Linux 101:
- Part 1 – (this article) Why you should switch to Linux.
- Part 2 – [Guide] Switching from Windows to Linux.
Okay! So you want to make the switch to Linux, but not sure how? You’ve come to the right place. This guide will get you started quick & easy.
For this guide, we will be focusing on Ubuntu or Arch-based distros.
So I noticed how you were going to rant on your blog about how you love the concept of Linux but could never switch from Windows because of these points:
I also noticed that you were going to list these concepts you love about Linux, but just can’t make the switch due to the three above:
And then before finishing this post, I looked around the web once again. I didn’t have a fun time with Ubuntu (10, 11, or 12), and Zorin just didn’t feel right (7, or 8). Then I read up about Linux Mint, then I read up more about it, then I downloaded it, then I ran it in Virtualbox and began the wonderful journey of customization.
I created two partitions: / (root), and /home (data).
This is a screenshot after I customized everything the way I wanted, including programs and updating everything.
That’s it, a total of 8.67 GB for EVERYTHING in a baseline custom OS install. No, actually that’s not truthful, I left the install files and scripts, and wallpapers and stuff on my personal home folder so technically it’s only 2.21 GB home + 6.19 GB root = 8.40 GB. I can fit Linux Mint on a 16 GB flash drive and still have almost 8 GB for music, pictures, movies, whatever.
Do you know how much my baseline custom install (as in, Full updated OS + all updated programs) for my Windows 7 64-bit Home Edition was? Check this out, this is a screenshot from June 2013 after I made another clean slate on my HDD after Windows was running slow:
36.95 GB… seriously???? If I install Linux Mint on my laptop instead of Win7, I will save 28.55 GB of drive space and be able to re-partition my HDD in order to have a bigger data partition, AND it will run faster since there are less bloated system processes.
Here is a list of programs I installed for Linux Mint 17 (MATE edition):
There are alternatives (and in most cases, better ones) to the software you use on Windows. Of course, this is only what I wanted and not all of the programs Linux has to offer (use Google).
“But wait!!!” You say! “I need Microsoft products in order to do business like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc..!”. Cool story bro, try LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice (basically the same thing). they easily convert between Microsoft formats and their open-source formats.
“But wait again! Didn’t you say that STEAM games on Linux won’t have the same functionality?” Yeah I did, it comes from the fact that Windows and Linux have completely different file systems and file extensions. The cool thing is that I have a few options:
So… there ya go. There are options to this, obviously it’s not the one I originally wanted (copy/paste game files and it work exactly the same), but that thinking was doomed to fail since both platforms are completely different from each other. For now, I can use Virtualbox, graduate up to a USB, maybe dual-boot (I could never get Grub and MBR to work together in the past), and then who knows? Full install without Windows.
In conclusion, I am saying goodbye to the Windows Fanboy, and I’m looking forward to working with Linux.
(Now that is a sexy desktop!)
<Original work by BenBRockN. Feel free to reblog, ONLY if you give credit to the original author (me). Thanks!>
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