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Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 support will end tomorrow (January 1st 2024)
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this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Time to use something better boys
I tried. I finally wanted to switch away from Windows and installed mint. Spent about 3 hours trying to get my headphone jacks to work with some mildly obscure tools and commands but no dice. Then I managed to destroy one of my partitions by trying to Mount it but it gave me an obscure error. Searched the forums and found NTFS fix, well turns out I accidentally had turned the partition dynamic when moving it to a larger drive. NTFS fix didn't like that and promptly destroyed the file table. I lost a buch of data. So back to the cruddy Windows then...I'm not tech savvy enough, which is sad.
If you've never, ever used Linux before and are not confident about its tools, it's almost always better to use a fresh machine. NTFS and Linux really don't mix well, for example.
Haha, yeah, as I've learned. I'll try again when I build a new machine. I really like the overall look and feel of Mint.
It's been a few years since I used Mint, but I enjoyed it. Most of the Debian-based distros are very similar, actually. All are decent for beginners. If not Mint, Pop is another good option.
Also Zorin
I installed Zorin on my wife's (=no prior Linux experience) laptop something like 2 years ago. Considering the fact that she still uses it almost daily, I'd say you're right.
Personally, I dislike some of the custom stuff it has over the more standard desktop environments, but I do think it's great for usability in that it feels Windows-adjacent.
Just boot it off a thumb drive and take it for a test drive.
Use Ventoy if you want to test multiple distros.
I did that prior and decided I like it, so I did a proper install. I just didn't try the sound jacks and didn't notice one of my drives not mounting.
Well, valve plans on bringing steam deck os to desktop eventually.
Backups before doing anything else with partitions (or OS in general)
Yes, all the important stuff was backed up naturally. Still lost some, I'd say "nostalgic old files" It just happens when you have large drives you can't just back it up without paying lots.
Why does it matter? What user really cares if it's Wayland or x11? Software is about solving problems for the user. Mint is far superior to Windows.
Sent from KDE with x11...
Mint will use xorg as the default session until 2026, where it is projected that wayland will solve most if not all of its showstoppers.
Mint's cinnamon DE is built off of Mutter, GNOME's compositor, so all it means is that Mint will be doing the same thing that it has always done, been what GNOME could have been if it hadn't reinvented itself.
Mint is a workflow extremely similar to what most users have experienced on Windows and specifically caters to Windows users or users coming from proprietary operating systems.
To me mint was always the closest to what I wanted as a Windows user. I still user windows most of the time now but whenever I use Linux, it's mint.
Zorin is another good one
I thought you said better
https://archlinux.org
no, they said better
https://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net
Perfection.
Well both are good choices, but for new linux users coming from windows - Mint would be way easier to get started with.
Why mint over Debian, Alma, Rocky… or heck, Ubuntu?
Just give em Fedora. Seems to get people good mileage from newb to netadmin
Would you wish SELinux on a beginner tho
Jesting apart, it’s admittedly a solid option. Sticking to a mainstream distro is typically what I recommend, regardless of which one. Most of the debates surrounding distros are pretty silly to begin with, IMHO, considering most differences boil down to which package manager and init system they use, and their set of default software and configurations.
Debian is just old unless you go into the unstable branches, and I don't use that as an insult because Debian is obviously supposed to be stable. I have literally never heard of Alma or Rocky, and Ubuntu is just shit and has Snap as well as a very unfamiliar desktop layout. Cinnamon or KDE will be much better entries for people coming from Windows.
Arch is of course just a stupid suggestion for Linux newbies and I honestly can't take people like you serious for doing so unironically.
I agree that arch is stupid for newbies. I was taking a poke at mint. I would never suggest that.
Alma/Rocky is what CentOS used to be.
You can install KDE on Ubuntu, but point taken on KDE (I’m not familiar with cinnamon).
I suggested basically RHEL and Debian because, like you said they are stable and relatively easy to install.
Snap is rather new to me as well. I have a recent LTS install of Ubuntu and I don’t use it. I doubt someone who’s new into Linux will touch it.
My other big concern is systemd. If you’re not familiar with Linux, systemd is a nightmare when things go wrong. But, I suppose a newbie won’t care
GRUB was a nightmare for me when things went wrong (EndeavourOS / Arch). I think you can say that to a lot of critical Linux system components though. Mint is generally one of the more stable distros out there though and generally considered to be the better Ubuntu.
The cinnamon desktop is super nice, but mint didn't play well with my gpu for some reason, but you can install the desktop environment on Ubuntu.
You think you don't use it. Have firefox installed? All that
apt installdid was grab a wrapper for snap :( same for some other software.Instead of downvoting, here’s how I feel about that: =<
Personally I would pick Mint over Alma/Rocky as I am less familiar with RPM based distros than DEB based distros, I would recommend Mint over Debian as it is easier to get working with gaming, Ubuntu is great, but I won't recommend snaps to a new user.
Linux is linux, no matter the distro! It's not by arguing which distro is better that the year of the linux desktop will happen!!!
Dunno. I’m not convinced the “year of Linux desktop” will ever happen. Granted, I now mostly use it for work, so I’m not up to date on the latest, but…..
Neither of Microsoft Office competitors will be replacement, even WPS.
My last attempt to get games working on Linux did not go well, but I am hopeful the kinks will be sorted out by the time Win10 starts getting dropped.
I game exclusively on Linux these days. I haven’t had an issue that I couldn’t solve so far aside from shitty anti cheat software that doesn’t play nice.
I play single player almost exclusively, so that isn’t much of a problem for me.
I think my hardware might have had something to do with it, was trying on a somewhat older laptop. Most games would not launch even with Proton and even most Linux native games did not work even after a fair bit of troubleshooting. I get that some people might not have problems but I believe problems still remain widespread.
Oh yeah, definitely.
Still, I think you should try with better hardware when you can.
Any differences will not be significant.
Get a Steam deck. Holy hell I love mine.
I'd rather not have to upgrade hardware that can run the games I want to play perfectly fine, hoping for improved support (or at the very least a straightforward way to tell specifically what the problem is). Though once Win10 ends it's not like there's going to be an alternative to Linux anyway since Win11 has strict requirements for new stuff.
What are the specs of your machine?
It is a ThinkPad E15 (the one I was trying at least)