I bought a laptop yesterday, it came pre-installed with Windows 11. I hate win 11 so I switched it down to Windows 10, but then started considering using Linux for total control over the laptop, but here’s the thing: I keep seeing memes about how complicated or fucky wucky Linux is to install and run. I love the idea of open source software and an operating system without any of the bullshit that comes with Windows, but most of the open source stuff I have is on my android and fairly easy to install. Installing and using Linux just feels like it’ll be a whole different beast that’ll eat up most of my time and I’m kind of intimidated by it.
TL;DR Linux scawy, how does a barely computer literate scrub like me who’s used nothing but windows since the dawn of their life get started with Linux?
Distro choice doesn’t matter. Alternately, just use Debian.
It’s hard to use a different computer and nothing will make that easier. If you’ve ever been plopped down in front of a Mac you probably already know this.
Pay attention during the install process and ask questions when you don’t understand something. Don’t be afraid to bail out if you’re worried about messing something up. Make a backup so you can’t lose anything when you do mess something up.
Dual booting is what you’ll do to start with, but windows updates tend to break the system that allows you to choose Linux or windows at boot time. The first time it happens you’ll have to figure out a way to fix it.
just use Debian.
If you only get your stuff from homebrew, Distrobox of Flatpak, yes.
Debian has severely outdated packages, like 2 years old on Bookworm. I would never recommend anyone to run outdated software.
Not every software vendor publishes LTS releases. Firefox, Thunderbird all fine. But the rest is randomly frozen, and this will result in unfixed errors for years.
I get what you’re saying, but that’s bad advice for a new user. They’re already gonna be having to relearn how the computer works and how to fix stuff that breaks/make it do what they want.
It’s more important to have a broadly supported and used system with ample documentation in that situation than it is to have the most recent packages.
It is important that you get fixes to packages that occured in the last like 2 years.
It is generally not really nice to run outdated software, even though it works kinda well.
If you use Debian you really need to use Flatpaks, and Mozillas PPA for regular Firefox. Then yes, probably a good OS.
I started on MX Linux because some strange Distrowatch bump. My IT support told me my Nextcloud version was outdated, and I didnt know Flatpak back then.
