Welcome! So happy to see new converts, and even more when they have an "it went well" story!
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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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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While I love Elgato hardware from a design/price standpoint, it's a shame it doesn't all work on Linux. I had my Wave XLR for a year or so, but replaced it with a Scarlett Solo so I could use it on Linux.
welcoms man
Hell yeah!
Next stop will be your privacy journey which would completely break your chains towards Discord which gave you trouble.
A better way to word this is "Next will be your privacy journey which will send you down an inifinte rabbit hole that you consumes you".
Lol no but seriously, it's a fun rabbit hole, but can get out of control if you're not careful.
If you go to deep you’ll get paranoid lol. Atleast that is my experience.
But also be proven right several times a year when data leaks & corporations are shown again to be evil.
Oh for sure. Fuck these big companies. Unfortunately some offer services that just can't be beat yet by open source/privacy companies.
Been there lol. I think it's a common thing for privacy newcomers. Not focusing on threat level and instead trying to optimize every bit. It got me too.
Once Revolt gets screen sharing.
Same thing with Ubuntu.
From what i remember my experience was the same when i started my journey with PopOS. Ofcourse it probably did help that i was already an amd user when i was still using windows, i already hated nvidia years before switching lol. I went down the rabbithole and now i'm on Void linux. Also used arch and NixOS in the past. I love being able to setup these minimal distros to my liking, and after that it just works and gets out of the way.
I started on Mint, then went to Arch Linux with Gnome. Now, I spend hours a day every day editing the dozens of config files for my Arch + Hyprland setup. I discovered NVIM plugins and decided to figure that out on my own instead of using one of the pre-made plugin packs. Now 90% of the software I use is cli. You can do anything from a terminal, and once you start it's hard to justify using bloated GUI applications instead. Especially once you make your TE and prompt pretty.
Welcome to stability. You are in control.
sudo responsibly.
Forewarning, wine appears to be a bit broken on Mint at the moment. I was recently experimenting with it in a VM, and I could not seem to get it installed properly - even after adding the winehq repo. Debian, by contrast, just works. I still use winamp for my music library, and play a few games that are windows based.
wine works without issues for me on mint 22.1. I use foobar2k, and most games I play are windose only. but I use proton for games, not wine.
Fortunately I have no need for wine.
Yeah I used to use Ubuntu as a Linux desktop a few years ago. I just came back to install Fedora on my desktop and the whole process was super easy. Even for gaming, Nvidia drivers, Steam with proton, etc. all set up with zero command line interaction, troubleshooting or even looking up guides or anything. It was intuitive and works.
Literally the hardest part was I couldn't find my USB stick and ended up improvising with an old SD card as installation media.
The compatibility for gaming on Linux today is generally really good. The whole experience is really polished.
As someone who uses RHEL for work every time I have to set something up on a windows system I groan. It really boils down to the app, some are very easy to use but it seems anything that involves OS config, the registry and permissions becomes a royal pita. Linux isn't 100% pain free (looking at you package conflicts) and SSL config sucks on all OS's but the majority of the time it presents smaller hurdles because I can dig into any part I need to.
Welcome! We are happy to have you. Remember, RTFM. ;)
My brother recently texted me asking for advice about installing Mint on an old laptop. He is the one that got me into computers as a kid, and he has worked at Microsoft for maybe 25 years. It made me so happy lol.
The sense of ownership and control the Linux experience offers is something I've never felt with Windows.
Welcome to the dark side, we have cookies
Having said that, just as a suggestion, take a look at KDE. It feels a bit more windows like, is extremely customizable and as such can be made to work exactly how you want it
welcome home! <3
I got 35+ years into Windows. I'm the guy they get to "fix" stuff in PROD. I fight Windows all day. I'm not doing that at home anymore.
This is why Mint is what I always recommend to people who are switching over for the first time. Congrats and welcome.
Plus now I have the benefit of no preinstalled spyware or bloatware
Now you get to choose the bloatware and spyware yourself! /s
Real shit tho
Linux Mint is terrific, also recommend it to new Linux users. I just want things easy, clean, and fast. Also, fuck Microsoft.
Debian + KDE
I bounced around to all sorts of systems and DEs and came to this same conclusion. Debian + KDE is where it all ended up after try easily over 20 different systems throughout the years.
It’s the most “we trust you, but also respect your time” combo I’ve found.
You'll probably be installing programs and changing a lot of settings over the next few weeks. Make sure you use TimeShift (pre-installed on Mint) to make system snapshots. (It works like System Restore on Windows. You can even run it from your Linux Live flash drive if you mess up something so badly that you can't boot from the hard drive).
LibreOffice comes pre-installed and you can use Thunderbird for email. And if you used Steam to play games on Windows, you're in for a nice surprise. Steam has a native Linux client and it uses Proton / Wine to let you play your Windows games on Linux. It's handled everything I've thrown at except for a couple of older games.
Welcome to the club :D I did the same thing last summer and also switched to Mint and never looked back. So basically Im a fellow newbie. It was the best decision as everything just works minus the windows shenanigans.
Even gaming is almost perfect (apart from the occasional tinkering here and there) its more than great. All my games work great, some better than under win.
Im even in the middle of building my new gaming PC exclusively for Linux in mind.
As I have to use win 11 for work (work laptop) I can see switching was the right decision as every update makes it more annoying and bloated.
The only thing I had to work around was downloading the deb build of Discord Canary to enable audio output in Discord streams since it was only recently added to Discord's dev/beta build (Canary).
Keep in mind Linux is all about FOSS, if the software you use doesn’t have all the features you want look around for alternatives.
I encountered this same issue when installing Discord and opted to use Vencord instead.
Welcome to the team.
I hope you brought your bouncing shoes because as soon as you'll get comfortable, you'll start hopping a lot
I've just made the Switch to Linux for my gaming PC. I'm running Bazzite right now and it mostly worked. I had some trouble with my Bluetooth controller and speakers but they started working after I switched over to desktop mode and then restarted.
A lot of the troubles I'm having are mainly because it's an atomic distro instead of a normal one but that's on me. I figured an atomic distro would make it less likely I would accidentally break something.
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Some Elgato hardware is supported by OBS, FYI. IIRC the HD60+ or S+ or something.
Right. I said that I use OBS for my Elgato HD60 X. Works great!
Glad to hear you're on Linux, living a more sovereign life and having an easy time with it. Mint does indeed work very well for me too. I put Mint XFCE on a ~2015 laptop that Windows was bloating down to dysfunctional. Now it works reasonably well.
You'll hear other people say Linux works well until it doesn't. Well so does Windows. It has many issues too that people tend to not mention. Don't get discouraged by those people. Most of the time Linux is totally fine for normal users, it's people trying to do abnormal things that then causes issues.
Welcome! Be sure if to reach out to the community if you have any issues or questions. We love to help!
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