this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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Yup. Personally only use it for work. Linux all the way on all my machines
I've never worked with Linux and I get so drained from work, that I don't even want to look at a computer when I get home. Idk if I have the energy to learn Linux lol.
I switched to Linux in 2014 mostly because Win 8.1 happened to me.
Learning Linux MInt felt about like learning a new Windows version. Think about what it was like to cope with 7 if you're used to XP, or 10 if you're used to 7. It's about like that. But on Linux, it doesn't go through those dramatic pointless UI changes. Features get added, they sometimes change the default theme, but they don't drastically change the workflow from one version to the next. If anything, the UI felt more familiar to me than Win 8.1 did. Coping with things like the new way file systems are handled can be a thing, but as I was already playing with Raspberry Pis and had learned how to type cd and ls in a terminal I was kind of okay with that.
Install mint (cinnamon). Very easy to use for starting. Will make computers fun again. As for games. Most work fine but ymmv
I'll have to look into it once I get a Steamdeck. I won't need to game on a computer at that point lol. What kind of specs should my computer have in order to run mint well? I know Jack shit about Linux other than the Arch btw jokes and the penguin mascot.
Anything at all. I run on raspberry pis, old lenovo laptops, new gaming laptops, amd pc with 64 gig ram and nvidia 4070ti. Make a bootable usb and test it to see if you like it without installing to the drive (live mode), then if you want to make the plunge, install.
Dope. Thanks! Do you have any other recommendations other than Mint? I wanna try different stuff and see what I like best.
Hopefully my almost 5 year old HP gaming laptop can run Linux better than it does Windows. The thing is on its last legs rn. It isn't anything hella fancy and only has 8GB of RAM. Can't remember how big the SSD is. I got the thing before I was more knowledgeable about computer specs and hardware and all that. I needed a laptop for college at the time and figured that a gaming one could also keep me occupied in the 6 hours I had between classes lol.
Unfortunately for me, my college didn't teach about hardware and specs and all that, despite like 50 or 60 students going to the dean with multiple professors' support asking for at least one new course. We even typed up a whole request and outlined what we wanted to learn and made a petition.
With my major you have three career choices they prep you for: programming, network administration, or database management. Like half of the people in my major wanted to do helpdesk and thought this major would help with that until we were like 1.5 years in and too invested to change majors. The dean turned our request down immediately.
A semester after I graduated, the university merged with two other universities and now they have a whole ass major that revolves around hands on shit that preps for helpdesk jobs. I suck at programming database stuff. I was okay in my four Cisco courses, and those almost got canceled because students were not interested in them because they were hard af.
I got a 4 year degree to increase job prospects. Totally would have went to trade school if I knew what I was getting myself into.
I'm so sorry for rambling like this omg. My sleeping meds kicked in and I tend to go on tangents when that happens. I'm too lazy to get rid of the shit I already typed up, so I apologize if the wall of text is a conversation ender lol.
Ha. No worries. List of distributions...
I would try them out as either live usb tests or in virtual box first to see what tickles your fancy. In the mid to late 90's I was using slack and Debian. Debian is generally used as a base in docker images for its stability, so getting to know that to get into herding containers can be a good thing.
Many others out there, that's just a small list off the top of my head.
List of distros
'nother list
distrowatch used to be my go to when hunting fun distros.
Have fun!
Break shit!
Learn how to fix it (almost every catastrophe is recoverable)
Thank you! I realized that I will need a backup PC to use for my work if my work laptop goes down. Is there some fuckery that can allow me to boot from both OS's somehow? Like choose before anything loads
Oh yes!
If you have a big enough hard drive then you can install Linux alongside Windows. You will get that option when installing. When you boot, you will be able to choose...
Caveat, win11 requires secure boot which I haven't dealt with, so you may have to research if that's the case. There will be lots of info online though - it will depend upon your distro though
Awesome! Thanks!