Windows alternatives?

[Simply magic]

What are some good alternatives to windows, as someone new to the Linux world i want to get started or atleast get a bit of knowledge.

[Slottr]

Ubuntu?

 

Seems to be the easiest transition over without getting a windows clone

[Guest]

Ubuntu is a great one for beginners.

[BobVonBob]

For your first crack at Linux I'd suggest going with a popular distro supported by a very large and active community and/or a commercial entity. For example, Ubuntu/Ubuntu based distros, Pop!_OS, Arch, or similar. Keep in mind that everything will have a learning curve (Arch more than most, but it's got by far the most comprehensive documentation of any distro out there on its wiki if you're into that kind of thing).

[RONOTHAN##]

If you're trying to come to Linux, there are 2-3 different distros you should look at. 

 

1.) Linux Mint

2.) Kubuntu

3.) Pop_OS!

 

The main difference with these is that their desktop environments (what you interact with). Under the hood, they're all pretty similar, with just some minor tweaks between them and some different pre-installed software. Linux Mint and Kubuntu look and feel very similar, with Kubuntu having some extra animations and customizations. Pop_OS! is different, and will feel more MacOS like. The main advantage of Pop_OS! is the great software store and preinstalled Nvidia drivers, plus some built in tweaks that allow you to switch between multiple GPUs on a gaming laptop. 

 

All three of them are basically just Ubuntu with some extra spice, so any tutorial for how to do something in Ubuntu will work in these. You could also use straight Ubuntu, since the UI is pretty good and easy to get used to, but it's up to you. You can always try each one of their live environments and see what you like best.

 

Also welcome to Linux, there is a learning curve, but it's not as bad as everyone thinks, and the Linux terminal is absolutely amazing if you know how to use it. 

[tim0901]

Others have suggested Ubuntu which - while I personally loathe it - is not a bad choice as a beginner. My choice is different however: Raspberry Pi OS.

 

Buy yourself a cheap Raspberry Pi 4 (the 4GB one is the best all-around choice) and load Pi OS onto it and play. This way you don't risk not having a PC available if something goes wrong with your desktop - you can keep your Windows install for work purposes. Don't try and dual-boot - there are just so many ways that it can go wrong (and is - as a result - a common source of the errors seen in beginner-friendly places like /r/linux4noobs ).

 

The Raspberry Pi community is also great with lots of support (both hardware and software) and is super beginner-friendly. Plus it's a great gateway drug to stuff like home automation and self-hosting.

[emosun]

I'd highly recommend learning linux on your own as well if you try it , just do anything to avoid the linux community

[LloydLynx]

I always recommend PopOS. It's developed by System76 to be shipped on their computers so they have a strong monetary incentive to make it newb friendly, work perfectly out of the box, and not break. It also has features that Windows users might appreciate, like fractional scaling, reset the OS to factory, a recent and well maintained kernel so you won't have to worry about current gen hardware not working, an Nvidia specific ISO and well maintained Nvidia drivers so you won't have trouble with Nvidia hardware, mutli-graphics switching, power plan options, and probably more that I'm forgetting. A lot of that stuff is lacking in other distros.

[mcurban96]

If you are new to Linux, Ubuntu is probably the best place to start as it is beginner-friendly and there are a lot of guides available for it. Kubuntu and Linux Mint are also good options and transitioning to them from Windows might be easier, as their Desktop Environments are similar to Windows.

[BondiBlue]

Mint is my go-to recommendation. I've been using it for years, and it runs very well on all sorts of hardware. A few years ago I had an old Athlon 64 X2 machine running Mint that was being used as a music recording machine, and it worked great. Ubuntu is nice as well, but Mint would likely prove to be a bit easier to get started with since you're coming from Windows. 

22 minutes ago, emosun said:

just do anything to avoid the linux community

Why? Apart from the elitist groups of Linux users the Linux community as a whole is pretty decent, and there's certainly lots that one can learn. 

[zenith_lal]

28 minutes ago, Simply magic said:

What are some good alternatives to windows, as someone new to the Linux world i want to get started or atleast get a bit of knowledge.

Ubuntu might not be a Good call... There are more user Friendly Debian OS's These days (Even ones based on Ubuntu which is better).. 

If I am not Wrong, Anthony Mentions a few good ones here... check it out

[tim0901]

  

Just now, emosun said:

I'd highly recommend learning linux on your own as well if you try it , just do anything to avoid the linux community

I'd say this depends on who you define as the "Linux community"

 

Certainly I wouldn't go browsing the likes of /r/Linux or pretty much any Linux subreddit - they are in my experience quite elitist and not noob-friendly - I'd recommend avoiding them at all costs as an experienced Linux user, let alone as a beginner...

 

But places like the Raspberry Pi forums or even /r/Linux4noobs aren't bad at all. At the very least you don't have to deal with the constant Anti-Windows circlejerk that often emerges in other Linux forums, I believe due to most of the people there not using Linux as their primary OS.

 

No matter what route you take to learning Linux though, you're going to have to delve into Stack Overflow eventually... Avoiding the Linux community entirely is pretty much impossible unless you want to learn solely from a textbook.

[Arokan]

I can't really recommend Ubuntu either.
I'd seriously go with ye ol' Debian and a nice KDE Plasma DE.
It's super stable, lightweight and you can customise the shit out of it.
Also Deb11:Bullseye looks gorgeous out of the box.

Meanwhile, Linux isn't what it used to be and even the basic OS can be navigated entirely without opening the terminal.

Although, trust me, once you start using Linux, you will want to learn how to use it, because it's super efficient and you'll feel like the most bad-ass hacker!

[Simply magic]

51 minutes ago, emosun said:

I'd highly recommend learning linux on your own as well if you try it , just do anything to avoid the linux community

I am aware of elitist users and generally try to avoid them, there is no perfect godsend distro out there so you have to make a choice, witch is hard to do for me as a beginner

[BondiBlue]

5 minutes ago, Simply magic said:

I am aware of elitist users and generally try to avoid them, there is no perfect godsend distro out there so you have to make a choice, witch is hard to do for me as a beginner

Since you're coming from Windows I'd highly recommend at least giving Mint a try. It's pretty easy to pick up on things, and it works well from all of my experience. 

[RONOTHAN##]

30 minutes ago, Simply magic said:

there is no perfect godsend distro out there so you have to make a choice, witch is hard to do for me as a beginner

That is the curse and blessing of Linux. A distro that is perfect for someone can be an absolute nightmare for someone else. Just because Arch/OpenSUSE/Fedora/Debian/whatever is perfect for me doesn't mean that it would even be usable for someone else. However, once you know what you want and what you need, having the choice is awesome, but that choice is easily overwhelming for the new user.

 

Any one of the distros listed in this thread would be great to use. They're all pretty beginner friendly and you should be able to learn a lot from them. You can always mess around in the live environment to see if you like it, and if you don't switch to something else. You might try Pop_OS! and think that the Gnome Desktop makes perfect sense, or you might try it and think it's completely unusable. That's what the the live environment is for. Basically everything in here is Debian based, so aside from the slight differences in preinstalled software, under the hood they'll be pretty much the same, and thus all the tutorials for how to do stuff will be the same. 

 

If you're honestly unsure where to start off, take all of the distros in this thread and pick one at random.

1.) Ubuntu

2.) Pop_OS!

3.) Arch

4.) Linux Mint

5.) Kubuntu

6.) Raspberry Pi OS

7.) Debian w/ KDE Plasma

 

These are all the ones I saw posted in this forum, and with the exception of Arch (a completely barebones distro that is installed via terminal, not even a GUI installed by default) all of these should be very easy to pick up. If you don't know which to pick get a random number generator to get one of these, load it on a USB and see if you like it. They should all have live environments, and if you don't like it, try something else. Arch would be the only exception, because it's designed to be more of an endgame distro, but you do learn a lot from installing and using it, it's just easy to be overwhelmed by it. 

[Nayr438]

Personally I would checkout KDE Neon. It's built on Ubuntu LTS and utilizes the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment. It's main advantage is that it is maintained by the KDE Team.