Post #586507

2026-03-08 12:01 UTC

I actually super appreciate these videos. I’m absolutely convinced at this point that, regardless of compatibility issues, my next system will be Linux, but I have absolutely bounced off of it the last couple times I tried. Being able to see different people’s initial experiences with different distros feels pretty invaluable to me at this point. At the moment, I only have a laptop and can’t afford either a new system or for my current system to go down, though, so I’ve been hesitant about making any actual changes. That said, my laptop’s about six years old at this point and starting to really struggle, so I know it’s coming in the next year or so.

Replies (4)

@Elting@piefed.social 2026-03-08 12:10

Putting linux on that thing will give it several more years. The performance gap between windows and linux just keeps growing.

Open ##586600
@mmmm@sopuli.xyz 2026-03-08 12:16

By what you just told I can’t tell if you have ever tried a live distro with it. I hope you did, or if not, that you pick a distro of your liking and try it with your laptop. (My PC is about 7 years old and it’s still going as new, so I was shocked reading your comment - I completely forgot Windows/Mac really tax you for “old” hardware)

Open ##586663
@mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2026-03-08 13:00

If you have space in your laptop for a second SSD you could dual boot

Open ##587166
@Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2026-03-08 21:54

I know it’s not what you’re looking for because it might be overly complicated for someone getting started, but if you ever have the extra hardware (or can run a VM to play around) to give it a go I recommend you look into NixOS. Nix is very different from other OSs you might have used because you declare your system and it gets built, if you want to install a package you add it to your configuration rebuild the system and now the package is available in the new generation of your system, but the old one is still available and you can select it via boot menu. This sounds overly convoluted, but for someone with a PC that MUST ALWAYS work it’s unbeatable. You update the system and the new drivers broke the game you’re playing? Select previous generation of the system and carry on until you have time to figure it out. You installed a program and that broke something? Go to the previous generation keep on working and figure it out later. I’ve never been afraid of updating my system, but since switching to Nix knowing rolling back is not an easy option is nagging at the back of my head constantly. With all that being said, Nix is hard to get into, and this tip is unlikely to help someone getting started (I really think it’s better to get your toes wet on something more close to what you’re used to to avoid frustration). Nix requires learning a new language (which is very weird and not really that intuitive in certain things) and configuring your entire system with it. But the plus side is that once you’ve done it it’s done, and your entire system uses the same configuration format, and any hack quirks or random fixes you had to apply are there in code so you can’t forget about them when you reinstall the system or migrate to a new machine. This might not be helpful to you, but maybe it is to someone else.

Open ##589665