Meme transcription: Anakin & Padme
[Panel 1] Anakin tries selects “Update and shut down” from the Windows start menu.
[Panel 2] Padme, labeled as “Windows”, cheerily says: ”You mean ‘Update and restart’, right?”
[Panel 3] Anakin takes an annoyed look.
[Panel 4] Padme, still cheery, says “I’ll just ‘Update and Restart’.”
I’ve been looking at mint but I’ve been using windows all my life. I’m worried about the steep learning curve and terminal “language”
Would a noob like me survive on linux for gaming?
The learning curve is not as bad as it used to be. Almost everything can be done through the GUI, many tutorials exist, and steam will run almost any game without tinkering with it. ProtonDB is your friend.
Tell me about it… As a stem deck user, I’d fuck proton If could
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Mint with Cinnamon is very Windows like from the UI. You probably won’t need to touch the terminal for running steam games - there’s a GUI for pretty much anything a normal user would need.
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I’m hearing two opposites sides of arch. Some say that Arch is not as stable and only for experienced users who already know linux…while you’re telling me it’s so stable I won’t need any help. What? 😖
I’m running Linux mint on a spare SSD and steam games won’t even launch for me right now (yes I enabled proton) Someone told me here Mint is the most “windows” like and best distro for new users…I’m conflicted on if I should try arch
I’ve also heard of Nobara that’s gamer focused but I’m worried that it’s a custom build, support won’t be widely available as more mainstream distros should I need help
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No you’ve definitely been a great help…in convincing me to give arch a try
Yes. Most things can be done without the terminal, and when it’s required, 99% of the time you’ll easily find a guide with instructions you can just copy/paste.
I wouldn’t recommend it for my 78 year old mother who needs me to add her email account to her tablet, but anyone remotely computer-savvy can handle the transition.
The Linux community is generally very helpful and welcoming. If ever you can’t figure something out, someone somewhere will probably be willing to help.
Just be careful when copy/pasting commands. Especially when updating/removing packages.
I’ve shot myself in the foot a number of times where I’ve nuked my desktop environment from existence because deleting a package also deleted the entire environment. Definitely on me though, I didn’t read properly. So just keep an eye on what you’re doing, read what it’s updating and removing and the majority of the time you’ll be fine.
There will be things to learn and unlearn, but modern Linux distros are fairly smooth sailing for basic tasks if your hardware supports Linux well. Laptop support is a little more spotty, where there may be issues with suspend, or the Wi-Fi needing 3rd party drivers, but desktops will probably work without much fuss (and there are plenty of laptops with no issues).
Gaming has been made much easier thanks to wine and proton, particularly valve’s contributions. For steam games, many of them will just work out of the box or after ticking a checkbox. ProtonDB is invaluable for quickly seeing how well a game will run on Linux.
But as you’ll see as you read some of the reports on ProtonDB, there will likely be a more troubleshooting than you’re used to on windows. As long as you know how to Google the name of your distro + the problem you’re seeing, you’ll usually find a solution.
You don’t need to be a terminal master to use Linux nowadays. But most things are easier to explain with terminal commands than with step by step gui instructions, so many guides online will have you use the terminal to some degree.
Honestly, the best advice I can give is just try it. If you have a spare drive (internal or usb), just go ahead and install Linux to it. If you want to be extra sure you won’t do anything to your existing windows install, remove the windows drive first (or disable it in bios). Then play around with things and see how it feels.