this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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There's always some post in here saying for people to use Linux. I find an admonishment to be pretty hollow, so I'll share my recent experience installing a Linux distribution rather than simply saying it's something people should do.
I installed one of the many Debian variants. Getting the installation media is certainly going to be a challenge for casual users. Otherwise, it was easy. It walked through the steps. It was different from installing windows, but I felt it was no more difficult. I am well versed in this stuff, but I feel like nothing in the installation process would be a problem for a casual computer user.
It offered several desktops programs at the login screen. This could likely throw off a lot of people. However, if you just logged in and ignored that you might never even know there were different options. The default was KDE. Everything worked. Nothing needed to be tweaked. This is in starck contrast to Windows, where once you get past installation, you need to get rid of a ton of crap it throws at you. The Windows 10 start menu is an unbelievable collection of weird boxes and shit and the task bar is similarly full of junk. The KDE start menu is just a menu. The task bar has your tasks. There's nothing to do.
I did try Cinnamon too. I prefer the simplicity. I don't think casual users are going to care.
Overall, I think for casual users, it's actually easier to set up and use than Windows. Getting installation media prepared is not something most people are going to readily do, but I think it's the same with Windows. They have the advantage there of having manufacturors install it. Otherwise, whatever issues there have been installing Linux distributions in the past aren't there now. Conversely, installing and especially the configuration after installation is much harder on Windows than it used to be. If you're slightly tech savvy, give Linux a try.
What did you do with your file system? I haven’t tried to dual boot Linux yet but I think bothering with partitioning and file systems is keeping me from taking the plunge.
(BTW it reminds me of why I didn’t go to law school, I hated filling out the paperwork for even doing the LSAT and realized the whole job is that. Dealing with partitioning and file systems and shit seems miserable and it’s just the start.)
Honestly just get a second drive
I could do that, but how does Linux see/interact with my Windows stuff? Am I double-installing games to run-as-Windows with something like Proton? (like a Linux install and a Windows install on the old drive?)
It doesn’t, they operate as two separate logical systems. You can still access your windows drive from your Linux OS, but you aren’t necessarily running anything off of that drive.
I would personally just reinstall everything on the Linux drive.
Linux can mount windows drives (I don't recommend it, but it can if you need a file).
Windows cannot mount Linux drives (in theory ext2fsd can do it but it's massive pain and it no longer works for me).
If you install a game, either it works on Linux out of the box (it's native) or it works under proton, in which case steam will take care of that for you in most cases and at worst you have to change a single setting. Visit protondb to learn what games work and don't work on Linux.
At first I dual booted with Windows and kept my games on the Windows drive. You can just tell steam the path to the games, after mounting the drive. Some games ran fine, some were a little more difficult or impossible to play, even when reported as working on protondb. The reason apparently was NTFS that wasn't playing nice. That was the moment I ditched Windows entirely.
Under the hood windows uses NTFS, while most Linux distros use EXT4. Linux can read NTFS, but Windows can't read EXT4 without some tweaks. So I thought my setup was good.
You can try this setup for yourself, it's a good intro IMO.