I’m just so sick of Microsoft and Google. But there’s two things holding me back:
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I wanna play Steam games on my PC
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I am just an amateur hobbyist, not a tech wizard
Is there any hope for me?
You have received tons of useful responses, so I will not add more, except to tell you that the change is extremely worth it, easier than it seems and extremely entertaining.
I personally use Kubuntu (I love the KDE environment) and sometimes play Steam games by using Proton.
Good luck on your Linux journey!
thanks! right now the primary obstacle is arranging adequate backup before maling my first attempt.
I have a laptop with Win 11 for troubleshooting so I’m not worried about that. and I have most of my stuff on externals, so there’s not much to backup. I just gotta figure out a good way to back up my C drive and a plan for reverting if necessary!
For the backup, you might want to try out Clonezilla or Rescuezilla (for a GUI option).
oh yea? I’m wondering if the program I already have will work. ever heard of a program called Macrium reflect? I installed it and never used it lol. adventure time
Just remember to turn steam play on for all titles in Steam -> Settings -> Compatibility.
As others have said, Mint is a great starting option. It looks familiar when coming from Windows, and almost everything works without having to touch a terminal.
AAA games with anti-cheat may not work, but just about everything else will. Check Proton DB for each game’s compatibility.
You can add non-Steam games to Steam to take advantage of Proton. Lutris can also work for some Windows games.
If you want to try Linux distributions to see what they’re like before committing, VirtualBox or other virtual machine programs can give you a risk-free preview.
Another option is a live preview. Install Linux Mint on a USB using Rufus or a similar program, then boot your computer from the USB. So long as you don’t access your computer’s hard drive (under devices on the left of the file manager) or run the installer, no changes should be made from your computer. You can simply reboot and remove the USB to go back to your usual OS.
If you are going to dual-boot, install Windows first. Windows has a habit of overriding or deleting Linux if it’s installed second. If you just want to shrink your Windows partition to allow room for Linux, shrink it from Windows. Linux can move “unmovable” Windows files resulting in Windows not booting.
Always have a backup of everything you are not prepared to lose before you play with installing operating systems (and make sure it’s disconnected from that computer). Data loss from software issues is rare, but mistakes are difficult (sometimes impossible) to reverse, particularly as a beginner.
For dual booting I strongly recommend having Windows and Linux on separate drives altogether.
Honestly there is nothing to learn, unless you pick arch which is annoying to install, otherwise everything is pretty simple and for the most part just works.
Even Arch has an interactive installer now, and Endeavour is meant to be Arch with a bulletproof installer as well.
Proton Linux is one of the best gaming centric operating systems out there so give that a try maybe
Proton is a tool for all Linux distributions, not an OS unto itself. But yeah proton is amazing and makes Linux gaming simple
Oops, I got it confused with Pop OS and Bazzite
Absolutely. I likewise moved to Linux more out of frustration with Windows than any of my own tech ability. It needn’t be a concerted effort either. I had it on a separate SSD (for a more stable dual-boot) and dabbled for a couple of years until I found myself gradually booting into Linux instead of Windows more and more.
I started using Zorin OS just to get out of Windows. Ngl I work in IT and the last thing I wanna do when I’m off work is to go home and do more tech-related stuff, so I just picked it for ease of use. Happy with it though!
Yep, if you have the means, I recommend having two SSDs until you feel confident using one of them full-time. The only downside is that if your computer is so small/cheap/old like mine was all those years ago and doesn’t have enough cables to keep both drives plugged in, switching between them can be annoying for a while.
As others have mentioned, use Mint. Since you game, some games won’t run on Linux because of their anticheat, and to that I decided to use a dual boot system. I gave 500gb to windows, the rest to Linux. Anything that won’t run on Linux (some early access games, COD, Tarkov) goes on the windows partition. 500gb doesn’t seem like much when COD takes about 1/2 of that, but everything else I’ve played runs fine on Linux.
I also like the smaller partition because it makes me be choose what I leave installed, and if I’m not playing, I just uninstall whatever game needs to go
best way to learn is to dive in start with mint’pop,bazzite,fedora kintonite, or anduin as a good starting distro and just start expiermenting
This is the book that got me on the train. I have so many tech books but they all started with this. I’m a terminal afficianado now; this got me started. Anyway, good luck and I hope you have a good time.
https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Unix-Paul-Love/dp/0764579940
you are going to be fine! linux has better compat than windows now unless you use a ton of proprietary, locked software. your average linux distro can do steam gaming pretty well, and there are distros like bazzite and garuda and popos that do some or all of the configuration for you (based on your hardware and usage).
I have 15 years of experience and do free infinite troubleshooting on matrix, feel free to add me. I recommend you go with aurora, because it is immutable, kde based, and well documented.
immutable means the base system is read only and updates are applied ontop of it, meaning you can easily roll back an update that went bad, and the apps are separate from the core operating system and thus can never break them (unless you try really hard).
kde is a desktop environment, it is most similar to windows and the rate of development dwarfs almost everything else, please whatever you do for your first system use kde.
aurora is a slightly modified fedora and fedora is one of the most commonly used options, the reason not to use base fedora is that aurora includes some QoL features, for example because of issues with patents twitch doesn’t work on fedora but does on aurora.
I’m started on Mint and like it so much I never distro-hopped. Every not and then I think about trying an immutable. But then I remember how much learning I had switching from Windows to Mint and I get scared of losing so much time to learn about Aurora. What would your say to me?
I recommend Garuda Linux, it looks awesome and comes with everything you need pre-installed
Garuda is actually my daily driver these days, and I quite enjoy it. It does mostly just work, and I also like their desktop theming. The GUI installer is great for easy hardware detection and setup. But, that’s coming from a more experienced old tinkerer who was initially looking for some lazy troubleshooting with NVIDIA graphics on a new gaming laptop, and liked the distro enough to end up switching over.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend any rolling release to someone completely new to Linux. The devs have done a pretty good job at making some things more user friendly, but we are talking about Arch with some extra tools bolted on. You’d better be prepared for things to break occasionally, and to need to do some tinkering around under the hood.
On the plus side, you ARE dealing with Arch with all the info resources/user community built up around that, plus the Garuda community tends to be pretty helpful from what I’ve seen. You are going to periodically need to figure out how to fix stuff, however–and better to be aware of that going in. Some people are going to be more fine with the idea than others, but it is liable to provide a steeper learning curve for someone just getting started with Linux.
I agree with everything you said. If someone is new and wants to have a rock solid experience, then it might make sense to get a long term support version of the distribution that’s chosen. It’s a trade-off of shiny new upgrades for almost guaranteed stability.
I’d say try Kubuntu. It’s like Ubuntu but with KDE (Windows-like user interface) instead of GNOME (shitty Mac clone turned tablet like interface). It’s well-supported and is easy to use. Also supports new technologies like HDR which Mint is lacking. Though you can install KDE on pretty much any distro (Mint included) but it’s a good starting place.
Note to fellow Linux veterans: Yes, I know snaps suck but it is not something new users need concearn themselves with. Kubuntu is a great distro except for snaps which aren’t going to affect OP’s use-case (or most use-cases. Also sorry for shitting on GNOME so much. If you like it that’s cool, I just don’t think we should be recomending it to people coming from Windows.
There is hope lots of YouTube channels, articles by bloggers such as Its Foss, and guides to Linux all over
Especially for Linux Mint (Similar to Windows), Pop!_OS (Similar to MacOS), and Bazzite (Gaming-Productivity Distro, Similar to SteamOS)
The latter 2 work out of the box for gaming if that’s your thing
You got this. Learn little by little each day and engage with community as much as you can. Maybe join some Voyager for Lemmy, Bluesky, Discord, etc communities
If you want real gaming performance then arch all the way with archinstall. Trust, it’s insanely good and you can get double of what you get on windows in terms of performance. Boot times are also insane. I have used so many distros and I can tell you that arch is king for performance.
He said he’s not a tech wizard. Arch, even with archinstall, asks you to be at least an apprentice tech wizard.
I agree. Arch has been my current favorite distribution for several years now, but it’s almost impossible to maintain without having to drop into the shell occasionally. I have EndeavourOS installed on my wife’s laptop and she’s been happily using it for nearly a year; bauh helps with software installs, but I still generally drop into a shell for the full
-Syuupgrades, and you have to use the shell at least once just to install bauh as it’s not a core package.You might be able to avoid the shell to use bauh if you use the AppImage; I haven’t tried that. bauh can apparently do system upgrades, but I haven’t tried that yet and I need to see how it handles news; Arch is fairly cavalier about pushing out breaking changes that require extra user steps which need to be discovered by reading the news posts.
I agree that Arch isn’t the best “first linux” distribution.
Not so much help but hope: I got rid of Windows 11 and switched fully to Linux Mint a few weeks ago. I had no idea what I was doing but I tested things on USB and also on a very old laptop I had laying around before I made it my daily driver.
I’m not particularly a tech person. I own a small creative business and have a toddler, but I figured out what I needed to quickly. I don’t game and didnt use Winsows exclusive software so have no opinions about that.
What I didn’t expect: to actually be genuinely interested in my computer again for the first time since I was a teenager (which was not recent…). I love customizing my desktop. I love discovering new open source software. I’m learning more than I expected and it’s just a totally different relationship with the tech I use every day, in a nice way. And no more BS ads / bloat when I’m just trying to exist on my computer.
this is it
