I am planning on moving to Linux as my "daily driver"

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Nickrm82

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Hi guys, new to the forum and glad to be here!

After spending most of my life on Windows (currently on Windows 10). I am going to be converting to daily driving Linux. I have some experience, with having had a few Linux classes in college and ran Ubuntu for a short time, but I haven't messed with Linux since college back in 2012 (maybe longer). So I was wondering if I could get any recommendation or advice on some distros. After doing some research I have really liked what I have seen in, Manjaro KDE, Zorin, and Nobara. I have recently tried to test them out in Virtualbox, but been having trouble getting them to work as virtualbox keeps aborting them at start up (My laptop is 11 years old and only has 8 gigs ram so that might be why). So I was wondering if I could get some insight, recommendations or anything on these particular distros or on any others. I have heard lots of good things about KDE plasma and I have enjoyed GNOME so i would like to stick with those, but I am open. Appreciate any insight that can be giving
 


Welcome to the forums,
you can gain some information by reading the first two post in this forum,
this post is coming to you from my 2008 dell Lapp with 4gb,
Nickrm82 said:
I have recently tried to test them out in Virtualbox, but been having trouble getting them to work as virtualbox keeps aborting
Click to expand...
when you say aborting, is it the VM crashing or is it just not installing correctly
 
Brickwizard said:
Welcome to the forums,
you can gain some information by reading the first two post in this forum,
this post is coming to you from my 2008 dell Lapp with 4gb,

when you say aborting, is it the VM crashing or is it just not installing correctly
Click to expand...
Well the program isn't crashing itself, but every time I start the vm to start installation it closes instantly and vm status say's aborted
 
Nickrm82 wrote:
I have recently tried to test them out in Virtualbox, but been having trouble getting them to work as virtualbox keeps aborting them at start up
Click to expand...
Alternatively boot up a live disk/usb of the distro you are interested in and then it's possible to engage with all the hardware and see how it performs on the machine. If all is well, one can install it. Things to check would include graphics cards, ethernet, usb connections, screen display, wifi etc.
 
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ok you could try installing [if you don't currently have ] WSL [Windows subsystem for Linux] and use that


www.windowscentral.com

How to install Linux WSL2 on Windows 10 and Windows 11

The latest version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux is a significant upgrade; for most, it's now easier than ever to install.
www.windowscentral.com www.windowscentral.com
 
G'day Nick, Welcome to Linux.org

my choice, given your above posts, ...would be to go with @osprey's suggestion


This gives you a decent guide ....
linux-tips.us

How Do I Install Linux (A General Guide) • Linux Tips

Today, I will try to answer one of the most common questions asked by the newcomer to Linux; “How do I install Linux”
linux-tips.us linux-tips.us

Any questions....just fire them back here.

Doing this will not upset your win10 install.
The distro will run in RAM yes, quite clever)

It will only upset the win10 if you decide to double click on 'Install Linux Mint' (or whatever distro) on the desktop of the 'Live' version !
 
Running a VM in Windows with "only" 8 GB RAM is part of the problem. Windows is designed to always claim control of every scrap of hardware resource it can find for ITS mysterious background 'shenanigans'. It doesn't like relinquishing it at all. A VM needs a certain amount of 'host' RAM setting-aside for its use, and then you've got to create a virtual disk-drive, too. 8 GB is kinda "pushing it" a bit.

VMs are a good idea in theory, but really only work well with as much in the way of hardware resources as you can give them. Realistically, you're looking at like 16 GB RAM (.....and upwards.) Truthfully, the more resources you can allocate to any VM, the better it's going to work.

'LiveCDs/DVDs/USBs' are a much better proposition. You get a more realistic idea of how the distro in question will run on 'bare metal'.....and, as others have stated, it's perfectly safe. A 'Live' run will operate entirely in RAM for the session, albeit with direct access to the rest of the hardware. This lets you see if OS and hardware will 'play nice'.

I'd recommend trying this latter method. I know it's maybe not so convenient as a VM, but you get a far better idea of whether it's going to work 'for real'.

Linux is a beast of a very different colour. So long as it has sufficient resources for ITS needs, it couldn't care less what you do with the rest of it.


Mike. ;)
 
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Thanks guys. I thought only having 8g for my ram would be lacking but, wasn't sure till I tried ya know. I will try the live usb for sure so, I can see which distro I like and will work for me. Any thoughts on the distros themselves and any experience with them. Manjaro, Zorin and Nobara all look and sound good to me, but it's good to know from actual users
 
It all depends on how experienced you are, they are all good distributions, but there are better ones for beginners
 
Hello @Nickrm82,
Welcome to Linux.org Forum. Best to try several distros with live usb. It will tell you if all your Hardware is likely to work, Also give you some feel for how each distro will fit with your needs and preferences.
Good luck and enjoy!
 
Hello @Nickrm82 ,
Welcome to the forum.
I also was a Windows adherent until 2018 when I made the switch over to Linux. I decided on Mint because it seemed like the easiest transition to me. {It was, as I am still using Mint after hopping around a bit}
One thing you could do is go to Distrowatch dot com. They have about a hundred different distros to choose from.
They are ranked in popularity from one on down.
You can read a lot about each one that interests you and see if it fits your needs.
All the best in your journey in Linux Land.
Old Geezer, Tango Charlie

PS
How in the world did I forget our own list of distros to download!!!
Top of the page you will see "Download Linux"
 
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G'day Nick from another Aussie and welcome.

I used to run about 40 Linux distros on a Toshiba Satellite lappy with 8 GB RAM, dated from about 2013 and it ran fine, but got a bit sluggish after about the 30th one installed.

Nowadays, on a Dell Inspiron laptop with 16 GB I run 84, so I have an opinion on quite a few.

In support of some of the above suggestions, I would advocate a burning solution such as Ventoy to put maybe 5 to 10 .isos on a stick and try them out. Ventoy is cross-platform so you can install it under Windows.

Our Staff Writer has an article here

https://www.linux.org/threads/usb-linux-boot-ventoy.29944/

be sure to read the whole Thread through.

Nobara, which is based on Fedora, has scored a few mentions here recently, and although it is now listed on distrowatch.com , its website is a work in progress, so I am unsure of how its support is. Haven't tried it yet.


Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
You give up too easily, Dave :)

Go to the right and click link download Nobara or else direct is

https://nobaraproject.org/download-nobara/

I chose the Official version, over GNOME or KDE.

Poor planning on the links shown they are actually just for the sha256sum.

At the right is NA (North America) and EU Mirror. I chose the NA one and had it in 6 minutes which in my environment is quite good.

I won't get to try it before the weekend as Mageia have asked me to test Mageia 9 Alpha with a new Timeshift that I put them onto. Back on topic.

Wiz
 
Nickrm82 said:
Hi guys, new to the forum and glad to be here!

After spending most of my life on Windows (currently on Windows 10). I am going to be converting to daily driving Linux. I have some experience, with having had a few Linux classes in college and ran Ubuntu for a short time, but I haven't messed with Linux since college back in 2012 (maybe longer). So I was wondering if I could get any recommendation or advice on some distros. After doing some research I have really liked what I have seen in, Manjaro KDE, Zorin, and Nobara. I have recently tried to test them out in Virtualbox, but been having trouble getting them to work as virtualbox keeps aborting them at start up (My laptop is 11 years old and only has 8 gigs ram so that might be why). So I was wondering if I could get some insight, recommendations or anything on these particular distros or on any others. I have heard lots of good things about KDE plasma and I have enjoyed GNOME so i would like to stick with those, but I am open. Appreciate any insight that can be giving
Click to expand...

Just curious why Nobara over Fedora? Just wondering.
 
wizardfromoz said:
You give up too easily, Dave :)

Go to the right and click link download Nobara or else direct is

https://nobaraproject.org/download-nobara/

I chose the Official version, over GNOME or KDE.

Poor planning on the links shown they are actually just for the sha256sum.

At the right is NA (North America) and EU Mirror. I chose the NA one and had it in 6 minutes which in my environment is quite good.

I won't get to try it before the weekend as Mageia have asked me to test Mageia 9 Alpha with a new Timeshift that I put them onto. Back on topic.

Wiz
Click to expand...
Thanks Chris got it finally. It was my firewall stopping it.
 
mrcrossroads said:
Just curious why Nobara over Fedora? Just wondering.
Click to expand...
Well, after watching some reviews on it. Nobara looked interesting and one to try. I have known about Fedora for a long time, but never used it. I know it's one of the Grandaddies of Linux, but I really don't know much about it. I downloaded some iso's yesterday to try out (5 of them) and Fedora KDE was actually one of them. The 5 I am going to try are Manjaro KDE, Zorin, Linux Mint, Nobara KDE, and Fedora KDE
 
Welcome to the Forum.
m0135.gif


I usually say Virtualbox but not all Distros run well in it these days even with heaps or Ram...you can download an ISO and burn it to a Flash Drive and check it out (live session) or as the wizard said...use Ventoy.
m1213.gif


Once Ventoy is installed on a 16GB or larger Flash Drive...just drag the ISOs in and go from there.
m1212.gif
 
Nickrm82 said:
Well, after watching some reviews on it. Nobara looked interesting and one to try. I have known about Fedora for a long time, but never used it. I know it's one of the Grandaddies of Linux, but I really don't know much about it. I downloaded some iso's yesterday to try out (5 of them) and Fedora KDE was actually one of them. The 5 I am going to try are Manjaro KDE, Zorin, Linux Mint, Nobara KDE, and Fedora KDE
Click to expand...
I see. Well good luck on your testing. I'm partial to Linux Mint myself. ;-)

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