Hey. Gonna gamble here. Can someone explain to me the pros and cons of Linux as a whole and tell me maybe -possibly- how one might go about getting something set up
I'll explain it from the perspective of moving from Windows to Linux Mint, for simplicity. Other Linux distributions may be a bit better or worse than what I say. The installation guide is at the bottom!
Pros:
Windows is proprietary. It can download whatever it wants, and run whatever it wants on your PC, whenever Microsoft tells your computer to do it. You can see this in how it updates without your permission, and the way it spies on you.
Because of that, as long as you have Windows on your PC, it is not your PC. It is a corporate tool of Microsoft. Check out gnu.org, they talk more about the meaning of Free Software. Linux is free, and not just in price.
Linux often runs better than Windows. Without any programs open, Linux Mint uses ~1GB of RAM, while Windows takes up ~2GB. I've heard that battery on laptops tend to drain slower on Linux too. It also has far lower system requirements that Windows has, so you can run it on nearly anything!
Linux is far more customizable. You can change anything you'd like, and the OS wont fight you, but just give you a warning, if needed. Changing how your desktop looks is generally easy, so you can make things look just the way you'd like.
The start menu is actually useful on Linux Mint. it opens way faster, and shows you actually useful info instead of Ads?????? on your Paid OS??? (wtf microsoft????), so opening apps using the start menu is incredibly quick.
Downloading programs is generally easier on Linux. Simply open the Software Manager, and find your app. On Windows, you find the website (hope its not a scam lookalike!), find the download page, find the right .exe, run it, set it up, delete setup .exe, etc...
Privacy and Security is far better on Linux. Most malware is made for Windows, so it'll probably fail if it runs on Linux. Linux gives you far more control over your computer, so you can download updates whenever you want, with a simple-to-use interface.
Flatpak, one of the most common tools for downloading programs, has a great system of permissions, so that you can see exactly what a program is allowed to do, thus making Security far easier and better. Check out FlatSeal, its really useful for that! Also check out Flathub.org, it will show you the many programs you can download with Flatpak.
Programs that have Linux versions often run better on Linux, such as Blender which runs nearly twice as fast, Minecraft, which I've heard can double its FPS in some cases, or other programs such as Gimp or Krita which run generally better.
Apparently, very old games from Windows have better support on Linux (though Wine). I can't really prove this, but my old games do work great on Linux.
By default, you'll probably get Firefox, which is far better than other Browsers. You also get LibreOffice, and some cool programming tools like Vi, python3 and the 𝓔𝓼𝓼𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓪𝓵 GNU Compiler Collection
Apparently, some modern Windows-only games run better on Linux. I've heard it said sometimes, though most games run about the same as on Windows.
You can open .webp files normally. I have no idea why Windows doesn't have this basic feature.
Cons:
Most Cons are simply that the developers of the program haven't supported Linux, and no one figured out how to get it to run on Linux yet. Microsoft has a monopoly on Computers, so some devs simply don't bother with Linux.
Certain software doesn't work on Linux yet, because there is no Linux Version. If you want to know if a program runs on Linux, look up "[program name] Linux", and see how it is. My General idea of things is: All Browsers, Emulators, and FOSS software work perfectly. Most old games tend to work good, newer games can have problems. Some games don't work at all.
You need Wine to run Windows programs (.EXE files). This isn't a big deal in practice, but it's good to keep in mind. Understanding how to run Windows programs will probably be the main point of Confusion for new users. I recommend getting Lutris (my fav), Bottles, Steam (which uses Proton, a version of Wine) or Heroic Game Launcher to get Windows stuff working.
I've heard that Adobe programs, and Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) programs are difficult, or impossible to run on Linux. You can upgrade to free alternatives that don't exploit their users, such as Krita, Gimp, and LibreOffice. If you need these programs, you can use Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) in a browser, or use dual-boot and reboot into Windows to use them.
While most games are supported by Wine, some games with invasive anti-cheat cannot be run. Some companies have made Kernel-level anti-cheat necessary for games, which is invasive enough to be often called a rootkit virus. They get access to everything on your PC, so it becomes effectively impossible to pretend to be Windows with Wine. The affected games are: League of Legends, Valorant, Fortnite, Battlefield V, Destiny 2 and PUBG. Luckily all these games suck, but if you want to play them, you'll have to dual-boot, meaning you restart your computer to enter Windows.
Some games intentonally block Wine, like Roblox. Roblox can be still be ran with Sober, though its a slight hassle to set up, compared to a one-click install that you normally have.
Sometimes you have to tinker with games to get them to work. The Winetricks program can download missing components. This can be a hassle, but you only need to do it once to get it working.
If you intend to dual-boot, you'll probably have to learn about disk partitions. Windows, as you'd expect, cannot read Linux paritions, without a special program installed, even though Linux can read Windows partitions.
it may be difficult to run programs installed on a Windows partition of the disk. so you might have to redownload, or move files to a Linux partition if you can't get them to work.
So how do you install it?
You'll need a USB drive, and around 40GB of free space (preferably more)
Linux refers to any OS that uses the Linux Kernel. There are many such Operating Systems, which are called Linux distros (distributions). The one I recommend is Linux Mint! One of the simplest to use distros, I love it very much.
There are guides online you might want to follow, but I'll also write it here.
First, you download the ISO file of whatever distro you want. Here is a link to the Linux Mint ISO file download page. Click on one of the links below "Download Mirrors".
Then, install Balena Echer , which is a program that writes the ISO file to a USB Drive.
Make sure your USB Drive is plugged in.
Open Balena Echer, and select the ISO file and the USB drive, and let it write Linux Mint to the USB Drive.
Now, You'll have to enter the BIOS menu. When you boot up your computer, you probably see a logo, and some text telling you to "Press F6 to enter BIOS menu" or something like that. It works differently between Computers, so it'll probably be a different key to press. So, Reboot your computer, and try to get into it!
If you cant figure out how to enter that menu, you can look up how to enter your BIOS, such as "How to enter BIOS Dell" if the logo is from Dell.
Inside of the BIOS menu, you need to find a "Boot" option, and select the option with the name of your USB Drive.
Let it Boot into the USB Drive, which will open the Linux Mint Operating System that you wrote onto your USB Drive!
Congrats, you did the hard part! From here, you'll be in the Linux Mint Desktop environment, which will look quite similar to Windows. Feel free to mess around a bit on it! Though remember that its not installed yet, this is just to see how it works.
You'll see an Desktop Icon called "Install Linux Mint". Run it!
It will open a simple installation process. Take care during the final part. it will ask you where to install Linux Mint. You should think carefully about it. Do you want to keep Windows? Then make sure you don't delete it during the process, or any of the files on your computer.
The simplest and safest option is to select "Install Linux Mint alongside them", which wont delete any data, and install Linux Mint onto unused space on your disk. You'll be able to select how much space it takes up. In Windows terms, its how large the C:/ disk is. (Linux doesn't call disks/partitions by letters like that). I recommend to make it as big as you can!
Finish the installation process, and it's done.
Now, you have Linux Mint on your PC. If you chose so, you'll also have Windows too. Whenever you boot up, you'll have the choice of which one you want, by default Linux Mint.
If any help is needed with Linux, I'd be happy to oblige!
