Questions for my attempt to try Linux

[tinpanalley]

I know, these must get boring, another Windows user trying on Linux to see if it fits their daily needs.

Ok, let's get some things out of the way that I use Windows for that I don't plan on using Linux for. I'll be booting to the Win10 ssd when needed both out of convenience and familiarity with workflow.

- Gaming (but willing to try Linux setups, Wine, etc)

- Video Editing (I'm too familiar with the software I use on Windows to edit my film projects)

- Audio and image editing (I do this a lot as well in software I'm already too familiar with, but willing to try new things)

 

So Linux is simply what my wife and I want to use as our daily computer which means browsing, bill paying, productivity, email, etc. There is a long list of Windows software that we like (small programs, greeting card software, media library organizers, etc) and are hoping it's all usable through Linux and if not we'll find something similar. The cloud of not knowing what Microsoft mines from our computer in daily use bothers us too much. We don't keep a "smart" home although we do keep a very tech-y home so the argument that "you're probably giving away info elsewhere" doesn't work with us.

 

Tech/gear-wise:

- We have a SAMBA share with our Rpi2 on our home network that we'd like to keep using

- We have printers and a scanner (rather old that works with irfanview only because it has no Win10 drivers) that we need to keep using

- a Logitech wireless F710 game controller and a 360 controller for games

 

There's my background info. Questions...

1. What can we replace OneNote and OneDrive with that also is accessible via our Android phones? We need to be able to read, edit and create notes on phones, computer, notebooks without problems.

2. We like being able to read and manipulate Word and Excel documents from various places as well. Without using 365 or Google Docs does this have a solution?

3. I at first felt like Mint was the best choice for me because I didn't like the Amazon integration on Ubuntu (I know it's gone now), don't like the data collection I've heard about on Ubuntu, and I hate how Apple Ubuntu looks to me (the dock, the fonts, etc). Obviously as a new Linux person who's decent enough at more complex computing functions, is there one I should choose of those two or maybe something else? Obviously available support is important.

4. Any further things you think we may not be considering enough or haven't though of, please feel free. We want to learn. That's the whole point here. We know it's a process and are expecting that.

 

Thanks!!!

[Bananasplit_00]

SAMBA share pretty much just works iirc, just comes up under network in the file browser.

 

3: Mint is nice, its not amazing and the Cinnamon desktop has its problems(Im using Mint Cinnamon 19 atm) with random shit because Mint curse or something.

 

Not really sure what you would replace OneNote with but you could probably use dropbox instead of onedrive?

 

There are a lot of other people who know much more about Linux than me on here though, @firelighter487 might know more or be able to tag people who do

[v0nN3umann]

5 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

SAMBA share pretty much just works iirc, just comes up under network in the file browser.

 

3: Mint is nice, its not amazing and the Cinnamon desktop has its problems(Im using Mint Cinnamon 19 atm) with random shit because Mint curse or something.

 

Not really sure what you would replace OneNote with but you could probably use dropbox instead of onedrive?

 

There are a lot of other people who know much more about Linux than me on here though, @firelighter487 might know more or be able to tag people who do

Yes, SAMBA should work perfectly, and also the printers shouldn't be a problem.

If you just want to read and edit notes maybe evernote would work as OneNote replacement (I think there is an unofficial linux client).

 

For your Word and Excel files you can use every open source office alternative. For access from various places I use ownclound which works just fine for me.

[KING OF THE DIRTY DANS]

For gaming, I have heard quite a bit about Steam Play/ Proton for linux. 

That could be a good option

[tinpanalley]

27 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

3: Mint is nice, its not amazing and the Cinnamon desktop has its problems(Im using Mint Cinnamon 19 atm) with random shit because Mint curse or something.

What exactly are the problems you're having with it? That's the kind of stuff I'd wanna hear about.

[tinpanalley]

18 minutes ago, v0nN3umann said:

If you just want to read and edit notes maybe evernote would work as OneNote replacement

Evernote is awful unless you pay. It just has too many limits in the free accounts.

[jpenguin]

1. https://joplin.cozic.net/ or https://simplenote.com/
2. Libreoffice or Softmakeroffice with cloud storage, Thinkfreeoffice
3. Look at OpenSUSE too

[2FA]

https://alternativeto.net/ is great resource for finding alternative software.

 

Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or Fedora would be my recommendation for distros. I personally like KDE for a desktop environment but XFCE is nice too.

[Ashleyyyy]

answers to your questions:

1. Dropbox. it works on Linux, macOS, Windows, Android and iOS. 

2. what do you mean by various places?

3. Mint (or anything else ubuntu based) will work fine. if you want to find Ubuntu based distro's go to https://distrowatch.com/ and use the search function to find them. 

 

 

about the games, games on linux will run worse than on Windows. that's just how it is. just use Windows for gaming. 

 

the scanner is a problem as well. if i don't know the exact model number i can't research if it will work on Linux. 

 

SAMBA will work out of the box. so will the xbox controller. i don't know about the logitech one. 

 

 

if you're interested i have a linux guide topic which has a bunch of guides in it for how to install linux and do various other things. it's linked in my signature. 

[tinpanalley]

36 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

2. what do you mean by various places? 

Should have said devices. Phone, tablets, laptop, etc. OneDrive is what we save everything to right now at home so that any device at home or out can see the documents and sheets we want access to.

The scanner is a Canoscan 8400F. No big deal if it has to be run via Windows, although if it starts getting to the point where in an average day I have to jump back and forth several times, the allure of Linux is gonna wear off.

[Sauron]

2 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

2. We like being able to read and manipulate Word and Excel documents from various places as well. Without using 365 or Google Docs does this have a solution?

 

7 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

Should have said devices.

Well, you can install MS office software on your phone for free, so that's taken care of. On Linux (GNU/Linux, not Android) you can use LibreOffice, which supports opening and editing word and excel files, however be aware that the functionality isn't 1:1 and MS Office documents often end up looking and behaving differently on LO. Word and Excel work well enough through Wine, though your mileage may vary.

 

There might be another way though; depending on what you do, you may not need an office suite at all. Personally I stopped using office programs entirely a couple of years ago in favor of tools like markdown and LaTeX; these are completely platform independent (a markdown file is just a text file) and can be rendered to PDF quite easily. Spreadsheets can be converted to CSV (depending on what excel features you use) which is a simpler and more portable format and works better with LO and a bunch of other spreadsheet programs that run on Linux.

[Bananasplit_00]

9 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

What exactly are the problems you're having with it? That's the kind of stuff I'd wanna hear about.

Some kernels won't work with some NVIDIA drivers is the main Mint one, sound card didn't work on the kernel that came with it, sound card had lots of static even when reported working decently with the updated kernel, NVIDIAs drivers also don't like three screens so my third screen has some black artifacts and random green dots. 

[v0nN3umann]

16 hours ago, tinpanalley said:

Should have said devices. Phone, tablets, laptop, etc. OneDrive is what we save everything to right now at home so that any device at home or out can see the documents and sheets we want access to.

The scanner is a Canoscan 8400F. No big deal if it has to be run via Windows, although if it starts getting to the point where in an average day I have to jump back and forth several times, the allure of Linux is gonna wear off.

I think it is possible to use OneDrive with linux if you really want to. Maybe try this: https://www.maketecheasier.com/sync-onedrive-linux/

 

[tinpanalley]

18 hours ago, Sauron said:

There might be another way though; depending on what you do, you may not need an office suite at all.

No no, for the things we do, we have to have a word processor and some kind of excel spreadsheet program.

How do fonts work? Will I be able to use all the Windows fonts I have? I use them for various design, media projects

 

[tinpanalley]

20 hours ago, 2FA said:

Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or Fedora would be my recommendation for distros. I personally like KDE for a desktop environment but XFCE is nice too. 

I clearly need to read more, I dont know what any of those are.

I thought knowing the different distros was the end of the story. I didn't know there were different "flavours" in each distro.

[2FA]

1 minute ago, tinpanalley said:

I clearly need to read more, I dont know what any of those are.

I thought different distros was the this of the story. I didn't know there were different "flavours" in each distro.

In the case of Xubuntu and Kubuntu, the actual base distro is obviously Ubuntu. There are different desktop environments (DE) that you can install, so instead of the base Gnome DE in regular Ubuntu, Kubuntu uses KDE and Xubuntu uses XFCE. Technically you could install them on regular Ubuntu but it's better to just use corresponding flavor imo. Most distros will have various options for the installed DE on their download pages.

[tinpanalley]

5 minutes ago, 2FA said:

but it's better to just use corresponding flavor imo

If they're just desktop environments, how is that different than just changing that orange theme in Ubuntu and the fonts?

[2FA]

6 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

If they're just desktop environments, how is that different than just changing that orange theme in Ubuntu and the fonts?

DEs are more than just a theme. Per Arch wiki:

Quote

A desktop environment bundles together a variety of components to provide common graphical user interface elements such as icons, toolbars, wallpapers, and desktop widgets. Additionally, most desktop environments include a set of integrated applications and utilities. Most importantly, desktop environments provide their own window manager, which can however usually be replaced with another compatible one.

 

The user is free to configure their GUI environment in any number of ways. Desktop environments simply provide a complete and convenient means of accomplishing this task. Note that users are free to mix-and-match applications from multiple desktop environments. For example, a KDE user may install and run GNOME applications such as the Epiphany web browser, should he/she prefer it over KDE's Konqueror web browser. One drawback of this approach is that many applications provided by desktop environment projects rely heavily upon their DE's respective underlying libraries. As a result, installing applications from a range of desktop environments will require installation of a larger number of dependencies. Users seeking to conserve disk space often avoid such mixed environments, or chose alternatives which do depend on only few external libraries.

 

Furthermore, DE-provided applications tend to integrate better with their native environments. Superficially, mixing environments with different widget toolkits will result in visual discrepancies (that is, interfaces will use different icons and widget styles). In terms of usability, mixed environments may not behave similarly (e.g. single-clicking versus double-clicking icons; drag-and-drop functionality) potentially causing confusion or unexpected behavior.

 

[tinpanalley]

12 minutes ago, 2FA said:

DEs are more than just a theme. Per Arch wiki:

 

Geez. ok, I have more researching to do. There isn't one place, one site where I can find out what other than Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc there is, is there? And will this be the case for Mint and other distros as well?

Any thoughts on Zorin? I keep reading that it's very friendly for Windows users? Thing is, I don't want some distro nobody uses and won't have any support online, forums, etc. I want learning the ins and outs of linux to be as simple as possible. I don't even know how to use the linux ms-dos equivalent, yet. Seems people rely on it much more than we do command prompts in Windows.

[2FA]

Just now, tinpanalley said:

There isn't one place, one site where I can find out what other than Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc there is, is there?

https://distrowatch.com/

1 minute ago, tinpanalley said:

And will this be the case for Mint and other distros as well?

Typically yes.

 

3 minutes ago, tinpanalley said:

Any thoughts on Zorin? I keep reading that it's very friendly for Windows users?

It probably is friendly from the looks of it but their website reads like an ignorant user that doesn't actually know what they're talking about. For example, this gem:

Quote

Safe from viruses.

You won't need to worry about malware or spyware when using Zorin OS. This is thanks to Linux's advanced security features which help make it safe from PC viruses.

That is blatantly untrue. There are Linux viruses out there, the only thing you'd be safe from are Windows specific viruses.

[wasab]

DE has a windows manager which is that rectangle with minimize, max, close that pops up when you launch a gui application. 

 

Unlike a windows manager, DE also comes with  bunch of tools, not all of them exclusive to that DE. E.g. app for changing wallpaper, sound widgets to raise and lower volume, network manager to switch networks etc. In case of gnome and KDE, they also ship their own software centers.

 

Linux is modular to the point you can literally pick what components of the desktop you want to install. Do you want just the windows manager, a few certain apps, or everything the DE has to offer? Of course, you can also pick another DE, selected components from that DE and create Frankenstein desktop with tools from other desktop. 

 

I run xfce4 terminal on my gnome desktop for instance. 

 

 

[wasab]

4 minutes ago, 2FA said:

 

That is blatantly untrue. There are Linux viruses out there, the only thing you'd be safe from are Windows specific viruses.

And Linux share of viruses is more pitiful than Linux market share on the desktops. 

[2FA]

1 minute ago, wasab said:

And Linux share of viruses is more pitiful than Linux market share on the desktops. 

Meh, most are targeted towards web servers for obvious reasons. Doesn't make my statement any less true.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, tinpanalley said:

No no, for the things we do, we have to have a word processor and some kind of excel spreadsheet program.

How do fonts work? Will I be able to use all the Windows fonts I have? I use them for various design, media projects

It depends on the fonts, if they're under some kind of free license they should be pretty easy to add. Some are available in the repositories for most distros.

[Sauron]

25 minutes ago, 2FA said:

That is blatantly untrue. There are Linux viruses out there, the only thing you'd be safe from are Windows specific viruses.

While it's true that Linux viruses exist, it's dramatically harder to get one; if you install your software from your distro's repositories and don't run random executables, you're extremely unlikely to ever get a virus. It's not even a matter of how rare Linux viruses are - it's just that by installing software from trusted sources (instead of downloading sketchy installers from random websites) you're automatically much safer.

 

Note that the part you quoted doesn't say there are no viruses; it just says you're safe from them and you probably won't need to worry. It may be a bit simplistic, but for a new user who just came across that page and needs this explained to them it's true enough.