this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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Thinking about making the switch and need some advice. (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 weeks ago by TJDetweiler@lemmy.ca to c/linux@lemmy.world
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Hi all,

As the title states, I'm interested in making the switch from Windows to Linux. I know absolutely nothing about Linux, other than that fact that there are distros that exist under Linux, and Linux itself isn't an OS, or so I think.

I have 2 laptops and my main home office PC, which I use for my job and gaming.

My plan is to switch one of my laptops to a Linux distro, and test it out. This laptops only purpose is web browsing, so I figure getting Linux set up to do something as simple as opening a browser is something I am capable of.

Down the road, once I've sort of learned on this laptop, I may work my way up to using other distros and dual booting my main PC. Who knows, maybe I'll even switch over completely prior to Windows 11 rolling out.

I've heard getting games to work with Linux can sometimes be a hassle, and can require some fiddling, so I won't be doing gaming on a Linux distro until I feel quite comfortable.

So with the above context, I'm looking for recommendations on a distro I should use, any guides that any of you may have found helpful, and generally any insight on things I may need to be aware of.

I am fairly tech savvy (probably not compared to most of you), and am not afraid of tinkering with things until they work. Any help would be muchly appreciated, and if this isn't the correct place to post, please let me know and point me in the right direction.

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[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

Just two cents on "downloading". System setup and programs are basically all from your distro's package manager with sometimes a couple of things from GitHub if you have particular needs.

For the rest of stuff (media / files / more) there is no windows defender and I don't personally try to chase down antivirus. You can totally get malicious stuff out there so maybe don't click pop ups and download everything the pirate bay has to offer, but security is more baked into the Linux permission structure and user space. Find a guide and do it "the Linux way" if you decide you need to go set up deluge or transmission with a private tracker to get some Linux ISOs for personal use.

Some people do a lot of sweating over the security of the system, but I would generally say if you need that... you'll know it. Sure a VPN is a good idea (I don't use one for anything), good permissions are important (I don't play the immutable OS game), and encryption may have a place for you (or maybe not, not everyone needs a luks filesystem system encrypted at rest); but you're making a setup that you can use / prefer to use. Make your own call, basically anything on the beaten track is safe enough and sane enough.