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.
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I would always recommend mint. If you want domething which looks a lot similar then zorin does that really well, and it also has you pay if you want some stuff preinstalled so that part is like windows too. Keep in mind that Linux is not windows and it will never be 1:1.
Gaming on Linux is pretty awesome if you use steam. It is painless in my experience.
Linux is used by a lot of professional programmers who might also have gotten training during uni, but honestly, I don’t think that is needed anymore. It can be used by anyone who is willing to accept that Linux will never be 1:1 to windows.
Steam is great these days, even for windows games. Zen pinball and stray, for example, work flawlessly.
I can 100% back this up. I never had any issues with any of the games I play. The most effort I put in was get dotnet for assetto corsa using protontricks, and that is pretty much the only game which required tweaking from me. I mostly play metroidvanias, and all of them work for me. I can also vouch for 99% of the games out there. Warframe and csgo also work really well.
Have you considered steamOS? It runs a fair number of games and the Linux kernel.
Linux mint is a pretty university praised easy to use distro.
I second this, but for Linux Mint Debian Edition. Same as regular Mint but decoupled from Ubuntu.
Mint (cinnamon) is really nice, has a Windows like look and feel. Stable and friendly 👍
Linux Mint
which version of mint would you suggest? for 8gb of ram on an old laptop?
I run Mint 20.3 on a 10 year old laptop with 8gb with absolutely no problems for the basic stuff I do with it. Upgrading the hdd to an ssd made a huge improvement though.
I would however suggest you install mint 21 (current version)
The only reason the above laptop is on an older version is I’m worried about what I’m going to break if I do (I have a bunch of “non standard” stuff on it) and it currently just works and is still in support…so if it ain’t broke…
Cinnamon should run fine on that. If not, mate will, but I’d try Cinnamon first.
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.
If you want a familiar Windows-like experience, the general consensus is that Mint and Zorin are the best for helping people transitioning. Lightweight-wise, Mint MATE, Xubuntu, or Lubuntu would work. Could install MATE, LXDE, or XFCE on Arch, too. Might be a Fedora spin, too, for some or all of those.
If you want super lightweight, Void is awesome to play with, but you have to get it going yourself somewhat like old-school Arch. It’s definitely more advanced, but worth doing for the learning.
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
Linux Mint is a good one to try out for starters. It is Ubuntu based so most of the time if you have an issue you can find tons on it in the Ubuntu help searches.
As for a browser, Firefox is likely pre installed and pretty excellent. All major browsers have a Linux client.
For gaming, steam had great support for windows games running on Linux. There is also Lutris and Heroic launcher which all have support for running games under a comparability layer.
Good luck and have fun!
I don’t think I saw anyone here mention Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix (obviously free) or WindowsFX and LinuxFX (paid). Those are all pretty cool in my opinion.
Made me remember this classic post!
This reads line the “Am I out of touch” image macro. “No, it is the new users who are wrong !”
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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
