Linux as a new user

Is Linux complex ?

Linux has come a long way since I installed it for the first time, and is now much more user-friendly.

• Harware support has made leaps, with an increasingly high number of laptops and hardware drivers upstreamed, therefore working out of the box.
• Installing most distros is as easy as it gets, with well-crafted graphical installers.
• Installing software and administring your machine doesn´t require opening up the terminal anymore, again thanks to well-crafting GUIs and convenient App Centers.

Short of any OS that already comes pre-installed, it is within reach of any regular users that’s fed up with Apple’s vendor lock-in on Microsoft’s nauseing and rampant advertisement and upsells built into Windows 11.

There’s still two main challenges news users always end up running into:

1. Running software that’s MacOS or Windows only.

   • Compatibility layers such as Bottles or Wine (which Bottles is based on) can help, and work great at times.
   • Yet the approach I always recommend is to first look at FOSS alternatives native to Linux. 90%+ percent of the time, there a good-enough-if-not-better alternative to whatever software you are trying to use that’s free, open-source, and native to Linux. Obviously, Office suite replacements are the most frequent topic there.

2. Adapting to Linux’ workflows. Moving to a new class of OS necessarily requires workflow adaptations. Settings and menus aren’t in the same place, administration doesn’t get done the same way of on the same schedule, etc.

Here, my two usual recommendations are:

• Find a Desktop Environment that works for you and is close to what you know and/or want.
• Embrace change: there’s no point fighting the way your new OS get things done and Mac-ify or Windows-ify it. If learning something new is a burdain, you have to decide whether Linux’ freedom and qualities are worth the time and learning investment to you.