Switching to Linux: why?
Why choose Linux and which distro to choose?
Introduction
For a Windows (or Mac) user, that of switching to GNU/Linux could prove to be a winning choice on several levels. Let’s start at the beginning, the needs of a typical user are usually always the same: Surfing the Internet, reading email, perhaps reading and writing documents, and looking at photos and videos; all these tasks can be done on essentially any operating system, but GNU/Linux offers some advantages.
Advantages
In many cases one does not have a computer with hardware that is always recent and up-to-date, and this operating system fits very well with any type of components.
Beyond this more technical issue the many distros based on GNU/Linux can be “easily” customized and adapted to one’s needs.
Most of the programs available for Linux distros are free! and these also include many alternatives to paid programs, which means that there will be no need to pay for a program to edit photographs or read PDFs, but let’s remember that many of these programs are developed by individuals and surely these people might appreciate financial support, however small.
Disadvantage
However, there are several disadvantages, the difficulty of installation is definitely one of the main ones, hardly an inexperienced user will go to change the operating system of his computer to one that is not the default, and even fewer will try to access the BIOS and to start a distro installation. We have reached a point where installing any operating system with simplified installers has become much easier and affordable for everyone, however, the fact remains that it takes a minimum of knowledge.
Difficulty of use is again a fairly difficult hurdle to overcome; doing a system update or installing an application is not always an easy process, but this is a problem that many Distros solve by offering a graphical user interface for the package manager in use. Moreover, it is relatively difficult not to find online help or some kind of help given the large community of people active in the Linux world
Recommended Distro
Given the intent of this guide I’m going to recommend what (in my opinion) are good distros to start approaching this type of system.
For anyone who would like to try something more “fancy” I can suggest these:
These last 3 distros leave them alone unless you have intermediate - advanced knowledge, it might just cause you stress and living ache
