this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I just found out my fiancee wants to switch to linux, lets start a distro war, what should be her first? + other questions (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 11 hours ago by StarvingMartist@sh.itjust.works to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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So i was surprised today when my fiancee told me she was thinking about switching over to linux. Surprised because she is absolutely not technically minded, but also because she was weary about having Microsoft AI slop forced on her PC every update. ( i'm so proud!)

Now i've used a little linux but i've always been a holdout. Won't stop me from moving someone else over but i have too much going on in my setup to deal with that right now. So i'm not super versed but i was able to give her the basic rundown of what distros are, concerns when switching, what may and may not be available, shes still on board so we're doing this! Knowing her she would like to not have to transition too much, whats something fairly hands off and easy to learn. I've heard some good things about mint from hanging around you nerds the past few years but also some not so good things, any suggestions?

next concern is what kind of transfer process is this going to be? i have some spare HDD's so we can try and get everything ported over but i'm so busy with school right now i can't quite allocate the time to really deep dive this.

Any help is appreciated, cheers!

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[–] FunctionallyLiterate@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

I don't ever want to have to set up my PC again. Will Tumbleweed be good to accomplish this for a user used to Windows?

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I like OpenSUSE Tumbleweed: everything's up to date and it's very stable for a rolling distro. Very occasionally an update is problematic but there are easy rollbacks thanks to btrfs. KDE Plasma is an easy desktop environment for a former Windows user too. One weirdness is you'll have to get used to using the command line to update native packages and Flatpaks ("sudo zypper dup" and "sudo flatpak update"), because the GUI updater apparently isn't really intended for the rolling distro.

[–] illusionist@lemmy.zip 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Yes, and Aeon would even be better. Anything is just a box throw away.

[–] FunctionallyLiterate@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what that last part means, but TY.

[–] illusionist@lemmy.zip 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

On atomic distros, you install stuff mostly via flatpak and distrobox. I'd even recommend using distrobox on traditional systems because you can just kill the box if you don't want it any longer. You can have multiple package managers at the same time installed without problems, e.g. yay, dnf and zypper. I guess you could even take your box with you when switching to a new distro (e.g. when switching from atomic fedora to opensuse as I did recently) but I have not yet done that.

Yes, management could be more end user friendly, but it'll get there

[–] FunctionallyLiterate@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 hours ago

Thx for the explainer - I have some research to do.