I just got a new laptop with Windows 11 Home Edition. For a long time now, I've been really tempted to switch to Linux but I'm definitely a bit nervous about taking that leap. I have no experience running a Linux based OS.

My primary use cases are making YouTube videos and I also work a lot with Claude Code and other AI related activities.

I'm looking for people who have made this exact switch and would be willing to share their experiences.

My system is

Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16ADR10 Specs:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 8745HX (8 Cores / 16 Threads)
• RAM: 32 GB DDR5
• GPU 1 (Dedicated): NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-Series Laptop GPU
• GPU 2 (Integrated): AMD Radeon Graphics
• Storage (Drive C:): ~1 TB NVMe SSD (Windows-SSD)
• Storage (Drive D:): ~1 TB NVMe SSD (Data)
• Display: 16" WQXGA (2560 x 1600) IPS Display
• OS: Windows 11 Home

One of the best things about Linux is the freedom to make your system truly yours, whether you're customizing every little detail, switching from Windows for the first time, or troubleshooting something that should be simple but somehow isn't. There's always something new to learn, and even the frustrating moments can teach you something useful.

For those already using Linux, what advice would you give someone just starting out? And what's one problem you wish someone had helped you solve sooner? Share your experiences and help make the Linux journey a little easier for everyone!

I basically want a distro which:

- Can run steam and non steam games (mostly exe files but if some dumbass reason I want to play fortnite, genshin or league of legends I need to have no problems)

- Can run local AI (Comfy UI, stabile diffusion etc.)

- Can run Adobe programs (Illustrator, Photoshop etc.)

- Focused on privacy and security of the system

I:

- don't have problems sitting down and learning however I don't want it to be like a university course.

- am not that ignorant with technology. (I'm able to use terminals for specific tasks and know a little bit of python)

I have my fujitsu AH531 with upgraded 8 GB ram DDR3 and upgraded SSD disk up to 256 GB i guess?? The linux distro is antix and i want to turn this into a gaming laptop.

Oh, if you talk about cpu upgrade then no i dont have upgraded and the cpu is Intel Pentium.

(I apologize in advance for incorrect terminology. I’m new.)
Hey, so I’m just getting started with learning about Linux and tech stuff in general. I have a Windows laptop and tried to install Linux from a bootable USB alongside Windows (on start-up, I can choose which OS to use). Well, like a total noob, I restarted the laptop, once it asked for my Bitlocker key. When I tried to use the Linux OS, it basically gave me some error codes at the top left of the screen. I’ve been advised by a more tech savvy friend to”nuke” the laptop and start completely fresh. Should I do this or something else? And if so, how do I nuke my laptop?

Next year imma start college and ofc imma buy a laptop and i wanna make it a linux machine so which distro should i start with this some points to note before recommending:

which is more helpful in studying

which is better for learning linux

which is better for very light games like balatro and slay the spire

Lately i have been wanting to quit Windows

But i also dont really trust Apple nor I am smart enough to figure Linux out

And that leaves me with no option so if someone could help me out

So I'm an arch user. I know I know Arch btw can't shut up. And honestly I thinking I'm quite larping it... I'm like MintOS user than decide to get on Arch because It have cute package manager. Like I do good most of the time. But a lot of the time in the past I've stuck in look of relying on AI.

As per much recent, I've quit using it entirely and decide to rely on reading wiki and many thing instead for fixing my own stuff.

How do I suppose to get better with these stuff? I'm planning to learn networking and get hand on my homeland too. But that aside how do I gonna get better and feel like I have control of my own computer. One day I wish I can use Gentoo, but as for now I think I know too little stuff to be using it.

As my background I do have a bit Computer Architecture knowledge because I write C and like to read computer book like NAND2Tetris.

Edit: Thanks everyone! I'll try on VM Gentoo and play with it a lot more! And I wanna try other thing than systemd too since I've became quite attached to UNIX principles.

Hey everyone as the title suggests I’m opening a new chapter in my life perusing cyber security. Currently I work on radio communications for the USGOV and have always had interested in it. I am looking for guidance on where to start for learning linux. I’ve tried arch 2 years ago to fully immerse myself and turned back to windows after day 2. I keep getting told Linux knowledge is implied for cyber careers and regardless of that I’ve always wanted to jump in but it seems scary yk.

What distro do I start off in? Are the beginner friendly guides (I suck at reading). Security practical application training? If I sound like a dummy lmk.

I have a 2020 MacBook Air with the Apple M1 chip, on Sonoma 14.5 and I'm wondering if I can boot it to Linux for personal use.

I wasn't ever a big fan of Apple and since I've been passed down this Mac last week (sister doesn't use it anymore since getting a PC for uni) I want to know if it'd be smart to switch to Linux on this laptop or if I should just leave the thing be.

Starting by saying I know literally nothing about Linux and a lot of terminology goes over my head but I'm able to work my way around a computer to a level I would label "competent."
I'm moving over to a fully new build while keeping my old one as a streaming PC, mostly for the sake of software compatibility.

My new build consists of:

Motherboard: MSI x870 Tomahawk

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 9800X3D 8-Core, 16-Thread

RAM: 64gb

Hard Drive: 2tb

GPU: Not yet acquired but plan on getting a MSI Gaming RTX 4080 Super 16G

I plan on using it for Gaming, Editing (DaVinci Resolve), and 3d animation

Let me know if you need any more info, I'm new at this so there is probably stuff I forgot to include that might be important.

Hello, I am getting weary of using Windows, as it is getting quite exhausting with so many bugs, bloat, and so on. While gaming is a part of my life, most of them are Linux compatible and not a huge concern to me. I am, however, a researcher who uses their laptop to interface with external controllers and such, which often require specific, sometimes old, drivers (NI being one, sometimes it is ok, other times unavailable) only available on Windows. For software like this that directly interfaces with the hardware, how challenging is it to use through a VM on Linux (Tiny11 perhaps)? Can it be setup to use the hardware as if it was a native install? Dual booting is always an option, but I find it a clunky solution when you have to go back and forth restarting your PC each time you need a program. Anyone else have experience with this situation?

Starting with Linux can be exciting, but it can also feel overwhelming when troubleshooting laptop issues, choosing a distribution, or setting up a new PC build.

For experienced Linux users, what do you wish you'd known when you first started? Share your best tips, favorite distros, and lessons learned to help newcomers get started with confidence!

I'm still pretty confused about many things about this OS, i've been a Windows user for 20 years and i'd like to have more info on what best distro i could install for gaming.

My biggest doubt Is: can steamOS be used for other apps like vpns, streaming, image storaging and such? I mean, can It be used like a normal windows OS or is it specific for the steam app? Again, i'm a layperson in this sense and i really know very little about Linux

Hello Gentlemen and Gentlewomenmen

I've got an M2 SSD with Windows 11 currently installed on, and two seperate Sata SSDs. I now want to switch to Bazzite Linux. For doing so I need to format the drive where I want to install Bazzite, in my case the M.2. I tested this procedure on a budget PC and everything worked fine there.

So now, would it work if I copy my data from my M.2 (where Win11 is) to the other Sata SSDs, unplug the other SSDs, format my M.2 and install Bazzite and then copy the data back to the M.2 (most of the data is Steam Games anyway so I'm gonna reinstall anything new)?

ok so i want ur opinion.

I created 2 DNS records at an external hosting company:

test1.domain.com 8.8.8.8

test2.domain.com 10.243.20.1

When I dig test1.domain.com it resolves.

When I dig test2.domain.com it times out.

/etc/resolv.conf contains "nameserver 127.0.0.1"

So, I do "tcpdump -n -i lo icmp or \(port 53 and host 127.0.0.1\)" and do the digs again, result:

listening on lo, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), snapshot length 262144 bytes

22:43:08.718430 IP 127.0.0.1.44761 > 127.0.0.1.53: 37990+ [1au] A? test1.domain.com. (56)

22:43:08.719013 IP 127.0.0.1.53 > 127.0.0.1.44761: 37990$ 1/0/1 A 8.8.8.8 (60)

22:43:12.132320 IP 127.0.0.1.50064 > 127.0.0.1.53: 54736+ [1au] A? test2.domain.com. (56)

22:43:17.137606 IP 127.0.0.1.48339 > 127.0.0.1.53: 54736+ [1au] A? test2.domain.com. (56)

22:43:22.134766 IP 127.0.0.1.53 > 127.0.0.1.50064: 54736$ 0/0/1 (50)

22:43:22.134787 IP 127.0.0.1 > 127.0.0.1: ICMP 127.0.0.1 udp port 50064 unreachable, length 86

22:43:22.134870 IP 127.0.0.1.53 > 127.0.0.1.48339: 54736$ 0/0/1 (50)

So, I strace bind. I see the request being answered when I dig test1.domain.com. When I dig test2.domain.com, bind doesn't receive the request. strace stays at: epoll_pwait(5

When I strace dig, resolving test2.domain.com, I just see it timing out after it has sent the request.

I restart bind, no effect.

So I change resolv.conf: nameserver 8.8.8.8, no effect. The tcpdump output is also the same (except the udp port unreachable line).

I create some more test records at the external hosting company: 192.168.1.1, 1.1.1.1, 127.0.0.1.

1.1.1.1 works, the other 2 don't.

My iptables config is quite basic. Also, creating this effect using iptables might not even be possible.

nslookup in stead of dig, makes no difference.

This worked a few months ago and I didn't upgrade the kernel since then. So, it's not the kernel.

It seems the network doesn't really send the request if the resolution is for a non-public ipnumber. However, It cannot know this until after the resolution.

I'm at a loss here. Does anyone have an idea?

Hello, I have Acer aspire 4738 with Intel i3-380M, ram 8GB and ssd, I've been try using the latest Linux version like Zorin, Linux mint and Ubuntu, but the sound driver is never work on the latest one, when I tried the Ubuntu 20 the sound driver is work, is any Linux distro should I try?

So basically I found this really ancient 2006 pc while cleaning our house and since i have no personal use desktop I thought it might be useful to learn stuff and do simple projects for fun. It has a intel dual core pentium processor with 2gb ddr2 ram running windows 7 ulimate 32 bit.

I have always been interested and heard a lot about linux and how much better it is compared to windows in terms of user control and optimization, so now that I have a pc I really wanna install linux on it and try that out for myself.

I've searched a bit on myself and it seems to me that antix could be the ideal choice to put on such a system considering its extremely lightweight and not too hard to use from what I can understand? Again I dont really know a lot of distros and all the different things they're really for I am a complete beginner.

I would love to get some advice on how to get started and whether there's any other distros I should consider or not. Other than making the machine usable I also just wanna get the experience of linux ya know? and get to tinker and figure out things for myself and have fun with that. I know its really too old to run ANYTHING but getting it's performance optimised and maybe max out its ram capacity of 4gb later on, and then being able to do some very light gaming and browsing would also be really cool.

Thank you all!!!

Hi,

So basically installing TOR browser in Ubuntu 24.04 via the terminal using their own instructions turned into a mess for some reason and I have no idea why, I ended up using it in Windows. Has anyone here installed it via the terminal in 26.04? If so what instructions did you use? I know you can do this installation via App Center but I note people often say there are possible security issues because of bizarre time lags between source and App Center versions. TIA.

Lately I've been thinking about how much of my everyday computer use depends on having an account somewhere. Notes, files, photos, bookmarks, even little things I used to just keep on my own computer.

I'd like to get back to having more stuff stored locally, but every time I look into alternatives, I end up down a rabbit hole of self-hosting guides, syncing tools, and services that need their own maintenance.

I don't want to spend more time managing my setup than actually using it. I just like the idea of my files still being there even if a service changes its pricing or shuts down.

For those who've gone down this road, what did you move locally first that was genuinely worth it?

Currently I have downloaded wallpaper engine n we- manager it works but the problem is there are always multiple errors when I turn on my pc like steam autostart works but wallpaper engine doesn't start automatically how do I fix that please help 😭

I use qemu to create virtual machines but it doesn't link to the cdrom , why?

I'm a new fellow linux user. The mouse sensitivity is very different from mine in windows. I figured because mouse acceleration is on my installation but when I look for it I can't find it