Thinking of making the leap

[TheTerence8]

With the arrival of Windows 10 and the swift decline of my laptops functionality not to mention endless amounts of unremovable bloatware crap ! I've had it with windows now!

Being nearly 30 and wanting a change of career I've just started an IT apprenticeship. Safe to say its a hard learning curve but the last thing I want to be doing when I come home is dealing with more and more windows issues having just dealt with them all day.

However, being a creature of habit, windows is all I have ever really known. I have heard good thing about Linux and I think it would cure a lot of my grief. I mostly use my laptop for watching films and playing some games off steam or for World of Warcraft. Is this still possible using Linux? I've also heard you can run both Linux and Windows in tandem so I could scratch that windows itch if i needed too?

I'm not too phased about dealing with the command line stuff as I'm having to wrap my head around powershell but I'm not wanting to get my hands too dirty tbh. What Distro & Desktop Environment would you recommend?Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[atanere]

With the arrival of Windows 10 and the swift decline of my laptops functionality not to mention endless amounts of unremovable bloatware crap ! I've had it with windows now!

Being nearly 30 and wanting a change of career I've just started an IT apprenticeship. Safe to say its a hard learning curve but the last thing I want to be doing when I come home is dealing with more and more windows issues having just dealt with them all day.

However, being a creature of habit, windows is all I have ever really known. I have heard good thing about Linux and I think it would cure a lot of my grief. I mostly use my laptop for watching films and playing some games off steam or for World of Warcraft. Is this still possible using Linux? I've also heard you can run both Linux and Windows in tandem so I could scratch that windows itch if i needed too?

I'm not too phased about dealing with the command line stuff as I'm having to wrap my head around powershell but I'm not wanting to get my hands too dirty tbh. What Distro & Desktop Environment would you recommend?Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi @TheTerence8, and welcome to the site! Your question is asked over and over by new people, and the answers are generally always the same: Try out Linux before you install it. There are a couple of easy ways to do this:

1. Install VirtualBox in Windows, then download 2 or 3 of the popular Linux "distros" and install them inside VirtualBox. There may be some quirks, but this is a good introduction, it will not damage your Windows, and the Linux are easily removed when you're done testing.

2. If you have a DVD-ROM drive, then download 2 or 3 of the popular distros, and use the "burn image" function of your DVD burning software to create bootable "live Linux DVD's". You boot up on these and run as long as you want, then shut down to return to WIndows. This method also causes no changes to your hard drive or your Windows. You can similarly do this with USB instead of DVD, but you'll need a special program (Rufus, Etcher, Linux Live USB Creator, Unetbootin, and more)

If you Google "Steam on Linux" it will guide you to which distros you will probably want to try out. I don't know if World of Warcraft is possible or not. Some Window programs can run in Linux (in a special environment called Wine) but other programs will not run. There are usually alternative programs in Linux to do whatever tasks you need, however.

Almost anything you want to do with Linux you can do from a graphical application. But if you have trouble, much of the help you will receive from us here will involve opening a terminal and typing (or pasting) commands. Don't let the command line scare you... it is a powerful and very useful part of Linux. And it is usually much easier to fix things or get information than by using the graphical applications.

So, decide how you want to try Linux, pick 2 or 3 distros and download the .iso files to work with. We recommend that you "verify the checksum" of your downloads to make sure you did not get any glitches in the transfer. There are some nice free utilities to make verifying easy... check out this one.

Cheers

 

[wizardfromoz]

Hi @TheTerence8 and another welcome.

I am not a Gamer, but my preliminary Google search using "linux world of warcraft" shows promising signs of WoW being actively enjoyed under Linux, with Wine. Take a look through the first page, and you will find references as recent as September just passed, and also showing which Distro these are played on.

There are also some recent youtube videos featured there, on how to install.

Enjoy

Wizard

 

[Rob]

Hey there @TheTerence8 - welcome to the forum!

I can't add much more than @atanere or @wizardfromoz, but wanted to say you've started out well by not being afraid to ask questions and seek out information. That will get you far in the IT world - often the answer to what you are facing is out there somewhere.

Good luck!

 

[TheTerence8]

Wow thank you all so much for your advice.
I never thought to use virtual box to try out Linux. That's an excellent idea!
I may like Wine for two reasons now
I think this weekend shall be spent doing a bit more research and hopefully begin testing
Excited !