I went down this rabbit hole recently: irked about a broken Windows update, I picked up on people’s advice to try Ubuntu. To say I was disappointed doesn’t really do it justice—I was mostly just surprised that it looked and behaved exactly like the Ubuntu I had used in college in 2006.
I’m really disheartened to say that after 20 years, it’s still the same sluggish, dated, janky UI that I remembered from way back and honestly it just misses basic functionality. As a random example, there’s no way to adequately control DPI settings for two monitors and messing around with screen resolution settings breaks the entire Gnome UI to the extent that you need to reboot. Some folks here on Lemmy were saying I should install KDE or something else, but I doubted it would be a miracle fix and didn’t bother going that route.
I totally understand that it’s built by volunteers and I think that’s absolutely awesome! Personally, I just don’t think it’s for your average Joe.
FWIW, the broken update was fixed by reinstalling Windows, which was done by the time I finished cooking dinner with literally everything left in place. I don’t really understand the hate on Windows.
At this day and age it works pretty much as you expect it to work. I’d recommend something like ubuntu (or kubuntu if you want it to look and feel more like windows). Something that is stable and not on the bleeding edge and mainstream so you can easily Google for help if you need it. Apart from that I think you can use a gui for pretty much anything you might need.
Little side note: the new long term support version of Ubuntu will be released this month. I’d wait for that so you have a pretty up to date version. If you need help or advice you can DM me if you like.
Honestly the popular linux distros are pretty polished / user friendly these days. You’ll run into little issues, and you need to be at least a little bit curious / tech savvy to figure them out, but it’s nothing a little googling can’t solve typically.
Between this and Lemmy, I’m ready for a switch to Linux now even though I don’t know how it works.
You ask people online and get 78 different answers, then get caught up in decision paralysis and stick with windows.
I went down this rabbit hole recently: irked about a broken Windows update, I picked up on people’s advice to try Ubuntu. To say I was disappointed doesn’t really do it justice—I was mostly just surprised that it looked and behaved exactly like the Ubuntu I had used in college in 2006.
I’m really disheartened to say that after 20 years, it’s still the same sluggish, dated, janky UI that I remembered from way back and honestly it just misses basic functionality. As a random example, there’s no way to adequately control DPI settings for two monitors and messing around with screen resolution settings breaks the entire Gnome UI to the extent that you need to reboot. Some folks here on Lemmy were saying I should install KDE or something else, but I doubted it would be a miracle fix and didn’t bother going that route.
I totally understand that it’s built by volunteers and I think that’s absolutely awesome! Personally, I just don’t think it’s for your average Joe.
Went with Kubuntu as I prefer KDE, and it’s not been good on a multi monitor setup (at least with my hardware).
While I did make it further there than on some of the other distros I tried, it was still a no go.
Think I’m going to pave it and give OpenSuse another shot, just have to get some other bits sorted out.
FWIW, the broken update was fixed by reinstalling Windows, which was done by the time I finished cooking dinner with literally everything left in place. I don’t really understand the hate on Windows.
Do it! Just choose the most normie distro you can find (probably something like Mint or Ubuntu) and free yourself!
Hi friend, it’s surprisingly easy to jump into. Zorin OS is a great place to start, or bazzite
Don’t be too worried about how it works, none of it is permanent, you can always reinstall windows if things go tits-up
At this day and age it works pretty much as you expect it to work. I’d recommend something like ubuntu (or kubuntu if you want it to look and feel more like windows). Something that is stable and not on the bleeding edge and mainstream so you can easily Google for help if you need it. Apart from that I think you can use a gui for pretty much anything you might need.
Little side note: the new long term support version of Ubuntu will be released this month. I’d wait for that so you have a pretty up to date version. If you need help or advice you can DM me if you like.
Don’t worry, none of us did until we gave it a go
Honestly the popular linux distros are pretty polished / user friendly these days. You’ll run into little issues, and you need to be at least a little bit curious / tech savvy to figure them out, but it’s nothing a little googling can’t solve typically.
If you want something easy to install that has active updates I recommend Bazzite I’ve been using it for over 4 years now.
Just do it and ask questions later.
similar to mac and windows