TLDR:
Windows 11 v24H2 and beyond will have Recall installed on every system. Attempting to remove Recall will now break some file explorer features such as tabs.
YT Video (5min)
Linux is here to welcome you
Man, I cling to Windows like nobody else, as I didn’t have any advertising issues and such, but this will be the final straw.
It’s already enough of a spying system but I refuse to have it as a spy on crack.
Time to read into distros.
As far as Linux distros are concerned, really, any distro is just a package manager with repos and a set of default utilities. Essentially, a distro is an opinion on how you should use your system, not a law. Now prepare for my ADHD-fuelled stream of consciousness (which I wrote instead of getting any work done, yay):
Stay away from Arch and Gentoo for your first distro. These are basically meme distros, especially Gentoo. They allow for a lot of flexibility and building a really minimal install, but come with install-time complexity you really don’t need. Try them later on if you’re interested. Stay away from nixOS for now too, although it’s also awesome.
Package managers
Essentially, you have two main packaging types: RPM (used by Fedora/RedHat’s dnf, previously yum and (Open)SuSE’s zypper) and deb (used by apt mostly, dunno if others).
Either one is fine, but I think you’ll probably find more software available as debs. But the difference barely exists and with GUI apps you can usually install a flatpak anyway (more on this later).
Deb
Everything deb/apt comes from the Debian lineage.
You have Debian, the granddaddy of stability, releases come every few years and are tested thoroughly. After package freeze, only bugfixes and security updates usually get added. Then you have Ubuntu, a fork of Debian with more frequent releases as well as Long-Term Support releases every 2 years. Ubuntu used to be the most recommended beginner distro, but it’s no longer the case - not just because it has ads in it, but also because it pushes Snaps over Flatpaks AND occasionally tries to force Snaps over regular packages (again, more on this later).
Then, much like Ubuntu has forked Debian, others have forked Ubuntu. There’s Linux Mint - used to have the same release cadence as Ubuntu, but now they only base their releases off Ubuntu LTS versions. Really, it’s Ubuntu without all the commercial stuff Ubuntu’s been pushing. And they maintain their own desktop environment(s), but you can get those elsewhere too. There’s also Pop!_OS which is developed by System76, a laptop manufacturer. It used to come with its’ own customizations on top of Gnome, but now they’re creating their own desktop environment altogether, which is currently in Alpha 2. And then there’s KDE Neon, which is also based on Ubuntu LTS, but it ships the latest version of KDE Plasma desktop environment, rather than whatever version is in the latest Ubuntu LTS.
Rpm
On the rpm side, you mostly have two families for non-enterprise users: Fedora, which has a similar release cadence to Ubuntu, but apparently keeps packages more up to date between releases and OpenSuSE, which has Leap (new versions every year, with critical bugfixes and security updates in the meantime) and Tumbleweed, which is rolling release, so you just get the latest version of every package that has been tested, rather than having to wait for a new release. Tumbleweed gets updated just about every day. There’s also Slowroll, which gets big updates monthly, but can still get bugfixes between those.
Desktop Environments
For just about any distro, you can get just about any desktop environment. Ubuntu and Fedora default to Gnome. KDE Neon is pretty much just meant to be used with KDE Plasma. Pop!_OS defaults to customized Gnome unless you get the alpha version of the new COSMIC desktop. OpenSUSE defaults to KDE Plasma.
For Ubuntu you get variants like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc, for whatever desktop you want, or you can switch alter (apt install kubuntu-desktop for an example). For Fedora, you can get a Fedora Spin, like Fedora KDE Spin for an example. Or you can similarly switch: dnf install @kde-desktop-environment. Same goes for all of them, really.
Desktop environments: The two big ones are KDE Plasma (close to Windows in default appearance, but a lot more customizable, and more functional straight out of the box) and Gnome, which as of Gnome 3 is just… unique, I guess. It’s different. Then on the “Help I’m running this on a computer from 2004” side you have things like XFCE and LXQT. (Xubuntu, Lubuntu get their names from these). Those work just fine too, just a bit less eye candy. There are a lot more of less mainstream ones like Budgie or Enlightenment, but you can worry about those later.
Sandboxed applications - Flatpak, Snap
Now, why did I mention Flatpaks and Snaps earlier? Those are sandboxed package managers. A package comes with a sandbox of its’ own, and Flatpak or Snap keeps a copy of all the libraries it depends on, instead of using system libraries. This means that 1) There’s never a version conflict between what’s installed on your system and what the application uses and 2) You have multiple copies of some libraries (Flatpak and Snap both I think do try to deduplicate though so if two applications use the same version of a dependency, it keeps one copy stored). 3) You can install applications your distro doesn’t even have a package for.
Both also keep system resources out of reach of the applications, so they’re more secure to some degree if you don’t trust an application. This comes with limitations, too - sometimes you NEED your application to have access to something that’s limited in Flatpak or Snap. You can sorta fix this with flatseal for Flatpak, but it’s not perfect.
The real problem with Snap, besides having a proprietary backend vs Flatpak where you can use either Flathub or another application store with it, is that Ubuntu is starting to force it upon you - including for applications you may not want to run in a sandbox at all. You’ll run apt install firefox and it’ll play a trick on you and install the Snap instead of the deb. You lose some control over your system and how you use it. You can override this, but it’s possibly more work than you’d want to take on as a brand new Linux user.
At the end of the day, I recommend using either OpenSuSE Tumbleweed (if you want latest and greatest always), Fedora, Linux Mint, or Pop!_OS. If you really want the latest and greatest KDE Plasma and don’t want Tumbleweed, then KDE Neon might make sense for you.
A distro is way more than just package managers, it’s also the level of testing before deployment, and a shitload of configuration and design decisions.
That said, everything from one distro can generally be configured to work like it does in another distro, but it’s not always easy.
If you want to try Linux, jump right into it, if there’s something you don’t like, maybe another Distro or DE has fixed that exact thing, and it’s easy to swap.
Calling Arch a meme distro is unnecessarily insulting. I imagine the same applies to Gentoo, but I haven’t used it myself. It’s an enthusiast distro, for people who want to have control over how their system is set up while accepting the responsibility of having to set everything up.
I absolutely agree with recommending against it for somebody’s first experience - but if you’re willing to read through the guides and troubleshoot issues, you can learn a lot about how things work on Linux. It’s the kind of distro where you will have issues, and they will usually be due to your own mistakes.
OpenSuSE
As an openSUSE user, I want to also point out that you can upgrade from Leap -> Tumbleweed really easily, so I highly recommend starting with Leap and upgrading to Tumbleweed later once you get a feel for the system and want something a little more exciting and up-to-date.
That said, I don’t recommend openSUSE for a new user unless you’re in Europe, because there just isn’t a huge userbase or single community I can point at. Support is high quality, when you can find it, but quite a bit less plentiful vs Fedora. That said, SUSE is huge in Europe, so you could probably find a lot more non-English language support.
So if you’re sold on an RPM distro, I recommend Fedora, not because openSUSE is bad, but purely based on community support. That said, my primary recommendation is Linux Mint due to community size and proximity to Debian (which also has a huge community).
OpenSUSE defaults to KDE Plasma.
That’s not really true, it asks you in the installer which one you want. However, most openSUSE users seem to recommend KDE, so you’ll probably get the best help with that desktop (and it’s what I use, now that Wayland support is pretty good).
At the end of the day, I recommend
I differ a bit. Here’s what I recommend:
- Linux Mint
- Fedora
- Debian
- openSUSE Leap -> Tumbleweed (start w/ Leap, upgrade to Tumbleweed later)
- Pop!_OS
I use openSUSE, but put it lower due to limited community support. It’s the perfect distro for me, and I love the different spins it has. I currently use Leap for servers and Tumbleweed for desktop/laptop, and I plan to transition to microOS for servers.
Arch
I don’t see Arch as a meme, I think it’s a fine distro and I used it for several years. However, I don’t think it should be anyone’s first distro, or even second, not because it’s hard or complicated (it’s remarkably simple), but because it doesn’t really have any guardrails, so whether you have a good or bad experience with it depends more on you than the distro itself.
That said, don’t use Manjaro, it’s not “easier Arch” or “safer Arch,” in fact I think it has way more problems than Arch does. If you want an easy install option, I recommend using something else first. If you are familiar with Arch, then use something like EndeavorOS so you don’t need to do all the setup, but as a first time user, I recommend using Arch’s official install process instead.
Don’t tell people to stay away from Arch. It is not a god damned meme OS, hell even the Steam Deck production OS is built on Arch.
It’s installer is as easy to use as the other shit you recommended if you can fucking read and follow directions, but skips the unnecessary installer UIs that hand-hold (which requires just as much reading and direction following, difference is the others have a toddler-appealing colorful UI).
If old MAGA Boomers can handle text terminal DOS installs with floppy disks, a contepmorary dumbfuck Windows user will be fine too.
I’m in the exact same boat as you.
After ten hours of research you will have learned that Linux Mint with Cinnamon is the one you’re looking for, for an intro. Widely used, familiar, stable.
Feel free to read a bunch to confirm.
Seconded. Linux Mint is really comfy and intuitive coming off of lifetime of Windows
It’s a great intro AND a great one to stick with. It is basically Ubuntu, the most popular distro(which is built on Debian), minus the controversial Canonical stuff, plus some additional conveniences and polish.
If I switched from Mint to Arch it wouldn’t really affect how I use my PC unless it broke functionality. 95% of usage is in terminal, Firefox, or vscode. And that includes browser-based M365 work apps.
Linux Mint seems to be one of the most recommended for newcomers.
“Burn” the ISO on an USB drive, boot live from it and give it a try.
I personally recommend Linux Mint. It feels just close enough to Windows to be fairly comfortable to use. Customizing the task bar on Cinnamon still feels weirdly awkward and confusing though.
There’s plenty to read up on but I think starting with any is a good place. You’ll find stuff you dislike. I’d recommend setting up ventoy on a USB (it will let you have several linux images on one thumb drive) and testing out most importantly the desktop environment (DE).
Main ones being KDE, GNOME, and cinnamon that comes with Mint (which is a great first distro to test).
If you end up having questions feel free to DM me
The transition is really not difficult. A distribution like Xubuntu (XFCE+Ubuntu) is very easy. Everything should work out of the box.
xubuntu is fine if your box is a potato or if you’re coming from windows vista
I try to jump on Linux for years, it breaks so often for me I really lost all faith…
Check out Aeon and Fedora Silverblue. I’m installing Aeon on Desktops and MicroOS on Servers. My computer needs to be a reliable tool. Immutable distros make it exactly that.
The last thing I want to do in my free time or during my work day is be forced to fiddle with some poorly documented and/or implemented idiocy on my personal computer because I forgot to cast the correct incantation prior to updating something. I’m not a masochist.
EDIT To the hesitant but hopeful Windows+Nvidia user: give Fedora Kinoite a try. Check my reply to @independantiste@sh.itjust.works below for details.
I wouldn’t recommend aeon, a beta Linux distro that doesn’t work for Nvidia GPUs at the moment as someone looking for something stable. Silver Blue is great though
Ironically, a few months ago I wanted to setup Debian 12 on a ThinkPad X13, which feels like the most boring and stable thing one can possibly say. It installed just fine - but would fail to boot once installed. I absolutely require a cellular modem to work (I’m assuming this was the booting issue, but it’s a snapdragon X55, it’s been out… 4 years now?) and I tried 10+ other distros, which basically didn’t work/support the modem, so I ended up sighing and having to go with kubuntu.
I’m mostly happy with it (it ‘works’ and hasn’t broken yet) but I shouldn’t have to distrohop, read guides and get lost in a sea of dead links to (not, except *ubu) get WWAN working. It should work ootb, no fuss. So I expected Debian would have no issue, no bullshit. Bah.
Things seem to have improved in the last 5 years, so maybe give it another shot. I’m on Fedora 40 with gnome and lots of extensions, and I’m constantly tinkering with it to make it look just right (for fun, not that I feel like I have to). Nothing catastrophic has happened yet!🤞
unfortunately it isn’t. I cannot imagine a less welcoming and beginner friendly community. the reason no one uses Linux is because your communities are indecipherable and you all act like everyone is or should be an engineer in computing.
I spent much of yesterday getting Debian to work on my old MacBook.
In theory it’s relatively straightforward, but there are so many little niggles and roadblocks that it really sours the experience.
I set up a user account upon install, as it asked me to, but when I tried to do something with sudo it just kept telling me that I wasn’t in the Sudoers group. Mine is the only account on the machine, why isn’t that set up by default? So I searched for a solution, which appears to have a bunch of different ways to do it, but none of them quite worked, or worked first time. The first few solutions involved using the terminal, but in the end it was easier to open the document in the file manager and edit it as a root user. Linux users are hard for using a terminal when they could just open a document in a text editor.
In the end I got everything set up how I wanted, but it probably shouldn’t have taken a whole day of irritation.
Linux users are hard for using a terminal when they could just open a document in a text editor.
This remains my #1 gripe with an annoyingly large bit of the Linux community, though there slowly becoming a smaller and smaller group
CLI is great for some things, but holy shit it’s terrible for all of the uses you people try to shove down it’s fucking throat. A text editor works better when you can scroll through and click around if it’s any bigger than a few lines, my audio mixer is a lot easier to use with click and drag sliders than it was as ASCII text in a terminal, and in what fucking world is “MV file/path/could/be/long/as/shit another/long/as/shit/path” faster than click-drag between the 2 windows I opened to copy the path names in the first place?
Linux users are hard for using a terminal when they could just open a document in a text editor.
The command line is always there and always has the same basic tools, assuming the system is bootable at all. You can’t guarantee that a given system has a working GUI—it may be broken, inaccessable, or never installed. Having some kind of TUI editor installed is usual on non-embedded systems, but you can’t guarantee which one or that it’s fit for purpose (coaching a newbie through a vi session isn’t something anyone wants to do). That means that the generic instructions that get passed around because they’re fit for most systems (regardless of distro or purpose) use the command line tools.
So there is method to the madness, but if you’re coming from a “GUI or bust!” OS it can take a while to get used to.
There was a checkmark for adding the user to that group, IIRC.
Searching for a solution using Google is problematic, yes.
No, we don’t. When people use words you don’t understand to ask and answer their own questions, the solution is simple - say that you are a newbie and ask your question in your words. Just ask additional questions when you don’t understand something. Politely, and not like “you nerds, nothing works, help me asap”.
EDIT: Who downvoted this? People really expect others to specifically limit their speech to what a random lurker can understand? And think that using words they don’t understand for interactions not involving them makes a community toxic?
I cannot imagine a less welcoming and beginner friendly community
You have very little imagination, then.
Have you tried Linux Mint Cinnamon? It’s about as beginner-friendly as it gets, has help forums, a dedicated chat built-in for getting help, a welcome screen that walks you through how to do updates/backups/firewall/etc, and works out of the box. I’m an ex-Windows user and I’ve been using Mint for almost a year now with practically no issue.
