Alternatives to Microsoft for a user-friendly OS?

[Okjoek]

Lately I've been considering an alternative to the domineering grip of Microsoft. This comes as I've been trying to focus less on "high-end" computer gaming and more on other important life matters.More than 90% of the games I play would also run on a Mac and Linux Mint it seems. I could probably port my beloved Planetside 2 to play on a Mac, but there would be no hope I fear for running it on Linux. Thankfully Rocket League just got brought into MacOS and Linux and I'm assuming Minecraft unless Microsoft has tainted it should run fine on any other OS that has access to Java. Other than that most of my other games should run just fine including Insurgency, World of Tanks, Shovel Knight, Stardew Valley, CSGO, Bit Blaster XL, TF2 ect...

 

The expensive option would be to wait another year or so and upgrade my PC to a ~1,500 dollar Mac, but I've come to Trust Apple's quality quite a bit from my time with an iPhone so it could very well be worth it considering they use 4k/5k displays as opposed to my 130 dollar 1080p monitor which oddly enough used to cut out at times before I got my new GPU... But anyways I've heard Apple is making more secure online payment methods as well as working with Nintendo more who made all my favorite games growing up. Plus they use Intel+AMD hardware which is what I already use and trust.

 

Anyways the cheap option which is easier for me to test the waters to would be Linux Mint I think. I'm going to create a test bench for it consisting of a bit older AMD Athlon B28 and an Nvidia EVGA GT 740 superclocked (4GB). The CPU is a bit crappy, but for testing an OS it should be more than enough. All I need then is a new motherboard and maybe an extra stick of RAM assuming one of the spare PSUs still works. From there if I really like the OS and it's user-friendly enough for family use then I may build  bit more expensive dedicated rig for it in the future.

 

What do you think? Have I overlooked anything important?

 

[Bananasplit_00]

Linux isnt only 32 bit.... Linux Mint is also really good so just set up a dual boot if you have windows installed right now

[Okjoek]

Just now, Bananasplit_00 said:

Linux isnt only 32 bit.... Linux Mint is also really good so just set up a dual boot if you have windows installed right now

Oh it isn't? Thanks for clearing that up!

[Bananasplit_00]

Just now, Okjoek said:

Oh it isn't? Thanks for clearing that up!

why would any modern OS be 32-bit? lol anyway now that thats out of the way Linux Mint is REALLY nice for noob linux users, like me and it has worked pretty well for me

[DaMainMan]

I agree with Banana. I wouldn't just quit Windows cold turkey - just set up a dual boot as suggested. Makes the transition alot easier.

[JJBTEXAS]

Personally, I run my gaming/work PC is Win10 and my personal PC is Linux Mint.  Normal productivity on Linux is great, but openGL is meh and a lot of my work software in Windows only.

[Okjoek]

Just now, DaMainMan said:

I agree with Banana. I wouldn't just quit Windows cold turkey - just set up a dual boot as suggested. Makes the transition alot easier.

Well I was looking for an excuse to assemble those older components anyway. Would only cost ~50 dollars and I even have an older monitor for it. If I wanted to dual boot to try it though I would probably use my Mom's old laptop she just replaced.

[WkdPaul]

-moved to Operating Systems-

[paddy-stone]

Ubuntu is pretty much as user friendly as mint nowadays IMO. I used to run mint on most of my PC/laptop etc as dual boot, but lately have swtiched to using vanilla ubuntu, sometimes is actually more friendly than mint IMO, as mint sometimes needs a lot more effort to install something, which can be painful for noobs. In ubuntu, you can just set the file as executable and double click it without having to command line it.. depends on the file of course, but have had problems with mint in the past is all... plus setting up my access to NAS/server etc is a bit easier too once you get used to it. It could just be me with the niggles above, in which case ignore it... but just consider ubuntu as an alternative is all I'm saying, a lot of online guides/info is usually set up for how to do it in ubuntu, if you try it in mint it won't work sometimes even though mint is based off ubuntu.