Microsoft fucked their customers for the #69514026th time, will it be enough to make people switch to Linux, or do they just like being fucked? Who knows.
I switched recently because they fucked me in a way I couldn’t deal with. To be fair, I’ve been experimenting with Linux on and off for 10+ years. But this was my kick to fully transition. Microsoft no longer serves convenience.
I legitimately tried to switch to Linux a few days ago. Got virtual ox running, got one of the recommended noob distros (cinnamon?) and then got an error message that I cannot make sense of during install. Even googling it didn’t help
I’m not a computer guy, and I’m legitimately concerned that if I ask for help on the Linux forums I’ll be the punching bag of the week.
Do you have any external storage? You do not want an NTFS formatted drive for food backup if you’re going to switch; just recently, the NTFS support has finally improved, bit I still wouldn’t trust it. Exfat, or any other fat filesystem, should work fine.
But, my advice? Just backup everything important, and then just follow a tutorial for installing Linux (probably Mint Cinnamon, unless you game a lot - in which case you might give Bazzite a try).
Make sure you have a USB windows installer ready before; if you have to, you can just go back to windows that way.
As much as I hate to endorse an AI (and I’m going to get hella down voted for it)…it’s one of the few actual good uses for it…
You can ask plain questions, copy\paste error codes, and it will actually walk you through fixing problems like a non-judgy person would. ;-)
Perplexity is my go-to when I’m troubleshooting something I can’t figure out.
“How do I open and edit a word document in Linux?” Is a perfectly acceptable question to ask, things like that.used it when I was building this server to work through some concepts I wasn’t familiar with.
I had been using duck.ai for a while and found it to be a frustrating experience. Switched to free Claude and ended up with way better answers and a better experience overall. Still made a couple mistakes, but not nearly as many as duck. My only complaint is the limitation on the length of the sessions for the free version.
If you are trying to switch, a virtual machine is a bad way to start and it’s the hard way. What you really want is to use Rufus or something (easy Google) to make you a bootable USB and you just boot in and play around. It MAY require you to change boot order in BIOS if you plug it in and reboot and nothing happens, but that’s an easy fix
You want to ask for help. You only get “beat up” if it looks like you did nothing first and you are asking people to do it for you. Pretty much every place you go if you can say, “I want to do X, it doesn’t work so I tried Y and Z.” Nobody will say shit to you. Also, on Lemmy if you say you’re new, people like me and the other guy who replied will probably offer to just DM us directly (which for me you can).
You can also just search game name + distro name. Highly recommend looking at the newest results possible because A LOT of games now work on Linux thanks to steam and proton
Going to second dream_weasel’s suggestion. Don’t try to game in a VM. That is going the ultra-hard route while you are still unfamiliar with the OS.
My suggestion is to take a side/old computer you don’t use every day, format it, and install Linux on it. Completely blow away Windows on that machine. Then use it regularly until you get comfortable with it. You still have your main computer to lean on.
Once you are comfortable enough with it, flip the script. Put Linux on the main machine and Windows on the side/old machine. You will find yourself turning on the side/old machine less and less.
I think that will require you to do some passthrough for drives and hardware which may not be trivial. If you’re close to something working, stick to it. Otherwise I think that VM road is mostly pain. Caveat: I have not tried to do VM stuff in probably 10 years so it could be easier now.
Mint was my first Linux distro away from Windows. Command line stuff is essentially optional if you’re just using the computer for web browsing, gaming through Steam, basic desktop usage, etc. No regrets, fuck Microsoft.
I’ve enjoyed mint the last month or so. My previous dabbles with Linux were much more command line necessary than it is now. And on the rare occasion I need to, there’s usually good info out there to read.
I’ll say that I only touch command line when I want to on nobara (I hear bazzite is the same). In general the days of command line being necessary are over
I downloaded this program called “Driver Easy,” which scans my hardware, searches automatically for driver updates, downloads and installs them for me. If I could download a wizard that got rid of windows, installed a nice user-friendly version of linux, while keeping my old programs, files and junk… I’d do it in a heartbeat. All I want to do is play my video games from Steam, download shit to watch, browse the internet, write in Libreoffice… Can I do all those things with Linux? Can I download some install wizard to switch?
If that wizard existed, a shit ton of people would switch. It’s just the idea of deleting my current OS and putting in a new one makes me thing I’m gonna brick my machine.
Those driver tools are often bundled with malware and do a poor job validating what they download is safe and correct. They are often associated with services that crawls the internet for downloads and tries to match the hardware id.
Generally, drivers are available from the motherboard or device manufacturer page. That said it’s rarely the solution and for your gpu (amd or Nvidia) they already have their own tool for keeping you up to date.
But with Linux most of that is taken care of for you by either the kernel itself or your distro’s maintainer.
Most games work fine on Linux and may only require small tweaks. You can check the games you’re interested in playing on protondb. http://www.protondb.com/
The notable exceptions are games with aggressive anticheat software. Such as but not limited to (EA games, PubG, Fortnite, GTA5)
If you’re looking for something “easy” look into Kubuntu LTS.
It’s always a good idea to back up your important files before a big change like switching operating systems, and your old software won’t work. But drivers haven’t been an issue for me in years. Mint is probably a super easy distribution for the switch. You can load it on a USB and give it a try before committing to the full install.
You just need to think outside of the box. Instead of thinking. Instead of: “Can I convert my windows programs to linux?” Think: “Is there a free linux alternarive?”. 99℅ of the time the awnser is yes and most of the time they are even better. I made the mistake of seeing linux as a windows replacement and forced my self to get the same shit running on my linux distro. Then I changed my way of thining and it completely made the transition so much easier. Yes it will take a little time to get the thinks the way you want. But with a little investment you will have a machine that YOU control. And not the other way around. I had to boot up my windows partition the otherday to copy some leftover documents. And it felt so fucking alien to me… And Ive been a windows user since 95. But It has been a long time since my computer actually felt like mine again.
Microsoft fucked their customers for the #69514026th time, will it be enough to make people switch to Linux, or do they just like being fucked? Who knows.
I switched recently because they fucked me in a way I couldn’t deal with. To be fair, I’ve been experimenting with Linux on and off for 10+ years. But this was my kick to fully transition. Microsoft no longer serves convenience.
I legitimately tried to switch to Linux a few days ago. Got virtual ox running, got one of the recommended noob distros (cinnamon?) and then got an error message that I cannot make sense of during install. Even googling it didn’t help
I’m not a computer guy, and I’m legitimately concerned that if I ask for help on the Linux forums I’ll be the punching bag of the week.
PM me and I’ll help, no punching.
Just ask here! Lemmy is full of us Linux nerds!
Do you have any external storage? You do not want an NTFS formatted drive for food backup if you’re going to switch; just recently, the NTFS support has finally improved, bit I still wouldn’t trust it. Exfat, or any other fat filesystem, should work fine.
But, my advice? Just backup everything important, and then just follow a tutorial for installing Linux (probably Mint Cinnamon, unless you game a lot - in which case you might give Bazzite a try).
Make sure you have a USB windows installer ready before; if you have to, you can just go back to windows that way.
Get a small SSD that you can install Linux on and go from there. Starting with a virtual machine is definitely the hard way.
As much as I hate to endorse an AI (and I’m going to get hella down voted for it)…it’s one of the few actual good uses for it…
You can ask plain questions, copy\paste error codes, and it will actually walk you through fixing problems like a non-judgy person would. ;-)
Perplexity is my go-to when I’m troubleshooting something I can’t figure out.
“How do I open and edit a word document in Linux?” Is a perfectly acceptable question to ask, things like that.used it when I was building this server to work through some concepts I wasn’t familiar with.
I had been using duck.ai for a while and found it to be a frustrating experience. Switched to free Claude and ended up with way better answers and a better experience overall. Still made a couple mistakes, but not nearly as many as duck. My only complaint is the limitation on the length of the sessions for the free version.
How is perplexity in that dept?
You’ve got two things going on:
Might try the boot USB route. I wanted to do a virtual box so I could easily test to see if my current games/programs work
You can also just search game name + distro name. Highly recommend looking at the newest results possible because A LOT of games now work on Linux thanks to steam and proton
Going to second dream_weasel’s suggestion. Don’t try to game in a VM. That is going the ultra-hard route while you are still unfamiliar with the OS.
My suggestion is to take a side/old computer you don’t use every day, format it, and install Linux on it. Completely blow away Windows on that machine. Then use it regularly until you get comfortable with it. You still have your main computer to lean on.
Once you are comfortable enough with it, flip the script. Put Linux on the main machine and Windows on the side/old machine. You will find yourself turning on the side/old machine less and less.
So I don’t really have an unused side/old computer that is operational. I’m an engineer, but not the computer kind.
Goodwill is your friend
I think that will require you to do some passthrough for drives and hardware which may not be trivial. If you’re close to something working, stick to it. Otherwise I think that VM road is mostly pain. Caveat: I have not tried to do VM stuff in probably 10 years so it could be easier now.
What was the specific issue?
Error code Somethingxsomethingsomethingsomething hexadecimal-like
Edit: Hx4d3cim4l
I’m switching. I’ve been intimidated by the command lines but jfc these people are cartoonishly evil.
Mint was my first Linux distro away from Windows. Command line stuff is essentially optional if you’re just using the computer for web browsing, gaming through Steam, basic desktop usage, etc. No regrets, fuck Microsoft.
I’ve enjoyed mint the last month or so. My previous dabbles with Linux were much more command line necessary than it is now. And on the rare occasion I need to, there’s usually good info out there to read.
I think I’ll follow suit, thank you
I’ll say that I only touch command line when I want to on nobara (I hear bazzite is the same). In general the days of command line being necessary are over
It’s clearly been way too long since I’ve looked into this
The world has changed a lot. Linux Usability has come a long way. It’s not perfect, but it sure isn’t as bad as it was for non-techies.
I downloaded this program called “Driver Easy,” which scans my hardware, searches automatically for driver updates, downloads and installs them for me. If I could download a wizard that got rid of windows, installed a nice user-friendly version of linux, while keeping my old programs, files and junk… I’d do it in a heartbeat. All I want to do is play my video games from Steam, download shit to watch, browse the internet, write in Libreoffice… Can I do all those things with Linux? Can I download some install wizard to switch?
If that wizard existed, a shit ton of people would switch. It’s just the idea of deleting my current OS and putting in a new one makes me thing I’m gonna brick my machine.
Don’t delete your OS then. Just buy a small SSD to put Linux on and go from there.
Steam works on Linux BTW. Actually a lot of my games run better on Linux than windows
Those driver tools are often bundled with malware and do a poor job validating what they download is safe and correct. They are often associated with services that crawls the internet for downloads and tries to match the hardware id.
Generally, drivers are available from the motherboard or device manufacturer page. That said it’s rarely the solution and for your gpu (amd or Nvidia) they already have their own tool for keeping you up to date.
But with Linux most of that is taken care of for you by either the kernel itself or your distro’s maintainer.
Most games work fine on Linux and may only require small tweaks. You can check the games you’re interested in playing on protondb. http://www.protondb.com/
The notable exceptions are games with aggressive anticheat software. Such as but not limited to (EA games, PubG, Fortnite, GTA5)
If you’re looking for something “easy” look into Kubuntu LTS.
It’s always a good idea to back up your important files before a big change like switching operating systems, and your old software won’t work. But drivers haven’t been an issue for me in years. Mint is probably a super easy distribution for the switch. You can load it on a USB and give it a try before committing to the full install.
You just need to think outside of the box. Instead of thinking. Instead of: “Can I convert my windows programs to linux?” Think: “Is there a free linux alternarive?”. 99℅ of the time the awnser is yes and most of the time they are even better. I made the mistake of seeing linux as a windows replacement and forced my self to get the same shit running on my linux distro. Then I changed my way of thining and it completely made the transition so much easier. Yes it will take a little time to get the thinks the way you want. But with a little investment you will have a machine that YOU control. And not the other way around. I had to boot up my windows partition the otherday to copy some leftover documents. And it felt so fucking alien to me… And Ive been a windows user since 95. But It has been a long time since my computer actually felt like mine again.
One of the bots could write one maybe