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here goes another one))
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trusteft: 9) Anything else important I should know?
Wrong people, wrong questions.

But ah, it's typical. So you're in a big (if not that great) company.
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BrianSim: I think dual-booting is often the key for a long-time Windows user to learn Linux.
What's the key to learning Windows then?
Post edited July 03, 2021 by osm
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BrianSim: I think dual-booting is often the key for a long-time Windows user to learn Linux.
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osm: What's the key to learning Windows then?
Exactly the same. For those of us who grew up in the 90's we learned MS-DOS before Windows but the nature of the older Win9x architecture was to run on top of MS-DOS (as opposed to the NT architecture which is standalone), so we effectively learned Windows whilst "dual-booting" with DOS for years.
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trusteft: 3) Do you need to use a terminal every time you need to install software, games or not?
...
6) If there are no extra problems with compatibility, what's the best distro if I want to use as little (or none) terminal commands as possible?
With Linux, you'll have to, sooner or later, get over your "fear" of using the terminal.

Or rather; after awhile, you'll probably want to do more and more things on the terminal, and leave the GUI only for stuff where it makes sense (like browsing the gog.com homepages might be rather silly from the terminal).

The reason you will be using terminal more and more is because most Linux instructions online will tell you how to do things on the terminal, and rarely how to do it on the GUI (unless really necessary). There are two practical reasons for this:

1. There are so many GUIs ("desktop environments") for you to choose from for any distro, that the people writing the instructions can't cover all of them, if things are done differently on different desktop environments.

2. It is much easier to give precise instructions with a terminal, than with a GUI. With a GUI you might have to set up a whole web page or a youtube video where you show where in the GUI you'll find something and what to click where, while with the terminal all you need to do is to give the exact commands the user should run, copy & pasting them from the instructions to their terminal.

You can start using Linux with mostly using GUI, but I am pretty sure you will see yourself increasingly using the terminal over time for many (or even most) system administration tasks, including installing new software.
Post edited July 03, 2021 by timppu
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trusteft: 9) Anything else important I should know?
Some have suggested using a live-CD (USB) to try out different Linux distros, or alternatively you could install the free VirtualBox on your Windows and run even several Linux distros side by side, to see how they differ, if you want to try out different distros.

However, I think in order to really learn how to use Linux, especially for gaming purposes, you will have to pretty soon install it properly (on a dualboot system). I don't think you will learn much about using WINE or how to run GOG games (Linux or Windows with WINE) on Linux if you stay on running some Linux on live-CD or VirtualBox.

Most of the differences between the distros will probably go over your head in the beginning, and it will just seem like they might use a bit different commands for the same tasks, like doing a system or application upgrades (depending on what packet manager the distro uses), what init system it uses (systemd is more and more commonplace but some people have ideological reasons to oppose it).

I have used Linux for years and even administer Linux servers at work (several different distros, but mostly either RHEL based or Ubuntu), and I still don't quite understand why some packet managers (like yum/dnf) are supposed to be better than e.g. apt that Ubuntu and Mint uses. To a normal and even many advanced users, the difference will seem to be nothing but using a different command to update your system and applications. You run the command, it updates your system, and that's it. What's the big deal?

So while it may be interesting to try out different Linux distros, I propose you just select some that seems to be quite widely used by Linux home users and gamers, and just install and use it. I am pretty sure that if you try to use e.g. Ubuntu, Mint, Manjaro, OpenSUSE and Fedora side by side, and even all those with different desktop environments, you will be still just scratching your head, not being apparent which of them is supposed to be the "best". They will just feel a bit different flavors of the same thing.
Post edited July 04, 2021 by timppu
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timppu: With Linux, you'll have to, sooner or later, get over your "fear" of using the terminal.
A good idea even for Windows, if you're doing anything beyond the simple "consumer" (or tablet-like) usage.
I'm noticing more and more of Microsoft's own docs pages giving their instructions as a few PowerShell commands rather than guiding you through a sequence of dialog boxes.
I think the command line or the terminal are just the best way for doing some things but often there are programs, some paid, that will let you do the same things in a graphical environment. This goes for both Linux/GNU and Windows.

Partitioning: I tried both separating the kernel and /home and not and have come to the conclusion that he latter is better for me.
Another note on doing a real installation:

Especially with Ubuntu etc., beware of oversimplified installers. I have heard of Ubuntu's installer just assuming you want to nuke everything during install, so make sure your data and windows installation is left alone! Be very careful during the installation process, click "Advanced" or whatever you need to get the straight dope before clicking Next.

It never hurts to have backups.

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Themken: Partitioning: I tried both separating the kernel and /home and not and have come to the conclusion that he latter is better for me.
It's totally not necessary to do, but having a separate OS partition would avoid copying/moving all your data around. With a throwaway partition for an OS you can just nuke and renuke with whatever distro you want to play with, keeping your data in place on another partition. Great for getting started.

You can just symlink /home to [your data partition]/home when you install a new distro.

You can also make an image of your OS partition, so if you mess something up, you can restore a working image and pick up right where you left off without having to try and troubleshoot specifically what broke it . Smaller image, quicker process.

It's valuable to learn to troubleshoot and fix problems with your OS later, but getting into all of that early on can be discouraging or overwhelming. It's nice to be able to format , reinstall an OS or reimage with the peace of mind that you're not losing anything you care about, and just keep going
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trusteft: 1) GOG supports only Ubuntu and Mint. Does this mean it does not support Kubuntu? Or say Peppermint etc?

2) Overall what percentage of games I own from GOG would work without issues or any major issue on a linux installation? So if I have say 1600 games here would half of them be ok? Less, more?

3) Do you need to use a terminal every time you need to install software, games or not?

4) What's the malware situation. Do you need something like Malware Bytes on it? If it is even available that is.

5) How are older (linus) versions dealt with? Do you lose all support? Do you lose compatibility if you go on a new version?

6) If there are no extra problems with compatibility, what's the best distro if I want to use as little (or none) terminal commands as possible?

7) How easy is it for games which are not native to linux, to run on linux? Both older games (DOS or early Windows) and more modern including Windows 10 games.

8) I use Vegas editing software and I don't want to change it. As far as I know there is no official release of it for Linux. Has anyone tried it and does it work fine or it's just a bad idea to try to use it under Linux?

9) Anything else important I should know?

Thank you in advance.
1A) Literally the only difference between Kubuntu and Ubuntu is which bloated desktop is preinstalled by default and the Ubuntu Group should be ashamed for creating this kind of pointless confusion. They're just spins of the same codebase.

2A) It really depends on how much effort you want to squeeze out for this. Some games run even better on Linux than in native Windows. Other games literally don't care how/where you run them.

3A) Pfffsh, no. While GOG's own Linux installers are a bit out of date, you shouldn't have to terminal dive for anything except for fun.

4A) The hell's malware? Joking aside, Linux is a harder target to hit because for the most part there are solutions to make it hardened. In lay terms, I've never thought to scan anything in my time.

5A) How that is handled depends on the distribution. Fedora for example has a 13 month life cycle. After that, they apply AMYOYO. Others like Arch don't really have an "old" or "new"; instead just a continual roll where you might occasionally rebase. And then there's the one I like the least: LTS. Debian already has a lifecycle that's too long, so Ubuntu takes that and makes it geriatric. Then while One Winged Angel quietly plays in the background, Mint takes that already stale codebase from Ubuntu and supports it for well beyond the use by date.

(I hold nothing but utter contempt for that style of system, especially after finding out about how there might be an uncomfortably long wait between versions. I encountered this myself with the Simple-Scan utility.)

6A) This doesn't seem like the right question to ask. Rather, you should aim to eventually ease yourself to learn how to do some light .sh scripting and learn what fun you can have automating pointless tasks from your life; and so you know what to do in case of the rare chance you need to invoke a rare spell to save your system.

7A) I already covered this question.

8A) This is more or less the same as 7A, but I'll be less cryptic and mumble the name of WINE. As an alternative, have you considered that you're going to be using an operating system that encourages the use of free and open source software?

9A) That depends on what you define as important. You haven't asked anything about the matter of system updates or how to get applications, for example.
Post edited July 04, 2021 by Darvond
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timppu: I have used Linux for years and even administer Linux servers at work (several different distros, but mostly either RHEL based or Ubuntu), and I still don't quite understand why some packet managers (like yum/dnf) are supposed to be better than e.g. apt that Ubuntu and Mint uses. To a normal and even many advanced users, the difference will seem to be nothing but using a different command to update your system and applications. You run the command, it updates your system, and that's it. What's the big deal?
Dependency handling, error handling, sanity checking, mirror handling, automation, how well it handles doing a full system upgrade, just to name a few things.

Up until a few years ago, APT's codebase was hot garbage. And Mint's upgrade path gong show has been mentioned before.
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timppu: I have used Linux for years and even administer Linux servers at work (several different distros, but mostly either RHEL based or Ubuntu), and I still don't quite understand why some packet managers (like yum/dnf) are supposed to be better than e.g. apt that Ubuntu and Mint uses. To a normal and even many advanced users, the difference will seem to be nothing but using a different command to update your system and applications. You run the command, it updates your system, and that's it. What's the big deal?
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Darvond: Dependency handling, error handling, sanity checking, mirror handling, automation, how well it handles doing a full system upgrade, just to name a few things.

Up until a few years ago, APT's codebase was hot garbage. And Mint's upgrade path gong show has been mentioned before.
From the end-user point of view, it depends whether or not you run into such problems. Otherwise he just sees text going on the screen and then bam it is updated.

I don't recall having run into dependency problems while I've run the normal apt update && apt full-upgrade on Ubuntu or Mint over the years, but lately I did run into such problem with Manjaro. "pacman -Syyu" would just fail because of dependency with some audio stuff it tried to update. So from my end-user point of view, apt has worked better than pacman.

Also if I go to more advanced stuff that normal home users don't need to think about, like setting up local repositories for a group of servers, I felt it was considerably harder to set up and maintain on a RHEL-based Linux (using yum) than on Ubuntu (using apt).

Also when it comes to not being able to perform release upgrades, I've run into the inability to do it mainly on RHEL based Linux, like when I was supposed to upgrade a group of CentOS 6 servers to 7, but in the end we had to install totally new servers because it seemed a release upgrade from CentOS 6 to 7 just can't be done:

https://forums.centos.org/viewtopic.php?t=69363

At the same time, I've run several successful release upgrades on Ubuntu servers (but there were problems on some systems there too, so overall I feel it is better to just reinstall from a clean table that trying to fight all possible issues that comes from a release upgrade...).

I guess a rolling release like Manjaro is one option, but as said I did run into dependency problems there in a normal system upgrade where there was nothing fancy updated...

And before some Windows user thinks "man it seems complex and error-prone on Linux to do an upgrade", I recently had to fight with my relative's Windows 10 laptop where the update system was broken (it wouldn't update anything anymore, it seemed quite a widespread problem at some point and needed quite detailed instructions to finally fix it), and there are enough stories of failed feature updates etc. on Windows 10 too... Also on Windows, I usually opt for clean install instead of a release upgrade, and sometimes I even clean install Windows just to clean it out.)
Post edited July 04, 2021 by timppu
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timppu: -Pobody's nerfect-
I understand the sentiment. But it's also come a long way since I was playing around with live CDs around Ubuntu 6.
Thank you all for your input.
Very informative.

God I wish TOS was still around, or at least BeOS.
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trusteft: Beos
As for TOS, that's more than a little vague, do you mean TOS/360?

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system[/url]) Funny you should mention BEOS.



Edit: Once again, I'd like to thank BB Code for fucking nothing.
Post edited July 04, 2021 by Darvond
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trusteft: Beos
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Darvond: As for TOS, that's more than a little vague, do you mean TOS/360?

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system[/url]) Funny you should mention BEOS.

Edit: Once again, I'd like to thank BB Code for fucking nothing.
First of all, I laughed with your edit.

To answer your question, I meant TOS as in The Operating System, the OS for the Atari ST line of computers.
Yes I know of Haiku, but...
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Darvond: As for TOS, that's more than a little vague, do you mean TOS/360?

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_(operating_system[/url]) Funny you should mention BEOS.

Edit: Once again, I'd like to thank BB Code for fucking nothing.
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trusteft: First of all, I laughed with your edit.

To answer your question, I meant TOS as in The Operating System, the OS for the Atari ST line of computers.
Yes I know of Haiku, but...
The correct terminology (excuse being pedantic...) is STos for the operating system for the Atari ST (and Falcon) range of computers.
Post edited July 05, 2021 by Trooper1270