Basically the forced shift to the enshittified Windows 11 in october has me eyeing the fence a lot. But all I know about Linux is 1: it’s a cantankerous beast that can smell your fear and lack of computer skills and 2: that’s apparently not true any more? Making the change has slowly become a more real possibility for me, though I’m pretty much a fairly casual PC-user, I don’t do much more than play games. So I wrote down some questions I had about Linux.

Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

How does digital security work on Linux? Is it more vulnerable due to being open source? Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?

Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

And also, what distro might be best for me?

  • arthur@lemmy.zip
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    10 days ago

    Any change brings some pain, that’s unavoidable, but it doesn’t mean it will not be interesting as well.

  • IHave69XiBucks@lemmygrad.ml
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    10 days ago

    Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

    Not significantly as long as you are on the right distro for it.

    Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

    no. mod managers can work but its definitely not as easy. If you use steam workshop it works great usually, but something like vortex is gonna be a pain in the ass.

    If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

    You can run windows programs with wine. It’s not that difficult to do. Its how games work on Linux that dont have linux support.

    Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

    Usually you can get it to work. I have run across some specific programs for my job that simply wont work with wine, but they barely work on windows as it is. It may need fiddling with tho.

    How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

    Sometimes. It depends on the distro. Mint has an updater where you click update and ur done basically. Others you go in and do a terminal command which changes by package manager. For like OS version jumps if your not on a rolling release distro then it can be a bit of a bigger job. I recently updated my computer from Debian Bookworm to Debian Trixie. I went into the sources replaced bookworm with trixie, and ran the full upgrade command. Then rebooted and had to ctl alt f4 into terminal nuke gnome and reinstall that. Which is expected in that case. It can be a bit techy at times for something like that but for a normal update on a distro with a GUI updater its a button click. Usually no reboot needed either.

    How does digital security work on Linux? Is it more vulnerable due to being open source? Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

    Dont download shit you shouldnt download. If your not sure if something has a virus or not you can get tools to scan for them, but windows is similar in that your main protection is just not doing something dumb. You can keep regular backups and if somehow you mess something up or get a virus just restore from it. PikaBackup works well.

    Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?

    AMD is flawless usually. Nvidia i dont use but hear it can be more of a hassle. With AMD the drivers will come preinstalled with your distro usually. Some do Nvidia too some dont. There is an open source and proprietary nvidia driver you have to pick which one you want. Id research it for your specific card.

    Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

    No more than windows can. If you try to overclock without proper cooling or something for example. Thats BIOS stuff usually tho not an OS thing.

    And also, what distro might be best for me?

    Maybe Nobara since you like gaming? Or Linux Mint its beginner friendly.

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

    Depends on what you play. As a general rule I would say that unless you like competitive multiplayer games you’re probably going to be fine. That being said the vast majority of games don’t support Linux natively so you need to use workarounds. Steam has a workaround built-in, so if most of your gaming is through Steam it should be an almost seamless transition (all you need to do is enable a checkbook in the settings). But like I said, it depends on what you play, I recommend you check out https://www.protondb.com/ and look for the games you play to see how they run on Linux.

    Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

    Same answer as before, if the game runs okay then modding it would also work okay, but if not it might worsen an already bad situation. Also be very careful here, because when you run Windows games on Steam they’re sort of sandboxed, i.e. they’re running isolated from other stuff, so installing mods is not as straightforward as it would be on windows where binaries are installed globally. It’s not a big deal, but just the other day someone was complaining that they installed a launcher needed for a game and the game wasn’t finding it and this was the reason.

    If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

    As a general rune there’s a workaround, it’s called WINE (which is an acronym for WINE Is Not an Emulator) which is an “emulator” for Windows (except it’s not really an Emulator as the name implies). Then there are some apps built on top of that like Proton (which is what Steam has embebed) that include other libraries and fixes to help. It’s not perfect, but unless the program is actively trying to detect it or uses very obscure features on Windows it should work.

    Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

    Yes, you can use WINE like mentioned above to run Windows binaries that use .NET, but also .NET core is available for Linux.

    How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

    Oh boy, this is the big one, this is the Major difference for m Windows to Linux. Linux has a thing called a package manager, ideally everything you install gets installed via that package manager. This means that everything gets updated together. And here’s the thing, we’re not talking OS only stuff, new version of the kernel (Linux)? New version of the drivers? New version of Firefox? New version of Spotify? All gets updated together when you update your system. This is crucial to the way Linux works, since it allows Linux to have only one copy of each library. For example, if you have 5 different programs that use the same library, in Windows you’ll have 5 copies of that same library, because each program needs their own in the specific version, but in Linux since they will all update together it’s easier to have just one library that gets updated together with the programs. This makes maintaining Linux a piece of pie in comparison, just one command or one click of a button and you’re all up to date with everything you have installed.

    How does digital security work on Linux? Is it more vulnerable due to being open source? Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

    As a general rule open source programs are more secure than their counterparts. Closed source programs always remind me of Burns going through several security measures, that sort of thing is imposible in open source because if everyone can see all of the security measures, so someone would notice the gaping hole in the back, whereas in closed source only attackers might have found it. Like cyber security experts say: Security by obscurity is not security. As for Antivirus you don’t need to worry, Linux is inherently more secure than Windows, and also has a small enough user base (most of whom are security experts) so the number of virus written for Linux is extremely small. Also because you should install stuff through a package manager it’s very difficult to get someone to download a bad binary since there’s lots of security in the package manager to prevent this sort of thing. In short almost every antivirus program for Linux checks your computer for Windows viruses to avoid being used to store or transmit viruses to Windows computers, so it’s completely pointless in your home machine (it’s used for example in email servers).

    Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?

    Yes… But actually no. It depends, if you have a relatively modern AMD GPU (as in last 10 years) the answer is a resounding YES, AMD currently has wonderful Linux support and their cards work excellently with drivers being fully open source and integrated into the Linux Kernel. For Nvidia the story is unfortunately not as nice. Essentially there are 2 drivers available, nouveau (open source driver written by the community and purposefully hampered by Nvidia) and nvidia (closed source driver written by Nvidia that has gaping incompatibilities with Linux). Since you game your only option is nvidia, while nouveau is great for several reasons it can’t match the performance of the nvidia driver. For 99% of stuff the nvidia driver should work fine, but I haven’t had good luck with getting Wayland to run on it, which means you’re probably stuck in X11 (I know this doesn’t mean much to you, but in short it means that you’re somewhat limited in your choice for graphical interface and have to use stuff that people are trying to deprecate but can’t because of Nvidia)

    Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

    Technically yes, so can Windows by that matter. But realistically no, unless you’re writing your own kernel drivers you won’t be in any position to cause hardware damage.

    And also, what distro might be best for me?

    I would probably go with Mint, it’s beginner friendly and I’ve been recommending it for decades. One thing to bear in mind is that in your knowledge level the distro you choose won’t make that big of a difference, try to pick something beginner friendly and you should be fine, no need to overthink this.

    PS: some extra notes that you didn’t asked but I think are good to know:

    • Any Linux can look like any other, it’s just a matter of installing the right packages
    • You should keep your / and /home in separate partitions, this makes it possible for you to reinstall (or even change distros entirely) without losing your files and configuration. This is due to how Linux manages partitions, which in short is not like on Windows where you have a C and D drives but instead any folder can be a different partition or disk.
    • You can dual boot, i.e. have 2 OS and choose which one to use every time you turn on your computer.
    • You should probably install Linux on a virtual machine first to check it out safely. And do a backup before installing it on your computer just in case you make a mistake.
  • rapchee@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    just get an extra ssd, install mint or pop (or both on separate partitions) and try

    there is a learning curve, and there’s always new stuff, more depth, but imo the above two are fairly easy to understand. pop is more osx-like both in looks but also, it’s somewhat locked down, which can feel limiting but it keeps things simple. i’ve been using it in the last few years daily. i was using mint before that, i started daily driving linux with it, but i managed to mess it up enough that every game was struggling to run lol, but i played hl:alyx on there without an issue for example

    nvidia doesn’t make the best linux drivers, but some think they are completely unusable but actually it just means that there are some games that are glitchy or slow, for instance forza horizon runs better on my steam deck than my rtx 2080. although recently it went from 20-30 fps to 30-40, so it will get better at some point

    next build will have an amd card for sure, but nvidia is mostly usable too. the “anti-cheat” blockade is more frustrating imo

  • UsoSaito@feddit.uk
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    8 days ago

    Start with Linux Mint and use Steam’s Proton or Lutris. I can run just about every game natively or using one of those without having to do too much work to play them.

  • wewbull@feddit.uk
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    10 days ago

    Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

    A lot of stuff runs with windows emulation as if it’s native. It’s the same method the steam deck uses and so Valve actively do work to keep it working. The main problem is games with heavy anti-cheat.

    Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

    Generally, yes. I think so.

    If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

    See above.

    Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

    There’s .NET libraries for Linux, but things have to be recompiled to use them.

    How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

    The distribution maintainer will issue updates on a regular basis. Update procedure is different for different distros, but all have a push-button update scheme. It’s pretty solid these days.

    How does digital security work on Linux? Is it more vulnerable due to being open source? Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

    Keep your system up to date with security updates, and you’ll tend to be fine. Smaller user base tends to mean that there’s far less malware. Antivirus isn’t necessary.

    Obviously phishing scams don’t care what OS you’re on, so mind what you click.

    Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?

    AMD ones are very solid.

    Nvidia ones can be a pain from what I hear, but I don’t buy green.

    Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

    No.

    That said… You can always wipe a disk when you install an OS.

    And also, what distro might be best for me?

    Download a few Live-USB images and try them out. You don’t need to install them to get a desktop and a browser up. You can see if there’s any compatibility issues with your hardware.

    Whichever works for you, go with it.

    • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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      10 days ago

      A lot of stuff runs with windows emulation as if it’s native.

      Proton is a compatibility layer, not an emulator. The binary is running on the bare metal CPU, just like on Windows. It’s only the system and API calls that are translated to their Linux equivalents. That’s why the performance is basically the same, unlike a hardware emulator.

      • wewbull@feddit.uk
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        9 days ago

        I knew as I wrote it that somebody would come along and say “Wine/Proton is not an emulator” but I didn’t want to get into the detail.

  • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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    8 days ago

    In terms of games and programs, it’s best to look for/ask about the specific ones. Things have improved a ton with Steam/Proton, but just make sure there isn’t a deal breaker in there somewhere. Otherwise, there’s great distros out there that are EZPZ for normal everyday computer tasks (web surfing, file browsing, office shit).

  • Xanza@lemm.ee
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    9 days ago

    1: it’s a cantankerous beast that can smell your fear and lack of computer skills

    This can either be true, or not true. It depends on which distro you go with, IMO. There are linux distros specifically designed for new user experiences, and then there are “basic” distros which don’t do unnecessary hand-holding for those who are used to the *nix desktop experience.

    Making the change has slowly become a more real possibility for me

    There has never been a better time to try linux.

    I’m pretty much a fairly casual PC-user

    If you do light computing, then linux is the best case scenario for you. You won’t be changing much about the OS, so not much can go wrong. I installed linux for my 65 year old mother 12 years ago or so, and it’s never had an issue. So frankly, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.


    Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

    As with all things when it comes to linux, it depends. Some of my favorite games have anti-cheat which has no linux client, so therefore even if you can get the game to work in theory, it won’t function because no anti-cheat.

    If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

    You would be hard pressed to find something which is windows only these days, but even if you do there are virtualization options like WINE or bottles which simulate a windows environment for the application and force it to run under linux anyways.

    Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

    Sure.

    How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

    Generally, most people use the command line for updating the system itself, but a lot of distributions come with a “Microsoft Store” type application to give you a GUI to update your OS and applications.

    How does digital security work on Linux?

    Linux works off a multi-user environment which lends security to the OS. You have a root user, which is your super administrative user, and then normal user accounts which can be added as “administrators” which can then run commands and edit files/settings which are reserved for administrative accounts.

    Is it more vulnerable due to being open source?

    The security is stronger because we know what’s in it. Security through obscurity is generally frowned upon, even by NIST.

    Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

    Generally no, but there still are anti-virus available, like ClamWin.

    Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?

    My heart says yes, but my fingers won’t let me type it.

    Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

    It’s technically possible, but you would have to meet a laundry list of conditions for that to happen.

    And also, what distro might be best for me?

    New users seem to really like Mint. But it’s exceptionally easy to test different distributions, even directly under Windows using Hyper-V. Test a few out and see if you like em.

  • James R Kirk@startrek.website
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    9 days ago

    +1 for Fedora. I recommend Kinoite as it is very similar to windows and very hard to break due to it’s “immutability”.

    Bazzite is very similar to Fedora Kinoite but made to be easy for gaming.

  • zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev
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    9 days ago

    Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

    It depends a lot on the game, but in my experience not always. Running games straight from steam works really well with a small number of exceptions, but a lot of the sometimes weird tools for patching exe:s and so on that some games use can sometimes be a pain to get running. Not necessarily impossible but yeah this is a reason for why I still keep around my windows installation for dual booting.

  • Nugscree@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

    That will depend on the games you play, and what platform you use. If you are using Steam, you can enable the proton layer have more access to games, but if the game in question uses any type of kernel level anti cheat chances are it’s not going to work.

    Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

    Depends on what you are used to, if you are using mod managers and which ones.

    If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

    A lot of work has been done with WINE, games on Linux, and Proton. You’ll need to do a little bit of reading to see if it can work on Linux, but the community can often be awesome and already have found a solution. There are also a lot of great alternatives to Windows/Mac only software you can try.

    Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

    Depends on your distro but most can install .net, you’ll need to do a bit of reading.

    How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

    Yes, there are package managers that you can use to install and update software, some distro’s even have a shop like interface.

    How does digital security work on Linux? Is it more vulnerable due to being open source? Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

    I’ve only ever had to use a virus scanner twice in my Linux journey and both of those times it was on a server. Because Linux is open source everybody can see what is going on in the code and this way bugs or security issues can be found and patched quicker.

    Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?

    Depends, if you are using AMD you should be fine, Nvidia has functioning drivers as well, I can’t speak for Intel ARC support because I’ve never used it…

    Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

    I’ve never broken my hardware, but I’ve broken my system a few times by ignoring the warnings the system gave me, always got it to work again.

    And also, what distro might be best for me?

    Linux Mint might be a good one, the Cinnamon is great for beginners, but there are many flavors you can choose from. Start with a live system which will not require you to install anything just yet, but you’ll get a feeling for how everything works. After trying it out live you can decide if you would like to install it. But remember that when trying it live you are limited in what you can do.

  • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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    9 days ago

    Note here, a lot of people are going to recommend you mint, I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.

    I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.

    The mere fact that bazzite and other immutables generate a new system for you on update and let you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).

    How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.

    Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.

    Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.

    I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.

    • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      I disagree. Obviously the most ideal solution would be the have immutable Mint, but beginners need stability more than they do immutability. I’ve used mint and my only issue with Mint was that I didn’t like how it looked. I’m currently on Bazzite and these are the issues I’ve ran into:

      Every time I start Firefox it asks to be made into the default browser. Even if I click yes it will still ask again next time I start Firefox.

      When using the default audio sometimes the audio signal to my monitor cuts off which means I no audio comes from the speakers. If I tell the system to send the audio to my other monitor and back to the one I have hooked on the speakers then it instantly works again. It’s almost like the system forgets it has to send out audio. I don’t remember what I did to fix it but it definitely wasn’t beginner friendly.

      Sometimes one of the monitors freezes and only one. The second monitor keeps working just fine. So far haven’t found a permanent solution for this issue.

      There have also been some minor artifacting that I personally don’t consider an issue but someone else might.

      Overall I can put up with the issues because I’ve pretty much conceded that I’m going to have issues. But I don’t think new users should be using a system where they’re going to run into problems they’re most likely not equipped to fix. That why I recommend Mint to newcomers because all the fancy bells and whistles don’t matter if the system doesn’t work. Mint doesn’t have bells and whistles, but it just works.

      • pineapple@lemmy.ml
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        9 days ago

        I agree I honestly don’t like immutable distro’s at all because you can’t install packages the way everyone else does: via package managers. You either have to use the gui software center and if that doesn’t have to app your looking for you have to use distrobox or box buddy which still doesn’t work half the time. That’s just been my experience with bazzite as a person fairly knew to linux.

        • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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          9 days ago

          I agree I honestly don’t like immutable distro’s at all because you can’t install packages the way everyone else does: via package managers.

          this is false, rpm-ostree exists and works for this exactly. There’s nothing you can’t do on bazzite that you can do on a non-immutable distro.

          Even if that wasn’t true… package management is just done through flatpak, there’s no real fundamental difference, it’s just an abstraction layer, I don’t see why that would be important to you at all, and comes with numerous benefits:

          1. You cannot break your system with these, ever.
          2. Significantly less burden on package maintainers
          3. You can have many versions of software installed
          4. These applications are sandboxed and thus more secure.
          5. This enables complete graphical management of software, no longer requiring the terminal.

          It not having packages you may need applies to any package management solution, other distros do not package everything either. In fact, the distro with the most packages is an immutable one, nixos.

          • pineapple@lemmy.ml
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            8 days ago

            Maybe should have looked into how immutable distros work before using one. Is ostree just a package manager for immutable distros instead of using dnf or apt?

            • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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              8 days ago

              rpm-ostree is fedora specific, but essentially, yes, it applies a layer ontop of the base immutable system with the package changes you want.

      • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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        9 days ago

        Here’s the problem: what you just did can be done with literally any distro. There are anecdotal stories of every single distro on earth being broken. Even non-linux distros, windows and macos have such stories.

        Do you have any actual statistical evidence that fedora works less often than mint?

        I’ve given it to quite a few people and nobody has had any issues. There are anecdotal stories of literally every single distro failing for somebody, them going to another distro and it just working.

        here’s a counter example: https://lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz/post/53716147/18213941

        “UPDATE 2: Ok, Fedora seems waaaay more stable than Ubuntu (and Mint). No strangeness like before…”

        And their problems were MUCH worse than yours.

        I have cancelled out your one claim with this, we can’t make progress until there’s proper statistics, no amount of anecdotal stories will make fedora less stable or more stable than mint.

        less up to date software is a double edged sword, if you don’t have statistics I don’t think you can really make the claim that mint just works when fedora/bazzite don’t.

        Then there’s the things that are objectively broken in mint for everyone until cinnamon properly supports wayland:

        1. Every single app can read your keyboard input without asking
        2. Every single app can see what every single other app is doing without asking
        3. Apps can fullscreen themselves and go over everything else, because they can control their own window placement to any degree they want, again, without asking.
        4. HDR
        5. mixed refresh rate and dpi display configurations.
        • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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          9 days ago

          We’ve already established that a lot of people will recommend Mint. What do you think, why do a lot of people recommend Mint?

    • Nyadia (she/they)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 days ago

      As someone who switched from Windows to Linux Mint about a year ago and had a pretty easy time adapting, sometimes I see the advice that beginners should use an immutable distro instead of Mint and am inclined to disagree, but then I remember the Linux Mint subreddit has like, at least one person a week who somehow manages to accidentally install the GNOME desktop and makes a post like “Wtf I started up my computer and it looks weird now why does it look like this” lol

      • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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        9 days ago

        It runs x11, the wayland port is going insanely slow, x11 has the following problems every time:

        1. Every single app can read all of your keyboard input without asking
        2. Every single app can see what every single other app is doing without asking
        3. Apps can fullscreen themselves and go over everything else, because they can control their own window placement to any degree they want, again, without asking.
        4. HDR https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/issues/1037#note_521100 (if you need a source)
        5. mixed refresh rate and dpi display configurations.

        It may support these someday, maybe. But progress is absurdly slow. Considering cinnamon has fewer changes as a whole than just the KDE text editor alone, kde is a significantly better choice if you want a well-supported, bug-free and feature rich experience.

        • Fatur_New@lemmy.ml
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          9 days ago

          x11 has the following problems every time:

          And Wayland isn’t very well tested yet. We should only give a very well tested display server to very new users. They must not get a bad impression

          • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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            9 days ago

            That would’ve been true 5 years ago. Wayland is plenty tested these days, give me some data indicating the rate of issues is significantly higher and I’ll agree, elsewise I think the most secure well supported option is the best one. X11 is being deprecated left and right for a reason.

            gnome is wayland by default, kde is wayland by default, even XFCE is transitioning to wayland at this point… that’s just not a valid argument in the modern era.

  • Abnorc@lemm.ee
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    9 days ago

    The nice thing about distro choice is that you don’t really need to commit to one with them (mostly) being totally free. As long as you back up your files, I’d recommend trying a few until you feel comfortable. If you go with Ubuntu or Linux Mint I think you’ll have the easiest time. I’d tentatively recommend dual-booting to give a new distro a try without fully committing, but that brings its own difficulties and troubleshooting with it. Having a second machine to test with is also great, but it’s not a good option for everyone.