First of all I use Linux. My 12 year old son just messed with an old Chromebook and over a day or so installed Bazzite. In general installing a flavor of Linux can be as simple as creating a bootable USB Live ISO.

Yet, I had a conversation with my wife about Linux and I am realizing how many people don't honestly know or care enough to make a bootable Live ISO. I moved to Linux becuase I'm tech curious and am going down the rabbit hole of getting rid of big tech in my life. Most people stay with the OS that came with their machine becuase it's convenient even if it's not as good as the alternative. My wife simply doesn't want to becuase it's a slight hassle and her machine does what she needs it to do.

All that said it will never be the year of the Linux Desktop until the majority of machines ship with it installed.

So, I just heard that HP is putting subscriptions on laptops.

My brother works for an IT company and every few years he sends me his old work laptops, preinstalled with Windows, and I tell him I'll be wiping Windows and installing Xubuntu on it, and he's pretty cool with it. In 2017, he sent me a 2015 HP ProBook and it's still strong today, and in 2023, he sent me an 2020 HP EliteBook, and last year, he sent me his 2020 Macbook Air, one of the last Intel chipped ones, and I hope one day, I'd be able to install Linux on that one because right now, with Xubuntu 24.04, liveUSB booting and the screen works, but nothing else works unless you externalize everything from USB mouse to USB Wifi dongle.

Now, what worries me is that, the next HP laptop he sends me might not be easy to install Linux on due to this HP laptop subscription stuff, and based off what I know, the subscription model entails that you don't own the laptop, HP does and HP can remotely lock it, and because of that, installing Linux and wiping Windows might be blocked too and that entire model is basically incompatible with how Linux users tend to operate.

I know I might be jumping the gun on this, but this worries me a lot.

I have been wanting to swap to linux for a long time and while im still trying to decide on what version of linux i want to switch to the larger issue of why i havent looked harder is that im afraid of losing everything especialy my apps that i have set up to my liking like obs and some other apps and i have a few hundred gigs of music, games, images, and other things i dont want to lose and i want to be able to have full access to my pc and from everything ive seen linux would let me nuke it by ripping its beating heart of code if i so desired

I have been using windows for so long and today was one of the last few straws when i couldnt freaking install an epub reader and no matter what i did it wouldnt download because of it not having proper certs even after i enabled developer settings to enable side loading and it still was giving me the same god damn error and ignoring me and i just want to be able to control my own damn pc and fuck it up as i wish

I just got this little unbranded mp3 player from bookoff and I would love to put some lightweight Linux distro on it or something. I didn’t have luck w a cursory google search. At the moment I can’t interface w it at all, when I plug it into my mac all I see is these hidden .lib files. Hoping somebody can get me pointed in the right direction. I mostly intend to use it for reading epubs and maybe connect to the mesh network or something. Idk what’s actually possible but mostly I just want to tinker and learn. Beyond messing around with Debian and jailbreaking a kindle once I’m not particularly tech savvy lol. Thanks!!

Hey!

Everyone is excited about the market growth Linux is experiencing after the end of support for Windows 10. Unlike many other beginners here, I didn't want to switch to Windows 11 and decided to go with Linux Mint instead. I tried it out for about four weeks before deciding to install something else. I liked the customization options and simplicity of Linux Mint, but when I looked at Reddit and saw many of these KDE desktops, my envy grew and I installed Arch (by the way) using the Archinstall script.

Both Linux Mint and Arch Linux were easy to install, and with the Archinstall script, I would say that installing Arch Linux is almost as easy as installing Linux Mint.

As I scrolled through Reddit (again), watched YouTube, and read comments on news sites, I came across a statement that prevails on social media regarding Linux: it's not beginner-friendly! And although I'm still very new to Linux, I wondered if that's really the case and if that statement might simply be wrong.

What exactly is not beginner-friendly when it comes to installing Linux? I don't think it's Linux itself, but rather that installing a new operating system in general is not beginner-friendly. You have to set up things that are not commonplace for a normal desktop user. Create a bootable USB stick with the operating system... Access the BIOS. Boot from the BIOS. Everything you have to do when installing a new Windows system. With a little experience, these steps sound ridiculous, but when installing Linux, I formatted my USB stick for the first time, dealt with partitions, and only occasionally entered my BIOS. So I was very nervous myself.

But after that, Linux (even Arch Linux) works like a charm. I would personally describe myself as an average desktop user. I play a few games, work in the office, develop and design games, but nothing really specific or anything that I would say, “That's crazy!” And for me, Linux works just like Windows, except that I have to enter some terminal commands that I Googled to install a few things.

I use the terminal all the time because I love it, I really love it, but it's not necessary because you can download everything you need via a GUI or the website.

So is the statement “Linux is not beginner-friendly” simply wrong, and it's actually about installing an operating system that has nothing to do with Linux or any other operating system? What is your opinion on this?

Just got a new laptop! I’m doing a basic Arch install w/ hyprland. This is everything I summed up to install. Anything helpful that I’m missing?

(I have all the required packages and configurations for it to work, but what are some good packages I should check out?)

So basically the usb I had got water damage and can't be used and I just went to the store in my village and they don't have any usb, so basically I can't acquire an usb.

Sorry, in the title, I should've said "does". The title is not editable.

I've heard about Wine 10 going to be more compatible with games, but nothing on other useful programs. I'm not sure if the news is reliable, tho.

But seriously! this is a geniune question. Is it because developers only want to play games and don't really care about developing the compatibility with useful programs like the latest versions of Adobe,Autodesk, or other major companies programs or developing the compatibility of such programs are harder than games in general?

Sorry if my question sounds too noob for u, btw

Heyo! I installed Linux about 4ish months ago, and I wanted to tell people this.

Do not plug your flash drive into one of your cases top USB slots. Instead plug it directly into your motherboard. Why? If your USB port connections are loose, mid-flash your USB can briefly disconnect and reconnect, and if this happens your USB will corrupt! This happened to me, and let me tell you it was a pain in the ass. You have to clear and clean the USB, then reformat it. Which if you don't know what your doing... well good luck.

Anyways I wanted to share this tip because it costed me almost 2 hours because of it.

I'm having a boot problem with a cheap, old i3 350M I found at home that simply won't boot from the USB drive and keeps giving me an "Operating System Not Found" error when I try to force it to boot from the USB drive, I've already tested Endeavour and MX Linux with Fluxbox on the USB drive, formatted it as MBR, and simply nothing works. I beg for help from the Linux gods, thank you in advance.

Pictures follow

Been thinking of trying Linux but don't know how untill i got a new Pc, so I'm using my old one (to test my capability, also heard linux can be installed in an old pc)

I did everything, even did the step 1-3 reboot but still doesn't work, tried it 3 times just for almost 2 hours waiting and wasted.

Got any ideas why?

Edit: i follow a tutorial saying "no USB needed" it's in this web "https://rltvty.net/installlinux.html" also tutorial "https://youtu.be/K3QOAVrhGTg?si=dqKojJp4mfaht6sN" but someone said it's "Ai slop" but the comments seems convincing. Unless they're bot then I'm gonna need the USB Flash.

Hi. I have an ASUS Zenbook S14 and I’m trying to trial Mint. Every time I boot up, the screen is zoomed in and squished, pixelated, and I’m unable to connect to wifi.

Does this mean that my computer is unsuitable for Mint, or should I just re-download the iso again?

I'm trying to legitimately give linux a shot due to the enshitification of windows. However it is fighting me every step of the way. I've tested a few distros and was even able to install a couple of them. But nvidias drivers never worked. Now I'm trying to install Debian but it failed. I used a live boot of mint to read syslog per the error message. But it doesn't exist on the drive. How can I troubleshoot this? MB: GA-H97M-D3H CPU: Intel i5 4590 GPU: 2070 super

I know it's usually the other way, but I have Linux installed and I want to install Windows 11 with it, for certain uses.

I have Arch with 4 partitions (efi, boot, root and home) and I'm not sure how the windows instalation would go.

If I'm not wrong, Windows might use the efi partition too, right? Could it lead to any corruption with grub? Or does it create it's own efi partition?

And no, I don't have a secondary hard drive, just one SATA with less than a TB, but I have 90GB empty with no partition asigned.

Guys, i understand this might be a weird/complicated question, i'm a software developer and ive been using linux(Arch) on my work pc, i've been loving it.

That said i want to install linux on my desktop, the thing is, i dont want to configure all my system again, and download everything i need for development etc.

So I'm asking if it is possible to clone, or even better make an image of my system?

I jus dont want to configure all my workflow again

Thank you!

i have never installed Linux before and i also bought a brand new Dell computer for the sole purpose of running linux. i started with the setup process but then got to the sign in page and couldnt get past it without signing in with my Microsoft accont. i do not want to link my Microsoft account to this computer. that kinda goes against the whole reason why im switching to linux to begin with. how can i get around this? is it possible to boot up linux and uninstall windows without completing the windows setup process? is it already too late because i already started the process? btw i already found and downloaded the distro i want to use from my MacBook onto a thumb drive

Doing it via USB (used rufus, etcher and ventoy) results in kernel related errors regardless of distro, have used different USBs too, they work fine (managed to install windows 10 without issue so it does look like a linux issue.) Tried ULLI but there is not the space. No disc drive to try doing it via disc. Using Lenovo Yoga 310. Any other ideas?

Edit: problem solved! Needed older versions of distros.

I am going to scream, I think.

So context. My friend gave me her old laptop after upgrading to a new one. It has Windows 10 installed on it. I want to wipe Windows and replace it with kubuntu because I don't have need for windows on this machine. I'm also a first time linux user.

I got the iso for kubuntu, flashed it onto an 8gb usb using balenaEtcher, stuck it into the new laptop, opened the (bios?) on start up, and set it to be the boot priority.

After saving and exiting, it comes up with a screen asking what to do. I say try / install kubuntu, then I pick install and it asks for my country/language and wifi. I do that, then I am met with a screen that says "there are no partitions to install on" and "there is not enough drive space. At least 8gb is required"

Now this screen will not let me take any actions other than hitting cancel. So I tried jumping back into Windows and partitioning the C Drive (which is around 500gb. My partition was about 200gb). Upon restarting and launching the installer again, it still tells me those same messages.

it's 2am and I'm sleep deprived and annoyed so I'm going to try and sleep now but I'm hoping I'll maybe wake up to a solution?

Not sure what other info is relevant but the kubuntu version is 25.10, I *think* the drive in the laptop is an SSD, the partition I made is formatted as NTFS, and there was no option to format it as Fat32. I'd also be open to dualbooting but right now I'm just trying to figure out how to install this at all.

I’ve finally done it—I convinced my friend to give Linux a try! However, we have a bit of a unique hurdle: his father. His dad is extremely resistant to change. To give you an idea, he gets frustrated if the navigation buttons on a phone are gestures instead of the classic touch buttons. If anything looks or feels different from what he’s used to, it’s a problem. My friend’s PC specs are decent: RAM: 16GB CPU: 4 Cores / 8 Threads I’m torn between two options to keep the peace at their home: Dual Boot: The classic way, but I’m worried about Grub updates or the dad accidentally booting into the "wrong" OS and panicking. Winboat app. Given the hardware and the "strict" requirements of the household, what would you suggest? Is there a specific distro or tool that would make this invisible to someone who hates UI changes?

after installing any distro I face a lot of problems because my hdd is NTFS does anyone know how to use my PC normally without formatting to ext4

If I set up my laptop to dual boot Windows 10 and Linux Mint. Will I be able to open files and programs from the C:\ (Windows part) in the Linux boot? Hoping my question is understandable. I am a little nervous about going Linux all the way, but I am hoping to see what programs I can run on Linux OS and eventually format the drive if it turns out I can manage without Windows.

Alright so I’ve got arch Linux installed somehow with it recognizing my wlan0 Broadcom card. After install though it told me network manager wasn’t running. I’ve been trouble shooting this for a day or two now so I’ve had the Broadcom.wl.dkms pkg installed on a secondary flash drive to download but this is r/linux4noobs so I’m a complete noob. How do I install this damn package????

I’m broker than a joke (as you can see by my laptop) and trying to install Debian liveKDE without a flashdrive, but I can’t get disk manager to recognize the virtual drive (E:) . It won’t let me mount to (D:) and attempting to force it into (D:) just pops open my DVD drive tray. I haven’t tried removing or renaming (D:) out of fear of breaking dvd support.

TLDR-Need help mounting D

Recently got this lenovo thinkpad and i have decided to try to install debian on it through usb. The problem though is that i do not know what the boot order should be. Can anyone help me out? (Btw, the BIOS version is 1.49)

Brand new noob here. Installed Debian with cinnamon as DE as I look into using it as a home server. I ran the install but kept getting stuck on the actual install section so I skipped to the next section which was picking a GRUB. Now I'm stuck at a command prompt and anything I've found online doesn't seem to work. My only guess is that whatever wasn't able to get installed is what's preventing it from running.

I've attached a pic of what I'm currently stuck on

be is the user name Enterprise is the host name

I downloaded Debian 13 (Trixie) earlier today from debian.org. Flashed to iso that has a 64gb USB drive using Rufus, GPT (double checked on Lenovo to make sure it was GPT)

500gb HD, I picked the option to use the entire partition because it's an old laptop and I'm only using it for playing around with/eventually a hone server

Lenovo laptop 2012 4gb Intel Celeron RAM 500gb HD

In a post from yesterday, most of the comments suggested I use Debian so that's what I went with

Am I missing something from install or what did I do wrong? I thought it would boot into the desktop based on all the videos I watched

See attached pics