I have grown up around Linux and have had people like my dad use it near me my whole life. I even booted a fedora version once on a very old machine when I was younger as a way for my dad to teach me about Linux. Sadly I never really caught on at the time.
I am ready to really jump in now. Is there a beginners guide/pros cons comparison for different distribution of Linux? I am also curious about how well things like matlab, solidworks, and Office suit/libra office work in Linux.
Thank you!
Matlab exists for Linux and is the same as on Windows. LibreOffice is a fully functioning office suit for Linux.
I can’t speak to SOLIDWORKS, their website only lists a windows version. There is however some community work being done here https://github.com/cryinkfly/SOLIDWORKS-for-Linux And it looks like they have it running.
Given that Fedora and Ubuntu are listed on that github, you should probably start with either one of those.
For a complete beginner I’d recommend Ubuntu, since it’s a solid distro with huge wealth on online support available.
Awesome! I think I will start looking at Ubuntu.
If you’re coming from Windows, or like the windows look then I’d recommend trying the cinnamon flavor of Ubuntu (or straight up Linux Mint which is also Ubuntu based).
I would also suggest KDE based ones (like Kubuntu). Familiar desktop look and feel. Intuitive controls. Decent hardware requirements.
Anyway, you can use a different desktop env. later, too.
Linux mint uses flatpak instead of snap. That’d be my reason to go with them instead of plain Ubuntu.
I mean I use all of them - flatpak, snap and AppImages on my Mint installation. And I’m pretty sure you can use flatpaks on Ubuntu as well.
Sure. But it can be annoying to remove snap if you’re like me.
Is that a DE in Ubuntu?
Yes, it has a typical taskbar which will be familiar if you’re used to windows and I think it’s quite sleek in general.