I’m a long time Windows user who has experience with WSL. Last year, I needed a laptop for university, and out of laziness, opted for a Macbook since, although they’re expensive as hell, are reasonably reliable.

Since using the mac, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with it over Windows. Note that I refer to the non-iOS specific aspects. After not touching my desktop for several months, I now see that I absolutely hate Windows even more. I would like to move my desktop to a Linux system some time in the future. However, my education is limited, and so I’m here to ask for help.

Currently, I’m a student in Mathematics and Computer Science. But outside that, I am, for the most part, a programmer. I rarely game, but I would like the option for the rare occasion that I have the time to do so.

I’ve grown comfortably with the command line, through my in-depth knowledge of lower level knowledge is limited. So, I feel I’m comfortable enough to extend the possible domain of my options.

I would love to hear recommendations and suggestions. I’m also open to other options such as NixOS, but that would require some research to learn more, which is fine. I’m not doing this soon.

If you could provide any links and resources that I can follow to continue learning, especially if relevant to your suggestions, I would be deeply appreciative!

My Mac is the most Linux-like thing I’ve used for so long, and it’s been so, so much easier to work with compared to Windows (I hate Windows PATH limitations so much).

Thanks, all ❤ 🐧

  • azvasKvklenko@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    63·
    6 months ago

    If you want to learn Linux, Arch is the perfect balance between ease of use and DIY aspects. It now comes with an installer, but installing it manually will teach you the basics of how Linux systems are built and configured. It also comes with amazing documentation that makes it relatively easy to setup and once you do that, it doesn’t require much tinkering or changing stuff in order to use it.

    Nix is pretty hardcore as for a new user. If you’re ready to learn entire functional language to manage it effectively then go for it, but I’d recommend something more traditional for first steps.

    If you want to game casually, well in this day and age gaming on Linux is pretty good with most games running just fine. There’s problem with some popular online multiplayer games due to anti-cheat systems, but other than that mostly everything runs well with Proton or Wine.

    Keep in mind that MacOS is also different than Linux despite also being UNIX-like. On Mac it’s all controlled by Apple, so things generally play nicely together due to tight integration and centralized development. On Linux many components are independent pieces of software that also quite often have replacements and you get different combinations of those depending on which distro you pick. Don’t worry, it’s also standardized to some extent, and while it’s not necessarily straightforward, once you feel comfortable (and you don’t face any issue with drivers/hw support), it’s really nice to use.