, and there are major bleeding edge distributions, such as Arch.

If you have a setup with very recent hardware, you will have less choice with distributions, for sure.

 

[AFODO]

6)Most programs used as a replacement for Windows apps generally suck. Libreoffice is much worse than MS Office and GIMP is much worse than Photoshop. Only VLC media player is good.

This is the only problem with Linux, your other points are completely weightless.

But if you need to use word, excel, and the others, there is a web version of these. There is a lot of things that are available for Linux too and the replacements will do for an everyday user.

If you need some specific software for your work or something, you will need to use windows for that if it's not available on Linux. But one can still try it with wine.

Another thing with using Linux is that you will have to learn it, and spend time on making your system work. While most Windows users will never configure anything on their system. Some things might seem more complicated and tedious at first. But you get an operating system that you can control and no one steals your data. The many upsides with using Linux overrules the very few downsides, for me at least.

Using windows for Satanic things is very dangerous, especially looking into the future, it will only get much worse.

 

[MarsUltor666]

I've mentioned it in the browser thread already, but I think every overhyped and "marketing" focused/shilled browser is spyware, such as Brave or OperaGX.

Yeah, that's always put me off, to be honest. It seems a bit... suspicious. Especially out of the box, where the home screen/new tab page feels like a gigantic advertisement. I don't like that feel, at all. It's very cryptocurrency-focused. And the Leo AI assistant thing that keeps appearing...

And I don't really feel like having the Chinese government browse the web with me when using Opera, lol.

I miss the old days when a web browser was just... a web browser. Oh well. I'll give LibreWolf a try.

3)If you are using a laptop, your battery will drain much faster on Linux. Yes, even if you use a command-line program called TLP, which optimizes laptop battery, it's still much worse on Linux.

Are you sure about this? I would have thought it would be better, as there isn't all the bloat running in the background doing who-knows-what. I can only imagine that hardware-related things like screen brightness control issues could cause this problem, as there have been problems in my experience with it not working properly, and it being too bright. But in general, I have used it on laptops and don't remember having problems. Although, I suppose it depends on the laptop.

Your desktop environment can also play a factor. If you use a DE like KDE, perhaps it won't last quite as long, as opposed to say, Xfce. But KDE has made enormous improvements since, say, ten years ago, and has good power management options.

7)If you are a gamer, tough luck as you will not find your favorite games in Linux. Steam is supported in Linux, but still most popular video games are Windows-only.

It can be a hit-or-miss, but a lot of Steam games run under Proton, even if not they are not natively supported in Linux. You can check on ProtonDB. I'm not sure if you'd get 100% the same performance, but you'd be surprised.

Wine can also work, although it can be very flaky. Some games will work much better than others. Generally speaking however, it has improved significantly in recent years.

especially if your system crashes or you get a problem (which occurs very often in Linux)

I've not had problems with any serious crashes, kernel panics, or so on. If you mess around with the system, you can break it, which is why you absolutely don't run anything as root or make any changes in system space unless you know what you are doing. Any software you install should either be managed by the distro's package manager, or installed in the local home directory of the user. One wrong command or a typo as root, and you can mess up your entire system in the press of a key. A good sudo policy is important.

6)Most programs used as a replacement for Windows apps generally suck. Libreoffice is much worse than MS Office and GIMP is much worse than Photoshop. Only VLC media player is good.

I agree that LibreOffice and GIMP suck, and they honestly have pretty terrible UI designs. Although, there is a huge variety of software, and it varies in quality. There is a lot of good software out there.

For instance: GIMP is not great, but Krita is an awesome program for drawing and painting, which does have some editing functionality.

In regards to NVIDIA, there is some good developments that will be useful in the future. You have open source drivers for nvidia cards being written and implemented in rust, so this will make the nvidia experience on linux mostly ironed out once these are mature enough to use and daily drive with.

Interesting - I was unaware of this.

 

[The Raven]

What is an operating system? What is Linux? What differs with Linux and windows? What is a distribution? Why is there distributions? How to use Linux? How to install stuff on Linux? How to delete stuff on Linux? How are Linux systems built in short? What is a terminal? What commands do I need to live on the terminal only? Why is Linux more secure and private? How do I know what apps are available for Linux? What apps are recommended to have on a Linux machine? What are some alternatives to windows only programs?

Some questions one might have.

Some I can answer. I have used linux for years and love it. There are thousands of not 10s of thousands of apps there for Linux right inside the software manager for free, just search for something you need and and find a selection to choose from. Linux Mint comes with all the usual main software like office software that can easily read microsoft words files, and there is just about anything you can think of ready to install any time you want. If you have some (old) favorite windows programs you can not live without, there is a software called crossover that allows you to install windows software and run it. Runs just like it does in windows, launch with desktop icon and use it seamlessly, and it fully integrates with linux and other software. Do a search on windows alternative programs for Linux and you will find lists of software as well. You might find 2 or 3 worthwhile programs that are worth paying for for certain functions. There is scanner software available that will work with any scanner on the market, no need for drivers etc. Nice thing about linux is you can have a copy on a thumb drive and install it on any computer in less than 30 minutes, no need for drivers for any of the hardware it just all works right out of the box. unlike windows , were you have to have a driver for this and a driver for that, a pain in ass. With linux its all self contained and can install in just about any computer. I even installed it on an old APPLE Mac laptop.( a little tricky) But Works fine.