1y ago

Beginner's Guides for Switching to Linux?

Hello!

I'm interested in moving my personal computer to running Linux but I'm not sure where to even begin. As background, I am a casual user and have a desktop with hardware from around 2014 running Windows. I am hoping to setup a NAS drive as a media server in the next year or so, offloading all of the files currently on the Windows desktop and have been interested in open source software such as Jellyfin. I also mostly game on an Xbox and Nintendo Switch, but have used the desktop in the past for gaming such as with an Oculus Rift Headset and some Steam games so not huge on getting games working on the computer. But, I do sometimes torrent using the computer so don't want to lose that capability (especially with upkeep for the media server).

With all of that said, I didn't know how to get started with choosing what Linux OS to use, setting it up, backing up my files to make sure I can use them with the new OS, etc. Making the switch seems to have great options for customization and "choosing a distro that works for you", but I don't know what would work for me or what will be user friendly for a beginner.

Any tips or pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

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191 comments

Install Linux Mint, whatever flavor you like the look of
Figure out how to install whatever you need
Enjoy!
Don't worry about customization, just figure out how to get your stuff installed and go from there. Once everything is working as you want, then try customizing.
- How do y'all get past the Nvidia Optimus issues? All the Windows machines in my house have Nvidia graphics, which means at least the laptops have Optimus. I would love to move my wife's laptop over to Linux when Windows 10 goes EOL, but I had a work laptop with Optimus that ran Ubuntu, and the thing was a nightmare. I didn't really mind because it was a work laptop. But it caused so many issues coming in and out of sleep that I just disabled sleep altogether. I had horrible screen tearing issues. The GPU performance was bad (probably because I had to use the open source driver to fix the screen tearing issues). It was just a horrible experience that I could look past, but my wife can't.
  
  Linux Mint has the Additional Driver section on Settings. It'll provide you with options. For your graphic driver, select the recommended one, which would most likely be the proprietary driver for nvidia. Hit OK, and restart.
  
  But the proprietary Nvidia driver doesn't work for Optimus at all. It's super buggy.
  
  What hardware do you have? I've tested it to work on Dell Latitude E6430 (NVS 5200) as well as Thinkpad W530 (K1000M & K2000M) with version 390 driver.
  
  I had a Dell Latitude for work. Idk which model exactly. But this is a pretty well-known and well-documented problem. I'm not the only person that ran into it. It's discussed on this community pretty frequently.
  I'm fine tweaking things to get it working, but my wife is not, and the average user is not. My wife just wants a laptop that works, but Windows is pretty shit these days and is getting worse by the day. I'm not sure how much longer it will "work" by her standards.
  https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA_Optimus
  https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comments/11zw585/nvidia_driver_will_not_wake_monitor_after_sleep/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1
  https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/systemds-suspend-then-hibernate-not-working-in-nvidia-optimus-laptop/213690
  https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/not-coming-back-from-suspend/176446
  https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/screen-tearing-optimus-laptop-asus-tuf-a15-2021/198361
  
  I guess it can be hit or miss with nvidia. One potential solution is to disable the Optimus and run the nvidia entirely.
  
  I might end up doing that for her. That would kill battery though, right?
  I can probably make a bootable USB drive and try it on her laptop for a while and see how it works before I blow out Windows.
  
  Depending on your need battery life might not be a concern.
  Yes, USB drive is a good way to try it out.
  
  I just tried it actually. It was working fine until I installed the Nvidia drivers, and now I just get a black screen when it boots.
  I wanted to try openSuse Tumbleweed to have something a little more up to date than Ubuntu. But I'm bored of fiddling with this right now, so I'm going to come back to this later.
  
  that means one of this things
  the nvidia gpu wasn't activated (i.e. only the integrated gpu) until the driver was installed
  the open source nouveau driver actually works well on that system
  i did find the nvidia driver setup on opensuse tumbleweed quite a hassle for some reason, despite everything else working flawlessly.
  it would be good to know the hardware you're using because it would tell the level of support you'd get. one of the reasons i picked my w530 is because its k2000 gpu is well supported by both open source & proprietary ones.
- Thank you! When people say "customizing" (throughout this thread and others) what are they referencing? For instance, just the desktop layout/formatting, or the way the files are structured, or the kinds of software they are using for tasks?
  
  The answer to that varies by person. But when I say it, I mean doing large changes, like switching your desktop environment (e.g. GNOME -> KDE or a tiling window manager) or trying out custom kernels (e.g. using a different scheduler, like linux-ck, linux-clear, etc). So I guess a little of the first and a little of the last.

191 comments