this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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So i was surprised today when my fiancee told me she was thinking about switching over to linux. Surprised because she is absolutely not technically minded, but also because she was weary about having Microsoft AI slop forced on her PC every update. ( i'm so proud!)

Now i've used a little linux but i've always been a holdout. Won't stop me from moving someone else over but i have too much going on in my setup to deal with that right now. So i'm not super versed but i was able to give her the basic rundown of what distros are, concerns when switching, what may and may not be available, shes still on board so we're doing this! Knowing her she would like to not have to transition too much, whats something fairly hands off and easy to learn. I've heard some good things about mint from hanging around you nerds the past few years but also some not so good things, any suggestions?

next concern is what kind of transfer process is this going to be? i have some spare HDD's so we can try and get everything ported over but i'm so busy with school right now i can't quite allocate the time to really deep dive this.

Any help is appreciated, cheers!

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[–] Greddan@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Went with Bazzite for my main gaming rig almost a year ago. Really good all-round distro imo. Haven't had an issue yet. NixOS for my other machines because it's cool and I can have them fit for many purposes by just switching a single config file.

[–] 9limmer@piefed.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nix is new to me, but what I've read seems like it's very polarizing. Curious what kind of real world use makes it a good choice?

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Curious what kind of real world use makes it a good choice?

It's declarative. Everything is (usually) configured via Nix itself, without requiring manual steps of running additional commands. This ends up being pretty useful when you have a fleet of devices that you want to configure.

Changing config is atomic. If you end up breaking your system when trying to tweak it, you can boot into the previous generation and try again with different settings.