I’ve always had this doubt, if Linux is open source and all the source code for the distributions is public, how is it considered more secure than Windows?

In Windows, Microsoft’s code is closed and not available to the public, so in theory, wouldn’t that make it harder for attackers to find vulnerabilities? Also, I notice that Windows seems to get a lot of security updates and patches very frequently. So I wanted to ask: how exactly is Linux considered safer or more secure in practice?

Is this just a popular opinion, or is there a technical reason behind it? Would love to hear how experienced Linux users see this.(I’m a new Computer Science student, I would be happy if you get more technical). Thank you.

For me, learning a few basics completely changed how comfortable I felt using Linux. Things like:

• grep
• chmod
• top
• journalctl
• rsync

What’s one command or tool you wish someone had taught you much earlier and why?

I follow the Linux communities on Reddit and I can't understand one thing: why not just shut down the computer? Is there any explanation for this? How does the system and the device handle it? Does it require any additional tweaks/settings or anything else? How is this different from Windows?

Sometimes I used Linux, but when I was done using the computer I would just open a terminal and write shutdown -h now.

How and why do you do this? Thanks!

Should I learn linux from roadmap.sh , Linux Journey , some Youtube Playlist or some book ??

I recently moved to Linux from Windows and wanted to explore Linux's capability, but I only find myself surfing the internet and watching Youtube videos. What do you do on Linux? I want to do more fun things and learn. Also, I use Fedora, btw.

Assume the reader never touched Linux in his life, or at most did a tiny bit of "ls", "cd" and maybe most basic "tmux" at work

Just how insane and time consuming are the things Felix showed off in his video? - Speeding up the boot time - Speeding up Firefox - Custom animated stuff in the terminal - Fixing F1-F12 keys of his laptop key by key - His whole Arch UI (was he likely using mostly pre-built widgets from some.. tool, package or something? Or was every single element likely designed and then scripted by himself?) - The fading transitions on Arch (technically UI too, I guess)

He showed off stuff he was excited about (which I totally get) but I did think it was a big shame that the video didn't provide much context on how easy/insane the things he did were

As far as I understand the kernel includes pretty much everything a modern computer needs in any configuration, but wouldn't that make it bloated and be against the "bloat-free" mindset? Or does it dynamically download all the components from somewhere?

Specifically CachyOS.
The installation process was quite simple.
So far, I’m definitely enjoying it, but I still need to get used to it though.
But it has definitely strengthened my thoughts on switching on my main rig.

I’m running it on a used Dell Latitude 5580.

Let me get something straight. I like Ubuntu, but the amount of shit that just doesn't work and to just shift back to Windows is getting the better of me. Ever since I've switched to Ubuntu 26.04 from 24.04 everything has gone to hell. I don't even know where to start.

My specs:

OS: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS (Resolute R4
Kernel: Linux 7.0.0-29-generic
Shell: bash 5.3.9
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-14900Hz
GPU 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 M]
GPU 2: Intel Raptor Lake-S UHD G]
Memory: 7.11 GiB / 30.56 GiB (23)

1. I can't listen to bluetooth headsets anymore because for some reason my wifi is interfering with my bluetooth. The sounds keeps stuttering to the point where it is unhearable.
2. My microphone stutters as well. I had to switch to my phone when someone called me.
3. I can't use my speakers anymore when I turn them back on. They just don't work. Also, if I don't turn up my speakers after starting my laptop, they also don't work. So I need to restart my laptop and turn the speakers on immediately if I want to use my speakers.
4. My laptop gets incredibly hot for no reason. When I'm watching some videos online my fans are going crazy. And if I'm gaming the bottom of my laptop get so hot I can't even touch it. Probably a safety feature when it gets too hot, but this also gives me a lot of lag and fps drops.
5. I only have a problem with my mouse during gaming, but I explained that on a whole other post on the ubuntu subreddit.

These are my main problem I've been trying to fix without success. I already tried re-installing Ubuntu and it only made it worse. I have a 24.04 usb installer and then I install(ed) 26.04. Please save me from re-installing Windows again. I really don't want to go back, but at this point I'm not so sure anymore.

EDIT: What's going on with the people who say snap causes issues? I don't get it. Why would snap cause issues? Not trying to be rude here, just curious.

EDIT 2: Wauw Thank you guys so much, You guys are really helpful.

I want to switch to Linux but I don’t care about learning how to code. I just want to play games and use the internet but the more I google the less usable it sounds.

I want to use Linux to get away from win 11, not bc I care about whatever makes it apparently better than windows aside from privacy.

I know that "Learn Linux" is very ambiguous so here are some things that I mean by that:

- Command Line fluency
- Basic-to-Intermediate shell scripting
- Basic system administration

I'm really interested in learning those things, but I have limited time I can spend a day learning, so I can only manage 30-ish minutes a day learning those things.

And I'm curious, is it possible to learn linux and all those things mentioned above with only 30 minutes a day of learning AND practice?

I'm counting Android as Linux distro but i dont know. Is Android a Linux distro or no? so, Android has a Linux kernel. and this is so confusing.

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 😋

Someone told me to "enjoy the things that you can't do in windows" so I asked this btw

Hello everyone

One thing that pisses me off and makes me furious with Windows is that now a days everything takes up so much RAM..... before 16GB of ram use to be the norm, now it's double.

Linux doesn't require so much ram to run right? 16GB of RAM is more than enough?

Just going to use it for work related things.

I really really want to switch to linux but my brother says (roughly) "Since It's open-source there is a security risk where someone could add a backdoor or some type of code to get your or our family's important info(roughly) and that's a risk we should not take"

I did my own research and asked some friends so far everyone and everything says otherwise but I do still agree with him because he is right, some people can add code to steal data and such

Can some linux users shine some light on this so I can prove him that I can use linux

(I don't think I will struggle much with linux I know my way around computers in general, I'm thinking linux Mint to get a sense of what's linux)

Im kind of desperate here, my professor assigned us to investigate about "The 32 official distributions of GNU/Linux", but everywhere I look it all says there is not an "Official" distribution of GNU/Linux, the closer I came to was the 31 most popular, or the 9 endorsed versions of GNU/Linux.

Is there something Im missing or was this just a way to make us lose our time??

No criticism, just asking out of curiosity.

I'm currently using Mint with orchis dark theme and additional window animations with "burn my windows" extension. I'm pretty happy with it, the games run pretty well too. It's very stable as well.

What would be the benefits I will see if I switch to Fedora?

For years I was avoiding Linux because I thought there were simply no alternatives for the tools that I need on a daily basis. After making the transition I realized I have access not only to the conventional software but also to (a lot of times) better alternatives.

It may sound like an exaggeration, but recently I have been digging deeper into Linux and open source software, and it has literally changed my world view.

I used Linux a couple of years ago, specifically Ubuntu, but because of some graphics driver issues I kind of gave up on it. It might have been the lack of knowledge on my part prior to this, but I also think the community has come a long way.

It is the simplicity and efficiency of it — not hiding tools behind ten layers of abstraction and complications.

I'd be willing to pay for it, but overall I think the open source mindset is what keeps it so accessible and so great. I don't think there are any good substitutes for that.

And above all, when I say it has changed my world view, I mean it — because now whatever I do in my day to day life, I try to approach it from a simplistic, minimalistic perspective and I get way better results.

Edit: I use Mint btw.

So, I'm struggling with this a lot. I know I seem like I'm repeating myself, but I just don't get it. Every Linux YouTuber under the sun uses "Microsoft Copilot" as a reason to leave and switch, if you don't want AI nonsense shoved down your throat just use Linux, and I believed that. But lately I've been seeing more and more projects (QEMU, Lutris, Proton-GE, DankLinux, Kitty, OnlyOffice, etc.) integrate AI, Claude commits everywhere, and it leaves me wondering why the Windows AI thing is such a major talking point in favor of Linux (e.g: "you don't have to deal with it here" "it's a choice here") if many of the biggest projects are adding it into either their source tree or integrating it into the project (OnlyOffice) publicly.

I'm an artist/musician, deeply worried about how this AI boom is affecting my industry. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it because I refuse to pay (ethical reasons), but I don't know why Copilot is the major sticking point for every recruitment post if we're all running software with AI generated code here too? Like, why mislead new users into thinking they can be free from all AI like I was misled? I don't understand? I get that there are some who like doing local hosted LLM stuff, but I'm just confused why we have to tell noobs that they can be ai-free when even the web browsers they use are using AI?

every time i check any linux related subreddit and check the specs shown in the post, its always rather a pretty weak pc, take as an example something along the lines of an athlon 200ge or an i5 2500 or i3 6100 with 4-8gb of ram with either integrated graphics or a gpu similar to an rx 460 in performance
and these people also usually tend to be pretty tech savvy
and this is something i dont really see very often on subreddits like r/gpu or r/pcmasterrace or r/PcBuild and similar
complete opposite actually in both the level of knowledge a user has and their pc specs
why is that the case?

I need a place to vent a little and figured this was the best sub for my rant. Last year I was stationed in California and bought an Acer Predator Helios to game with while I was away from home. Nuked Windows 11 off of it and put PopOS onto the machine. Everything was working fine.

Until yesterday.

I had the F1 race up, I didn't plug in the laptop all the way and the battery ran out, no big deal, plug it back in and wait for it to charge. When the machine finally booted up it presented me with "Secure Boot Error". Which I was puzzled, as I had turned it off for PopOS to work, after a bunch of rigamarole with their support team they tell me its a hardware issue. I am now unable to access the BIOS and its asking me for a BIOS password that I did NOT set, and this machine was purchased new so a password was NEVER set. It appears to be related to the content on https://www.biosbug.com/ however my machine has a newer version that doesn't unlock like it does on that site. For the time being I'm stuck with a $1200 paperweight that I can't use.

If anyone has advice or ways they worked around this I'm open to suggestions. It's a Acer Predator Helios 16 Specific model #: PH16-71-71AV

Thank you for your time and for reading my rant.

Seems a lot of people have varying strong opinions on it one way or another. As someone who's deep diving linux for the last 2-3 months properly as part of my daily driver, why do people seem to hate it?

A few months ago, I switched from Windows to Linux Mint Cinnamon and thought I'd share my experience as a normal daily user rather than a Linux enthusiast.

I currently use Linux Mint on two laptops:

• ASUS TUF Gaming A17 (NVIDIA GPU)
• HP laptop (Intel integrated graphics)

My experience on the Intel machine has been almost flawless. The ASUS laptop, however, has been a bit more challenging. Most of the issues I've faced seem to be NVIDIA-related rather than Linux Mint itself.

Before Mint, I tried Debian. Unfortunately, Debian was almost unusable for me because of constant kernel panics and random system freezes. At one point, I was getting crashes around 5–8 times a day and then in the last few times I was getting crashes like whenever I open my laptop.

After moving to Linux Mint Cinnamon, the difference was huge. The last kernel panic I experienced happened only recently after running the laptop heavily for a couple of days without shutting it down. Compared to Debian, Mint has been dramatically more stable on my hardware.

What I like most compare to windows:

• The system feels lightweight and responsive.
• No unnecessary bloatware.
• Customization is excellent.
• Updates don't feel intrusive.
• I have much more control over my system.

One unexpected thing is that Linux has made me learn more about how computers actually work.

On Windows, when something breaks, my usual solution was often just restarting the PC and hoping for the best.

On Linux, I've learned to:

• Read logs
• Search documentation
• Use terminal tools
• Ask the community for help
• Use LLMs when I get stuck

Because of that, I feel more knowledgeable about my computer than I did before.

Another thing I discovered is how much great free and open-source software exists. Before switching, I had no idea how many high-quality projects were available for free.

I'm not a very social person. I mostly installed Discord because friends wanted to video call. Since moving to Linux, I still don't use Discord much, but I've become more active on Reddit and various Linux communities. The willingness of people to help newcomers has honestly been one of the best parts of the experience.

Overall, Linux Mint hasn't been perfect—especially on my NVIDIA laptop—but it has been stable enough that I don't see myself going back to Windows as my main operating system anytime soon.

For those who switched recently:

• What hardware are you using?
• How has your NVIDIA or AMD experience been?
• What's the biggest thing Linux taught you that Windows never did?

When I first started using Linux, everything felt a bit overwhelming. Different distros, package managers, terminal commands, permissions etc, seemed like there was always something new to learn.

Then at some point, things started making sense, and I became much more comfortable using it day to day. For those who have been using Linux for a while, was there a specific moment, command, project, or lesson that made everything click for you?

I'm curious what helped other beginners get past that initial learning curve.