Why in the World: Linux

Community Blog
, ,
1

Why would you, potentially new user, want to use linux? This is intended as a one off for newbies. I'd mostly like this to be an "What about this that and the other" and general newbie question thread if you more experienced users don't mind.

Linux is an amazing thing. My take on it is if something breaks in windows, you're fucked. You cannot fix it you just have to reinstall. In some cases you can fix things (like if a random space goes missing you can readdress it in disk management), but in my experience I haven't been able to fix anything. So I use linux as my main desktop.

Now what a lot of users ask on here is "but can I gam?" Yes you can user! Steam holds a lot of games that you can play. And if you don't want to use steam, have a hand at wine and play non-native games! I'm sure you'll do fine :P Theres a lot of reasons to use linux, not only to play games, but to have over all control of your system and learn how it works.

With gaming, people also ask about linux even running on their hardware. "What GPU should I have? Is this CPU good? How much hard drive space?" If you have an AMD GPU you'll be fine, but nvidia cards are good too! If you have a pentium 4 or an i7 4770K your system will be smooth as butter no matter what (depending on the system of course). It used to be a problem of drivers didn't work for everything out of the box. This is not the case anymore as a lot of hardware works now. Even the PS4 :P

"So... But what system should I use? Is Red Hat good? My grampa used it... Someone told me Arch was bad and that I should use gentoo?"

Honestly, starting out, you should use ubuntu mate. I say that because it is a simple system with few crashes compared to normal ubuntu, and the system is easy to learn on. Gentoo and Arch, pure, are not good systems to start on in my opinion. I am an archer myself, but I am also very comfortable with the command line. Arch and Gentoo are built from scratch and there is a learning curve.

"But I don't wanna use CLI!!! Is spoopy!"

No worries! Very rarely do you even need to. In ubuntu you get what is basically the app store to predate apple. You can also download packages off the net to use and install!

"But what about all my windows software! I need this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and...."

Look I get it. We all do. You have a really, REALLY, REALLY, lot of shit that you have used since you were 5 and running XP (or dos), but there are many things that are probably better than what you have access to now. If you are a video editor try out KDenLive, Lightworks, or DaVinci resolve! If you write a lot I recommend WPS Office or LibreOffice! You also have access to the google software if none of the office stuff works for you. Browser? Trust me you DON'T need internet explorer. Chorme, vivaldi, firefox, we got it. Plenty of torrent apps, plenty of anything you need. Might need a little research in that but you will find your way.

"Why does Ubuntu Mate look differente from Kubuntu / Why dosen't it look like windows?"

I recommend Mate because its extremely customizeable and is a good way to get your feet wet in Desktop Environments. Ubuntu Mate uses Mate as its desktop environment. Ubuntu uses unity. Kubuntu uses KDE. Some other DE's are:

KDE-Neon
AmiWM
PekWM
OpenBox
XFCE
Budgie
Gnome

There are MANY MANY MANY DE's all that are pretty easy to customize to your liking.

"But what if it breaks?"

Ask here! There are plenty of linux users around we can probably help you fix it.

That all being said, I hope you have questions or are ready to take the leap into linux to see what happens. If you don't want to commit completely, get a VM app like VirtualBox and try it out in there. Have fun with it!

3 Likes
2

Good write up though ;D

4 Likes
3

Nice post man, hopefully this'll bring more people to trying Linux. I've found I talk more with people about why they WON'T try it, instead of at least testing it out and giving it a fair chance.

  • AK
1 Like
4

Its a one off thread that I will send to noobies who are asking about it as a reference and over all microguide. Not really intended for the majority of the forum :P

1 Like
5

I can delete my sassy-ass comment if you'd rather. lol.

6

Nah I just read back through my OP and I wasn't sure if that was clear enough lol.

1 Like
7

not anything against you, but you still haven't explained WHY someone would want to use Linux. you've just kind of stated that you "can't fix things on Windows" [when obviously you can, and the linux filesystem is nowhere near as straightforward as Windows' in terms of new user understanding and error correcting.] and assumed that was all the explanation needed. the statement that the software alternatives are "probably better" than Windows equivalents isn't really true either. in fact, that's probably my main gripe with Linux, and others probably have the same feeling. a large chunk of Linux software works, as in "does job A", and probably works better if you know what you're doing, but we need to be honest. some of it is NOT better. some of it is downright awful imho. a better choice of words would be DIFFERENT. Linux software is DIFFERENT. you'll find lots of software available on Linux that Windows doesn't have, and that should be highlighted without trying to market it. people know when they're being sold something you love and enjoy, trust me i do it with music all the time. that doesn't mean you should oversell it, though.

and i feel like i'm being the nickpicky cunt coming in on a high horse and ruining the good feeling you get from helping people, but i'm not trying to. i just recognise you're passionate about Linux and want other people to try it, but we'll get a lot farther if we give people both sides of the argument.

8

I agree that there are definitely things that are better on Windows, not so much in terms of raw functionality, but to me at least, it seems the UI and initial workflow of many windows programs is polished more out of the box. The experienced user will, however, grow tired of the non-customizability, and integrateability with the rest of the system, especially when they have tried what it is like to have total control. This is my experience at least, and is as much a product of the programs I use and the functionality I need, as it is not a review of every and all windows and linux system bases and programs.

1 Like