Changing OS for the first time is scary, but there are ways to try them without risk (specially linux).
Even though there are better communities for this, like lemmy.world/c/[email protected], I’ll try to help a little. I would recommend creating a virtual machine (in Windows probably VM Ware would be easiest). There you can install any OS you want and it’s isolated from anything else on the PC. Try the programs you want or need, but bear in mind than installation is different than in Windows. In Linux software is installed from repositories managed by the distro and almost all distros offer a graphical interface for this (like Play Store in Android or App Store in iOS). I may add that you can create a bootable USB and start the system from there. That lets you try the OS without install and anything you do there will reset the next time you boot from the USB.
Regarding choosing the perfect OS the first time, don’t even think about it. In reality it doesn’t really matter. There’s a thing called distro hopping and is exactly changing distros frequently, many Linux users do it and it’s totally fine to find a better distro for you down the road. Find one with a large userbase, like Fedora or Ubuntu. If you like gaming I would recommend PopOS (based on ubuntu) or Nobara (based on Fedora), so pretty much any issue you have can be looked up on the OS they are based on. This gives you access to a large group of people with the same issues or maybe they already solved it.
Having an old PC you are probably better off with Linux than with Windows. Linux is pretty famous for not consuming many resources and the support for older hardware is incredibly good.
One thing I should say is the different desktop environments. There are a lot on Linux. Find the one you like most, it’s that simple. The biggest ones are Gnome and KDE. They have great support and most distros have installs with one or the other to let you download and install the one you want.
I hope this helps you somehow and even though I don’t think the initial fear is going to go away for a while, I would like for you to give it a try. It’s really liberating not having ads in your OS or being profiled by it.
There’s a million distros but they fall into some pretty broad categories. The biggest categories are corporate vs community and rolling vs stable/intermittent updates.
Corporate distros are built by or sponsored/heavily influenced by corporations. (Though they’re often built on top of a community distro, not from whole cloth) Ubuntu is developed by canonical, Fedora by Red Hat (now IBM), SUSE by Novell which is currently owned by some firm I don’t know anything about. They tend to be developed for a wide variety of use cases and often have paid support tiers or have one project that’s sold with support to organizations and another free tier that doesn’t have the paid support. Community based distro are made by volunteers and foundations and don’t have a profit motivated arm, like Debian or Arch.
Then there’s rolling vs. Stable. Rolling releases update every software package as the update comes in. New versions, bugfixes, etc, you get them as they’re released. Stable or intermittent releases release on a set time period and the idea is everything is compatible at the time of release, and only bugfixes are released until the next big version. There are exceptions to that but it’s the basic idea.
The last thing to keep an eye on is the desktop environment. This is the look, feel, and workflow of your UI and how you interact with the computer. There are two big ones, Gnome and KDE. Gnome is used on Ubuntu and most of it’s derivatives, and has a pretty specific workflow though it’s customizable through extensions. KDE is extremely customizable but in my opinion looks a bit more old fashioned by default.
You can make a live USB of most Linux distros and play around with them without altering your computer. You’d boot from the USB as if it were a hard drive and try it out. Most distros home page have step by step instructions for this.
Gaming on Linux is currently in a pretty good place. Ive been able to play new AAA games in the launch week on Linux and also some old games from the early 2000’s. If a game is extremely obscure or has anti-cheat, you might have issues but it’s been surprisingly smooth for me and my partner, who is a complete Linux noob and is gaming fully on a fedora based distro I installed for them.
My advice would be to try out Pop!_OS, fedora, and anything that catches your eye and decide. I’d recommend against Arch for a first distro if you’re worried about being overwhelmed, the install takes a bit more understanding of how a Linux system works. I’d also recommend against Manjaro, as it’s had some issues in the past that caused some people to.lose faith in the dev team, And I’d recommend against Ubuntu which is currently working on a semi-walled garden that bothers some people both for ideological and performance reasons.
I’m personally on Nobara, which is based on Fedora with a lot of gaming necessities built in, so installing your operating system also installs steam and a lot of the compatibility software it needs. It’s a great distro and also one I think would be easy to use.
Feel free to PM me with any questions, I’d.love to help more if needed. I’m not an engineer so I can’t really help with regard to engineering software but I can probably help more if I know your specific hardware and can help with any questions that come up.
I’m not trans but I am gay so you should value my opinion at 50%.
how do you choose a distro? Do you just know, or do you have to try them all?
Pick a reputable one, use it for a long time, figure out what you like/don’t like about it, and see if any distros offer alternatives. Most distros offer 95% of the same thing, and the last part is usually down to the out-of-box experience, software availability, and how stable/bleeding-edge the software availability is. I always recommend Linux Mint to get started with since it’s Debian-based (wide software compatibility, stable software updates, and the most typical/“normal” type of Linux distro without any gimmicks) and has a good reputation. You can almost always customize any distro to look and feel like any other distro, and they’re more similar to “preconfigured installs” than “closed-off/unique ecosystems”.
Is there some place where you can try distros on for size without the trouble and risk of migrating multiple times?
Try installing and running distros in a VM, e.g. VirtualBox (I don’t know what the best one for Windows is). VMs act like an emulated computer and you can get the full experience of what an install will be like and how it will look/feel without giving it any real hardware.
How do I know if Linux is right for me? How do I know Windows is wrong? If I loathe my user experience with Windows, is that the fault of Windows or just me? If Linux starts feeling comfortable, how do I know it’s because I’ve made the right choice and it’s not just inertia setting in? Does that even matter?
It depends on your values, but a lot of people simply use Linux because it is open source and community-driven, whereas Microsoft wants nothing more than to track you and give you as many ads as you’ll tolerate. You can customize literally every part of Linux, and so I really like it because I’m a control freak and if I don’t like the way something works I can change it. On Windows you get what you get and every year you get less tunables.
I’m at least good with Windows, but I lack the intuition of the average Linux user. Could I really master Linux the way I have Windows, or would my awkward personality relegate me to being a permanent tourist?
You’ll get comfortable quickly if you use a newbie-friendly distro. Linux is different that Windows in a lot of ways but it’s not always in a good way or bad way, just different. My guess is that you’ll actually become much better at Linux than Windows, because Windows tries its hardest to make the computer seem like “magic” and prevent you from understanding what’s going on, whereas Linux lets you open and modify anything you want and even gives you documentation on how to do it. Nothing in Linux will ever tell you “no” (so be careful!).
Is my hardware too old to start tinkering with OSs?
Linux runs on fuckin anything. Windows is like “mmmm your hardware is 4 years old sorry you can’t run Windows 11!” whereas Linux is like “does it have a CPU?”
I know your choice of OS should take priority over your programs, as long as those programs aren’t vital, but I have a full Steam library and don’t look forward to losing any old friends. Can I partition my drive? Is that worth the trouble, switching from OS to OS depending on circumstances? I hear some distros these days can run some windows programs, and that you don’t have to leave your old programs behind the way you used to, but can I count on that trend continuing?
IMO partitioning drives and dual-booting can make things complicated for a new user but if you aren’t sure if you want to stay you might want to do it anyway. Games run very well on Linux in general, with notable games that don’t work being listed here, and specific games listed here (Gold/Platinum is good). Linux (not based on distro) is very good at running Windows programs by using a compatibility layer named “Wine”, but there are notable exceptions. Generally you should try to run very few Windows programs that aren’t games, and you’ll have the best experience by finding open source alternatives to common programs.
Will losing touch with the Windows environment make it more difficult for me to succeed in a Windows-dominated career?
That depends on how extensively your career revolves around Windows. IMO Windows and Linux are more similar than different, and if you’re just being forced to use Windows to run some normal workflows you’re not going to feel any culture shock. If your career revolves around help desk or something you might lose touch with troubleshooting tips.
All that said, I think you’ll find Linux easier to use than you think. Linux itself has very few actual flaws at the moment, and most of the friction is because some popular programs don’t have Linux versions. Make a list of all the programs you use, see if they have Linux versions, and look for alternatives if they don’t. Also make a list of all the games you want to play and check ProtonDB to see how compatible they are.
I’ve been using Linux for many years but I’m very much just a “user”, not a Linux expert.
My advice would be to start with the most common beginner-friendly un-fancy distro. For me this is plain ubuntu. The reason is, thousands of people will have already encountered any questions or problems you run into so good answers and solutions will be readily available.
Install on a live USB. This means you don’t have to commit by installing on your hard drive.
I’d love to be considered! Although I’m relatively new and cracked my egg about a month ago. I’ve been on the reddit version of this community for about a year 😅
Not only did the “gif” I made become an mp4 on imgur, but it seems to also impose the +18 warning when opened despite my efforts. My apologies for that. T_T’
If I could push a button to change my sex I absolutely would, but I don’t have it in me to transition on the outside and deal with the societal consequences. So I just stick with androgyny as “close enough”.
I’m with you there, though I would push that button like every other day. I like being a guy, and I think I would like being a girl about half the time, though ideally I’d control two bodies simultaneously all the time.
It’s like when you are trans MtF, transitioning, but stay closeted and dressing like a male and going by male pronouns… Even while bodily changes take place. The idea being you can one day wake up and put on a dress and you’ll just be a girl and you can come out of the closet to… People who had the opportunity to notice these changes in you for a long time.
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