Linux is interesting to me, but I’ve never dipped my toes into it because it seems really intimidating (and a lot of loud people act pretty snobbish about it towards non-Linux users, making it seem even more intimidating to get into; I’d rather not be bullied for my choices in software or my ignorance in others).
It seems so complicated to me, and there’s so many types, and so much lingo that I’m not versed in, so that when I consider getting into it I just feel so overwhelmed I can’t even think.
My understanding of Linux is bare bones to say the least. I understand it’s highly customizable. I understand it’s a lot of manual work, though, at least… it sounds like it? From what I’ve seen people say, it seems like you need to remember a lot of codes and functions to do basic things unless you install interfaces for things? Again, I’m really ignorant about this stuff, so excuse my lack of proper terminolgy and such.
I also am under the impression that Linux isn’t the greatest for most games? Or at least, that’s what I heard a lot years ago, I don’t know if it’s still true (or if it was even true back then). If that’s still a thing, is it because Windows is just what everyone defaults to when designing software? How viable is gaming on Linux?
And how does one even… go about setting up Linux? How do you choose what er… version? Type? Ah, distro? Again this… terminology is foreign to me, I’m not fully sure what I’m saying. Would I have to whipe a laptop of Windows to install Linux on it? How would I do that?
I am fascinated by the concept of Linux but like I said, there’s just so much. I have ADHD and Autism and combined, the whole idea of jumping into this is so goddamn overwhelming to consider figuring it out all by myself.
Sorry if this is out of place, by the way.
ETA: Thanks for all the help so far everyone. I’m gonna start playing with various distros using an older laptop of mine. I bought it real cheap and used a few years ago and it has mainly just been used as my own personal tv that only plays Whose Line Is It Anyways? with Drew Carry every moment of every day, virtually nonstop… and the poor thing can do that on Linux just fine, too.
ETA2: After backing up the Whose Line episodes off the laptop, I tested out Ubuntu using virtual box on my regular laptop but it didn’t entice me much, so I searched for something else and found “Live Window Maker”, a uh, fork(? is that the right term?) of Debian and installed it onto the laptop. So far, successful! I havent explored it much since I finished my backup last night and installed the distro before I left for work, but I’m excited to start playing with it. I really enjoy the classic windows interface styling of this one, so I’m looking forward to playing with it.
The snobbish people are a loud minority.
Linux these days ranges from very complicated to basically good to go out of the box. For basic tasks, you don’t need to dip into the command line in most cases.
Gaming is possible, and it gets easier all the time, but you may run into some difficulties depending on your game of choice. Windows is the default for gaming, so the best experience is there. However you may have no problems at all depending on the games you want to run.
You can dual boot windows and Linux (have both os’ installed, with a menu to choose which one when you start your computer), but it can be tricky to setup and there is a good chance you will unintentionally break your Windows, so if you want to try that, back up your data.
Ubuntu has an install tutorial: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop#1-overview Which is a good place to start. If you manage that, the install processes for other Linux distros will be similar, but may not be as simple. The first few steps is also identical if you want to reinstall windows again, but with a windows install image instead of Ubuntu.
My suggestion is to start with the Ubuntu tutorial, on a spare laptop you don’t care about (you won’t permanently break it, but you’ll likely lose all the data on it). I think you are in the right place, so reach out if you have any questions, hopefully someone will assist. Linux has some rough edges, so don’t be upset if you break something, you can always reinstall (via tutorial) if something gets broken.
Good luck!