So I have been finally decided to bite the bullet and use linux on my main pc. I have been using ubuntu for a couple of years on my laptop, but I could never really get the hang of the task bar not being on the bottom. I have been looking at distros that resemble windows like Linux Mint, Lubuntu, and Zorin OS (Zorin being the one that catches my eyes the most) also I like my security and privacy, I 100% do not like how microsoft has been going with windows.The things I will be doing is light content creation ( drawing/video editing), streaming (twitch) and gaming. I'm just wanting to hear suggestions since I'm still but a novice. p.s. its going to suck not being able to play a lot of my game library and the newer games that have come out :(
I'm no vet when it comes to Linux but have been using it for the last 3 weeks or so as my daily driver, I went with Linux Mint as I had used Ubuntu in the past but it just frustrated me and I went back to Windows,, Since installing Mint I have had 0 need/want to use Windows I love everything about it so far and it seems like a good middle ground if transitioning from Windows.
for the few apps I really really need I'm running a VM of Win10 (which I already had) and for games (for now) I have a dual boot set up with WIn10 which has everything that I could uninstalled and disabled + I don't use a MS login it's completely under an alias and only has a limited amount installed
now that I have made the switch I can't see myself going back in fact I cringe just loading up win to play games
I even run a small business and have limited issues switching from MS Office to Libre, but Google service's has helped that as well.
in terms of content creation goes I'm not much help but I would say their would be viable alternative's to Adobe or they can easily run in a VM environment I would assume.
Like I said no way shape or form am I an expert with Linux but sharing my experience to date
For a beginner I would recommend sticking to popular distributions such as Ubuntu. There are many flavors and desktop environments to choose from. Personally I prefer Gnome, once you get the hang of using keyboard shortcuts you wont believe you ever used any other DE.
Ubuntu has lots of content for fixing issues if you run into any. If you have newer or "gaming" hardware you should look into 16.10 as it uses a newer kernel which supports newer hardware.
But you wont know your own preference until you try them. Just load them up on a USB drive and give them a try before installing. Or run it in a vm.
The hardest parts for me was breaking old habits, and coping with needing to use terminal to fix goofy issues.
That's the magic of Linux. You can change your desktop to be how you like it. Linux is extremely modular, since UNIX philosophy is "do one thing and do it well." This basically means everything is modular and if people don't like what exists, they make a new one. So from that, you get a bunch of different Desktop Environments (DE), as they're called. This gives us, the users, an amazing ability to pick and choose the experience we want. If you want something closer to a "windows like" feel for the desktop, check out the Cinnamon desktop environment. Linux Mint provides that as the default DE.
You mentioned liking Zorin. I can't speak to it, as I haven't tried it myself, but from what I can see, it's based on Ubuntu, so that's a plus for it.
For video editing, check out kdenlive and openshot. They're not bad, but choke a bit with 4k footage, so be warned.
For streaming, I'm sure you're probably already familiar with OBS. It's on Linux too!
Games, install steam, see what games are available on Linux and have fun. You'll want to make sure it supports Linux in the future when purchasing. You'll also want to check out the linux_gaming subreddit for news and whatnot related to gaming on Linux. There's always a thread when a new major title gets a Linux port.
If you have any questions, you're definitely in the right place. We have a good group of very knowledgeable folks here who are great with Linux.
Mint (Cinnamon) seemed to fix a lot of what I didn't like about Ubuntu and it has been the easiest to navigate out of the box (most win like) imo plus as it's based on Ubuntu there is a ton of support and tutorials so it's been pretty easy to find the things I've been looking for.
It will likely not suite everyone but as a first step away from from the windows platform as a nubie I couldn't be happier
I would highly suggest Linux Mint Cinnamon as a good entry point into Linux. I use it as my daily driver for the past year on my gaming PC and haven't run into many issues. I started off with duel boot but just found that there were enough applications to sute my needs that I could switch entirely over to Linux and I run windows in a VM if I need something windows specific. I will have to say starting out with a distro that is well supported like Ubuntu or Linux Mint will make the transition much easier. Though a lot of windows only games wont work on Linux I have had some success with a few and if your avatar is any indication I have managed to get League to work as well.
In late Januari I got my new HP zBook 14 G2 (no, not the big heavy one!) and began testing with Windows 10. Worked great, but still did not liked the road Windows was riding, so I switched to Ubuntu Gnome. Since then it has been my 'on the go' daily driver at school and unit July my second machine at work.
The beautiful thing I find about Linux is as was mentioned before the mentality to create a system that suits your taste. I personally like the Mac OS desktop envoirment and therefor chose Gnome as my basis, put the dock on the bottom and by default on my screen and removed some other annoying buttons and arrows.
Hey you play league also :D League was really the only thing holding me back from switching. I knew you could play it through playonlinux, since I did it with my laptop but noticed some things didn't work right like the store. Also love your set up, well it seems like mint is the way to go. I think Ima try zorin on my laptop and mint on my main and see how that goes.
the best place to start is to see what Desktop Environment you like, because once you know what you'll be comfortable looking at/interacting with, you can basically pick whatever distro has the tools you need.
i don't play LoL, but according to the Wine database, things look like people are managing to get it to work quite well on a number of distros. i would always pay attention to that site because they more often than not have people commenting on what works/how they got it working.
I recommend trying at least one OS for every DE. Like fedora - gnome, Ubuntu - unity, opensuse or KDE neon - KDE, mint - cinnamon and so on. But first check them on YouTube there a lot of people who are going trough the default settings and installed programs in a new installation. When you find a nice looking DE try it out. At the beginning only the DE is important after you get used to using Linux (using commands to do stuff) you then can read more on which project is best for you. Every OS has + and -.
Distro won't make a huge difference, just go with one noob friendly distro with more active management aka one of the 'bigger' players like ubuntu, opensuse or fedora. To have the panel at the bottom, that's just a matter of DE and customization, go with Cinnamon for example and skin it to you liking - you can even install every DE available and just choose which one to use when you login.
I'm glad you mentioned security. I'd give a better answer but I'm on my phone and busy.
Many distros don't do security correctly. As much as windows does things wrong many distros also so things wrong.
Generally debian is solid but old for desktop use, ubuntu.. it's fine though I'm not the biggest fan of it. Fedora I'd highly recommend trying, it does do security right. And fedora 25 just came out.
You mentioned it looking like windows. Forget that. This isn't windows, a familial ui can be useful but in reality it's going to take you a day or two to get used to a completely alien ui anyway , so I suggest you don't care about it looking like windows.
What GPU do you have?
Also what games do you play? You'd be surprised as what's supported.
I have a gtx 660(old, I know :D ) and atm I am not playing too many games but I play a lot of the popular ones like; lol, ea games,ubisoft, so pretty much anything I can get my hands on.
For games.. yeah you might not get ea or Unisoft games on Linux. But that's quickly changing. There's a tonne of games, have a look at my Linux news threads for some recent ones.
would say dont basically lol, dual boot sure. honestly would be surprised if wine worked even 50%, assuming you wanted to play bunch of dx titles, for regular usage, you can get gimp/blender etc to do editing, graphics etc, for regular usage its good but if you want to run specfic titles do not be surprised if they dont work, which is sort of like people that are pc gamers that have a console to play exclusives.
so would look into dual boot (easier/better reliability than passthru with better performance) or vm with passthru if your willing to do some work and accept a slight performance hit
otherwise most window managers you can configure the location of the bars and stuff with themes or whatever, in which would say try the more popular ones like xfce, kde, gnome where you can get lots of themes, you can adjust them in gui apps.
would say ubuntu but they did that spying thing awhile back lol
I haven't tried the new client personally but you can keep tabs on the wine hq forums I think there are some people that have tried it with some success. https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=33303 As for the store not working that's where my Windows VM comes in handy the client works fine there and I can buy all the stuff I need.
The new client requires Visual Studio 2015, if you have it installed there shouldn't be many issues. However, keep in mind that the new client is riddled with bugs and I wouldn't recommended using it for the moment.
If you try upgrading the client to the new one without Visual Studio you will get an instant Bug Splat when attempting to launch the game and will need to go change your settings manually in the LoL .cfg files.
If you want your privacy and freedom back, you will have to add a patch to the kernel for a Flux Capacitor!!!! I'm pretty sure hackers and government use linux too.
