I bought a laptop yesterday, it came pre-installed with Windows 11. I hate win 11 so I switched it down to Windows 10, but then started considering using Linux for total control over the laptop, but here’s the thing: I keep seeing memes about how complicated or fucky wucky Linux is to install and run. I love the idea of open source software and an operating system without any of the bullshit that comes with Windows, but most of the open source stuff I have is on my android and fairly easy to install. Installing and using Linux just feels like it’ll be a whole different beast that’ll eat up most of my time and I’m kind of intimidated by it.

TL;DR Linux scawy, how does a barely computer literate scrub like me who’s used nothing but windows since the dawn of their life get started with Linux?

  • Skull giverA
    3•11 days ago

    Every server I’ve encountered in my professional life runs either some kind of enterprise™ Linux like Red Hat (licensed, expensive ones), Ubuntu, or Debian, or some extremely customised Linux that’s unusable for any purpose other than whatever it was built for. Dev machines run Ubuntu, or maybe Fedora or some enterprise™ Linux.

    I’ve heard from a lot of startups using nixOS and your Arch flavour of the week, but I’m pretty sure that’s only used because all four people in the company are Linux turbo nerds who have managed to agree on one specific obscure Linux distro.

    Business people do complain about Ubuntu, though. They don’t like automatic updates (because their weird proprietary software only works with the specific versions they picked and they can’t be bothered to actuslly fix their code) so snaps are a threat. Ubuntu Pro expanding threatens their “use software someone else pays maintenance tax for without any bill” business plan. See also: “I like Debian but I dislike the way they patch things and how hard it is to install proprietary blobs onto it”.

    They want their free software to be maintained for free not because they care about software freedom, but because they’re cheap, and Canonical and IBM starting to charge businesses for the software development they do threatens that business model.

    • @Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2•11 days ago

      I’m using Nix and it’s basically the same as every other Linux distro except settings and packages are managed slightly differently. It’s the DE that really makes a difference for people I think.

      • Skull giverAEnglish
        2•10 days ago

        Conceptually, Nix is just the next evolution of tools like Ansible, and tangentially related to projects like Silverblue, but in practice, it’s only used by enthusiasts. And, of course, you can use Nix outside of NixOS.

        Unless there’s a tool I don’t know about, there’s no equivalent for Discover or Gnome Software for NixOS. Because that’s the class of boring people that make up the silent majority: the people who don’t know how to, or don’t want to edit configuration files. This was how Valve made Linux on a console a success, and it’s why Ubuntu is still popular despite their experiments causing them to be decried by the community over and over again.