Thinking on switching to linux
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
Recommend you Linux mint.
But preferably use LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) instead of Mint based on Ubuntu
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Recommend you Linux mint.
But preferably use LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) instead of Mint based on Ubuntu
What's the difference between the two?
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Antivirus is completely unnecessary and terrible on windows and linux... and on linux it's uniquely useless. Everything is installed from a centralized repo, antiviruses won't be of any help at all. antiviruses came about because windows let executables just be run easily and simply and used them as the default way of installing software, this was beyond idiotic and the reason that OS became infested with malware. Linux never made that mistake from the start, and so antivirus is unnecessary.
Can you explain how that works?
Sorry for my ineptitude
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
Remote desktop you can use rustdesk
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What's the difference between the two?
One is based on Ubuntu, the other on Debian.
I wouldn't recommended and don't like Ubuntu myself cause of their decisions in the FOSS world -
I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.
I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.
The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).
How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.
Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.
Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, color management, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.
I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.
Absolutely aggree about KDE, I helped a bunch of people switch to Linux, and for experienced users, KDE was the key. Not only it works better, but it also follows the logic people are used to, but with more freedom.
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gmail -> proton or tuta if you don't care about IMAP, or any other decent email provider (I use disroot, I set my brother up with mailfence, they both seem quite good. I use them with thunderbird)
pycharm -> not an IDE, but I like VSCodium (vscode without MS)Proton owner came out as big creep, so don't really recommend.
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iTunes: Quod Libet.
+1 for Quod Libet
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Proton owner came out as big creep, so don't really recommend.
I saw it as pandering to trump, so his administration doesn't make proton illegal in USA
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Just how will you manage to open gmail on linux?
People have been trying for decades, there is just no way
I haven't checked lately but on GNOME you add Google account to your Online accounts and gmail is automatically added to your email client (Evolution in some diatros).
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
Maybe add Only Office.
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Can you explain how that works?
Sorry for my ineptitude
9 times out of 10 the software you’re looking will typically land in your Distribution’s repository, before it lands in the main repository it’ll be vetted for stability and security in a testing repository.
For example Steam-Installer is located in the Debian main repository for Debian 12 (Bookworm) they also have a copy in their Debian 13 (Trixie) repository for testing the next generation of Debian..
If you want to install software outside your distributions repository you will need to vet the software yourself and make sure it’s compatible with your distro.
Hope that explains it a little easier.
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Can you explain how that works?
Sorry for my ineptitude
On windows you install things from random websites as the primary method of installing stuff, this means anything can install anything and has installers that can install bonus stuff. This is why windows has so much malware.
On linux, imagine your distro is an app store, ubuntu is an app store, mint is an app store, fedora is an app store. The apps themselves can't manage installation so they can't bundle nonsense with them. you just click install and you get only the thing you wanted and nothing else.
Since your distro curates all the software, as long as you trust your distro, you'll know there's no malware on your computer, because you get all your software from the distro (or flathub but same idea).
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
AMD DRIVERS - Linux's built in drivers
Chrome - Chrome
gmail - gmail
Office 360 - Office 360 (web)
Norton - You don't need such piece of adware in Linux
Py-charm - py-charm
Star citizen - Star citizen though steam
VPN - Proton VPN (my suggestion)
Windows 10 - Fedora KDEMy suggestions if you want a smoother transition, repeated ones have Linux versions
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Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.
I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?
Gmail is web-based, you can use it with Firefox. For that matter Linux doesn't bind you to Firefox either, you can use Chrome and other browsers.
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I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.
I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.
The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).
How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.
Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.
Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, color management, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.
I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.
Fedora (and related distros, including Bazzite) are indeed superior. The gap is even larger when comparing Atomic distros... sorry to say... Red Hat's money does show! Now, for many to use any Red Hat's variant, whether because of ideology, non-American (hat tip to lemmy.ml/u/eugenia), ethical, pro-human rights (no getting big checks from US army), etc... I find it concerning. The only one I find it as a valid option, specially if for an corporation in the US, is Alma Linux.
I find Mint the most newbie friendly and also extremely stable. Like you, I dislike Cinnamon enormously, (puzzled why they decided to ditch KDE!) but I still recommended to new people in Linux. Personally, I still in the quest to find the one for me (been with OpenSUSE for a few months but with my eyes on TuxedoOS already).
I agree that Atomic distros seems to be the future for most users, but beside Bazzite, don't think the others are equally stable (someone correct me if I am wrong). Bazzite however, as expressed above, comes from a murky parent that many linux fans, specially those in lemmy.ml, should be wary of. Think of it as Android, as a phone OS is great, probably the best there is today, but coming from the corporation as it comes from, from the country it comes from that uses sanctions as it does, should be a 'no thank you' for most in the world.
Now, Debian also is a US registered distro, yes, but, unlike Red Hat-IBM or Google's products, it is far more universal and with enough human capital abroad that easily can fork it, it need be. Same apply as the Linux kernel (that is why China went that route).
I however, for the future, I like the idea of Arch, and wonder if ever can be made stable and waiting for someone to propel Arch into a stable variant and not just another "gaming distro" (crossing my fingers in KDE's new distro!). Till, then, most users I think we should still recommend some veteran Debian based and Mint still checks most boxes.
[My first post in this type of social media!!] -
Fedora (and related distros, including Bazzite) are indeed superior. The gap is even larger when comparing Atomic distros... sorry to say... Red Hat's money does show! Now, for many to use any Red Hat's variant, whether because of ideology, non-American (hat tip to lemmy.ml/u/eugenia), ethical, pro-human rights (no getting big checks from US army), etc... I find it concerning. The only one I find it as a valid option, specially if for an corporation in the US, is Alma Linux.
I find Mint the most newbie friendly and also extremely stable. Like you, I dislike Cinnamon enormously, (puzzled why they decided to ditch KDE!) but I still recommended to new people in Linux. Personally, I still in the quest to find the one for me (been with OpenSUSE for a few months but with my eyes on TuxedoOS already).
I agree that Atomic distros seems to be the future for most users, but beside Bazzite, don't think the others are equally stable (someone correct me if I am wrong). Bazzite however, as expressed above, comes from a murky parent that many linux fans, specially those in lemmy.ml, should be wary of. Think of it as Android, as a phone OS is great, probably the best there is today, but coming from the corporation as it comes from, from the country it comes from that uses sanctions as it does, should be a 'no thank you' for most in the world.
Now, Debian also is a US registered distro, yes, but, unlike Red Hat-IBM or Google's products, it is far more universal and with enough human capital abroad that easily can fork it, it need be. Same apply as the Linux kernel (that is why China went that route).
I however, for the future, I like the idea of Arch, and wonder if ever can be made stable and waiting for someone to propel Arch into a stable variant and not just another "gaming distro" (crossing my fingers in KDE's new distro!). Till, then, most users I think we should still recommend some veteran Debian based and Mint still checks most boxes.
[My first post in this type of social media!!]ethical, pro-human rights (no getting big checks from US army), etc… I find it concerning.
Why do you find it concerning? the software is still open source, and it's not like they're benefitting from user-count. Redhat makes its money selling support, if you don't like their business model, simply don't pay them for support, and you get all the benefits and none of the ethical qualms.
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OP is asking how to install an IDE. People are telling him Python is preinstalled. It’s like someone asking for a terminal emulator and people saying „but zsh is installed“. It’s being obtuse, is what it is.
Eehhhh… OP didn’t give any details. Maybe they want an IDE, maybe they think that pyCharm is needed in order to use Python.
I have no idea which they meant, but people make assumptions.
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Hannah Montana Linux is always a good start
I heard Amog OS is goos
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ethical, pro-human rights (no getting big checks from US army), etc… I find it concerning.
Why do you find it concerning? the software is still open source, and it's not like they're benefitting from user-count. Redhat makes its money selling support, if you don't like their business model, simply don't pay them for support, and you get all the benefits and none of the ethical qualms.
"Why do you find it concerning...?" Because with just increasing the user base, greatly benefits this corporation, even though we don't give a penny for using Fedora. This is why Google flooded schools with "free" Android netbooks and why Microsoft winks at hundreds of millions of pirated Windows... a larger customer base benefits you by suffocating the competition... this applies to both open or closed software. Red Hat is not just a corporation after money, I am 100% fine with that, it is just one that goes after military contracts therefore lobbies for military causes as a good PR with its buyer. IBM does the same... and Amazon, HP, etc. Not all American companies are like that, not at all, but these are. Then is the problem how the US, more and more, is relying in sanctions to hurt foreign entities and peoples... this can be not only by forbidding the export of software but also altering its content.
Open software is great and a reassurance that no altering can go unnoticed but let's be realistic, when is the last time some entity, let alone non-American) audited a entire package of Fedora, let alone every single version of it, or smaller software. Debian is a US based but highly global collaborative distro so malice is far harder to introduce and gone unnoticed. Mint is based on Ireland so hardly with an militaristic goal, either by maintainers, financiers or country. My current OpenSUSE is far more susceptible to tampering than Mint, but it still cannot reach the knees of Fedora on susceptibility.
We should look at Android and Chrome... It is free, opensource, but the fact that Google de-facto controls it, uses it to dominate the landscape, first by suffocating competition and then, to steer where it wants the technology to go to. Therefore that it is opensource is great, we can check the code once in a while,I am one of the very few that recognize Fedora is ahead of Ubuntu deviates yet I think we should steer clear from it. To newcomers, I tell them the reality; in my opinion Fedora is the marginally the best linux distro, now, if ethics (and a little bit privacy) is one of the motives to move away from Windows, you should consider distros not so heavily relying on the US and Mint usually comes first in my mind for them. We don't want to get to the point that Fedora is so vastly superior to all the rest of Linux distros, that will be the only game in town... like we did by solely go after Android (I really miss what my Nokia N9's Meego could have become!)
