this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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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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I think my biggest tip is to manage your expectations. What you are attempting is not the same as simply moving to a new version of Windows -- literally everything will be different. You've spent a lifetime learning how to perform all these tasks until they became second-nature, but now you plan to move to a whole new system. Thing will be in different places, the way you tweak settings or access content will be different, and it's going to be very frustrating because hey, this task should be easy. Don't expect to cram all those years of experience into re-learning a new system in a few weeks.
The good news is that there's a huge support community, and just about anything you want to do has already been asked and can be found through a quick search. Stick with it, and you'll discover that linux actually gives you quite a lot more control over what you can do with your hardware (not to mention nearly all the software is free). It won't be long before you're asking how you ever survived without many of these tools.
Yeah that's what has made me apprehensive to be honest. I feel pretty comfortable in windows doing many things, and my wife has a MacBook that I'm also pretty comfortable using so learning a new, third OS does seem obtuse. I like the idea of having more control over the software, but don't want to lose the "it just works" feeling of an OS or software I am used to using.
It doesn't really take long to get the basic stuff figured out though, but there is definitely that initial feeling of being lost. As others have suggested, start out running something in a VM on your Windows desktop, then you can quickly go back and forth to practice doing things in linux as you have time (plus it's a huge benefit to have a working browser in Windows so you can do a search if something breaks).
Linux has a number of different desktop environments to choose from, and what's cool is you can load up multiple types and select one at the login screen. If you want to start with something that is reasonably comfortable, try loading the 'Mate' desktop. Maybe I'm just used to old-school Windows (Win2K was the last one I used), but I've always thought Mate did a good job of putting all everything in logical places. As for the OS itself, there's also been a lot of suggestions so I'll throw mine in as well... I'm a die-hard Debian fan, both on my desktop and on my servers. It does NOT push bleeding-edge releases on you, so this means you won't have the very latest updates but to me it's more important to have a rock-solid system that I can always rely on. I've been using it for about 15 years now and it has never failed me.
Do others auto-update or are users prompted as updates become available?
On the desktop you will likely be notified when updates are available. On my servers I do automatic security updates, but leave the rest for manual updates so I can do one machine at a time and know right away if an update breaks something.