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• smiletolerantly@awful.systems ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Start with Linux Mint. It should be a very pleasant and straightforward experience right out of the box, and is just in general very beginner friendly. I recommend to create a live USB (basically, download the ISO from the Mint website, then use something like Balena Etcher to put it on a USB stick). You can then boot off that stick, and try Mint out to your heart’s content, without risking your Windows install or data at all.

  Can I ask, whatbare the programs you wager you’ll have to emulate through wine?

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  • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m saving this so I can look at it again this weekend.

    I’m not one for making bets unless I know something that I suspect someone else doesn’t, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the games I have on steam need wine to run on Linux. My understanding is that wine is a compatibility layer, hence the name, correct?

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    • smiletolerantly@awful.systems ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Ah, good news in regards to gaming, esp. Steam gaming!

      Steam invested quite a bit of energy into “Proton”, essentially a new kind of compatibility layer. If you remember tinkering around with wine and winetricks from years ago, that’s basically gone nowadays.

      For most games, just go into the Steam settings for that game, and under “Compatibility”, check the box.

      Then click download, and play. That’s it for most games 🎉

      Also check out protondb.com - it’s basically a community-sourced database cataloging how well Steam games work on Linux.

      Good luck on your Linux journey, and feel free to ask questions if something comes up! :)

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      • 5too@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        And if you’ve been letting Steam upload your save data, you should find that your save files for most games will still be available in Linux! Mileage will vary per game of course, but jumping between OSes has been pretty seamless for me!

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• emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Write down a list of the software you use (e.g. web browser, office suite, notepad, image viewer, video player, … ). Download Linux Mint from here and use Balena Etcher to write it into a pen drive. Switch off your computer, plug in the pen drive and switch on. DON’T INSTALL YET. Run Linux ‘live’ for a couple of hours, see if everything (speaker, printer, webcam, all the software you listed above) is working correctly.

  Once you have confirmed that all is well, copy your files into an external hard drive, confirm that everything important has been backed up, and then install Linux from the pen drive. (You can have both Windows and Linux on the same computer, but then Windows should not be given internet access or it will ‘update’ and mess up everything. This can be repaired using, for example, this software, but why bother?)

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  • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Saved. I’ll look at this Sunday if I have time (I’m making that PCM developed by NightHawkInLight to use for a few planned events).

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• z00s@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Don’t let the gatekeepers put you off. The Linux community is quite helpful if you can get past their garbage. Every guru was once a noob 👍

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• drcobaltjedi@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m also going to recommend Linux Mint, its a really friendly beginner distro. I’ll presonally recommend you do Linux Mint Debian instead of normal linux mint since regular linux mint is Ubuntu based and really loves snaps.

  The default user env is cinnimon which is going to look a lot like Windows 10 making the transition easier. If you want to install steam its literally a command line away from installing and then its ready to go. That and Steam personally pushing for Linux as a viable gaming platform there are a lot more games now that work out of the box now on steam.

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  • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Mint doesn’t use snaps at all by default. It has a regular .deb repository supplemented by Flatpaks.

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    • drcobaltjedi@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Really? I swore I’ve been told that the regular mint uses snaps since ubuntu loves them. I haven’t used mint since snaps were a thing eitherway.

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  • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m saving this to note down that the flavor I’m most likely to want is “Cinnamon”.

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    • drcobaltjedi@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Would you like an eli5 for some stuff you’ll see in the linux community/forums/etc?

      I’d personally be happy to give you a quick rundown of some stuff.

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• MehBlah@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Don’t listen to people who mock you for asking a question. They are never the people whose advice is worth listening too. Start small. Get 8gb or bigger thumb drive. You can even use an external SSD. USB C would be the best. Follow the guide below or find a guide of your own. Start with Ubuntu. It isn’t perfect but it is the most popular distro out there. Be aware this installation is going to be laggy due to it being on a slower thumb drive. This will allow you to see that it just works. Games might be slower loading due to the thumb drive. I use steam daily and only have seen a few games I couldn’t play. Everyone was due to the ham-fisted drm the games had implemented.

  itsfoss.com/ubuntu-persistent-live-usb/

  Alternatively you can install a second hard drive in a PC and use both safely without fear of problems. I’ve been running linux as my daily driver for over ten years. I still have a windows installation that I can boot into if needed. Usually for firmware updates that only can be performed in windows. Currently I haven’t needed it in over a year.

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  • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I may look into Ubuntu if I have time this weekend. How does it differ from mint?

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    • MehBlah@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I will probably get a lot of hate from this but Ubuntu is simply more mature than mint. I’ve used mint and it works. The main gripe with Ubuntu is its use of snaps for many applications. They are not ideal but they do work. The main problems you may run into with snaps is the same problems you will run into with flatpak, appimage or docker.

      Its a little more complicated to get persistence but my current main boot flash drive I carry with me daily is a 128gb thumb drive running ventoy. Ventoy is great because all you need to add a iso to the thumb drive is simply copy the iso over to it. Getting persistence is a little more complicated but the ventoy installer has a web gui that makes it easier. The ventoy installer is available for windows and linux. www.ventoy.net/en/download.html

      On my bootable flash drive I have Debian, Ubuntu, Mint , kali, tails and even a arch installation with persistence. I also have several other utility iso’s including hirens_PE. I have installers for windows as well. I mainly use the linux installations for rescue and diagnostics on windows PC’s. I have however ran machines with no hard drive at all for weeks at a time without any problems at all.

      So using rufus to make a bootable thumb drive is okay for a single OS with persistence but you can use ventoy and test several distros to find what you prefer.

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      • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        When it comes to computers I’m an average nerd.

        The main problems you may run into with snaps is the same problems you will run into with flatpak, appimage or docker.

        This means nothing to me other than “there are some things that are more complicated with Ubuntu compared to Mint”.

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