this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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Linux

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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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The Best way to switch to Linux is to NOT (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago by acceptable_humor@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
161 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Okay I know this sounds like click bait but trust me switching over to linux requires you to first master the open source software that you will be replacing your windows/mac counterparts with. Doing it in an unfamiliar OS with no fallback to rely on is tough, frustrating and will turn you off of trying linux. DISCLAIMER: I know that some people cannot switch to linux because open source / Linux software is not good enough yet. But I urge you to keep track of them and when so you can know when they are good enough.

The Solution

So I suggest you keep using windows, switch all your apps to open or closed source software that is available on linux. Learn them, use them and if you are in a pinch and need to use your windows only software it will still be there. Once you are at a point where you never use the windows only software you can then think of switching over to linux.

The Alternatives

So to help you out I'll list my favorites for each use case.

MS Office -> Only Office

  1. Not for folks who use obscure macros and are deep into MS Office
  2. Has Collaboration and integration with almost all popular cloud services..
  3. Has a MS Office like UI and the best compatibility with MS Office.

Adobe Premiere -> Da Vinci Resolve

  1. It is closed source but available on linux
  2. Great UI, competitive features and a free version

Outlook -> Thunderbird

  1. Recently went through massive updates and now has a modern design.
  2. Templates, multi account management, content based filters, html signatures, it is all there.

Epic Games, GOG, PRIME -> Heroic

  1. Easy to use, 1 click install, no hassel
  2. Beautiful UI
  3. Automatically imports all the games you have bought

PDF Editor -> LibreOffice Draw

  1. Suprisingly good for text manipulation, moving around images and alot more.
  2. There might be slight incompatibilities (I haven't noticed anything huge)
  3. But hey, it's free

How do I pick a distro there are so many! NO

So finally after switching all the apps you think you are ready? Do not fall into the rabbit hole of changing your entire OS every two days, you will be in a toxic relationship with it.

I hate updates and my hardware is not that new

  1. Mint - UI looks a bit dated but it is rock solid
  2. Ubuntu - Yes, I know snaps are bad, but you can just ignore them

I have new hardware but I want sane updates

  1. Fedora
  2. Open Suse Tumbleweed

I live on the bleeding edge baby, both hardware and software

  1. Arch ... btw

Anyways what is more important is the DE than the distro for a beginner, trust me. Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, etc. you can try them all in a VM and see which one you like.

SO TLDR: Don't switch to linux! Switch to linux apps.

(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] F04118F@feddit.nl 5 points 3 months ago

Great post! Completely agree! I will add that for filling out PDF Forms, Okular is amazing!

[–] areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago

You know there is almost more stuff advising how to switch to Linux than there is stuff for existing users or people with their feet in both worlds. There are plenty of people who used Linux but only for server, or as a dual boot, or on one machine but not another. I think they would benefit from advice on how to fully switch over or how to use both systems to full effectiveness together. Like I only fully switched to Linux maybe 6 months ago after going back and forth for years.

We also need to be thinking about how to get people from beginner level to intermediate, and then on to advanced levels. There isn't a clear progression path forward. It could be something like: Linux Mint -> Arch -> Nix. I believe projects like Arco Linux are striving to fulfill this gap from beginner to advanced.

[–] nickb333@fedia.io 5 points 3 months ago

Is it people that want to switch away from Windows or switch to Linux?

In my case it was the former, having spent a lot of time on FreeBSD so in 2007 I bought a Macbook Pro running OSX 10.3. This gave me most of what I wanted and when I needed something Windows (XP) specific I installed a VM running under Parallels, then Virtual Box. I was able to run most of the open source software at that time such as Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird in preference to the Apple supplied apps.

[–] HouseWolf@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago

To add to the software point, STOP buying hardware that requires some shitty software to fully work.

I did this back in the Windows 7 days years before I even knew anything about Linux. But Razers rootkit managed to load in before the Win7 login screen then crash it. After that I avoided any peripherals with mandatory software and it made my transition to Linux a lot easier than most people I know.

[–] rand_alpha19@moist.catsweat.com 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Honestly, I just kept some distros on a USB disk with Ventoy (amazing software for booting ISOs from USB) on it and booted them up repeatedly until I felt comfortable and found my favourite.

I really don't think waffling around on Windows trying open source alternatives is the answer. Look up what the alternatives are, then boot up a live image and download them. Try them. Then switch if you like it.

This is coming from someone who used Windows from 1999 until 2023 and planned a transition to Linux over time (about a month) using a spreadsheet. It really doesn't have to be complicated or difficult; I'm not a programmer or anything, I'm just a former Windows power user.

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[–] MTK@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

This is good advice, but I would add having a bootable Linux distro on a usb, and using more and more until you find yourself not needing Windows, then move to Linux with just it or a dual boot configuration with Windows as a fallback

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Libreoffice draw is really bad.

Instead, you either need

  • masterpdf, paid but I guess worth it
  • a mix of: Firefox PDF editor (drawing, inserting images, text annotations), Pdf arranger (bundling PDFs, removing pages, reordering), GIMP (redacting, compressing), Okular (viewing, marking, drawing, bookmarks)
  • stirlingPDF, in a local Docker/Podman container, used in the browser

There is no free tool that does all the needed things. StirlingPDF is really close though and I am working on good desktop integration.

[–] nickb333@fedia.io 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I hate it when someone sends me a PDF form and tells me I can complete it using Acrobat (or whatever it's called this week). Last one I successfully completed with the Firefox PDF ed.

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[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago

I just dive head first and use Arch btw if games or softwares I play/use refused to run Linux I just stop playing/using it and find alternatives, I yet to find any softwares that doesn't have open source alternative

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

So I suggest you keep using windows, switch all your apps to open or closed source software that is available on linux. Learn them, use them and if you are in a pinch and need to use your windows only software it will still be there. Once you are at a point where you never use the windows only software you can then think of switching over to linux.

This is what I did in the 2000s. At one point I used all open-source software and my Windows was themed like GNOME. One sunny day Wine got fixed for Warcraft TFT. And then I switched to Ubuntu 5.04. With that said, today with the current hardware and software, lots more is palatable to run in a Windows VM. My wife has used MS Office and Adobe software in VMware Player for a decade now. Recently switched her to virt-manager. It's just damn reassuring to know you can run pretty much all non-graphics intensive Windows workloads on demand. Even interfacing with pretty much any USB hardware, which is important for dealing with various arcane hardware.

[–] thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Last time I checked, Davinci Resolve (which is fantastic, btw) is only officially supported on CentOS for some reason. There are guides/scripts that allege to make it work on other distros, but I had zero luck with them on Mint when I tried like a year ago.

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It can also be extremely picky about what hardware it will run on. I actively use 3 different editors based on what tasks the project calls for since some things are just easier/faster with different programs. Kdenlive and Olive will get 90% of stuff done easily in my (admittedly limited) experience and installation for either is just using your package manager.

[–] thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago

Oh nice-- Maybe those would be better recommendation for this purpose, then. I love Resolve, but I wouldn't want to tell a new Linux user "It doesn't work on your distro, but you can MAKE it work if you are computers enough."

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[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Really neat post, I'd not heard of a few of these (never knew libre office draw could edit pdfs!).

Couple of extra ones:

Note taking and pdf annotation: Xournal++ is amazing, it's also great to use on larger whiteboard screens. Plug and play support for scribe tablets on both windows and Linux.

Emulation (up to ps1): Mednafen is lightweight and comes with a gui. It also supports recording, though not netplay.

Ebook management/reading: Calibre - allows easy importing and exporting of ebooks to devices, also has a great built in search letting you find DRM free versions of a book.

[–] joel_feila@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

So tldr start with a dual boot machine

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 3 points 3 months ago

Dual boot sucks donkey balls.

Install virtualbox and spin up a Windows VM on a Linux host.

[–] Cris16228@lemmy.today 3 points 3 months ago

I've installed Linux on dual boot because I've always loved it and used it as a solo operating system or in dual boot configurations years ago. Now I'm using KDE Neon for the sole reason that it has the wobbly windows. Otherwise, any operating system is fine for me. The only thing I need to find is a good alternative to Affinity Designer 2 or a way to make it work on Linux. I know there's Inkscape, but I'm not used to it or its user interface.

[–] jack@water.house 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yeah I originally trying to daily Linux for like the past 10 years but kept falling back to Windows, mainly due to the app compatibility.

A lot of people suggested dual booting but I found that it messed up disrupted my workflow, and Level 2 hypervisors were too slow to be practical

What finally made Linux stick for me was Proxmox.. it let daily Linux and still have the option to quickly spin up a Windows VM with a GPU if I needed something urgently, without the hassle of rebooting.

So now, six months later, I’m dailying Arch and also self-hosting a bunch of stuff on Debian, and I haven’t looked back.

I think it's about convenience.

Tags for federation: @acceptable_humor #infosec

[–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago

I did that for about a year while I was waiting for a game to be supported on linux. I agree, is the best procedure.

[–] dino@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Old hardware runs better on Ubuntu than on Fedora or Tumbleweed? Nani?

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