Linux

Linux mint is often recommended for new people, and has a interface very similar to windows. In my own experience, it's very fast to get it up and running.

So, how deep does the "similar to Windows" needs to go? Are you thinking in terms of ease of use, things that works out of the box, something that looks similar to Windows?

In terms of look and feel, I'd recommend something based on KDE. KDE out of the box looks a lot like Windows (in fact, Windows 11 has some stuff that looks like it's been ripped off KDE) Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Manjaro and Mint all have KDE versions you can install. I think Cinnamon also looks a fair bit like Windows. Although I wouldn't exactly rule out other desktops just yet - maybe you'll quickly realize hey, that other desktop I tried does look and function pretty neatly for my needs and you won't feel like you need something that looks like Windows.

In terms of tutorials and being able to look things up online, Ubuntu and Manjaro tends to be the two most popular and therefore most documented. pop_OS! is also fairly popular and they do a good job at making Linux accessible for newcomers, but it's based on Gnome so the experience will be different.

My personal advice is get VirtualBox, pick a few distros and try them out. You won't exactly be able to game on them, or if you do, you'll probably be limited to more lightweight games. But that should be plenty enough to install Discord, OBS, Steam and give a few distros a try. You can expect real world performance to mostly feel more responsive than Windows, and for games you can expect similar or maybe 5-10% lower performance in most cases. So don't look too much at how fast it runs in a VM - VMs are fantastic piece of technology (and I actually game in one with a VFIO setup, but don't bother just yet it's a whole rabbithole), but especially under VirtualBox or VMware you're not going to get the full performance.

Try a bunch of distros, try a few of the main Desktop Environments (DEs), see what you like, see what you dislike. Gnome on Ubuntu will be very different than Gnome on Fedora. Don't rule out a distro because the DE, and don't rule out a DE because of a distro. You can install as many as you want in VirtualBox, so take your time to get a feel of what you like and dislike and go from there. Once you've made your choice, you can partition your disk and keep Windows around if you want to have that safety net. Sometimes there's that one game that just won't work in Linux, and you can reboot to Windows to play it. I started this way, and found myself rebooting to Windows less and less until I reached a point where I was actively avoiding it and willing to make sacrifices just to avoid it because Linux had become my primary OS. If you have 2-3 distros you want to try, nothing stops you from installing all of them on hardware as well, they'll happily cohabitate for the most part. Spend a day in Ubuntu, spend another day in Manjaro. Get a feel of which one has less friction for you.

In the end, Linux is Linux. Some distros ships everything you need for gaming out of the box and are easier to set up, but ultimately, Linux is Linux, you can (with some effort) get anything that runs on one distro on another distro. Heck, on ArchLinux land, we have a whole bunch of Ubuntu-patched packages in the AUR to bring in some of Ubuntu's modifications in.

Speaking of ArchLinux. It's a pretty good distro, it's also become a bit of a meme distro. Don't feel like you have to jump in all the way and get into ArchLinux, Gentoo, VoidLinux, Alpine, etc. You can if you want - honestly, if you really want to dive in deep and learn Linux from the ground up they will get you there, but beware that the learning curve on that will be steep. Those distros are aimed at more advanced users that want to control every aspect of their system in great detail. There's no shame using a normie distro like Ubuntu or Fedora. Those are made to just kinda work and be reliable, whereas the ArchLinux installer is basically "here's a command line, install what you want, good luck have fun".

You don't have to "commit" to a distro. For some it becomes a bit of a religion, but it's perfectly normal to hop around distros a bit before you find the one that clicks with you. That's why there's so many of them: different goals for different people and different minds. I started with Ubuntu in 2007, ran to Debian around 2010 when they introduced Unity and I didn't like it, wasn't a fan of Debian either, ended up breaking it with Debian Sid, went to Fedora for a bit, and back to Ubuntu with a different DE before I felt like I had enough and wanted something I had more control over, and that's when I switched to Arch and stayed on Arch to this day. Meanwhile my fiancée put Arch on her laptop but increasingly feels like it's too much maintenance for her and wants a laptop that just kinda works to run Chromium and VSCode. So she might end up just switching to Ubuntu. That's perfectly fine! The computer should work for you, you shouldn't work for the computer.

If you end up not liking Linux, that's fine too! Most of us here swear by it, but maybe Windows just happens to be the best operating system for you, just like for some people that's macOS.

With that, good luck, hope you enjoy your Linux experience and ask questions. Lemmy is a great place to ask for help, there's also lots of still very active IRC channels on libera.chat, and there's some Discord servers too if that's your thing.

Linux mint is exactly what you are looking for. Even as a Linux Admin, I go to Linux Mint due to the stability and ease of use

Zorin is designed to be a Windows replacement, but my personal recommendation is LinuxMint. Sure it's not trying to be a carbon copy of Windows, but it's designed to be easy to learn, stable, functional, and support pretty much everything from the get go (just not bleeding edge), with a readily available store that lets you download everything you need (that isn't already included in the install).

Linux mint is amazing for you, I personally would say its better than zorin

Linux Mint Cinnamon is a good choice. Even as a sysadmin and DevOps engineer I use it on my workstation because it Just Works. It has good window management, settings management, file management and just stays out of the way. Flatpak is well integrated for things you may need that aren't natively packaged, like discord.

I've heard good things about PopOs too but haven't tried it.

As others have said, Linux Mint (Cinnamon) is an obvious choice.

Alternatively, I recommend Tuxedo OS. It’s a KDE based distro developed by a German company that makes various computers which run Linux out of the box. You get the developer support of a company that ships machines with the distro (like System 76’s Pop!_OS) and a more Windows like experience than Pop!_OS’ gnome desktop environment.

I know people have already said it, but Mint is very possibly what you want. I'm not super tech savvy (although I am surrounded by programmers in my personal life) and my husband recommended Mint with the Cinnamon desktop environment for me. It almost felt too much like Windows, at first! I was looking for a big change, and didn't find it there. With that said, I have grown quite attached to it.

Things are largely easy, even for me. For most programs, installing is as simple as downloading a .deb file and running it, much like running a .exe for installation on Windows. I very, very rarely have to touch my terminal, and when I do, it's because I'm doing some unnecessary nonsense, and I have a guide up to tell me exactly what to enter. The GUI has been great for me for navigating files, handling various settings, etc etc.

In terms of gaming, Steam will use Proton by default. It's their own creation, and frankly, it's very good. When it isn't good enough, there are custom versions of Proton, which is a little more complicated but still relatively easy. For games that aren't on Steam, I've used Lutris with largely good results. The only times I run into issues are with anti-cheat, which largely does not work well with Linux. If you want to find out how much of your Steam library would work, you can try protondb.com, which has a handy tool for figuring out how many things from your library will work, and to what degree. Lutris has something similar in their own website, lutris.net, as well.

This comment ended up being a lot longer than I expected, but I hope there's at least something helpful in here! Whether you end up with Mint and/or Cinnamon or not, I hope everything goes well in your search for the right distro and desktop environment!

Linux Mint, as other people have mentioned, is an awesome system that has a default look similar to Windows. I would also like to add Pop!_OS, it is another very popular distro meant for the general public, it is very complete and functional.

Linux mint is amazing!

Made me remember this classic post!

Linux != Windows

The similarity is really only superficial. You would have to learn about the OS one way or the other, even if some distro has Interfaces similar to Windows. You might need to find software alternatives for example, or be comfortable with package manager.

For gaming, you want to checkout Steam w/ Proton and Heroic Game Launcher

By "something like Windows", do you mean suddenly getting a "Configuring updates... please wait" on the screen, and having all open jobs killed by a sudden and unasked-for restart? 😂

Just joking of course! Welcome to Linux! I moved a year ago and haven't looked back once. In my case Ubuntu+Gnome did the job well, but soon I moved to KDE-Plasma. It offers available customizations that Windows only dreams of – but can still be made to look quite like Windows if you like. I think there are even desktop themes available to make it look like Windows.

But most posts here give much better and more expert advice :)

ZorinOS or Linux Mint. Both are rock solid and very friendly to windows users :)

I would encourage you to try a Linux distro with KDE plasma. It really looks like windows 10 now, and I always get comments from non tech people asking what it is and being surprised that it is linix but "looks good, like windows".

I'm on debian stable. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. My current beginner recommendation is to use m Linux mint, which is downstream from debian.

No.

Linux is not Windows. Don't try to make Windows from Linux. It can be visually similar, but it will never be the same. Don't expect a seamless migration. Stay on Windows or be ready to learn new things.

ubuntu mate is a good choice for a beginner, but if your computer is old enough, the system may slow down. This is due to the fact that snap images are slowly decompressed on older processors. You can try Linux Mint too.

About the software. The main thing is to accept the fact that not all Windows applications have analogues on Linux. some people actually make such a mistake. no need to try to install wine and migrate literally every exe file. Look at the software specifically for linux.

The default browser is firefox. But you can install chrome or chromium without any problems. There is OBS studio for linux for streaming. For games, you can put lutris. There is also an official steam client. if the game has an anti-cheat and this anti-cheat is not optimized for linux, you will not be able to play it.

I would recommend that you check out Linux Mint. It is based on Ubuntu, but is in my experience easier to use out of the box.

They have a MATE version on their website.

Mint was the first distro I tried. It seemed very nice, but it has been like 5-10 years since I have used it and I cannot really speak to what it is like today.

Manjaro is also a good distro which I got into more recently when I was trying to daily drive Linux (I used the KDE version). It also has access to the Arch User Repository, which is incredibly powerful and gave me access to certain programs which I might not have alternatives for otherwise.

Regardless of which distro you go with, my experience switching to Linux for a daily driver is to have a mindset that you are learning a skill. I can't speak for Mint more recently, but my experience with Manjaro is that not quite everything "just works" first time, every time. For daily use-- web browsing and such-- it works fine, and I have rarely had anything spontaneously break without me doing something, but if you have certain types of programs you want to install where you might run into some kind of compatibility or configuration issue, be prepared to look around online to solve problems or ask questions on forums as needed when you need help.

OpenSuse Tumbleweed is easy to use and configure

Odd man out apparently, but Zorin is designed to look really similar to Windows.

If you want a familiar Windows-like experience, the general consensus is that Mint and Zorin are the best for helping people transitioning. Lightweight-wise, Mint MATE, Xubuntu, or Lubuntu would work. Could install MATE, LXDE, or XFCE on Arch, too. Might be a Fedora spin, too, for some or all of those.

If you want super lightweight, Void is awesome to play with, but you have to get it going yourself somewhat like old-school Arch. It’s definitely more advanced, but worth doing for the learning.

Linux mint is the go-to for people who want something similar to windows. It has a similar layout and feel, and a lot of software that you’d normally expect on a windows computer that others distributions just don’t have

PopOS is the distro that is most optimized for gaming, but you can also game on any other distro

There are excellent suggestions in this thread. However, I want you to change your mindset. What you're asking is like "I don't want to drive my car. I'm sick of 4 wheelers. I want to ride this new thing called a motorbike. What are some good motorbikes? It should have AC and the safety and comfort of my previous car. Also are there any 4 seater bikes which is family friendly?"

When you are shifting from one platform, please be prepared to make some changes in the way you normally operate. You can't magically expect the new platform to be perfect when you have a decade of experience in the previous platform.

I wish you all the best in your Linux journey.

A few folks have said something similar but...

Linux is very modular. Distros are mostly unique in the way they combine software that other people wrote, and usually there's just a bit of code or theming that the distro adds. Usually you can take a distro and swap some pieces out for others if you want because it's so modular.

When you ask for something like windows, I assume you're asking for an interface like windows. The interface comes from the Desktop Environment(DE). You probably want either KDE or Cinnamon. I'd pick KDE out of those two, but you should try then each out.

You can put one of these DEs on top of any distro. The bigger distros generally come with a prebuilt version of all of the major DEs, but you can install a different DE even on distros that don't. Personally, I'd always go with a prebuilt one, because switching DEs can get messy for reasons I won't get into.

As far as distros, there aren't really any that are like Windows, because they're all Linux and it's just different. Most distros have reached the 'it just works' point, although you might still hit challenges with wifi or sound or something. Worst case is it takes some googling.

I'd recommend going with something either Fedora or Ubuntu based. I prefer Fedora, but other folks live Ubuntu. Both are great. If you do get drawn in by the Arch side of things, I'd recommend Endeavor OS.

Enjoy

1.) Linux Mint right now; I like to distrohop and I stuck with it on my primary server for two years. It's very clean and neat and the default desktop config is exactly what you need while getting used to everything. Desktop is insanely configurable as well. It's also beautiful; Solus Budgie is the only one that beats it. These both blow literally every OS on earth out of the water. 2.) Xubuntu: it's pretty similar in structure to Mint but more lightweight. Before Mint, it and Kubuntu were my go-too when I needed something with a desktop environment.

The most important thing I wish I'd done: after you install, join a community/messageboard/something so you can get all the tricks early and smooth over any surprises.

I seriously envy you if this is your first time using Linux. I remember my first install--Ubuntu Server, no desktop--and it was amazing.

I'd say the top ones I'd recommend are Linux Mint, Zorin OS and Kubuntu. All three work a lot like Windows.

I don't think I saw anyone here mention Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix (obviously free) or WindowsFX and LinuxFX (paid). Those are all pretty cool in my opinion.

I really like Pop!_OS and recommend you give that a try! It’s like the beginner friendly Ubuntu but better with flatpak support and tiling windows out of the box.

I would always recommend mint. If you want domething which looks a lot similar then zorin does that really well, and it also has you pay if you want some stuff preinstalled so that part is like windows too. Keep in mind that Linux is not windows and it will never be 1:1.

Gaming on Linux is pretty awesome if you use steam. It is painless in my experience.

Linux is used by a lot of professional programmers who might also have gotten training during uni, but honestly, I don't think that is needed anymore. It can be used by anyone who is willing to accept that Linux will never be 1:1 to windows.

Linux mint or kubuntu should match with your needs.

Install Linux Mint

Manjaro KDE is the closest I can get to Windows functionality without actually using windows. I love it.

I think that linux mint will be perfect for you!

If you want something that really looks like Windows (GUI) out of the box, I'd recommend looking at Zorin OS.

It's based on ubuntu and is easy to use.

https://zorinos.com

If you like having your rights screwed I hear IBM and Oracle are deep into this space.

A lot can boot from a usb stick and you can look at them. Linux Mint should look very familiar to a Windows user. Their main edition is Cinnamon, however they have an Xfce version that is lightweight. Xubuntu is another option that is also using Xfce. Ubuntu Mate is an option but it will be less familiar out of the box and with more of a learning curve.

Most distributions will support your use case, but how old the laptop is might influence how well they run. That said, even full GNOME can often run perfectly fine on older systems, and there is no downside to trying a bunch of things.

Iv been running garuda Linux GNOME edition on my gaming rig for years. Best Linux experience iv had. Honestly in my opinion and theres 2 schools of thought on this. The windows paradigm is literally shit workflow design, and thats just objective assessment. The only reason it has carried on is because people got real familiar with very shitty design choices.

I think you may want to consider opening yourself up to trying a whole new UX. Try out GNOME would be my suggestion. NixOS is another positive choice. You can install almost all your software graphically in basically 1 click using flatpak too these days and thanks to steam and their investment in proton. Most steam games work REALLY WELL on Linux.