I wanna try Linux again!

[KleerKut]

There is a thread that might help you starting out:

So you're looking for a Linux Distro?

Given the recent influx of threads requesting advice on a distro, I thought I’d write some advice here in a sort of how-to/guide. Anyways, on to the guide: So you’re new huh? Welcome! You’re in for a wild ride. The first thing most curious newbies ask is “which distro should I choose?” or “what’s a distro?”, so let’s address the second, before we address the first. What is a Distribution? The OS we know as Linux is, in fact, not just Linux. Linux is actually just the kernel. There are hundreds, if not thousands of small tools that run on top of the kernel that provide a complete desktop experience for an end user. This is due to something known as Unix philosophy. Without going into too much detail, Unix philosophy states the following: A software tool should do one task and do it well. This means that, yes, there is a bit of work that needs to be duplicated, but we get, overall, a better component. Of course, this provides a big hurdle for users. How could I possibly install and configure thousands of packages in a reasonable amount of time? That’s where Distributions come in. Linux Distributions came about as a way to share the outcome of the work that goes into building a stable Desktop experience. A group of people got together and started packaging tools and providing them in an organized manner. They then built tools called package managers, to help get a handle on the hundreds of installed packages in a system. All this goes into what’s known today as a Distribution. Which distribution should I choose? This is a hard question to answer. Each person has different preferences and needs, and not all distributions are created equal. Different distributions cater to different user preferences. In this section, I’ll provide some questions and resources to help you find a distro that’s right for you. First, let’s talk about stability. You obviously want to choose a Distro that provides stability. What defines stability though? That can som…

I would advise trying out a few different Desktop Environments (DE’s) to see what you like, and then tweak it from there. If you stay in the same ecosystem (say Debian based or Arch based) then the things you learn can be more easily carried over when trying the next DE, instead of learning things ‘the Arch way’ and having to relearn ‘the Debian way’

In my experience I have had very few catastrophic failures where I couldn’t just give up on a problem and use the browser or play a game until my mind was clear and ready to try and tackle the problem again. If at all possible, I would stay in Linux for everything except things it can’t do, such as run specific software. Anything in a browser, quite a lot of Steam games, and basic tasks like text editors and things should work flawlessly. I found that staying in the Linux environment was really helpful. I could goof off a bit and then when I thought of something I could just do a search and test things out on the spot.

I guess this could be done with a Windows VM also running, but I feel if you have that crutch there so easily accessible then old habits will pull you in to just doing everything in Windows. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with that, and a case can be made for running Windows in a VM from Linux to only use Windows exclusively, but if you are spending that much time in Windows then maybe that should be the host and Linux the guest. I’m heavily biased; I have used Linux exclusively for 5 years and trying to do that GPU passthrough shit looks waaay to complicated for me compared to the near-zero benefit for my use case. Most people here would strongly disagree with me and for their use case they may be right.

There are tons of resources for help, such as the different Linux threads here, Distrowatch for discovering distros, as well as news and even a list of recent Linux related podcast releases, the Arch Wiki is a great resource even if you don’t run Arch, Raspberry Pi Foundation has tons of learning resources like their blog, the MagPi, forums, and even a desktop build of their OS so you don’t need a Pi to start learning.

I try not to bash on Windows needlessly, but that hijacking crap where ‘they’ decide when my hardware will update, reboot, or worst of all refuse to shutdown on command was so infuriating that I can’t go back.