Ridiculous Easy to Use

[kaneorabel]

I recently installed Mint to replace my aging Windows 7 OS with the plan to dual boot until I got used to using Linux.

I'm not a noob when it comes to tech, but prior to this my only experience with Linux was Ubuntu 5-6 years ago. I eventually abandonded it because I found everything to be a hassle. There didn't seem to be much that just worked out of the box and I didn't have the time to fiddle with drivers, the UI and all these minor little things that need to be done before you can really utilize your system. I just wanted it to do all of the main things I needed with perhaps some fine tuning down the road when I have the time.

That's why I think Linux Mint is so great. It took me maybe 2 hours to set up everything to be able to utilize all of the things I need on my system. Within a week I switched completely from Windows to Mint. Mint does everything that Windows was able to do for me, but better.

The biggest pain was installing a driver for my xbox one controller and configuring it to run at startup, but that only took me about 45 minutes, which was mostly research time. Wine was a 15 minute process to get the latest version working.

[Termy]

Yeah, Linux in general has come a long way. Linux Mint definitely seems to excel at making things easier, as does Ubuntu and Debian.

Welcome back to Linux, BTW.

[kaneorabel]

Thanks.

Yeah it has come a long way in terms of user friendliness. I'd say the average person that uses their OS as a bootloader for "google" wouldn't even notice the difference if you switched them to Mint. Then for people needing more, it's far more capable than Windows or Apple. You really get the best of both worlds.

I also like the concept of appimages. I wouldn't want to use them for everything, but in certain situations - they're great.

I find it funny that there's still this perception that you can't play new games on Linux, or that it's still not compatible with peripherals because it's not at all true anymore.

[Termy]

[...]

I expect people pick up old information, perhaps from old posts online, then roll with it. They share the old news, leading other people to now know of this old news without the context of it being old. As a result, we've got a load of people who know bugger all about Linux telling everyone out-of-date information.

[kaneorabel]

That makes a lot of sense actually, since Linux users make up what? About 2.5% of all OS out there??

The biggest barrier to people using Linux imo isn't compatibility, it's knowing how to make a bootable usb and using it - which is just a hopeless endeavor for the average person, sadly.

[AndyMH]

If you haven't done so already, now is the time to learn how to use timeshift to backup your system and backintime (there are a lot of alternative) to backup your data.

[kaneorabel]

If you haven't done so already, now is the time to learn how to use timeshift to backup your system and backintime (there are a lot of alternative) to backup your data.

Thanks.

I already setup timeshift - the welcome to Linux Mint screen made all of that very easy, otherwise I wouldn't have known it even existed. Any other suggestions for some useful programs?

[Redit2]

I was big into tech 20 years ago and had 6 computers going at one time. Tried Linux back pre-2000 and found nothing I liked and it seemed only 1% was GUI. Tried again in 2010 and despite being told it was improving all the time and more GUI's were coming didn't see much improvement then either. Tried I told myself for the last time when Win XP was going to end and that attempt failed also. Finally did at least 200 hours of research into every distro and after a record amount of tries to get a good ISO download, authentication and verification it finally worked. Linux is a different lifestyle and while I find it difficult to tell others who have no knowledge of Linux to come on over, I help those who want to try as Linux is difficult and anyone who says otherwise is not doing a nooby any favors. You simply can not go buy a LM book like you could for Win XP or Win10. It involves a lot of looking things up, untold tons of hours and there is no simple 3 page guide that answer's everything. Largely, Linux user's want to play computer and the minority of us just want to use them in a better environment than Win/MS. Helping a friend with the transition to LM will eliminate 95% of the hassle's that many of us went through. A typical non-techie Win user transitioning on their own I bet results in 98% failure rate.

[motoryzen]

I recently installed Mint to replace my aging Windows 7 OS with the plan to dual boot until I got used to using Linux

I don't recommend dualbooting windows and linux os worlds from within the same physical drive. There are sooo many things to setup correctly and configure properly up front even before you install the Linux distro of your choice.

Even then there is always the chance a windows update could mess with grub. Also windows boot manager and Grub were never designed too and still don't play nicely together.

It just creates more complications than what it's worth and makings backing up and separating them more of a nightmore as well as restoration options involved.

You should consider the following:
1. within Windows disable " Quick boot" aka fast boot aka fast start, and disable that setting within your uefi/bios too
2. after you prep your Linux installation drive, properly power down the PC, disconnect the Windows drive. Connect only the Linux install drive and the drive you want to install Linux into.
3. boot from that Linux install drive. ( in this case since it's Mint...I'll use Mint's installation gui wizard as the example ), at the end of the installation process. select " continue testing". Now properly power off the PC using gui buttons ( main mint menu, light switch) or terminal command shutdown now.

This way just incase you don't see the black screen at the end that normally says " remove installation media an restart pc "..you won't be guessing when its the right time to unplug that Linux mint installation drive and risk doing it too early or too late

Too early = when you boot back to the Linux mint installed drive...it won't boot to the desktop and will show weird errors acting like three is no grub or other coherent -enough error messages and you'll have to reinstall again.

Too late = you'll boot back to the Live desktop environment from the linux installation drive.

4. After you've confirmed you are able to boot to the installed Linux Mint drive, propery power down the PC. reconnect your windows drive, and now if you're PC/motherboard is reasonably modern enough, you can probably press a particular F# key to select a quick boot menu that will easily let you select the other drive that has windows on it if windows drive is set to be the 2nd boot device.

This imo is a much safer and still true enough dual booting system.

Thus anytime in this scenario you need a break from Linux ( we all have hit temp dead ends or detours that got us temporarily lost on solving a problem or setting something up. It's life *Shrugs* ) it's an easy no brainer and nothing is risked in either of the two OS worlds.

ssd's these days are low cost enough.

Good on you for doing a Timeshift snapshot backup regardless. Good habit to have there as it's saved the bacon of sooo many people; my self included

[Pierre]

in my observations over several years, or so,
most windows users don't do that much, at any sophisticated level,
and the majority of them, could transition to an Linux system with ease.

thus, it's only when their windows system goes off-line,
and they then find that the hardware won't run the heavier & latest windows system,
then they finally do consider an alternative operating system.

[Redit2]

Yeah I would agree with that also. Linux is sort of hidden in the world. Linux is pretty much anti everything in some ways compared to the world and in some cases that's great, but no advertising or monetizing is what it makes it one of those things the vast majority of people have to go looking for. I agree/disagree with some of that. I don't want like some do to keep this a secret society although aspects of it is cool. I'd much rather see people leave windows en mass and wake up to big tech and data brokers and have people regain their privacy. Not getting the word out about Linux does leave us mostly getting people who are hard core privacy nuts or by necessity looking for a OS just to keep their old machines alive, which means we are in the minimalist minority.

[kaneorabel]

In a lot of ways it's good that Linux is not super popular because once that happens to anything, it usually slowly goes downhill. The focus shifts as gradually things are dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Then what was once a tool for techy people of a similar mindset becomes something requiring more and more idiot proofing to facilitate button mashing so candy crush can be played more easily and safely. Just imagine not being able to locate "the app" then having to use terminal and bricking your PC after one half baked cut and paste. You'd have no choice but to blame the devs for allowing you to do that.

It would be nice to see Linux become more popular, just not too popular.

[gittiest personITW]

Any other suggestions for some useful programs?

Not so much useful programs, but this is a site that shouldn't be missed:

https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/2.html

[Rosko]

Any other suggestions for some useful programs?

Not so much useful programs, but this is a site that shouldn't be missed:

https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/2.html

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