Just switched to Linux. Convinced sis in law to try linux as she was having driver issues. Wife is about to try it on our laptop. Linux has reached a point of, it just works. It can play windows games better than windows, so no reason not to.
How hard is it for laymen people to install and use it? Are there step by step instruction available?
Are there step by step instruction available?
You may very well need specific instructions to convince your motherboard to boot to the Linux live USB media.
(Edit: As suggested below: You may need to find and toggle "secure boot" to "off" in BIOS. The point of "secure boot" is to prevent exactly the kind of change you are about to make. You can turn it back on later, if you have a use for it.)
Although, if you replace the Windows harddrive with a blank harddrive, many motherboards will then do the right thing and boot to the Linux live USB key.
(Warning: Get your files off the Windows drive first. The windows drive is probably encrypted, and so won't be useful for recovering files later.)
Getting booted into the Linux live media is by far the hardest part.
Once you're booted into the Linux Mint Live USB key, make sure Linux Mint detected and is able to get on the Internet. You'll need your wifi password.
Once you're happy with that, click "Install Linux Mint" and just follow the prompts. The hardest question for me was remembering what my time zone is.
Linux Mint will tell you when to reboot, and will even remind you to remove the Live Media USB key.
Reboot and enjoy Linux.
Yep most BIOSes will have a toggle for Secure Boot. Make off.
This is the official Linux Mint installation guide: https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/
I've had a techy mate have issues installing mint, but I had no issues and have dailied it as an OS only reverting to windows in extreme cases.
If you're not dual booting it's simple as. My friend has had issues dual booting on the same drive, whereas I went one drive per OS and butter smooth. Nice to be able to recover one drive from another without external tools.
Love to see it

Make Microslop and Aividia the new Ubisoft
I miss the Nvidia that just made video game hardware :(
Swapped to Linux Mint over the weekend. No major issues. Steam works, LLMs work, web browser stuff all transferred over...it wasn't perfect but pretty easy to figure it out with a few online searches. The best part - it actually runs better. No more f*cked up bluetooth and audio as well.
A lot of customization can be done on it, but I think for most people, Linux is fine for the vast majority of users already out of the box. Some criticism is that I think the UX can be improved and a more layman-friendly streamlined partition mounting + file security management.
Same for my partner's old gaming PC: she used Windows 10 until recently, and Bluetooth as well as the steam overlay didn't work properly.
Now on Bazzite they do.
I won't update my perfectly usable computer just because microslop refuses to support it.
Please be careful when using Windows 10, because any security vulnerabilities envolving Windows itself will not be fixed, and your computer will be more vulnerable to attacks. I'm not saying this to scare you off, but to advise you to take extra precaution and to remind you that most computer security experts do not recommend using and connecting to the Internet systems that will get no further security updates. I'm no expert myself, but I'm pretty sure that things like making sure you web browser is always updated, being careful with the programs you choose to download, and using updated antivirus software are the most common tips for this kind of situation. You might want to do more your research on this topic yourself if you haven't yet. Stay safe!
The thing is, (as you already know but this is for people that have not yet taking the plunge), Linux today is so unbelievable good. It's both snappy and good looking. A 5 year old computer feels like new. There might be a little tinkering, but you know that might be a quite fun experience and your computer feels like new again.
I run Debian for my tv PC, steam link with bt controller - shit just works and it's so fast.
I still can't convince my dad to just switch, but at this point running Windows is in nearly every single way worse than just running a popular Linux distro.
I've been dailying linux since 2010 and it's gotten way easier. stuff that didn't work just does now. remember printer and wi-fi driver hell? now it works worse on windows if anything. games and some proprietary software are the only anchors, and that's kinda going away slowly
Been using Linux for a while. The only thing I miss is League of Legends, but other than that we're chilling.
I view that as a pro. Switching to Linux made it easy to quit that addiction lol.
With Window 11, Microsoft AND America being horribly at the same time, whole countries are looking to replace their OS.
glad I switched to Linux, Microslop's current state is a disaster. yes it randomly implodes sometimes, mainly by my fault, but at least I can rollback! no more headache of forced updates.
I switched to linux at the end of last year too! I am part of that increase and i like it.
I switched to Linux when Windows 7 became EoL.
Anyone paying attention to what they were doing with 10, knew what would be coming with 11.. and somehow its even worse than expected.. thanks to the sudden appearance of the greatest environmental disaster of our time.. AI.
Switched to Linux recently, so good to see that I do my part on this statistic. It ain't much, but it's honest work.
Come on gang! Lets keep chugging - we can do this!
Did my part. I've made it known amongst friends, family and colleagues that
- support for 10 is ending
- some machines won't support Win 11 for no apparent technical reason (just to make them obsolete and boost sales of new tech)
- I'm willing to set up and support Linux systems for anyone willing to make the switch, thus possibly even prolonging the life of perfectly adequate hardware. (Only constraint: I declined switching people with strong software constraints that will not work or not work well on Linux and make them unhappy in the long run).
There were plenty of requests, including a small business, some absolute power users and even somebody on the other side of the globe. Everyone got a transition period, and since that is done, all machines have been chugging along without much issue. Support requests are near zero (and I do keep asking).
This may be my little bubble, anecdotal evidence and all that jazz. But from where I'm standing, this train has left the station, and it ain't comin' back.
I've been dual-booting for years. Made a big push to get the software I typically use on Windows to run on Ubuntu. Haven't touched Windows in about a month and it's wonderful. Haven't got gaming nailed down yet, going to try Bazzite on my desktop. Some of my more graphics-intensive games don't run well on Ubuntu. Pretty sure my desktop is compatible with Windows 11, I'll upgrade at some point but I still plan to only use it when it's necessary. Unfortunately it is necessary for me sometimes. I'll probably start making preparations soon switch to Win 11 and be prepared for that to fuck my Ubuntu partition, so that's probably when I'll install Bazzite as well. My old Lenovo tank is already Linux-only.
That's a surprisingly large increase, wow. I switched back in 2017 and I've been using it ever since, but that's good to see other people are making the switch too.
This is Internet Explorer all over again
Switched to CachyOS in December, so I guess I'm part of that statistic.
I was also part of the December Steam Hardware Survey statistic, but that was before I switched. So the December survey has an artificially inflated Windows statistic by at least 1 user.
I am done with Windows at home. I spent a whole weekend convincing my computer that it was allowed to install windows 11, going into my BIOS and changing settings, having to make a live USB drive with some windows setup tool, navigating numerous outright wrong guides on Windows' on website, and at the end of it, I was greeted with the worst OS I have ever used in my life. I had thought complaints about Win11 were exaggerated like complaints about Vista back in the day- Vista was bad, but usable. Windows 11 is legitimately awful. Everything runs like shit on it. That day I resolved to switch to Linux for everything I could and started dual booting. Was the Linux install process difficult and complicated? Yes, but compared to what I had to do to get my computer to run Win11 it was a piece of cake.
What's worse? Thanks to advancements in Wine and Proton, Windows software runs better on Linux now than it did on Windows 11. I have games that ran fine on Windows 10 that run like shit on Win11, and run fine on Linux. Sure, I am a technical person and I am very comfortable with the command line, but legitimately nothing I've had to do with Linux has been as frustrating as what I have to do to try to get Windows 11 to do anything right. I thought I'd be dual booting into Windows at least some to run some programs but I legitimately haven't found anything that doesn't run fine on Linux. Plus Linux doesn't spy on my and sell my data, and Linux isn't owned by a pedophile who hung out with the Epstein gang.
I like Windows 11. But only as a thoroughly neutered, disposable “secondary” OS to dual boot with Linux, to the extent that I could wipe my Windows partition without a care.
If I had to use Windows 11 as my only OS, I’d pull my hair out. Same with desktop Linux TBH. There’s stuff that’s just painful in both ecosystems.
Microsoft just wants our wallets lol.
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