Transitioning from Windows to Linux

General Discussions
#1

I’ve been thinking about installing Linux on my computer since Windows 10 is rather slow, even on a brand new laptop with good specs. Those of you that use Linux as their primary OS (or have used Linux), is it worth it? Do the speed and customization benefits outweigh the low support for software and games? Is it easier to develop software on it? How about casual activities: browsing the web, checking email, watching movies/tv shows, etc? I come from a mostly Windows background, how different will doing all that on Linux be?

I’m looking at elementary OS as it’s aesthetically pleasing and faster than Windows on my machine (when I tried it out from a USB stick). I also tried Ubuntu, however performance was worse compared to elementary and overall I disliked it. What other distros should I look into?

#2

Try Mint out. It won’t be faster than Windows 10 though. You might find it’s a bit of a pain in many respects to be honest… stuff often tends to not quite work right on Linux, like the famous multiple sound processing backends for Linux (“Let the user choose in which manner their sound will be broken”).

Cas :slight_smile:

#3

I use Ubuntu. Software development (and other day to day tasks like word processing or photo editing) are identical between the OSs as I use the same open source software on both environments. I don’t play computer games much so I don’t care for the limited availability on Linux.

#4

Mint is the first and only Linux I find tolerable on the client side since I tried out Linux in 1992…
Even installing the graphics driver worked out of the box with a button click.
However, Windows, Linux, OSX… each sucks on its own way

#5

Hi

I advise you to try Mageia Linux 5 with KDE, it’s less disturbing for newcomers. You can run numerous Windows games with PlayOnWindows. You can go on watching TV, movies, … Popcorn Time works correctly under GNU Linux. There are only a few Web TVs that use crappy technologies only working under Windows, for example Silverlight (I failed in using Moonlight). If you already use Firefox and Thunderbird, you’ll be able to use them under GNU Linux too. You won’t be forced to use an antivirus scanner except to avoid contaminating other Windows machines, it means you’ll have much more CPU time for you :slight_smile: If you need some help with the UEFI, let me know, I had to install Mageia Linux on a laptop sold with Windows 8 and I wrote an article about that.

Mageia Linux is still able to support my old computers bought between 2004 and 2008 :slight_smile:

#6

+1 for Ubuntu

I’d say one big difference when switching to Linux is that your mindset should change too. Many things are indeed broken, and will require some fiddling* to get running, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll end up making it work for your specific needs.

For example, I’m using an old Ubuntu LTS distribution, on an old “convertible” laptop (screen can swivel around and go into tablet mode), and I managed, through some scripting, to set up buttons to properly rotate the screen as needed, as well as fixing issues with the touch screen support (and if the HP sensors were any good, I’d have managed to have the screen rotate automatically, but they don’t even work properly on windows).

*Note: Fiddling does include changing to a different distribution if needed.

#7

Thanks for all the responses!

I’m typing this from Mint atm, and it’s not so bad. Performance is actually better than Windows, but I haven’t installed any applications yet so there’s nothing to run in the background to slow it down. The UI is easy to use and surprisingly customizable too. After playing around with it some more I’ll try out Mageia 5.

As for Ubuntu, though faster than Windows, it’s the slowest of the distros I’ve tried so far. When playing with it, I couldn’t see myself using it everyday. I might give it another go since several of you support it.
@Oskuro I haven’t thought about little tweaks like that, good point. My laptop can also fold into a tablet (the screen can rotate 360 degrees), so I’d have to also disable the keyboard/trackpad when rotating the screen as well.

I’ll come to some decision eventually. :smiley:

#8

I’m sorta suspicious by what you’re referring to as “fast” here, as you’re running more or less the same code on the same hardware when it comes to the difference between Mint and Ubuntu.

Cas :slight_smile:

#9

I should’ve clarified, I mean fast not only as in speed but time it takes to get a certain action done. For example, I could install Chrome on Mint using the download directly from Google’s website, but I had to use Ubuntu’s software center to install Chrominium (Ubuntu would not execute the download) and that took more steps, hence why it feels faster.

Windows however is actually slower, as it constantly stutters when typing or moving the mouse, and opening the file explorer, action bar, settings app, etc take more time than necessary. None of the distros I’ve tried had these problems, but each have different methods of doing the same task, so one can feel faster or slower than another based on the number of steps needed. There are a lot of similarities between the distros though, so it’s basically down to ‘which of these is easier to use’.

#10

Hm your Windows issues sound more like driver issues to me.

Cas :slight_smile:

#11

I updated all my drivers after updating to Windows 10, but it did nothing. The pointer stutters with both the built-in trackpad and wireless mouse I have. I don’t have an extra keyboard, but I assume the keyboard does similarly. Oddly enough, if the task manager is open and focused, the mouse and keyboard stop stuttering… then stutter again when the task manager is unfocused. Windows is weird.

#12

That isn’t true. I am running Ubuntu and I’m using Google Chrome. Just downloaded and installed it like you did.

#13

It threw an error when I tried to install it… Not a big deal, sorry for the misleading information. Maybe Ubuntu isn’t so bad after all. :smiley:

#14

Ah yes, forgot about that. I can remember the installation throwing an error for me too. But I didn’t install it using Ubuntu’s Software Center because I was aware of this. I did it using the terminal. Something you really gotta do a lot unfortunately. For a basic user like my grandma, Ubuntu would be fine. I even know some idiots from Amsterdam (I’m Dutch by the way) who are using Ubuntu so it cannot be that hard! :smiley:

What Mint probably has and Ubuntu doesn’t are the libraries needed to install Google Chrome. It sometimes is a pain to install certain software because of missing libraries though, but http://askubuntu.com really helps you out a lot because it isn’t always straightforward. I asked a question once and I got a perfect answer. What I really think is annoying is the default amazon application. Also when I search stuff I also got online results and Amazon products. I’m not interested in that shit! lol

#15

That makes sense. Thanks for the link, if I end up installing Ubuntu I’ll definitely use it. :smiley: One of the first things I did was remove Amazon from the launcher and forgot about it. I didn’t pay much attention to advertisement in the search results. Oh well, Ubuntu has to make money somehow, right?

#16

I run slackware. Often people think slack users are hard core or something and its hard to use. This is really not true. The main reason i use it is that if i click install everything. I get a fully usable system in about 20min out of the box with no issues. This is at least the case for the last 3 laptops and last 10 years of desktops.

Also it has far less of the dependency hell linux distributions seem to try and replicate from windows. Slack doesn’t suddenly want to download 2 gigs of updates every 3 days.

However less people use slack than say Ubuntoo (How do you spell that). Also far more new linux users use Ubuntoo making the forums more likely to give help that will in fact help if your new. Sometimes we assume a level of knowledge in our user-base.

Either way you can try before you buy with liveCD options and duel booting. No need to dump windows if that is mostly working for you.

#17

VirtualBox first would be my route. I’ve never had anything but bad luck with Unpoopoo.

#18

Linux Mint is nice.
But I need games and Adobe Suite

#19

Arch.

#20

I’ve used Linux as my primary platform for over a decade, and these days don’t find anything I need to use Windows for except the occasional testing. I’ve been using Ubuntu LTS for the last 4 years, mainly because I got fed up of faffing, and in general it just works. Unity is worth persevering with - it’s actually a really productive keyboard focused UI. Mind you, elementary OS does look nice, and is Ubuntu based.

I would definitely pick an LTS (long term support) edition though unless you like installing your OS every few months. I used to use Mint for a few years, but switched away because found their approach to LTS was more like long-term unsupported.

That sounds odd. Are you sure they were the same Ubuntu version? Mind you I use Ubuntu Software Centre for one thing, and that’s installing Synaptic to replace it! :wink:

Is Win 10 that much of a speed increase?! On my last 3 laptops Ubuntu has massively outpaced Win 7 or 8 for performance. Would love it if they finally have something that performs decently! :slight_smile:

2008 called and wants their bug report back! You are aware that Windows has at least as many audio backends, right? :stuck_out_tongue: