Good morning With recent changes to the Windows platform I’ve decided to make the swap to Linux. While it’s not the first time I’ve tried it out I’m hoping to find the transition easier this time. I’m giving Mint a go and will try and make this my main OS. I will keep windows as a dual boot option for now just in case I have to do a task that I haven’t learned how to do with Linux.
So far I’ve managed to get steam running and tested a game I’d play to confirm it was working.
I suspect the biggest challenge will be terminal.
If anyone has any feedback or suggestions I’m open to them. Heck even funny moments when you first started. I still find when Linus nuked his setup very funny.
Here’s my advice: On Windows, hardware either works or it needs a driver or it’s broken.
On Mac, it either works or it doesn’t.
On Linux, it either works or it doesn’t, but maybe if you find tge right obscure repo or project, you could get it to work with some heloful tutorials, or some other helpful tutorials from this other site because the first one was out of date. …but you might have to compile bimaries, because the binaries that exist for download might not work for your system because they’re from a previous version…
…so, skip all that and just treat Linux like Mac. The hardware works or it doesn’t.
In all likelihood, it’ll work. But, specially since you’re starting out, if you use NVidia, use a distro that explicitly supports that. I hear bazzite is good.
One thing that I still sometimes trip up on: it’s ctrl+shift+c or v when copying and pasting to or from the terminal, rather just just ctrl+c or v.
“I suspect the biggest challenge will be terminal.”
Ha ha ha
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
…yes. That is correct.
When you feel like it, start looking up stuff you can do now that you couldn’t before, like customizing your desktop environment (“ricing”). It’s fun, and there are a lot of options out there.
And you don’t have to, because the GUI options are good too, but I make a point to install and update packages from the terminal. You’ll get more familiar with it that way.
The number one shock for most people when coming over to Linux is a reliance on package management for programs rather than the exe’s & msi’s of windows. In general on mint your installation methods in order should be
1.software manager 2.appimage 3.deb 4.tar
I may have forgotten some other formats since I haven’t used mint in a while, but this should allow for the smoothest experience when it comes to installing programs.
You won’t need a terminal unless you refuse to use the GUI tools that do the same thing.
If you want to use the terminal, go for it and use the default. If you eventually find it lacking THEN start investigating different options.
Just use everything as you normally would otherwise, and you shouldn’t notice a huge shift.
The standard terminal in Mint is perfectly fine. You won’t ever need anything else unless you become a system operator taking care of data centers worth of machines. It’s definitely worthwhile getting into, even if you don’t strictly need it. Just watch a few introductory videos and get sudoing. The chances you’ll break something are pretty low, if you use common sense. Having said that, always back up your data before doing anything you’re not 100% certain about.
