Want to switch to linux

Submitted ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago by Arcaneslime@lemmy.ml to linux@lemmy.ml

Need reccomendations for distro. Old laptop from like '10 (shipped with windows 8, not even 8.1), touchscreen needed so no Mint unfortunately. No linux experience whatsoever beyond using tails and I know what the terminal is but have NO clue how to use it.

Need a daily driver for light tasks (just gimp, handbrake, internet, qbittorrent, and libreoffice type stuff, no games), would prefer security and privacy, but idk if Whonix can run on my old machine and with my nonexistent linux exp idk if it is a good one for me yet, may need exp with something else first? Idk, y'all tell me!

Was reccomended Fedora, has touch support and supposedly good for the light tasks and will run in my old laptop, but figured I'd ask what y'all think because you guys seem knowledgeable.

It is my only computer besides my phone so I can't afford the time to fuck around lol.

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Ephera@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hmm, so a bit of terminology to get you started: On Linux, there's the concept of "desktop environments", which is basically each a collection of programs to show you a graphical desktop UI. Basically, you can transform a server OS (which has only a terminal interface) into a desktop OS by installing a DE.

And there's various DEs available, which provide different user experiences. Among the most popular are:
- GNOME Shell (this is what Fedora and Tails ship with)
- KDE Plasma
- Xfce (this is what Whonix ships with)
- Cinnamon (this is what Linux Mint ships with)
- MATE
- Budgie
- LXQt
Now, GNOME has the best touchscreen support. KDE is in second place. The others don't really support touch input to my knowledge.

However, GNOME is also among the most heavyweight. KDE is definitely lighter, but also not the lightest.

I still think GNOME is lighter than Windows 8, so migrating will probably improve things, but if you've been told that Linux can revive old hardware, then yeah, your touchscreen requirement kind of torpedoes that...
- Arcaneslime@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Thanks for the info, I guess I know I can run Gnome since that same laptop will run tails, so that is good. It is less about reviving old hardware (windows still works on whatever version I'm on and I'm getting updates and whatnot), it is more about getting away from windows entirely. I degoogled my phone for the same reasons, it only stands to reason that I need to do it there too, hence my desire to use Whonix if it'll be a good fit for a new guy. I know I can't run qubes but might be able to run Whonix if it isn't too intensive to do so. Also taking other reccomendations for distros I am unaware of that would be secure and private (or have tutorials on how to make them that way) and frankly any "daily driver" os should be able to handle all my other uses with ease I'd imagine.
  - eyeballkid@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Fedora would be a good starting point since it has a straighforward version of GNOME as its default DE. It would be a wise to try out the fedora live disk for a while to verify that the touchscreen works well before installing anything. If Tails worked on this laptop then Fedora should as well, but it doesn't hurt to check before doing anything permanent.
    
    System memory and processor speed may be bottlenecks on a touchscreen laptop that old. My 2014 touchscreen tablet runs linux, but it can't handle GNOME or anything remotely touchscreen-friendly. Onscreen keyboard+tiling wm=awkward user experience.
    - -> View More Comments
Windows97@lemmygrad.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

touchscreen needed

Sounds like Gnome is your best bet in that case, no other desktop comes close. Like @LIESGREEDMISERY@lemmy.ml suggested, fedora might be worth a shot. I don't like how it's software repositories work but it shouldn't be that bad if you're ok with using the command line to unlock the expanded repos. Once you got that you got one of the best Gnome experiences you can get on linux and a very solid linux distribution underneath.
- Arcaneslime@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I assume it is easy to look all that up being that Fedora seems to have a large community, so I assume it won't be that hard, and I'd like to learn how to do all that "-sudo install aircrack" shit anyway lol (I know it is wrong, I said learn haha). Sounds like that will be the winner here! I think I'll use it to get familliar and then maybe check out whonix for the overkill privacy/security (hell I use GrapheneOS so overkill seems to be right up my alley). I assume I can set up mac spoofing and anything else I may need on any distro with a bit of research, tails has it so fedora surely can too. Thanks for your help!
  - Windows97@lemmygrad.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah it's all things that'll become second nature pretty quick. Most of my gripes come from being spoiled by the AUR.
LIESGREEDMISERY@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Tails and Whonix is definitely overkill. And given your description of nonexisten linux experience, it's not recommended. But it's not the usual daily-driver distro anyway.

Fedora is nice. Fedora has a leaning on FOSS projects, which if you need to install a proprietary software, you'd have to enable additional repository. It's not always inherently privacy-respecting, but it has great defaults, then everything else is depends on what users install and configure.

But do expect a changing workflow from Windows, because Linux is simply different. So whatever distro you pick, it definitely require time for you to get used to it.

If you ever have used Photoshop then moved to GIMP, it require you to change how you work with it. For example, in PS you can edit individual RGBA channel independently, while in GIMP you'd have to decompose each channel into layers, edit, then recompose them into single channel. Things are different. You wouldn't get used in a day.

I'd suggest dualbooting Linux & Windows for several months, so you can explore Linux while you can still use Windows as needed. And by exploring Linux, you can also read/watch online resources to see how people use it or see people's review.

If you go with Fedora, bear in mind that the installer is different from other popular distros. Confirm/next/back button is at the top, mind you. See the documentation while installing. Just giving you a notice because some people complaining that the installer is hard. But once it's installed, it typical GNOME experience and best for touch gestures as you need (if you go with the main Fedora Workstation download).
- Arcaneslime@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Good to know, I suppose I may start with Fedora (or maybe something else if you or anyone here have a reccomendation), and possibly consider Whonix when I have more experience and/or hardware it'll run on.
  
  I typically rely on FOSS projects myself as I am poor as hell lol. I do use Veracrypt, that may be my only one. I could switch to LUKS but I don't know if they support hidden containers like VC and I don't believe they do. Might keep one VC for windows compatability and switch the other to LUKS. I definitely expect a bit of learning involved, I more meant I don't want to try 5 different distros before nailing down a good one, maybe 2 max. That and hopefully it won't shit the bed so hard that I can only use my phone for a time to try and fix it haha.
  
  Might go with the dual booting, that is a good idea.
  
  And thanks for the heads up, in any case whatever I go with I will 100% be looking up "how to install X" and watching a tutorial haha, I know most will be "use etcher or rufus and slap that hoe in" but still I like to be prepared.
vi21@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I tried to so many things on Lenovo Miix 300 without a touchscreen. Only Ubuntu works. Even Ubuntu works partially. Some apps don't work with an onscreen keyboard. And, yes, Ubuntu with GNOME is very slow and consume almost all RAM in my computer. I can't work using it. So, in short, as far as I know, a distro, which you are looking for, doesn't exist.
- Arcaneslime@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Thanks for the heads up!
esi@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I see others have written a large amount of information so I'll just stick with a short bulletlist of the main go to distros IMHO. (replace Gnome suggestions with XFCE for example if you want more lightweight and classic OS, but not optimized for touch)
- Fedora (with Gnome)
- Manjaro (with Gnome)
- Ubuntu
- Elementary OS
CHEFKOCH@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Oh please not another threat about --- what is best xyz. There is no best. Stop spreading Mint is beginner distro, almost every other distro can be beginner distro.
- Boot into VM
- Test yourself, usually does not take long to find out what you like.
- Report back your findings.
- Do not abuse our good will to tell you ... what you like.
- Spare us such threads, next time use search we have dozens of it already.
Down-vote for wasting our time because if you need other people to tell you, what you like then Linux is not for you.

I like blue better than red .... btw, as useful as this entire thread here.
- ree@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Boot into VM is probably not the right advice for a newbie like op
  
  Flashing a live-USB is easy and thé same process than thé install.
  
  live usb is barremetal and op wanted touchscreen support, not sure a VM will providd a good expérience to maje this work
  - CHEFKOCH@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah it is up to a debate + how experienced the user actually is. But there are basically VMs that work in Browser like DistroTester. However I agree that you might need to be aware of this + this might be tricky anyway. Touchscreen support is often critical, even for mentioned distros in this thread, at the end you usually need to do some testing yourself so or so.
    
    The problem which I have with such threads here in general is that you end-up to test things for yourself anyway because we do not know the exact configuration and how the chosen Distro, or the tested VM reacts. I do not see why we shall support spoon-feeding, when all of those questions are answered many many many many times already and you anyway end-up with testing it for yourself.
- Arcaneslime@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  My bad dude, didn't mean to offend. Got an i5 with 4gb ram, don't know if can VM, iirc you need ok hardware to reliably run, but again, don't know. Would like input from people who know shit, for instance I asked a friend and that is how I knew Mint didn't support touch, instead of "try mint, no touch, try manjaro, no touch, try arch, no touch, hey fedora got it." Sue me. At least I can cut out "No's" easier even if I must take up space in your precious eyes with my questions. Fuck "your good will," you have none, these other people were nice, don't speak of what you have not exhibited. Spare me your tears, go on hxclinuxforum if you need hxclinuxusers, this is lemmy my guy, cool your jets, restrict posts if you don't want questions. "Down vote" oh no pwees sir, don't downvote me owo. Idgaf my guy, thankfully other people helped and you were ununnecessary. "Tell me what I like" fuck off dude, you may have the time and resources to dick around with this shit all day but some of us have jobs and lives, and recognize the benefit of experienced advice. Also it's all about green or purple you fucking pleb.
  - CHEFKOCH@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Apparently the issue is not the Distro, the issue here in this case is the touch-pad driver. This is known to be a problematic topic in the Linux Kernel. There exist some alternative touchpad drivers you can manually install. The reason they do not come with several popular Distro is that they are not well maintained and can cause additional problems.
    
    Laziness and spoon-feeding others is not really an excuse because all of this is nothing new. Just randomly guessing a Distro until it works has no learning effect for us as reader or for those who want to help and als not for you. Others who just read .. oh hey Fedora works, do now learn why and how they can fix their own distro to make it work.
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hitlerdidnowrong ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My favorite Linux flavor is oven baked Jews