So ive use windows pretty much for everything and ive kinda had a enough of windows. i was thinking of trying linux on an old laptop that i just upgraded to 8gb of ram and im not sure wha tos to put on it. i was thinking something lightweight maybe ubuntu mate? i need somethign like windows that will allow me to game and do other things liek gaming maybe even streaming or reading? idk. also what are some neede dsoftware, browser so rthigs needed for linux. i com efrom a family who has never trie dlinux and hates it because its “the smar advanced coders os” somethign liek that.
anyways im a noob so go easy on me please als i may have ben linux distro hopping but i still feel lost.
No.
Linux is not Windows. Don’t try to make Windows from Linux. It can be visually similar, but it will never be the same. Don’t expect a seamless migration. Stay on Windows or be ready to learn new things.
The similarity is really only superficial. You would have to learn about the OS one way or the other, even if some distro has Interfaces similar to Windows. You might need to find software alternatives for example, or be comfortable with package manager.
For gaming, you want to checkout Steam w/ Proton and Heroic Game Launcher
Linux Mint Cinnamon is a good choice. Even as a sysadmin and DevOps engineer I use it on my workstation because it Just Works. It has good window management, settings management, file management and just stays out of the way. Flatpak is well integrated for things you may need that aren’t natively packaged, like discord.
I’ve heard good things about PopOs too but haven’t tried it.
Linux mint is amazing for you, I personally would say its better than zorin
Linux Mint is the obvious recommendation. It looks pretty similar to windows and is really good for those unfamiliar with Linux.
I personally use fedora which is also pretty good for beginners but the installation process is pretty confusing and setting up dnf fusion might not be what a new linux user wants to fiddle around with right away, which is why I think mint might be better.
ubuntu mate is a good choice for a beginner, but if your computer is old enough, the system may slow down. This is due to the fact that snap images are slowly decompressed on older processors. You can try Linux Mint too.
About the software. The main thing is to accept the fact that not all Windows applications have analogues on Linux. some people actually make such a mistake. no need to try to install wine and migrate literally every exe file. Look at the software specifically for linux.
The default browser is firefox. But you can install chrome or chromium without any problems. There is OBS studio for linux for streaming. For games, you can put lutris. There is also an official steam client. if the game has an anti-cheat and this anti-cheat is not optimized for linux, you will not be able to play it.
I would recommend that you check out Linux Mint. It is based on Ubuntu, but is in my experience easier to use out of the box.
They have a MATE version on their website.
Everyone reccomends Linux Mint, but I personally use Kubuntu. You can use Discover to install apps such as Steam and you’d probably not need the terminal
I would go for either Linux Mint or Pop!_OS. linux mint is probably the closest to windows you’ll get. Potentially go for the Debian Edition, but choosing either Cinnamon or Mate is up to you.
Steam will let you play most games, but you’ll need to enable Steam Play for all games in the settings first.
Check out Flathub for other software. There should be some kind of App Store type thing on either OS that’ll connect to flathub. Whilst you wont find Kindle on there, there should be plenty of alternatives for things like reading.
You grab your biggest usb stick and install a tool Ventoy2Disk into it: https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_ventoy2disk.html
Then you never re-format again, but just drag and drop any .iso-file you want to try. You can try any Linux distro in live mode without installing anything into your computer before you found your favorite distro.
Try at least these, Pop_OS!: https://pop.system76.com/
Linux Mint: https://linuxmint.com/download.php
If you don’t have Nvidia gpu, then try LMDE5 instead and here’s why: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=374128
Fedora KDE: https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde/
If you want something totally different and fully keyboard driven distro (docs reading is mandatory), Manjaro Sway: https://manjaro-sway.download/
At this point it is only about the looks you like the most.
If you want something that really looks like Windows (GUI) out of the box, I’d recommend looking at Zorin OS.
It’s based on ubuntu and is easy to use.
I would encourage you to try a Linux distro with KDE plasma. It really looks like windows 10 now, and I always get comments from non tech people asking what it is and being surprised that it is linix but “looks good, like windows”.
I’m on debian stable. I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners. My current beginner recommendation is to use m Linux mint, which is downstream from debian.
I highly recommend trying Manjaro. I haven’t moved past Windows 7, so I can’t compare doesn’t to Win 10/11, but it’s the only Linux distro I’ve found that was Close Enough ™ to Windows to make it possible for me to switch.
Like any Linux, things aren’t going to Just Work ™ as often as in Windows, but this is the closest I’ve gotten.
Like any Linux, things aren’t going to Just Work™ as often as in Windows, but this is the closest I’ve gotten.
Lol, that’s not a Linux thing, it’s a majaro thing.
I recommend NOT using Manjaro, they have many issues, most described here: https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/
for someone who wants an arch-based distro without tinkering too much there are other alternatives like endeavourOs, and I think Garuda too.
For someone who wants something that looks like windows, no need for Manjaro, just something with a desktop environment that looks like windows. I’d recommend Linux Mint, very simple to use (and for low end computers there is the XFCE edition), or distributions with KDE (fedora KDE, Kubuntu…) or maybe ZorinOS.
edit: also nobara Linux (based on fedora)may be good for games, they have a version that kinda feels like windows
I’ve been using Manjaro for a couple of years now on my desktop (with an Nvidia GPU). Their package situation is not great. Updating the Linux kernel and Nvidia drivers is a process separate from pamac that you have to just know to do, or one day X will break and now you have to figure out how to fix it.
On top of that, because they delay the release of non-aur repo packages for stability testing, but don’t delay aur, some aur packages will just break occasionally. I now manually install discord from their tar ball because of this.
Because of these little unnecessary quirks that you just have to know how to work around, I can’t recommend it for new Linux users, and honestly don’t recommend it to seasoned users either. I’m trying out endeavor OS on my laptop now and I think that is what I would recommend; but possibly only for more seasoned users because it’s arch. Might be more stable if you install the linux-lts package and remove linux.
No, it’s a different OS not intended as an alternative to Windows in any other sense that it’s a desktop OS too.
But it won’t be hard if you start with something common, like openSUSE or Debian.
Zorin is designed to be a Windows replacement, but my personal recommendation is LinuxMint. Sure it’s not trying to be a carbon copy of Windows, but it’s designed to be easy to learn, stable, functional, and support pretty much everything from the get go (just not bleeding edge), with a readily available store that lets you download everything you need (that isn’t already included in the install).
