I tried. I finally wanted to switch away from Windows and installed mint. Spent about 3 hours trying to get my headphone jacks to work with some mildly obscure tools and commands but no dice. Then I managed to destroy one of my partitions by trying to Mount it but it gave me an obscure error. Searched the forums and found NTFS fix, well turns out I accidentally had turned the partition dynamic when moving it to a larger drive. NTFS fix didn't like that and promptly destroyed the file table. I lost a buch of data. So back to the cruddy Windows then...I'm not tech savvy enough, which is sad.

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you've never, ever used Linux before and are not confident about its tools, it's almost always better to use a fresh machine. NTFS and Linux really don't mix well, for example.

[–] TalesFromTheKitchen@lemmy.ml 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Haha, yeah, as I've learned. I'll try again when I build a new machine. I really like the overall look and feel of Mint.

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's been a few years since I used Mint, but I enjoyed it. Most of the Debian-based distros are very similar, actually. All are decent for beginners. If not Mint, Pop is another good option.

[–] HappyStarDiaz@real.lemmy.fan 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Also Zorin

[–] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 10 months ago

I installed Zorin on my wife's (=no prior Linux experience) laptop something like 2 years ago. Considering the fact that she still uses it almost daily, I'd say you're right.

Personally, I dislike some of the custom stuff it has over the more standard desktop environments, but I do think it's great for usability in that it feels Windows-adjacent.

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[–] SnugZebras@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 10 months ago

Well, valve plans on bringing steam deck os to desktop eventually.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

mint will be stuck on xorg for the foreseeable future.

if you want something with similar workflow to windows, KDE distros are pretty good nowadays.

[–] jaeme@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

mint will be stuck on xorg for the foreseeable future.

Mint will use xorg as the default session until 2026, where it is projected that wayland will solve most if not all of its showstoppers.

Mint's cinnamon DE is built off of Mutter, GNOME's compositor, so all it means is that Mint will be doing the same thing that it has always done, been what GNOME could have been if it hadn't reinvented itself.

Mint is a workflow extremely similar to what most users have experienced on Windows and specifically caters to Windows users or users coming from proprietary operating systems.

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[–] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

Why does it matter? What user really cares if it's Wayland or x11? Software is about solving problems for the user. Mint is far superior to Windows.

Sent from KDE with x11...

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[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

To me mint was always the closest to what I wanted as a Windows user. I still user windows most of the time now but whenever I use Linux, it's mint.

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[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My last attempt to get games working on Linux did not go well, but I am hopeful the kinks will be sorted out by the time Win10 starts getting dropped.

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I game exclusively on Linux these days. I haven’t had an issue that I couldn’t solve so far aside from shitty anti cheat software that doesn’t play nice.

I play single player almost exclusively, so that isn’t much of a problem for me.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I think my hardware might have had something to do with it, was trying on a somewhat older laptop. Most games would not launch even with Proton and even most Linux native games did not work even after a fair bit of troubleshooting. I get that some people might not have problems but I believe problems still remain widespread.

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[–] FlappyBubble@lemmy.ml 41 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Understandable but bad since all newer Windows versions are really heavy on telemetry and privacy hostile practices.

Of course I use Linux but I don't live in a bubble and see that most people won't switch in the near future.

[–] testeronious@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

according to the latest steam hardware survey, only 0.91% of the users still use Windows 7 ~ 8.1.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

I know it doesn't have much to do with your comment, but what you said got me curious.

[–] GoOnASteamTrain@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago

Not sure why this made me look but it is cool that Linux as a whole has a bigger user share than Windows 7 and 8.

I am relishing the idea of switching, I just need my last few creative outlets (mostly music software) to work on Linux fully, and I will jump. 😊

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[–] spirinolas@lemmy.world 36 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (9 children)

I do tech support in a school that still has Windows 7 on all PC's. These are old relics from 2008 and just this week I was informed we'll have to manage with them for a few more years. There's no way I can upgrade those things to Windows 10 not to mention we don't have the licenses. They can barely run 7. I'm thinking of throwing a user friendly Linux distro in those things. The principal liked the idea but I'm not sure the users will like it. But Windows 7 is becoming a liability.

[–] alphapuggle@programming.dev 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Everything I did on the school pcs would've been just as easy and likely easier to do with Linux. Our 7 PCs were slow as hell and that was when those PCs were new.

ChromeOS flex could also be a way to go for education. You can manage them through Google admin if you have Google workspace for the district.

[–] spirinolas@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Our school does have Google Workspace. Could it be integrated with ChromeOS?

[–] alphapuggle@programming.dev 5 points 10 months ago

I believe so, I'm not an IT admin but I believe that's all my school just had for their enterprise enrollments. Would give you more restrictive control over the students than you would on linux

[–] aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Second ChromeOS flex. Its what my school put on all the shitty aging macs

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I feel like ChromeOS in schools is a big part of the current problem with students reaching college in a tech-illiterate state

[–] aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago

I agree. School admins don’t care. They want the most control over the hardware issued to students and google’s stack is admittedly much better than what you can do on windows and mac.

[–] testeronious@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don't know much about linux, but maybe try those debian stable distros (mint, ubuntu, or debian itself).

When we use linux for basic things like browsing the web, opening pdf files, editting a picture (on gimp) and so on, I don't see much of a difference on the experience.

By the way, I once installed linux on a old laptop with 2GB ram, the performance got so much better, I was even able to play simple 2D games (kingdom rush) at 60 fps, this wasn't possible on the old windows 7 it had installed.

[–] Muffi@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago

I got a bunch of old Thinkpads for my classroom at the school i work at and installed Ubuntu on all of them. They run smooth like brand new laptops, and I have been surprised to see my students having an easier time using Ubuntu than Windows 11.

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[–] Mandy@sh.itjust.works 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I expected five miliseconds of scrolling to find someone with a megaphone hammering on about Linux.

It took none.

Im one myself but this is just as bad as the circlejerks on the Teletubbies website.

[–] taggart_mccallister@lemm.ee 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I opened the thread to see the same thing. Yup. Anything Windows and it's LINUX BETTER immediately.

[–] YoorWeb@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

I mean, got a better idea for fixing win7 problem?

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[–] Aurix@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

While understandable I hope Steam does keep working on these platform's for some titles which might only run on older systems.

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What titles only run on x86 and not x86_64?

[–] Aurix@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Some obscure title will surely have weird driver, hardware and OS quirks. For example Crazy Machines 2's physics break down and the fixes didn't work for me. They use PhysX for their physics engine, before Nvidia acquired it, and it was heavily updated of course and now the puzzles don't work anymore. Maybe somebody found another solution to it by now, but I haven't checked it.

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[–] naticus@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Funnily enough, today I was going through old shit and found two copies of Vista Ultimate. Pretty sure those are ready for the bit bucket in the sky.

[–] BlanK0@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

Just install Linux mint and install flatpak steam. I think minimal distros are better in general but they do require more familiarity with terminal usage which can be harder for newer users (I personally use void). So mint is a very solid distro that has a good amount of support in older hardware and stuff, no need to think hard basically

[–] heygooberman@lemmy.today 3 points 10 months ago

Windows 7 was okay, but I still can't fathom how Windows 8 and 8.1 came to be. In the computer companies I've worked for, I don't think they have a single product that runs on Windows 8 or Windows Vista. The OS progression was XP to 7 to 10. Now, they're all working towards Windows 11 support.

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

I'll miss you, Windows 7 that I ran into the ground in a machine that ignored the fact by all accounts it should have died ages ago.

But hey! Solid state drives are cool now that I'm in modern times.

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