What linux to get started on

[TubsAlwaysWins]

2 hours ago, steezemageeze said:

None of you people are being of any help to the guy at all. Why even bother coming to the Linux section if you're going to shoot someone down and tell them to go back to Windows and stop complaining about it. @TubsAlwaysWins, I recommend you read the guide linked in my signature. I mostly cover the ways to narrow down a distro, and the differences between and features of some mainstream distros,

Ok thanks!

[Joe Deasy]

I just went through the same decision process as you. I narrowed it down to Mint xfce, Mint Cinnamon, and Zorin.

I started with Mint Xfce because it's light-weight, and I'm looking for speed, stability, and simplicity. I dont care about aesthetics, and I generally dont want or need allot of bells and whistles. Those are my priorities, maybe not yours, so you have to consider whats important to you.

 

After installing Xfce I found this website by a Dutchman named Pjotr, and followed the "Right after the installation of Linux Mint"  (10 steps) suggestions. Doing so was a great way to set it up the way I want while getting to know it's system programs at the same time. He offers several commands you can use via copy/paste and you discover how powerful the terminal is. You dont need to use all his suggested tweaks, but following along gives you great insight into how things get done in a Linux system. It's very easy to follow.

 

If youre coming from Windows, the interface is intuitive. Mint xfce reminds me alot of Windows XP. The total time I spent installing, tweaking it (with Pjotr's guidance), and learning enough to get started, was a little over an hour. The learning curve was minimal, and It does exactly what I need an operating system to do. My thinking is that I will use xfce for a while, then try Cinnamon to see if I am missing anything worth the extra system load. From what I've read, Zorin was designed to look like Windows, and to make it easier to switch. That might be worth a try as well.

 

Note: Some Linux distros are religious about proprietary drivers. To some Linux users it seems that using anything other than open-source is sacrilege. Mint & Zorin are more realistic about it and include some proprietary drivers. The computer I loaded Mint onto is a basic "vanilla" business class notebook, made with big brand components.  I have had 0 problems with drivers. Your system is much less "vanilla" so you may have to do some fiddling with drivers, but it would still be less of an issue with Mint than it would be for most other distros.

[m3rc_m0uf]

Hey, man I got started w/ Linux about 15 years ago, w/ Slackware.  http://www.slackware.com/  It was a lil tough, but it wasn't crazy hard.  Ultimately, I think alot of the stuff recommended is going to show Linux but it is going to be in a very "windows-centric" way.  If thats what you are after then disregard what I'm about to say.

 

Personally I didn't really "get linux" until I dove in head first.  So my real recommendation would be to learn Linux as a whole.  So try a Linux From Scratch http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/,  Gentoo https://www.gentoo.org/, or even Arch https://www.archlinux.org/ build, and just make your operating system work.   This is going to put you in a situation where you are literally building your Operating System from the ground up. It will be hard and you'll have to work for it, but when its done, you'll have something you built and you will *know* linux pretty damn well. 

[/dev/God/Haruhi]

On 26/9/2016 at 9:29 PM, Enderman said:

Windows uses less than 2GB and cortana can be removed from the taskbar so you don't have to see it at all.

If windows is using more than 2GB then again, your problem is that you didn't clean install.

 

Stop blaming user error on "windows 10 sucks"

Yup, like the PC I had to fix recently where Windows 10 updated ATI drivers automatically, causing screen flickers since the driver crashed continously and since you don't have safe mode activated by default a 15-20 min fix became a full 6 hour reinstall (just in case there was "user error" here and the botched driver was their fault, which I highly, hightly doubt). And right after that full reinstall, with that PC completely clean it was using more than 2 GB. That was user error, right? The user connected the PC to the internet and it allowed the update to be downloaded. Or a restart for updates in the middle of "working hours" where supposedly I told Windows to not reboot the PC (and I expect them to be safe hours and to be honoured). Stop using the PC, get up for a 5 minute break and get back to a rebooted PC. A few times by now, by the way, with 2 clean reinstalls in between. Again user error right? Because I should not be taking a break and that was user error.

 

For @TubsAlwaysWins if you are completely new, I would suggest either Mint, Ubuntu or derivatives, since you can pretty much apply info on them to any flavour. If you feel adventurous and want to do a more deep dive start I would suggest to go with Manjaro, since it is Arch based with an easy install. It does have it's fair share of info too so that should not be a problem. Arch philosophy (and to some extent Manjaro due to being derivative) will make you sooner or later get inside the OS. It depends on what kind of user experience you want.

 

However before starting I would suggest that you see them online and try a few desktop environments either with liveUSBs or with VMs to see which one is for you, since there is a lot of desktop environments, and depending on your preferences you might like one or the other. That is the beauty of linux, you have the choice. The whole reason to try before installing is that you don't have to mess with desktop environments after the install. While most distros provide easy ways to install/uninstall them, being new you will probably appreciate the out of the box experience.

 

A non-comprehensive list of them in no particular order: KDE, GNOME, Mate, Cinnamon, Unity (this is exclusive to Ubuntu), LXDE, XFCE. For a bigger list: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Desktop_environment Do note that most if not all of them tend to be highly customizable both in looks and functionality, don't take for granted the default looks, this is specially true with LXDE for example. I know it will be a slight pain at first to try but it is worth in the long run. I do also suggest to have a smallish Windows 7 install for the off chance you cannot run certain game or program with Wine. Having SSDs as fast as they are, they pretty much make negligible rebooting to the other OS when needed. If you have more specific questions I'd be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.

Edited September 30, 2016 by /dev/God/Haruhi
Fixing minor grammar bleeps and clarifying some rushed sentences with some info left out. Mistakes were made. Oops

[Ronald Browen]

DONT USE UBUNTU. Ubuntu is a heavy OS and over complicated. Linux mint 17.2, Console Linux and Linux Lite are good options.

[corrado33]

I've been running debian for years. It's like Ubuntu's older, more wise yet slightly uglier brother. Package installation is easy and servers are easy to setup.

 

Install is easy, just click through the prompts, nothing hard.

 

A very good piece of advice for you though is this. Most distros of linux allow you to burn a "livecd" (or put it on a flash drive.) This will allow you to boot into that os from that cd or USB and run it like a normal operating system. You'll get a good feel for it, see if you like it, etc.

 

If you want a program that'll create those live USB sticks for you, go download the free YUMI.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/

 

It'll download the distro you select, install it, and get everything ready for you to boot off of it. SUPER easy to use, and you can load multiple distros onto a single USB, so you can try out a bunch very easily. It doesn't have ALL of the distros, but it has the most popular ones (including every one mentioned above.)

 

One thing to consider with linux distributions is how often are they updated? Debian is one of the most popular distros and is updated VERY regularly. Some of the smaller distros? Not so much. 

 

With that said, if you can't figure out why windows isn't running well on your computer, I doubt you'll have a good time with linux. It DOES require quite a bit of tech know to get it running just the way you like it. It's a relatively steep learning curve. Do you know how to use terminal? Do you know what bash is? Windows and mac are built in such a way that the VAST MAJORITY of settings you could ever want are in the control panel. Linux generally isn't like that. You often have to go into the terminal to change a setting or to make something work. At least in my experience I do.  

[vorticalbox]

On ‎26‎/‎09‎/‎2016 at 8:24 PM, Enderman said:

The anniversary update was great, a lot of awesome additions that should have come to windows years ago.

If you had any issues it's probably because you didn't clean install windows 10.

I love how many people think a clean install is the be all and end all to every single windows problem.

 

even on a clean install I've had updates blue screen while installing and it rolling back, which breaks windows forcing me to clean install again

 

though if im honest Microsoft questionable methods is what is forcing me more towards Linux.

[TubsAlwaysWins]

2 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

I love how many people think a clean install is the be all and end all to every single windows problem.

 

even on a clean install I've had updates blue screen while installing and it rolling back, which breaks windows forcing me to clean install again

 

though if im honest Microsoft questionable methods is what is forcing me more towards Linux.

Lol I did a clean install and it fixed nothing

[vorticalbox]

12 minutes ago, TubsAlwaysWins said:

Lol I did a clean install and it fixed nothing

personally I like Ubuntu. I actually would have it installed but I'm hoping to more into c# development job soon will need windows sadly could run it in a virtual machine

[Enderman]

1 hour ago, vorticalbox said:

I love how many people think a clean install is the be all and end all to every single windows problem.

 

even on a clean install I've had updates blue screen while installing and it rolling back, which breaks windows forcing me to clean install again

 

though if im honest Microsoft questionable methods is what is forcing me more towards Linux.

Well I've always done clean installs and never had any of those issues.

You must be accidentally interrupting updates by shutting down in the middle of them, or installing programs that break your registry or something.

[rm -rf]

On 27/09/2016 at 5:21 AM, TubsAlwaysWins said:

So I am almost completely done with Microsofts shit. The Anniversary update has almost ruined my experience, and from what I hear it will be even worse. So, what is a good Linux flavor to get started on? 

I recommend you use either Linux Mint 18 Sarah Cinnamon Edition or Windows 10.

[vorticalbox]

5 hours ago, Enderman said:

Well I've always done clean installs and never had any of those issues.

You must be accidentally interrupting updates by shutting down in the middle of them, or installing programs that break your registry or something.

nope. I had one update that while installing would get to about 80% fail and roll back, every time without fail. I fixed it by ignoring it until the next update was out.

[Canada EH]

On 9/30/2016 at 5:39 AM, /dev/God/Haruhi said:

Mate, Cinnamon

Are those GUI's?

 

 

Why would anyone use Windows 10, why oh why. I bought 3 cheap W7's just cuz.

The updates revert your security settings to default, which lets Billy Boys eyes see inside you castle.

Now these updates are messing things up.

Yeah I guess if W7 is going end of support what can a man do?

...........Go Ubuntu and use a windows VM.

 

I have tried XUbuntu and liked it, the only other one I tried was Ubuntu and I didnt like its GUI, with its left bar of programs.

[/dev/God/Haruhi]

On 10/9/2016 at 1:07 AM, Canada EH said:

Are those GUI's?

 

 

Why would anyone use Windows 10, why oh why. I bought 3 cheap W7's just cuz.

The updates revert your security settings to default, which lets Billy Boys eyes see inside you castle.

Now these updates are messing things up.

Yeah I guess if W7 is going end of support what can a man do?

...........Go Ubuntu and use a windows VM.

 

I have tried XUbuntu and liked it, the only other one I tried was Ubuntu and I didnt like its GUI, with its left bar of programs.

Desktop environments, MATE is the fork of GNOME 2 after what happened with GNOME 3 and their radical changes, keeping the base design and functionality of GNOME 2 and improve from there. They are currently moving to GTK3, and IIRC they are almost there. Cinnamon forked from GNOME 3, it's shell more specifically, until it became a full desktop. Started from Mint not liking GNOME 3 (not surprising) and evolved from there until achieved what Cinnamon is today. Quite popular for what I've seen online, but not exactly to my liking.

[fizzyquizzler]

Linux mint, or Ubuntu are good, and solid O.S's, I have been using Ubuntu on both of my systems since 14.04. it even works with steam for some light gaming, and GPU pass through for those annoying games that are not on Linux. however for an experience that is vary close to windows, use Linux mint with the Cinnamon Desktop environment. both of these distributions are based off on Debian, so they both run vary similar.

 

as per your problems with windows 10 TubsAlwaysWins, believe me I understand. I have been forced to use that for both my wife's computer and at school, since the Anniversary update my wife computer keeps blue screening after about 2 hours of use and is running sluggishly, even after a fresh install. plus I have had personal problems with it since it erased everything off my school flash drive for no reason. all I can say on that is Welcome To Linux!