I'm at an uncomfortable crossroads of knowing enough to hate Microsoft, but not knowing enough to trust myself with switching to Linux. I'm like just barely tech-literate enough to wander into places like Lemmy, but beneath some surface level shit I'm probably one of the dumbest motherfuckers here when it comes to not setting my devices on fire.
So... a 'Linux for dummies' sounds exactly like what I need!
- Well, there are a lot of newb-friendly distros these days. Some options:
  Linux Mint (any spin) - one of the easiest to get help with online, with minimal compromises
  Fedora - also pretty easy to get help w/ online
  Bazzite - great if you just want to play games; it's about as close to SteamOS as you get w/o an official release
  Any of those should be pretty friendly to users new to Linux, and they go roughly in order from fitness as a regular desktop (top down) to fitness for gaming (bottom up), but any of them can handle gaming and desktop stuff pretty equivalently.
  
  Bazzite is freaking awesome. I started my Linux journey with Arch, then tried Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Mint, Zorin, Endeavour and more. Bazzite has been on my PC for a year and it's been the best experience I had with PCs in my whole life. I freaking love it.
  
  It does look nice. My main concern is the read-only root, which seems annoying to deal with for non-gaming stuff. I'm a dev and sometimes need to install new dependencies and whatnot. But I'm sure there's a good workflow for that as well.
  
  Aurora (KDE) or Bluefin (gnome) have dev editions. They are based on ublue like Bazzite, but are more dev oriented.
  
  I'll have to check it out.
  I've also considered trying the openSUSE MicroOS versions as well (Kalpa for KDE and Aeon for GNOME). I use Tumbleweed on my systems right now, so that would be a natural transition.
- I feared making the plunge as well but it was so seamless tbh. Got Linux Mint and it just feels like a newer version of old Windows. Not sure how it's with other distros, but I find it to be precicely Linux for dummies.
  I'd say the difficulty to getting used to new environment was on a similar level to getting from Windows XP to Windows 7. If you can dual boot I recommend just trying it - the water is fine.
  
  This is accurate really. Linux Mint is excellent for people who want to get away from Windows and learn Linux because it looks similar. Bazzite, however, especially the KDE version, honestly looks better than Windows at this point, imo.
  In addition to making gaming much much easier, it also has an atomic code core, meaning that all the stuff you will eventually break on Linux Mint by playing around with different programs... and eventually lead to a new Linux user re-installing... is almost non-existent. Programs are installed in their own space with their own dependencies, meaning that they don't encroach on any other programs using similar drivers, configurations, etc. When those programs are uninstalled, they're just gone.
  So if you can finally game on a Linux distro, not worry so much about borking a linux distro, and it looks and feels both modern and intuitive at the same time...
  Why not put in on a spare laptop or something and get some hours in? Microsoft needs some serious pruning and unfortunately they seem immune to criticism that doesn't come in the way of lost revenue.
- Some things that may help you get started:
  All of the risk in changing your computer operating system comes from the potential loss of data. Everything else is replaceable/recoverable, including your original Windows install if needed. You can avoid this risk by backing up your personal data to an external drive, which frankly everyone should be doing anyway because hard drives are consumables.
  You can try Linux with no risk by running it as a live OS. This loads the operating system files into RAM from an external device (typically a USB drive) and makes no changes to the system hard drive. This lets you test your computer's functionality in Linux without making permanent changes (does my graphics card work? wifi? audio? etc). The mainstream Linux installers do this already for the installation process, but you can just load one up to try things out without running the installation process.
  You don't have to completely switch off of Windows. It's fairly easy to install Linux as a dual-boot on an existing Windows system. As long as you have some free space on your hard drive to dedicate to Linux, you can just keep your Windows install and have Linux too. You can even access your files in Windows from the Linux install. All of the mainstream Linux installers have the option for setting up dual-boot during the installation.
  I think one of the biggest hurdles for switching over is knowing what software to use in Linux (how do I edit a document? watch a movie? read a pdf? etc). There are options for basically anything you might want to do, but if you don't know what you're looking for you might feel a bit lost. I recommend alternativeto.net for this. You can search for software like Microsoft Office and filter for Linux to get a list of compatible software options that do the same job.
  I’m probably one of the dumbest motherfuckers here when it comes to not setting my devices on fire.
  I know exactly how you feel. I have wrecked so many OS installs I've lost track. I have friends who tell me I have tech problems like no one else. I seem to stumble into edge cases on a higher-than-average basis.
  My point is, when I say that everything is recoverable, that's from experience. I've done it enough times to know there's very little chance of actually making a computer unusable, though it's relatively easy to lose your data if you're not paying attention to what you doing - so backups. Always backups.
  If you try this a couple times you'll start to see your computer as something that you have control over, something that you can completely wipe and bring back or rebuild into a different system as you please. Feel free to reach out if you've got questions.
  
  You can avoid this risk by backing up your personal data to an external drive, which frankly everyone should be doing anyway because hard drives are consumables.
  This is super inconvenient. Better method is to set up a server w/ Syncthing and use that to just sync your Home directory remotely.
  
  Better method is to set up a server w/ Syncthing and use that to just sync your Home directory remotely.
  Sure, just set up a server, very convenient. Dude, this advice is for people who have never installed an operating system before.
  Like, yeah, if you're talking about keeping a living backup that is up to date within 30 seconds because you're doing accounting as a home business and you can't afford to lose the last 5 minutes of work, then yeah self-hosted file syncing is great. It's absolutely a better long-term solution for personal data management. But for most people this level of backup fidelity is unnecessary, and a USB drive is a thing you can just buy and start using with no setup effort.
  
  Syncthing can be installed on anything, very easily. All you have to do to make it a "server" is to make sure its connected 24/7.
  and a USB drive is a thing you can just buy and start using with no setup effort.
  USB drive will be super slow and will be hanging out of whatever it's attached to. There are many other better options.
  
  This would imply that you have at least two machines. In that case they could just install Linux in the other machine to try it out.
  Foa people dabbling in Linux for the first time, with the anxiety of losing their data, it certainly sound like they don't have 2 machines to run syncthing. Otherwise, why wouldn't they just copy all their important data to the other machine to avoid the data loss risk?
  And sure if that is the case Syncthing is a good solution, but it doesn't sound applicable in this situation.
  
  In that case they could just install Linux in the other machine to try it out.
  I mean if you're "just trying it out", you could just use a live USB. You're probably not saving anything valuable to it anyway.
  it certainly sound like they don't have 2 machines to run syncthing
  Can't understand any reason you would think that.
  why wouldn't they just copy all their important data to the other machine to avoid the data loss risk?
  That's...what I'm suggesting? Syncthing just automates the process.
- I was the same as you about 6 months ago. I installed Bazzite and never looked back. Sure, there might be some quirks but overall my pc works much better. I can even finally use Steam Link reliably!
- beneath some surface level shit I’m probably one of the dumbest motherfuckers here when it comes to not setting my devices on fire.
  Well... if you actually want to learn, as we ALL did, get yourself a device you can literally set on fire. By that I mean a RPi 3 (probably going for 10 EUR nowadays) or a 2nd hand laptop. If you can't find that easily, try a virtual machine, if you don't want to bother give a whirl (with a ad blocker...) to https://distrosea.com/ and come back, risk free.
  It's honestly empowering to learn and it has been relevant for decades (basically since the UNIX days) and STILL is relevant today in the time of the "cloud" where all such commands are still used.
- Bazzite is exactly that. You can't break it unless you read and study how to break it, intentionally. Flash it to a USB drive, boot to the installer, done. You'll never worry about drivers, updates, ads, spyware, telemetry, that will be a thing of the past.

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