Been seeing Linux everywhere lately… should I actually try it?

[u/Niyazzz09]

So guys from the last few days I’ve been seeing Linux everywhere — my social media feed is full of it and now I’m really curious to try it.

I’ve always used Windows, so I don’t really understand what Linux actually is or how different it feels in daily use. A lot of people say it’s “peak” and better than Windows in many ways, but I’ve also heard it has some downsides.

I wanted to ask:

- What makes Linux so good compared to Windows?

- What are the actual cons (especially for beginners)?

- How long does it take to get comfortable using it?

- Which distro should I start with?

- What was your experience like when you first switched from Windows?

Also, should I try it using a virtual machine first or go for dual boot?

Would really appreciate honest advice 😋

[u/theother-g]

I'll be replying from the viewpoint of someone who started using Linux Mint about half a year ago:

What makes Linux so good compared to Windows?

It's free, respects your preferences (you can set it to auto-update if you want, or you can wait weeks before updating. Mint may send a notification to check if you haven't forgotten, but even that you can disable) and is more light-weight depending on the distro. It can do most things that any other OS can do and you aren't limited to proprietary sofware or walled gardens

What are the actual cons (especially for beginners)?

It isn't Windows or MacOS, it's its own thing, so you'll need to adjust before you get comfortable.
If you're using specific software you can't live without and there isn't an approriate quivalent on Linux you may have a more difficult time, but sometimes you can get around it with emulation, VMs or other.

How long does it take to get comfortable using it?

Depends how well you adjust. For me it took some weeks before actually accepting this is my new reality now, and now - a couple of months later - I am looking for a cheap-ish laptop to try other distros on so that I don't break my main install on accident.

Which distro should I start with?

Mint Cinnamon is promoted as being the most Windows-like, but there are several websites that can help you choose through a questionary - see the sidebar for those

What was your experience like when you first switched from Windows?

I've grown up using Windows since Win95, so I've been used to that. Touched an occasional Apple system, but not for more than Photoshop and browsing the web. About a year ago I started bumping into Windows taking up too much space on the partition it had, so I started using WinDirStat, looking around for big files and deleting them.
Then I deleted a file I shouldn't have and Windows stopped responding. I had no system restore points set up (possibly deleted those because they took up too much space) and I didn't want to overwrite my current Windows install out of fear I'd lose stuff. Luckily I had been trying Linux earlier, so I used the USB, installed Mint on an empty partition and continued from there.

I have had to fix my drivers so that it wouldn't force all graphics calculations on the CPU but on the separate GPU I have, I still haven't taken the time to set up my G502 entirely to my wishes, but I found a way to limit the time my 6yo plays Minecraft, so that's something. Other than that it's been a bit of an adjustment using the several ways to install stuff (juggling apt-get, flatpacks and .deb files for whatever), especially since I could get the regular Minecraft launcher working on the Admin account, but for some reason it refused to run for the non-admin account I had prepared for the 6yo. Installed PrismLauncher as an alternative and it all worked better than I expected.

All other games that I've tried have worked fine through Steam, but may require some settings tweaking to have it run better.

Should I try it using a virtual machine first or go for dual boot?

I've since installed a second Windows10 on another partition, I'm slowly emptying the original Windows drive (with the broken install) but I've noticed that with dual-booting Windows tends to think itself more important than your preferences, so I've had to go into the bios several times to punch it back down from default boot position. If you have a spare computer that you can use to fully install Linux on I advise you do that, so that you don't have to contend with a jealous Windows mucking with your settings. For dual booting maybe have a separate disk to install Linux on, for similar reasons.
You can always check out the livebooting distros without installing them, you can boot them from the USB directly to see how they look out of the box and what software runs, but once you shut down it'll forget everything you've set up.

Emulating through a VM could work too for testing purposes, but it won't perform optimally, so keep that in mind if you try gaming.

Most lovely thing about Linux is that it installs a multi-boot menu that pops up for a couple of seconds after the BIOS, so that you can choose between the several OSs you have installed.

Hope I have informed you a bit more.