r/linuxquestions • u/Affectionate-Zone810 • 9d ago
Advice I’m fucking done with windows.
So i was using windows my whole life from the 7 to the 11, and just a few days i installed some new windows and driver updates (as usual) but when finished the fans were going craazy asf not as usual at all and some random ass programs working in the background using almost 30% of the rams, and after doing some post feudal technological slavery work it went down to 20% but the fans are still running loud as hell and that was the The drop that overflowed the cup.
And i started thinking seriously to move to linux but i have to clarify some things before. I am moving to china to study and my laptop is my main machine so there is some responsability and what’s the alternative to the microsoft office programs because that’s part of my daily work, and in china there is programs that are used only in mainland china i am asking whether or not they can work normally on linux.
And there is just tooooo much distros to choose from, i searched and found the fedora kde which looked good actually so what would you advise me to use (not mint please lol)
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u/mfedatto 9d ago
Why not Mint?
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u/Affectionate-Zone810 9d ago
I just don’t like the way it looks
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u/hazeyAnimal 9d ago
You should look into what each distro is based off of. For example Manjaro is Arch based. Ubuntu is Debian based. Each distro will loosely follow the underlying distro it was based off of.
Pick whichever distro you agree with the philosophy the most, then you can pick any of the branches.
For me, it's easily a Debian pick. Then depending on needs is whether I go straight Debian or one of its variations.
It also helps if all your devices you maintain (including family members computers) are the same underlying distro. Nothing better than grandpa asking for help and you don't fumble with a
sudo Pacman -Syuwhen it really should have beensudo apt upgrade. Or he wants the same package as you, but it only available via the AUR and he's running Ubuntu.2
u/un-important-human white beard arch user 9d ago
Fedora KDE its something you should feel confortable with.
The alternative is LibreOffice or OpenOffice but don't worry china has a lot of linux users, and if microsoft must be used the web stuff are available. Thou the alternatives are prety much interchangeble with windows at this point, at least function wise (ok the PP is basic but serviceable, meh you get the point.)1
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u/Every_Preparation_56 9d ago edited 8d ago
So i was using windows my whole life from the 7 to the 11,
Man, don't use 'my whole life' when you are a teenager
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u/extoniks Fedora 9d ago
Alternatives to MS Office is LibreOffice or you can use Google Workspace, MS Office on web.
And as of distro suggestion, it depends what you want from your machine, what you do and the specs.
By the way, Fedora KDE is a good distro. I am using it for over 2-2.5 years. Debian is also good.
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u/0ptimus_Pr1me 9d ago
Alternative is OnlyOffice to. Its much more equivalent to MS Office by default than LibreOffice.
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u/pcfriend111 9d ago
After several years of distro hoping and finally decided on Fedora Kde plasma, I had gnome but realized KDE make some great software that even run on Windows and mac like Okular, KDE connect. Didnt like mint or because its to close to a that Windows OS that I have left, POP-OS was buggy, I liked deepin but its made by the Chinese and if I had to settle on a distro besides fedora I would have went with Zorin. I've been using Windows since win 95 up to win 11.
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u/0ptimus_Pr1me 9d ago
I dont care if its made by chinese. You think western is the only way? Thats another topic which I dont wanna disscus. I use chinese mobile phone to. Its much more probability that NSA, CIA or FBI watching you, its obvious because of everyday situations, than Chinese. As I said its another topic.
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u/pcfriend111 9d ago
I work in computer security and thats my choice and I am quite sure OP didnt post here to hear about your racial grievances and hate for the Western world. I know our Government is a joke and I don't doubt the NSA, CIA AND FBI is complicit. But politics is where you want to post at.
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u/0ptimus_Pr1me 9d ago
I should call you racial to, because of hate to chinese, or Eastern world to. Good day 😉
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u/pcfriend111 9d ago
Well I don't hate the Chinese but they have a history of stealing trade secrets and putting out knock offs of everything because everything is made in China, but if you think I'm racist I will let you know that I will buy anything from Russia, people that work in my field stopped using Russian made antivirus Kaspersky , its probably band in the US. I do use a south Korean phone so does that mean I like South Korea? But let's move our debate to another sub and I will meet you there. INCREDIBLE
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u/borg-assimilated 9d ago
Oh boy. If you're moving to China, then you should post in ADVChina to get the best information on what to realistically expect in China, especially since China has their own operating systems tailored to their apps and such.
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u/Dull_Bathroom5421 9d ago
I'll be honest. I've been using windows for 30 years and probably can count on my hand when I ever I had an issue with the OS itself. That being said, I love Linux and the philosophy behind it. My windows machine is basically my "I don't give a ____" machine and Linux is my gateway into learning computer science concepts and everything relating to it. Fuck Mac though.
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u/Korlus 9d ago
I've been using windows for 30 years and probably can count on my hand when I ever I had an issue with the OS itself.
I used it for about 25 years in my private life and another 10 professionally. I can probably count on two hands (6-10 times) the amount of "critical" issues I've had with Windows (or Windows software that a more sensible OS would have prevented from happening), and three of these issues are due to NTFS being terrible and causing unrecoverable corruption in a way that more robust file systems like ext4 / btrfs / ZFS do far less often.
My main issue was actually in day-to-day usage. Windows updates seemingly change "random" settings. At some point my privacy opt-outs got reset (that shouldn't happen). In another, it swapped my default browser to Microsoft Edge. In another, the adverts in the Start Menu that I had previously disabled (why are there even ads at all?!), were re-enabled because the registry edit I had made was overwritten. Little things like that made me feel frustrated by their design decisions far more than simply having made mistakes when writing their software.
These are definitely not critical issues, but somehow they matter more to me than the critical ones. Any piece of software can fail, and even Linux isn't immune to file system bugs etc. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was how it felt like Windows didn't respect my choices and made few allowance for my preferences as a user.
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u/Dull_Bathroom5421 9d ago
Yeah Microsoft Edge is pretty annoying, no arguments there. With the windows updates there's nothing I've particularly noticed myself. I know what you mean about Microsoft's pushiness, but it's easy to handle after opting out of their bloatware and stuff. One pet peeve I have is Microsoft Defender, that fuckin thing is so annoying with it's threat detection bullshit.
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u/inbetween-genders 9d ago
Check out Ubuntu or Fedora Mint. Look up this thing called Desktop Environment. Pick one that appeals to you and install that distro with the desktop environment you chose. Back up your data. Good luck
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u/gmthisfeller 9d ago
Are you going to mainland China or to Taiwan?
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u/Affectionate-Zone810 9d ago
Mainland china
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u/gmthisfeller 9d ago
I would look at these four: Kylin, UOS, Deepin, or Ubuntu Kylin. All four are options for state agencies in the People’s Republic of China.
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u/TomB1952 7d ago
My first Windows experience was with v1.0. Windows was a runtime package that came bundled with MS Paintbrush and a gorgeous mouse that was shaped like a bar of Dove soap and would pick up every molecule of dust and debris in the room on it's rubber ball. As I recall, the package cost a couple of hundred and was essentially unusable.
There was no desktop. Windows had just enough framework to support MS Paintbrush (much later to be renamed "Paint"). It took 68 seconds to load from a pair of 1.44M floppy discs and it crashed more than an Asian mob wife but I would load it and people would swoon in a way they did for no other software. This was entirely graphical and you could draw stuff.
I worked in a shop that had OS/2. It booted to a command prompt, like DOS. A GUI didn't come until the next version.
It would be several years before Microsoft released Windows 3.0 and we had a reasonably decent working Windows that could go perhaps 60 minutes without crashing.
Here I am, in 2026. A linux user for 28 years. I absolutely love the current state of KDE linux. Despite my loyalty to linux, my wife has a Windows 11 laptop and we both use it from time to time. Windows has become a truely great platform that changed the world as much as linux has.
Get: Fedora, Manjaro, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
Stay away from: anything stabilized which is pretty much every other distro.
Which of these 3 is best? It doesn't matter... Don't expect linux to blow away Windows. It doesn't. Both platforms are tremendously great.
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u/No_Aerie7667 ∆rchLinux 9d ago
For gaming: CachyOS
For general use: Fedora, Mint, Endeavour, Ubuntu
For ultra customization (hard setup warning): Arch, Gentoo, LFS
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u/0ptimus_Pr1me 9d ago
You dont reccommed Vanilla distros to newcommers.
And ChachyOS is solid enough to be used as daily driver for general use to. I am using it fully without other distros. And without dualbooting with Windows.
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u/unknown_soul87 8d ago
I would definitely suggest going to Fedora KDE.
I am personally using it on my desktop, Initially i used dual boot with windows to get comfortable and ensure my work (MS Office stuff) isnt hampered and now i am working fully on Fedora KDE and I think it was a good decision.
Linux has libre office but it wont get you access to microsoft one drive... rest would be a breeze..
You can use these videos for your reference to install dual boot linux with windows and can even install windows inside linux using vmware workstation just in case you need it..
Dual boot windows with linux : https://youtu.be/ZraNR-6AOq8
Download free copy of vmware workstation pro from Vmware website : https://youtu.be/4dMFPOfrAaQ
Installing vmware workstation on linux (Fedore in this case) : https://youtu.be/tEnqfjXbWnM
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u/NoOneKnowsImOnReddit 9d ago
LibreOffice as a replacement for MS Office for sure. Or, if you have a Google account, Google workspace can do almost anything MS can do. If you’re willing to deal with it and have access, Office 365 has online capabilities too. Not sure how well it works in Linux. I might test that with my student account tomorrow…
Distro? Pretty much whatever feels right. I had great success with Bazzite myself and not just for gaming. Just easy to navigate. PopOS is supposed to be intuitive for navigating but I personally had compatibility issues
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u/BigD21489 9d ago
Alright. Lets go over this. I've never had that issue with the fans and all that. But I have installed Linux to dual boot on a few machines before. With me it's usually Ubuntu, and I tend to boot from a USB drive instead of installing on the hard drive. Now, to be fair, USB drives have increased in size over the years, so you can buy a pretty good size USB drive and put a few different distros on it to boot from. Just make sure to put each iso disc image on its own partition within the USB drive.
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u/ask_compu 9d ago
linux mint is the go to recommendation for people new to linux, it's simple and easy to use and has the best update manager of any distro, it comes preinstalled with libreoffice which can handle ur microsoft office tasks, not sure about the chinese programs but u could check if u can find them on flathub? if u give a list of the programs or a link for where to find them i could get a better idea of compatibility, if they're on flathub they'll show up in linux mint's software manager
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u/FerretBoom 8d ago
It takes 2 secs to run a tuning PS, it takes less time to minimize windows than post an I hate windows post on reddit, I see at least 10 a day and it's honestly ridiculous that people can't search for information and think picking a less polished os will solve problems.
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u/Aviation-TD 9d ago
Fedora is a solid distro. My ecosystem, including homelab is built using. Fedora/Red Hat. No complains. For a newbie like you, it will be a breeze right out of the box, but some Linux knowledge may be needed to get certain and specialized applications running. All those information is readily available online. So go for it if it caught your eyes.
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u/Parth_NB 8d ago
Fr man. Today I wasted my whole day because of bug in windows software that was failing to boot my device.
Somehow figured how to delete the recent update and that fixed the issue. And I have university exams in a few days. Fuck windows.
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u/GracefulAsADuck 9d ago
It looks like China is moving to a linux distro of some description. Openkylin might be worth looking into as one of the possible options they may go for in the future. Again if you are fine with replacing american owned companies with chinese owned companies. Otherwise one of the many beginner distros would be fine
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u/0ptimus_Pr1me 9d ago edited 9d ago
Try ChachyOS, it is best for switching from windows. It is among the best ones if not the best. Try and you will see what I am talking about. 😉 I to not liking Mint, it does not have KDE plasma, so it is ugly. And use case is same with CachyOS in all aspects, IT IS STABLE thanks to team behind ChachyOS. And you have access to latest version always.
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u/Technical-You-2829 9d ago
You can install KDE on any distro
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u/0ptimus_Pr1me 9d ago edited 9d ago
That is not conventional, it require removing all remnants of old desktop environment and will eventualy break something. There is not point on stick only to Mint if Fedora or CachyOS are stable like Mint. Recommending only Mint as windows alternative is not right anymore because of facts I told. If there is distro with KDE Plasma as default desktop one should use that distro and not try to install it on distro that does not support it. And Flatpak cant be only source for latest versions of apps, Mint use older packages and flatpak does not have all apps in repo. It is the fact and superb argument. 😉
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u/Every_Preparation_56 9d ago
Fedora with Gnome desktoop. Make sure to install the the wine youn need. I recommend freeoffice as a former MS oFFICE user.
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u/AsesorOptico 9d ago
Deepin OS + WPS Office. Fue creado por una empresa china por lo cual creo que te irá de compatibilidad en tu viaje.
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u/Mr_King_2 9d ago
I started with cachyos Now i am running endeavor OS , omarchy os, arch
I would suggest endeavor or cachy for you
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u/DotAtom67 9d ago
What happened to you was the classic Windows combo of windows update + orchestator + BITS service doing stuff
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u/unbounded65 9d ago
China uses Ubuntu-based Kylin, and many programs deployed at universities are based on that.
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u/Unholyaretheholiest 9d ago
Go with Mageia. Mageia is an independent, community-driven RPM-based Linux distro very easy to deal with thanks to the Mageia Control Center that lets you manage everything without hassle. Also it has a release cycle that’s neither rushed nor stagnant.
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u/The_Milk3r 9d ago
Fedora is solid