Linux

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Just made the switch to Linux as a lifetime Windows user. (lemmy.zip)

submitted 2 days ago by AfricanGrey@lemmy.zip to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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It just works.

I'm kind of shocked how easy it was to set up. I used ventoy to make a bootable iso of Linux Mint Cinnamon on my Mini PC (Ser5 Pro), and I had zero issues with anything. Ventoy even plays nice with secure boot.

Where's the setup?

There really wasn't any. I booted into Mint, synced my keyboard/trackpad combo and my earbuds then was off to the races. It detected all my hardware including my Elgato HD60 X without any steps. The only thing I had to work around was downloading the deb build of Discord Canary to enable audio output in Discord streams since it was only recently added to Discord's dev/beta build (Canary).

Speaking of which Elgato's capture software doesn't support Linux (shocker), so I simply installed OBS, pointed the audio/video to the capture card, and it worked. Easy.

My Use Case

I have the aforementioned mini PC mainly to be jockied by a capture card for streaming Nintendo Switch to Discord. Aside from that I use it as a productivity machine in my living room for internet browsing (omg webtv!) and Kodi. The Ser5 uses an AMD Ryzen 7 5850u with integrated graphics, 16GB DDR4, and a 500gb M.2. All of the ports, HDMI audio out, etc were automatically detected by Mint.

Conclusion

Linux Mint feels premium compared to Windows 11. It's snappier, more modular, and offers a Linux GUI that's familiar/easy to use. Plus now I have the benefit of no preinstalled spyware or bloatware. Feels good to actually own my computer.

Thanks for reading!

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[–] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 days ago

You'll probably be installing programs and changing a lot of settings over the next few weeks. Make sure you use TimeShift (pre-installed on Mint) to make system snapshots. (It works like System Restore on Windows. You can even run it from your Linux Live flash drive if you mess up something so badly that you can't boot from the hard drive).

LibreOffice comes pre-installed and you can use Thunderbird for email. And if you used Steam to play games on Windows, you're in for a nice surprise. Steam has a native Linux client and it uses Proton / Wine to let you play your Windows games on Linux. It's handled everything I've thrown at except for a couple of older games.