Hi all,

As the title states, I’m interested in making the switch from Windows to Linux. I know absolutely nothing about Linux, other than that fact that there are distros that exist under Linux, and Linux itself isn’t an OS, or so I think.

I have 2 laptops and my main home office PC, which I use for my job and gaming.

My plan is to switch one of my laptops to a Linux distro, and test it out. This laptops only purpose is web browsing, so I figure getting Linux set up to do something as simple as opening a browser is something I am capable of.

Down the road, once I’ve sort of learned on this laptop, I may work my way up to using other distros and dual booting my main PC. Who knows, maybe I’ll even switch over completely prior to Windows 11 rolling out.

I’ve heard getting games to work with Linux can sometimes be a hassle, and can require some fiddling, so I won’t be doing gaming on a Linux distro until I feel quite comfortable.

So with the above context, I’m looking for recommendations on a distro I should use, any guides that any of you may have found helpful, and generally any insight on things I may need to be aware of.

I am fairly tech savvy (probably not compared to most of you), and am not afraid of tinkering with things until they work. Any help would be muchly appreciated, and if this isn’t the correct place to post, please let me know and point me in the right direction.

  • ItsComplicated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    20 days ago

    If you want to install additional software: If you come from Windows, you might be familiar with visiting websites of software then downloading a setup.exe/msi from there. That’s NOT how you install software on Linux. On Linux, you first look if there’s a package available for your distribution

    This is where I have gotten lost. Trying to install my vpn.

    My vpn does not work with cinnamon apparently, and I did not want to use the app in the software manager that is not even associated in any way with the actual vpn provider.

    I am going to check out the forums next. (This is why having a techy person you know would be helpful!)