Whom also likes to game every now and then ;)
Edit: Thank you all for your input and suggestions! Linux Mint shall be my next OS! Though, I think I’ll give Pop!OS a look-see as well.
Wait, when is Windows 10 hitting end of life? If Windows 11 doesn’t support devices without aTPM, that’s a huge swath of insecure machines.
October 14, 2025 apparently.
Edit: could also affect as many as 240 million machines that don’t have TPM.
Yes Linux Mint. You CAN migrate later to other distros without losing your data so feel free to test others out later when you feel ready and know more about them.
You know, as much as people here say they aren’t happy with it, I haven’t seen any specific complaints that detail the problems. What bad change does windows 11 even make from windows 10?
Not saying I don’t see problems with windows, there are… A lot. But what are the new problems with windows 11?
What bad change does windows 11 even make from windows 10?
The primordial one, u need a Microsoft account to even be able to install.
The next, all the ui changes wich prioritizes “looks” over being useable.
All the new extra telemetry, etc, etc, etc.
Literally the only annoyance I had with it initially was that I preferred my taskbar at the top of the screen, and you can’t move it, at least not without janky registry hacks, on Windows 11.
I’ve since gotten over it, because for me and the vast majority of people, it’s functionally identical in almost all cases.
The only other thing I can think of that’s still a rare annoyance is that sometimes, completely at random, Windows Explorer, if you’ve just left a window open in the background for a while, will just rip focus from whatever other thing you were doing.
Yes, they’re trying to shoehorn their copilot AI thing into the UX, but that was so easy to disable and forget that I refuse to call it a real problem, myself.
Thanks for answering. Idk who downvoted you for answering a question lol
Zorin is designed with windows users in mind. It’s very polished and it helped me make the transition.
Fedora’s my favorite. It’s also the most secure without going straight to QubesOS, which is not beginner friendly.
Ubuntu
Pop OS, it’s just brilliant.
What about the fact that it’s based on Ubuntu, can you still install programs packaged as flatpaks ?
Linux Mint
+1
I personally started by playing around with Ubuntu, but it just didn’t feel intuitive coming from windows.
Went over to Mint, and was very happy,especially with drivers and gaming. I even fully removed my windows installation during this period. Having gained a better understanding of Linux, I have now moved on again.
The only real drawback of Mint is not natively supporting KDE Plasma (as they did before). And yes, you can just install it yourself, but I wouldn’t recommend a beginner who barely knows how to install Linux to attempt such an endevour.
One word of advice to OP: don’t wait till you can’t use Windows anymore. Start by dual booting and getting a hang of Linux, but with windows at the ready for any tasks you cannot yet do/feel comfortable doing on Linux. As you get a better hold of Linux, you should naturally begin to use Windows less.
The worst thing someone can do, is to jump OS without any backup or safety net. Learning to use Windows took a long time, getting a hang of new concepts and getting used to an alien environment. Now, already having a hang of “computers” (Windows), we have digital needs and expectations (E-Mail, gaming, etc.) which will need fulfilling, but many seem to forget that a different OS means different ways of doing our daily tasks and different challenges to handle.
And yes, “different”, because Windows definitely also comes with it’s own unique challenges, you just don’t see them as much when having gotten used to them.
One word of advice to OP: don’t wait till you can’t use Windows anymore. Start by dual booting and getting a hang of Linux, but with windows at the ready for any tasks you cannot yet do/feel comfortable doing on Linux. As you get a better hold of Linux, you should naturally begin to use Windows less.
Good advice here OP.
It’s great for beginners and has many guides online.
Debian Edition*
What are its advantages compared to the regular one? Genuinely interested
Lack of corporate cronyism
Debian is Debian based and regular Mint is Ubuntu LTS based and use theirs respective repos (not a big difference for the average user). While currently the non Debian version is the main and recommended version, due some controversial changes in Ubuntu people want to move away from Ubuntu and the devs have considered making the Debian edition the main one.
Ubuntu is Debian based as well. But yes, it’s 100% about avoiding the shoehorned in canonical shenanigans.
How does Mint compares to Fedora? I decided to finally switch almost a month ago, and went with Fedora because it seemed like the best solution for general development, and I really like their Toolbox. However, I’ve been running into some issues mostly regarding gaming and NVIDIA drivers, and in general getting some applications to work on Fedora was more painful than apparently in most of the other systems.
So, should I switch, or will the Wine/Steam/Lutris experience be mostly the same on Mint as it is on Fedora?
Mandriva
yeah, I’m just here to shill Zorin OS https://zorin.com/os/
Mint is my go-to linux newbie distro suggestion.
Linux veteran of 20+ years here. I use Mint on my desktop.
Because we too appreciate things working out of the box.
You should try Linux Mint. It’s a good distribution for new Linux users. It’s easy to understand, has a good community with plenty of solutions for all types of problems and it is not too specific.
Gaming with Steam on Linux works without any major issues except when it comes to games that intentionally made run on Windows only due to their DRM. I suggest using the Flatpak variant of Steam so you won’t clutter your system with too many weird dependencies.
I don’t know about flatpak. I have a high tolerance for annoyance but configuring flatpak permissions right was annoying.
I just installed it and never changed any permissions. Maybe you confuse it with AppImage?
Ubuntu, mint, fedora, Manjaro are all pretty much in the same class, and it’s largely irrelevant which you pick. They’re all supported, have decent UI for most of what you want to do, and have good documentation for how to do it.
It’s not too difficult to change distros without having to move all your data once you’re switched, so it doesn’t matter too much, and you’ll probably try a couple before finding the one with the best menus for you.
I would recommend endeavor over manjaro. Manjaro has issues with the aur.
And I’d recommended if either of these are your first foray into linux, then dual boot with a windows install still functioning (because a noobie will break arch once or twice)
Manjaro has issues with the aur.
Not this again. Please stop parroting this, it’s ridiculous and it only says “I don’t know how AUR works”.
I’ll second Mint. It’s got a similar layout to Windows, so eases you in, and everything just works.
I’d second Mint as well (I’ve used it for many years now). Out of interest, what games are you thinking of? Most of them should work out of the box, but with some there can be issues especially with multiplayer ones.
