Things To Know Before Switching To Linux

Hi everyone! Hope you're all well, just a few things I wanted to point out real quick. First of all, the advice in this video is largely subjective. It's my opinion and I know people will disagree with the points I bring up. Particularly in regards to dual-booting and web applications (I do not like either of them, but they do work for a lot of people). Second of all, apologies for not uploading here for quite a while. I've been incredibly busy (e.g., with career and family stuff), though I have posted to my second channel (which isn't tech related, it's quite varied): youtube.com/@notnapoleondotnet

To my surprise, my grandparents asked me unprompted to install linux on their laptop. I installed Linux Mint, Wine, and added a few shortcuts to the desktop as well as explained how the graphical package manager works. No complaints. If anything, they've said "We have a computer again" which just made me so happy. My grandfather in particular is really pissed at microsoft for their privacy practices, and who could blame him. That's why I hopped ship since windows 7 lost support.

my grandma ran linux mint on her shitty old computer for a decade and terminal use was never needed, hats off to the devs

printers are famous for working better on linux than on windows. a better example of finicky drivers is really specialized hardware like studio audio equipment.

If my wife who hates computers managed to move (6 years ago) from Win7 to Linux Mint in just two days, you all can... 🙂

plus bonus tip if anything is steam deck verified on steam then it's probably definitely going to work on your linux installation since steam deck is linux based

Ive used Linux Mint for many years and I avoided typing anything in the Terminal command and was 99.99% successful. It's user friendly and a popular Linux distro for that reason.

Jumped over to Linux last year and I love it. Now that I actually own the OS, I'm never going back!

I switched to Linux less than a year ago. I'm 80 years old and didn't want to have to buy new software to stay with Windows. All I wanted was an office program and to get on the internet. I have used Firefox for way long and I had Free Office by Soft Maker on one of my old computers. Liked it a lot so all in all it wasn't too hard to change. The big thing is all the updates, which are like everyday, and if you look to see what the updates do.....well good luck with that. You have to know how to speak Linux, which I don't but I just install them and go about my business. You can always go back to Windows if you don't get along. I'm happy but would be happier if I could still run Windows 7 safely. That was my favorite. I still have one I run off line because I need it for my old hardware and software. Have a good day all!!

I agree on one thing. Mint it's truly fast and easier to use for small things such as watching a video, or downloading it and surfing the web.

important note on the dual boot option, if you do decide to do it on the same PC, split it to two different drives if possible. Both Linux's bootloader update process and Windows' bootloader process can end up targeting each other, overwriting and wrecking that partition. (including one Linux distro targeting the options of another Grub instance). If you really need to swap between them, let your boot order inside of BIOS do that, not your bootloader's themselves. They are often not built to recognize each other's existence.

A couple of additional points: Think in terms of what you want to do and not the program you want to run. An example would be "I want to do a spreadsheet" and not "I want to run excel". LibreOffice has a spreadsheet program and it works fine but it is not called "excel" There is no "C:" drive. Your files are in "/home/yourname" in almost all cases. Generally the disk you booted from is just "/" Depending on the Linux distro, if you have other dives other than the one you booted from, when in use, they just look like a directory/folder somewhere. The OS takes care of remembering what drive things are on. Your "USB-Stick" can appear as needed. Remember to "eject/unmount/safely-remove" a drive when you are done with it.

Also if you dislike the look of the distro you chose, you don't have to change distro! Anything can be changed on any distro. Desktop environments are easily changed. For example, Linux Mint packages the Cinnamon DE (Desktop Environment), if you want something like GNOME (A different DE) you can simply do "sudo apt install gnome" inside a terminal.

I switched to Linux about 8 months ago from Windows. Never looked back.

I'm a game dev and there are a lot of us including myself who hate windows. We are developing our game to work with Linux, as that was one of the main reasons why i didn't switch. i love Valve for helping to bring gaming to Linux

If you don't have a secondary computer, I don't recommend using Linux if you're a new user. Linux is good, but not a bed of roses as many people claim on YouTube. If you're a new to Linux user, here are some things you need to consider knowing before switching to Linux : 1. Most people don't buy laptops/computers with Linux pre-installed. They have a Windows laptop, and then erase it and install Linux. So, as the laptop was not made for Linux, some hardware MAY not just work! Like your sound or microphone becomes crappy, or your WiFi or Bluetooth devices doesn't connect or your Fingerprint doesn't work, or your Web Cam doesn't work etc. 2. Some of your "Windows Only" software won't work in Linux (because obviously you're using a fundamentally different operating system). Like MS Office or Adobe apps, or your motherboard software etc. 3. Linux has GUI software managers. But some of them have a lot of bugs and just don't work well. And Linux nerds just don't care and won't tell you this because they use the terminal to install updates and software, so keep this in mind. 4. Get used to using the terminal. Sure, if you just use the Web Browser and File manager, then you don't need it. But that's the case with any Operating system. In Linux, you just HAVE to use the terminal, no matter what. So just don't be afraid of it and get used to it and try to learn it slowly.

Finally, someone that mentions the important point that it's not Windows and that expecting it to work like Windows is an unreasonable expectation.

For most people, Linux at this point is “good enough”, it’s now a case that general people prefer familiarity and the command line is a huge turn off to the not-as-tech-savvy people. This might sound strange considering windows did this and people didn’t like it, but if you’re new to Linux and want to get into it, or you have family you want to get into it, add a hyperlink to chatGPT or ClaudeAI or another text ai to the desktop and name it “support” or “ask for help”. My journey into using Linux has been massively improved thanks to tools like those, able to give advice on things I don’t know or being able to point me in the right direction. Hell, it can be really useful to help install software I don’t know how to or require the command line for. Also another thing I’d say is to avoid Arch. The “Linux is made by devs and not people” and “Linux is a broken mess” stereotype, in my opinion, come directly from people using Arch and its branched distros like Manjaro. Arch is more for advance users who fail to realise most users don’t want to do gymnastics with their systems and mostly want to use them to browse the internet or write up a document.

The software compatibility problems is the only thing that scares me...

Thanks, Microsoft. You've finally managed to push me into dive headfirst into Linux after years of dipping my toes into the water.