Solved Dislike to Linux

[truckerDave]

@Erik Groothuijzen

I, like anyone else, was a WinBlows user since the 80's. Maybe 10 years ago, I did what you are doing. I tried to find a way to save an old laptop that just wouldn't keep up with the latest (at the time) WinBlows. I can't remember which distro I installed, but I can tell you I had a lot of the same issues you are having. Couldn't get programs installed or had no idea how to use them when I did get them installed. So, after a few months, I gave up and canned that laptop.

However, for the same reason you gave (not wanting to be forced into buying new hardware), I made the switch about 6 months ago on all 5 desktops and 2 laptops. I find it much easier this time around. Some of the distros (mint, as an example) are set up to make the conversion from WinBlows a little easier, IMO. And as for using programs, there are a miriad of YouTube tutorial vids for just about anything you want to run. That wasn't quite the case 10 years ago. There were some, of course. But not like today.

But the real reason it's easier for me this time around is simple. I found this website. I know I have asked some "dumb questions" on here. But these folks are always right there to help. Had I known about this site a decade ago, I'd be a Linux pro. (Well, maybe not ).

Abuse the crap out of the search feature up top. And if that doesn't work, don't be afraid to ask a "dumb question". These folks are awesome about helping us out.

 

[bchannell]

I have had every Linux distro known to man on my Dell 14" laptop. After hating gnome 3 for years, I finally have learned to love it's workflow. I've been amazed at how trouble free they all were. Debian 12, LMDE, Elementary, Pop, all work great. I settled on Fedora 39 gnome and love it. Browsers all have trouble rendering web pages on small screens, some small, some Huge, but that's an html rendering and css problem. I have W11 on my laptop now trying it out and Edge does seem to do better and it's available in linux too. I like W11 better than all the previous going back to w95. I started with linux when w98 came out and have used mint most of that time.
If you're having issues with linux, I'd bet it's hardware, because linux is quite solid in almost any form.

 

[The Duck]

I know I have asked some "dumb questions" on here. But these folks are always right there to help.

, don't be afraid to ask a "dumb question". These folks are awesome about helping us out.

Ain't no such thing as a dumb Linux question except the Linux question that never gets asked although I could be wrong.

I usually ask the question and then type Linux.org at the end of my question to bring up any solution already available on the forum.

 

[atanere]

I need the whole web page bigger, not only the fonts, which setting I also found. So now I have 100% (too small), or 200% (too large) which in some cases cuts off part of the page and won't scroll down to the bottom. So I now toggle between two views when it cuts off some of the page.

I set my display to be larger as I have difficulty in reading the very small fonts. This unfortunately makes some screen displays too big. This was the case with Timeshift, looking around to see what it was all about. Wanted to get the display back to 100% was when this happened.

Hi Erik. I like "fractional scaling" of the display too, and yes, the Linux Mint fractional scaling is experimental and not ready for prime time yet. The Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) also uses the Cinnamon desktop, and I think scaling worked better for me with that one. Other distros with the Cinnamon desktop, like Fedora, may be even better yet, if you'll take the time to test some out. The KDE desktop is generally more configurable than Cinnamon, and you would probably get better scaling from that also. Your hardware may be a factor in how well these tools work too.

Linux Mint Tip: To quickly get to your display settings, click your Menu button (or hit the Super key/Windows key) and start typing 'display' (without quotes). By the time you type 'disp' you will see it appear at the top of the menu, so you can just hit Enter to run it when it is highlighted. Opening your menu puts a cursor directly into a search box, just like with Windows. So, you can also open the Menu, start typing 'printers' or 'themes' or 'mouse' to quickly get to those controls. And so on.

Tip if you stay on Mint Cinnamon: When you are at 200% scaling and you can't see the bottom of a window (like when you need to click an "OK button" or something).... you don't need to switch back to 100% scaling. Linux Mint has a solution for this. First hold down the ALT key, then you can click ANYWHERE on the window you want to move around, and drag it as needed to expose the bottom of the window. In other words, you do not have to click-and-drag from the Title Bar of the window (like usual).

Not all distros have that neat little trick though. It's another one of those little things you can learn along your journey. Sometimes you can easily take a tip or trick (or even some apps) from one distro/desktop and install it, or make it work in another distro/desktop... and sometimes you can't. But just making the attempts, and learning some of those differences, is the discovery to your own personal preferences and settings, and learning which distro/desktop most closely matches your tastes on the first installation. After that, no distro will be perfect until you make it so. That is the journey. Enjoy, and good luck!

PS. In almost 30 years of using Linux, I've never reached perfect. But I get pretty good... good enough to keep me happy. I currently use Mint Cinnamon myself, and I think it's one of the easiest and one of the best. But I also jump around, or "distro hop," a lot too... always learning more, and trying to keep up with whats current (an impossible task).

Man, I'm chatty today! That's why you have scrolling!

 

[charlie.corder]

Hi Erik. I like "fractional scaling" of the display too, and yes, the Linux Mint fractional scaling is experimental and not ready for prime time yet. The Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) also uses the Cinnamon desktop, and I think scaling worked better for me with that one. Other distros with the Cinnamon desktop, like Fedora, may be even better yet, if you'll take the time to test some out. The KDE desktop is generally more configurable than Cinnamon, and you would probably get better scaling from that also. Your hardware may be a factor in how well these tools work too.

Linux Mint Tip: To quickly get to your display settings, click your Menu button (or hit the Super key/Windows key) and start typing 'display' (without quotes). By the time you type 'disp' you will see it appear at the top of the menu, so you can just hit Enter to run it when it is highlighted. Opening your menu puts a cursor directly into a search box, just like with Windows. So, you can also open the Menu, start typing 'printers' or 'themes' or 'mouse' to quickly get to those controls. And so on.

Tip if you stay on Mint Cinnamon: When you are at 200% scaling and you can't see the bottom of a window (like when you need to click an "OK button" or something).... you don't need to switch back to 100% scaling. Linux Mint has a solution for this. First hold down the ALT key, then you can click ANYWHERE on the window you want to move around, and drag it as needed to expose the bottom of the window. In other words, you do not have to click-and-drag from the Title Bar of the window (like usual).

Not all distros have that neat little trick though. It's another one of those little things you can learn along your journey. Sometimes you can easily take a tip or trick (or even some apps) from one distro/desktop and install it, or make it work in another distro/desktop... and sometimes you can't. But just making the attempts, and learning some of those differences, is the discovery to your own personal preferences and settings, and learning which distro/desktop most closely matches your tastes on the first installation. After that, no distro will be perfect until you make it so. That is the journey. Enjoy, and good luck!

PS. In almost 30 years of using Linux, I've never reached perfect. But I get pretty good... good enough to keep me happy. I currently use Mint Cinnamon myself, and I think it's one of the easiest and one of the best. But I also jump around, or "distro hop," a lot too... always learning more, and trying to keep up with whats current (an impossible task).

Man, I'm chatty today! That's why you have scrollbars!

@atanere
Thanks for the tips I learned just now!!!
Keep on chatting. LOL.
OG TC

 

[atanere]

Glad I could help, Charlie!

 

[lispl-wicht]

Thanks for all the aid and assistance. In the end I made an ISO image from scratch and started all over with Linux Mint Cinnamon on my Lenovo W530 laptop, using everything I have learned and solved all of my issues so far. Now just to clone my SSD to an external usb HDD unless Linux has a recovery point like my previous OS. Remember, I was not looking for better, faster, more this or more that. I just need to extend the life of my perfectly good laptop, which the other OS 11 does not allow me to do. Also, I do not find that Linux is actually faster, but I can live with it.

It's actually difficult to give an advice. To me Linux feels so natural, as a non-professional I become too lazy since everything is working too well. I began with Red Hat in 1999, switched to Suse for a while, went back to Windows for short and since 2003 changed completely to Debian, beginning with Woody (Debian 3). I was quite good in problem solving in these days since over and over again I reinstalled, learned a bit more, reinstalled again became more aware of my mistakes, anticipated them more and more and the error messages started to increase my intuition where to search thus I needed to reinstall less often. Now, I only install a huge upgrade from scratch and manage the backups since this is mostly more comfortable for me than to manage all the dependencies. In any other cases the system just runs.

All this practice has become a little rusty because all of the convenience - but, as it clearly turns out: This is a very subjective impression. Windows for instance is driving me mad while millions think of it if they think of convenience.

Anyway, besides experimenting, a lot of good textbooks were invaluable. Later - oh my god, I really miss them - there was nothing like the old mailing lists to get help for helping yourself with details or stuff you couldn't find in the textbook.

With Linux it's definitely this thing with the learning curve: You must invest more in the beginning to have much less work later on.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@Erik Groothuijzen :-

I discovered a "fix' for this just a couple of weeks ago.....at least where the Chromium-based browsers are concerned. It's a simple "hack", too.....although it DOES involve editing the browser's launch 'wrapper' script.

These browsers make changes/modifications by means of what are called "switches'. Looking at the exec lines of the "wrapper-script" (usually down near the bottom), you'll see a number of short phrases, all separated by a single space & preceded by a double-dash "--". This is what tells the browser an instruction is coming immediately after it.

Here's the full list of all those available "--switches". There's hundreds & hundreds of 'em.....literally:-

List of Chromium Command Line Switches « Peter Beverloo

In this case, the following needs to be added to the end of the existing exec line:-

--force-device-scale-factor=x.x

....where 'x.x' will be, say anywhere from 1.1 up to perhaps 2.0? It over-rides the default code to enlarge every part of the browser GUI by the specified magnification factor. 1.5 would enlarge everything by 50%, yet keeps scaling as it should be (no 'cut-off' bits).

However, I appreciate that this doesn't "gel" with what was said earlier about everything being much easier now for those coming from the 'point & click' environment of Windows.....since even Linux now has GUIs for pretty much everything. A lot of effort has been expended over the last 10 years or so, deliberately to try and MAKE the transition as painless & easy as possible. My 'fix' above must seem like a retrograde step in the wrong direction..!

It does "work", though!


Mike.