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.
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).
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
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 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.
Made me remember this classic post!
There are excellent suggestions in this thread. However, I want you to change your mindset. What you’re asking is like “I don’t want to drive my car. I’m sick of 4 wheelers. I want to ride this new thing called a motorbike. What are some good motorbikes? It should have AC and the safety and comfort of my previous car. Also are there any 4 seater bikes which is family friendly?”
When you are shifting from one platform, please be prepared to make some changes in the way you normally operate. You can’t magically expect the new platform to be perfect when you have a decade of experience in the previous platform.
I wish you all the best in your Linux journey.
People usually recommend Linux mint or some Ubuntu version. I recommend neither.
Ubuntu is a proprietary-solution-ridden piece of hot garbage that tries to hinders what you do at any chance. I use it daily for work, unfortunately.
It’s been a few years since I tried mint. It looked good and felt nice for the first few hours, after that I don’t remember what happened, it was maybe lack of configurabilità or lack of support, but I noped out very quickly and I just remember that my thoughts were “never again”.
I never tried it, but it looks like Pop!_OS might be the thing to look out for in this space.
Besides that, know that Linux is different from windows starting from its very philosophy. Keep an open mind, it can be a confusing journey for a beginner (which is why I am holding back about telling you about the many possibilities).
One thing to keep in mind is that some software that you were used to will not be available, and that you might need to look for alternatives. But as far as the things you mentioned go, these are my recommendations:
- browser: Firefox
- gaming: steam
- streaming: OBS
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.
Linux Mint felt like a really good start for me. Its a nice transition from Windows because you still get a lot of functions that can be done outside of the command line. There’s a GUI for system updates, driver updates, and an app store of sorts. The interface is also just generally not all that different from Windows.
In my experience, I didnt have any issues running games on Mint. I was using a pretty powerful rig with AMD hardware, which tends to play nicer with Linux, but from what I’ve heard Mint seems to do well with gaming.
To play games, you’ll obviously need Steam with Proton enabled. I picked the latest full release version and it generally worked pretty good with most games. Some games that wont work with Steam might need a separate app called Lutris. For me this was just Battlefield 4, which also worked fine through Lutris. You can check ProtonDB to see if the games you wanna play will work.
If you use Nvidia, I’ve heard good things about Pop!OS but i havent used it myself.
Good luck finding a distro that works for you!
Linux mint is often recommended for new people, and has a interface very similar to windows. In my own experience, it’s very fast to get it up and running.
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!
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.
