So I’m building a new computer before the end of the year and lemmy is obviously pushing me towards Linux.
I am not computer savvy, I have a family member that will help me set up my PC, but I do not want to be calling/messaging them every day when I want to open a program.
Basically my question comes down to: can I operate a Linux PC these days without needing to troubleshoot or type code.
I use my computer about once a week for a few hours I would say, so any time spent troubleshooting is time wasted.
Thanks!
EDIT: since a lot of people are asking what programs I typically use, I’ll just list my most used programs.
Word, Excel, ect(I’m fine with alternatives)
Spotify
Gimp (would have been a make or break, so I’m glad it’s supported)
Brave browser (browser is a browser)
Steam
Discord
I would say that while I could figure out how the kernels work, I’m at a point with computers these days where I don’t have the time. My priorities fall with a seamless daily experience. If I have the time to figure something out I can, but ideally my day to day usage being unbotherd is what I’m after.
A lot of the comments so far have been helpful! I’m definitely going to give Linux a fair shot with my new build, probably start with Mint.
It could not be simpler.
My grandfather in law kept getting scammed and installing viruses while on Windows. I installed Linux Mint on his desktop last year, setup automatic updates, created a non admin account for him, changed a few easy configurations to hide the technical stuff that appears when you turn the computer on, and he fucking loves it.
Keep in mind getting this man to login to Netflix on his TV is a minimum 30 minute long phone call. One time, we had to send people to check on him because his phone was off for 3 days straight; he put it on airplane mode and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.
He has had 0, yes, exactly 0, problems with his computer since I installed Linux Mint. It’s faster, to point where he noticed and commented on it, and he finds it easier to use than Windows, which has been on every computer he has ever owned.
He brags to anyone who will give him the time of day how much he loves it.
I promise you, it’s really that easy.
I feel like Linux is good for power users or users like your grandfather who are not very tech savvy. The issues arise with users savvy enough to get themselves into trouble but not enough to understand how to fix it or how to do a slightly more advanced task.
Same experience with my relatives. I had some family whose Macbooks were no longer able to update (for Apple forced obsolescence reasons). They run Mint now, and have never had a single problem since I first set them up.
Well, one of them called me because they couldn’t figure out how to attach a file to an email… But that problem would have been identical on Mac OS.
Yes it is. Pick a newbie friendly distribution. Say Ubuntu.
IMHO Windows is only “user friendly” because it’s preinstalled on most PC’s.
User friendliness comes with experience.
I assume you’re talking about Desktop Environments. Yes, of course. KDE and Gnome rival MacOS as far as usability goes. The better part is that other software development groups port their software over to Linux as well and make it as seamless as possible.
People run into confusion here when people flood the comments on user questions like this, so let me shut that down right now.
If you need something that is a straight Desktop Environment, get a distro with KDE or Gnome, and a known OS that will have a lot of user base getting questions and answers if you even run into any.
Fedora or Ubuntu. Don’t listen to anyone arguing for their preferred favorites.
Don’t listen to performance comments.
You want a solid, no issues, not needing to look for help kind of distro. It’s those two, no question, and they both have KDE and Gnome variants.
That’s really about it.
I would maybe add Linux Mint to that list, but otherwise you’re spot on. Fedora and Ubuntu are the easiest and most robust systems for novice computer users.
Linux Mint is Ubuntu with specific changes.
That’s how all distros work. They exist so that you don’t have to make changes yourself.
Depends. If someone is gaming with new hardware, don’t use a distro that doesn’t update the kernel quickly and regularly.
Almost every problem with hardware on mint is solved by going through the process of updating the kernel or switching to a distro with up to date libraries.
It’s fine for a lot of people, but it doesn’t “just work” outside of the use case of only browsing the internet and word documents.
This is coming from someone who used mint for 4 years. There was about a dozen times where the software on the software center was so out of date that it simply didn’t work and I had to resort often to using random ppa’s which often broke other things. Definitely not user friendly.
That being said, Cinnamon is probably one of the most user friendly DEs for people switching from window. It is very nice.
Fair points. I’ve only ever taken Mint for a quick spin and that was a decade ago. I just see it constantly recommended as one of the most user-friendly distros, thus the maybe recommendation.
Personally, I’m all in on Fedora Atomic for my hosts and (mostly) Arch in my containers.
Fully agree with this. There will be a slight learning curve since it will be different from what your used to, but it’s friendly enough to figure out.
If you know the windows program you want to use just search something like “Linux alternative for x” (sometimes there is specific KDE or Gnome progs)
Only thing I might add would be potentially Bluefin. It is Fedora with Gnome, except Atomic. It markets itself as:
The best of both worlds: the reliability and ease of use of a Chromebook, with the power of a GNOME desktop.
It’s been fantastic for me with automatic updates and everything installed through flathub so you don’t bork your system with any misconfigured installs.
Also: should you wish for something with Fedora literally in the name, Fedora Silverblue and Fedora Kionite are the upstream—published by the Fedora Project—versions of Bluefin that use GNOME and KDE, respectively.
Either could be an excellent choice should you wish for
Atomic
The whole system is updated in one go, and an update will not apply if anything goes wrong, meaning you will always have a working computer.
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Well this is literally Fedora, and I offered it for consideration, not a recommendation. This seems a tad hostile.
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Stop using Brave, people.
I agree on the stop using brave part, but if your blog starts with this argument, your opinion piece means shit
Why was appointing Eich as CEO so controversial? It’s because he donated $1,000 in support of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, which was a proposed amendment to California’s state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Eich wrote a blog post defending himself in 2012, when the donation was initially discovered, where did not apologize and denied the donation made him a bigot
I also agree with you. Please don’t be shy with the downvotes
IMO it’s the best (desktop) Chromium-based browser. Which means it’s a bad browser but there are a lot of worse options.
I’ll be slightly contrarian to others and give a different perspective: you may find yourself hitting some roadblocks, I’ll try to explain.
I set up Linux Mint for my elderly parents. The key thing is, I set it up for them, functioning as the administrator for that machine, making sure they had a non admin account and configured their desktop to only show the shortcuts they cared about (firefox).
It worked fine, and I only got calls once every few months. They got scared if some popup occured, or if they accidentally saved something to their desktop that they wanted to get rid of. I don’t know if that really meets the definition of seamless, and I don’t know if you’d even consider those problems.
The other thing that can happen, is hardware interfaces. I know that you’ve listed out your use case. I’m just saying that if your birthday rolls around and someone buys you a 3d printer where you “just plug it in”, you’re going to be in for a long troubleshooting day, if it isn’t natively supported.
With Steam games, you can often get away with enabling proton, but… Small issues like being able to select multiple drive folders have sent me down long troubleshooting avenues as well. And when I use the word troubleshoot, I’m inevitably referring to the command line.
Lots of people are encouraging you to try, and you can make that decision. I just want to toss out that it might not be seamless. But I don’t think Windows is seamless either. It’s just what most people are used to.
I don’t think Windows is seamless either. It’s just what most people are used to.
This. I’ve never used Windows 11. Apparently, they are removing the Control Panel. If I can’t figure out how to fix a problem that comes up, I’m going to have to search for the answer and test out solutions. This is no different from Linux.
Hardware support is also two-sided.
For example: game controllers.
On Linux, any first-party Switch, Playstation, or Xbox controller works out of the box. Most 3rd party controllers also work out of the box. Even Wii remotes work once paired over bluetooth (and the pointing works but takes some setup).
On windows, xbox controllers work out of the box, except for very old ones which require a driver. 3rd party pc controllers will tend to work out of the box (or sometimes with a driver), but wired Switch and Playstation controllers need hacky workarounds to work or to get full functionality. Wireless controllers can often be paired with bluetooth, but I’ve had hit and miss luck with windows and first party Sony/Nintendo controllers
It’s better to ask which distro is dummy proof. Some are made for noobs and windows users, others are not, and they’re all based on “Linux”.
Mint, Debian, and Fedora are all good starter options, and all are made to get stuff done without having to use the command line.
Debian without the CLI?
…What?
Debian is the only one there I haven’t actually tried myself as a daily driver, so idk if using the terminal is necessary. I’ve just heard it’s solid and I assumed all normal user operations can be done via GUI in gnome or KDE like you can with Fedora.
As a Debian daily-driver with occasional
systemdproblems, …not really.
But like, this should be very possible.
Start with Mint and use flatpaks. You will be all set.
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Dumb user friendly (having no particular background): yes
Dumb user friendly (having Windows background): no
Windows knowledge makes learning other OS harder because Windows is the weirdest OS out there.
Eh, in terms of UI and shortcuts, Plasma is very close. If you sit a Windows poweruser in front of Plasma, I’m quite confident they will feel right at home.
That’s actually how I got introduced to Linux. Then I discovered the Settings app. Fast forward: EndeavourOS btw.
Everyone is saying yes.
They are wrong.
You will absolutely have to troubleshoot in order to figure out how to do what you want to do.
Linux is different than windows or macos and you’re gonna have to gain an understanding (however dumbed down you might describe it) of those differences in order to use the computer.
If you can get over that hump of understanding then I think you’ll be fine.
They are wrong.
The sad truth. Enough said. Linux is still not there, as much as we’d like to pretend it is. And it’s especially not there for dumb users.
Dumb user here. I completely disagree with this.
I was using Ubuntu for a few years, now I’m on Fedora. I don’t really know how to do anything. For my needs it’s just very easy.
Maybe my needs just aren’t sophisticated enough for me to encounter all those problems I’m supposed to be having. But I’ve been using it for years and my experience is that it really just works.
While there’s a little bit of getting acclimated to slightly different programs for the same tasks, I kind of imagine sophisticated needs primarily comes down to hardware. A company making some sort of computer hardware doohickey might design and test and provide support for something with Windows/Mac in mind, and maybe for other operating systems they’re not cooperative with documenting support, under the mindset that it would reveal trade secrets or decrease shareholder value in some other way. Linux support then comes from other means like reverse engineering. This could mean that it will take time before all the kinks are ironed out, or if the product was short-lived the linux community might not care enough to have someone volunteer to keep up with support. Common, time-tested hardware will have good support. Plugging in some old printer that was discontinued shortly after launch will be more of a crapshoot.
Yeah. I’ve double checked that my last few laptops worked well with Linux before buying them. But I don’t buy very flashy technology, so it was never really any question.
My printer is from Brother, and it’s just plug and play. At work it’s all web print and has been since I started working for pay, really.
I’m just speculating on reasons behind why people might feel it’s still not user-friendly. It was a pretty easy transition for me too, and that was years ago.
Yeah, I think you’re right, and I think that’s exactly why it’s a blind spot for me.
On several occasions I’ve also lent an old laptop to friends when theirs broke, and all of them ended up using Linux for months no questions asked. They later went back to Windows because of the Word grammar check, but other than that it just worked for them.
But of course, if you can’t get your drivers to work it’ll be a completely different experience.
Another dumb user here Been using Arch for a year now, things just works without much tinkering… mostly
If you’re ok Arch I guess it at least signals a willingness to learn! I would never dare to go there haha.
I’ve got to agree with this. I love Linux and have run it on my servers for years. That said, I’ve got Mint on my laptop and tried to print an image over wifi at a friend’s place and could not for the life of me get it to print properly.
For the most part things do just work, but there are a lot more “obscure” scenarios that are handled correctly in windows but not Linux.
I also find that when things go wrong on Linux, they are harder to fix. I’ve had several times I’ve had to deal with circular dependency hell to get something to install properly. I did eventually get those problems resolved, but it was often a single person having a tangential problem that hinted me to how to solve it.
Edit: I think if your usage patterns are straight forward enough, it is by far and away the better choice. If you do the same stuff all the time, it’ll pretty much never break, which is not something I could say about windows. So for OP, it sounds like it would be a good fit.
I consider myself a reasonably tech literate user and tried to set up dual boot on my pc using a whole separate ssd just for Linux to be safe. Installing it went fine but GRUB wouldn’t let me boot into windows, somehow the instalation nuked my windows boot partition and no amount of repairing would work, I had to completely reinstall Windows and now I’m seriously worried of trying Linux again.
That sucks. I’ve done that a lot of times by either not understanding what I was doing or fat fingering some decision.
If you do decide to try again, tag me and I’ll set up a vm environment similar to yours and walk you through any confusing steps.
Dude, your wrong. Not what OP was asking about.
Desktop light usage only. DFQOH and don’t come back.
DFQOH
I can’t work out what this an acronym for. Please help!
So you are saying that dumbs can’t read? Because hey, that is all it takes to troubleshoot a problem on linux.
Thus, even your grandmother can “do google” nowadays.
Hi there, I use nearly all the stuff you do and I am on Linux for like 2-3 years now.
I use PopOS. PopOS is a distro with a user interface that differs a bit from windows. But you will get used to it, its not like on Linux “up” is “down”.
PopOS has a lot of programs preinstalled, that help “normal users”. This includes drivers for Nvidia-GPUs and Flatpak which is a way to install software on all Linux-Systems opposed to the normal package managers, distros ship with, Flarpak e.g. has Spotify and Discord. But other distros might ship it too and you can definitely install it later on.
What you should definitely learn to use is the software-center (or App store or whatever some distros call it). This is a central place, where most software can be found and installed. Also all software installed through it can be updated here. So it’s in a way like steam for all the non-games.
I currently use (natively, so no web app or smth):
- Spotify
- Steam
- Discord
- Libreoffice (instead of MS Office)
- Gimp
- Brave (as backup browser to test if it’s Firefox’ fault)
Libreoffice is enough for day to day usage, if you are no power user with VBA-Scripts or mayor macros.
Games work mostly well, but as others have said, look at ProtonDB to check your specific Steam-Games. I mostly play single player titles or PvE stuff without the need for anticheat. Nearly all those titles work.
If a game is not on steam, you can check lutris. Lutris has install scripts for a lot of Battle.net games as well as GoG among others. There is also the heroic games launcher, but you don’t need to know all that yet.
PS: The great thing about Lemmy is that you don’t have to ask your friend, you can ask here.
PPS: If you plan to game on your PC, may I suggest some games? (All work well for me, of course)
Dwarf fortress - is a city builder/sims-like game, on steam for money or on the official website for free, but with less art.
Core Keeper - a small Indy game about digging, crafting and fighting
Deep Rock Galactic - a first person shooter with mining and fighting bugs
Factorio -
anTHE automation gameDisco Elysium - probably the best RPG/Detective game ever
The Long journey home - a space exploration rogue-like
Oh wonderful! Thank you for the suggestions!
to test if it’s Firefox’ fault
Firefox follows web standards the most, but because most people use Chromium-based browsers web developers make websites for Chrome instead for the web.
I do know that, that’s why I use FF.
But the sentence would be a lot longer if O wrote something along the lines of “To try if the website doesn’t adhere to the official web standards instead of googles own, which brave uses, since it (like most browsers nowadays) is built on top of chromium unlike Firefox, which uses the gecko engine to render websites.”
I don’t think any Operating System is
(dumb)user friendlyyet.Mint should be pretty easy to get used to, solid choice IMO, as for the programs
Word, Excel, ect(I’m fine with alternatives)
If you’re fine with libreoffice, no problems
Spotify
Don’t know.
Gimp (would have been a make or break, so I’m glad it’s supported)
No problems
Brave browser (browser is a browser)
Not sure if there’s a flatpak, U might need to add a PPA, but it’s just a one time copy/paste a few commands.
Steam
Works fine, but some games might not run or require some tinkering, check games u play on protondb.com
Discord
It’s a bit annoying because they require u to have the latest version all the time, it won’t auto update, and the package might take a while to update, so u either download and update manually every time (it will be a different install than the flatpak package) or use the web version, peraonally i just run a script to download and extract the
tar.gzversion when there’s an update.brave has flatpack , and you don’t really have to do all that to update discord just go to software store and click update?
I don’t use flatpak but i assume there’s a delay between discord and flatpak updates, or even if there is no delay
just go to software store and click update?
This would update everything, right? That’s usually not what i want when i’m opening discord.
I’ve had no problems with the Discord flatpak and updates. I use a KDE variant of UBlue and the package manager prompts me to update all flatpaks when I start the computer (whenever there are updates available), which I do with one click.
For a new user, i would think that individually managing package updates is probably not a desired workflow.
even if there is delay discord won’t force you to update until there is update in flat pack, and no software store won’t update everything you can update whatever you want, and you don’t even have to use flat pack version to update with software store. most distros allow you to update apps installed through package manager too
There are also 3rd party interfaces which are basically web client wrappers that add some features.
Could you share that script with op?
Sure
#!/bin/bash DIRNAME=$(dirname -- "$( readlink -f -- "$0"; )"); cd "$DIRNAME" wget -O discord.tar.gz 'https://discord.com/api/download/stable?platform=linux&format=tar.gz' && tar xvf discord.tar.gz && rm discord.tar.gzEdit:
DIRNAMEis just to find the script location and download/extract there, in case u call the script from somewhere else
Don’t use an immutable distro like endless or silverblue. It’s a whole new paradigm to learn (in addition to learning Linux basics). You should get your feet wet with something more user-friendly first.
My big recommendation is Ubuntu. Normal ubuntu. Not one of the flavors or derivatives. It’s got everything you need, plus very easy to troubleshoot if something goes wrong. Try to avoid using the command line when following guides online, there is nothing on Ubuntu you actually need it for and the graphical tools are very good.
Don’t listen to the complaining about snaps. You won’t notice them, they won’t affect you negatively, they are designed to just set and forget. The complaints come from a highly particular and technical subset of the Linux community.
If you really don’t like the look of Ubuntu, then I’d second all the recommendations for Mint. Those two distros have the most number of non-technical users in their communities because they are both very user-friendly and well-tested. I’d recommend against trying anything else until you’ve gotten comfortable with Ubuntu or Mint.
It kinda depends a bit on the user’s background… For someone who is used to windows and how computers in general works, I would probably agree with you.
But for people who are more phone/tablet native, I don’t think something like Fedora Silverblue is actually that bad of a choice. It comes natively with Gnome 3, which isn’t too dissimilar to Android or iOS. Updates are installed in one fell swoop with a reboot, just like Android or iOS. Flatpaks behave much more like an App on Android or iOS, they are self contained, and don’t affect eachother.
I just set up my daughters (9 y/o) first school laptop, and picked Fedora Silverblue, and apart from learning about the save icon, and learning how to store files in a filesystem, she was pretty much instantaneously functional, having most of her prior computing experience on an Android phone.
The “phone-native” theoretical new user may become more of a real thing in the future too. When GNOME and Pantheon started developing in that direction I thought they were chasing ghosts, but now it turns out they may have just been a decade ahead of their time.
Unfortunately the snap argument may have merit after all. Some companies have dropped support for it and are all in on flatpak. I’ve run into several cases where something was available on flathub but not the snap store. And considering gnome, kde, and most new devs are all in on flatpak, someone would be really missing out on some great apps that make life easier if they only had snaps.
Not only that but Ubuntu has really diverged in other areas as well they may only show up later like choosing LXD over podman. People should just get an experience that is closest to SteamOS for maximum compatibility and support atp. Putting someone on Ubuntu I think is like orphaning them.
I don’t think the snap argument is without merit, I just think it’s an argument only had by a very technical subset of users. I think your comment illustrates that.
I don’t agree that anybody would be left “orphaned” on Ubuntu. LXD vs Podman is again a very technical question for a specific subset of users.
I also don’t agree that SteamOS is the goal for compatibility and support. Compatibility is best with Ubuntu, it’s the most widely deployed and used desktop distribution by far. Most other desktop distros are a rounding error when compared to Ubuntu user-wise.
I’ve also personally had a buggy experience with SteamOS. I wouldn’t use it as a desktop in its current state, but I’m aware some folks do just that.
For someone new to Linux who just needs to get on with their desktop work, Ubuntu is the best distro there is (flawed as it may be). Mint is also a good choice for the same reasons.
There’s one case when you can’t avoid using command line. If you ask someone on Internet to help you, he will say you to type some commands. No window clicking, no screenshots will help. All GUIs are different, but CLI is (almost) always the same, and its output is well searchable. That’s why you see numerous command line listings in each topic discussing problems and could decide it’s impossible to use Linux without coding.
