If you don't need convincing or don't care to read my awesome wisdom and just want to read my sleek sexy Installation guide, just skip down past this stuff.

Hold on there cowboy why SHOULD I install Linux anyway??

Oh come now, don't play coy with me! Microsoft continues to make it their mission to ruin the user experience for anyone who so dares as to use a computer, and it's high time everyone show them what's what and piss off already! Windows 11 is bloated, full of AI slop, and obssessively spying on you with unnecessary telemetry. Windows is becoming more and more unusable with each new edition, and Microsoft just wants nothing else but to get their grubby hands all over your precious little data! Frankly, you should at least care a little bit about all of this, in a world that's becoming increasingly hostile towards the average person and their privacy, we should be aiming to move away from these giant corps who frankly couldn't give less of a shit about us as much as we can. Do you really want all your technology and data handled by some American company who only cares about profit?

Well I hope the answer's no, because that sounds awful! At the very least the idea that some random company across the world shouldn't have a monopoly over your life and the things you use daily should be a little agreeable. Ideologically, it should make some sense that you'd want to move away from this! Linux is open source so nobody really owns it, the code is publicly available and anyone can look at it and modify/maintain it (under controlled and heavy review of the code of course) including you! With Windows or Apple you never really know what's going on under the hood, but this just isn't the case with most Linux distributions. Linux also just gives you a lot more choice, Microsoft has led you to believe that a computer works one way and only that way and you shouldn't really question it, but with Linux you really have the freedom to customise almost every aspect of it! You get so much choice with it that you could just run a system that's basically identical to Windows, or try something a bit more different if that's at all interesting to you. The idea of free and open software should also at least be a little exciting, software for anyone that's not locked behind anything, Linux is free for you and for anyone to use, and we should all be striving to do more things communally.

Materially, Linux has other benefits too. It tends to not be as bloated to Windows, so you'll generally see better performance and maybe even be able to revive a dead laptop because LInux is just that much more optimized! My decade old laptop went from shambling along like a corpse with Windows on it, to being the fastest it's ever been when I put Linux on that thang, leading to better performance overall. The user experience is also just generally a lot better, there might be a misconception that Windows is less buggy but this isn't really true, because Linux is so community driven if you ever have an issue you could probably find an answer to it, or someone that knows what to do about it, especially since anyone can easily check the code of whatever it is your struggling with and figure it out. If something breaks on Windows, you have to rely on Microsoft giving enough of a shit to even recognize the issue and then actually try to fix it. Stop leaving everything in the hands of soulless companies we all hate and take back control!
(To add a quick note, yes it is basically impossible to be truly private in this day and age, especially just by using the internet, but this is no reason to not try where you can :> )

B-But isn't Linux hard and sc-scary???

NO!!!

Look, the idea that Linux is something that's crazy complicated and difficult to use is a complete misconception created by decades of big companies dominating the market share of desktop OSes convincing you that computers are super scary and you shouldn't try to understand them. I'll be honest with you, for the average person on a beginner distro you will barely even notice a difference in experience in your day-to-day life. Microsoft probably wants you to believe that computers are these scary unkowable things because it directly benefits them and allows them to scare people away from switching to an alternative, but Linux is not this big scary thing, it's just an alternate type of OS. If you're not that big of a tech person, then you'll very rarely even have to touch a terminal or anythign scary, but it's incredibly easy to use anyway and if you ever do it's probably just going to be following simple instructions, it pays to know a few basic commands but most things these days can be done with an easy to use GUI so you will probably never have to. If you are a big tech person, you're probably going to be comfortable using a terminal and scary things anyway and don't really need me to convince you of anything, so you don't need to worry either.

What about gaming? Isn't that impossible to do?
Nope! Gaming on Linux is really easy these days even if you're not on a gaming-orientated distro! There's tools like Wine and Proton that let you run Windows programs, and that might seem a little difficult, but it's really not! Steam games are exceedingly easy to run, you can launch and manage them through Steam incredibly easily and still get great if not better performance. Very occasionally you may have to tweak a few things to get a game to work better, but you can look up the game you want to play on a site like Protondb where you can find other people's experiences and see what you may need to do.

Yes, a few really popular multiplayer games may not work on Linux because of kernel-level anticheat like Valorant and League of Legends, but most do, if you have concerns just look up the game you like and see if it's playable, most online games work perfectly fine. (Alternatively, take this as an opportunity to stop playing bad games with glorified spyware for anti-cheat :P)

Off-Steam games are easy to run too, native Linux games can be run really easily, and for Windows games you can either just run them through Steam, or use a launcher like Lutris which makes it really easy to add games and run them through Wine. It's not that complicated, you just have to enter a couple of easy details and you'll have them up and running in no time.

It's important to note that Nvidia's drivers are a bit more finnicky to get on Linux due to lack of cooperation, but if you just look up what you need it shouldn't be that difficult. Sometimes, you need to look things up on Windows to get things working, you may have to do the same for Linux too, and that's fine! A lot of people act really weird about any minor troubleshooting on Linux, and I want to make it clear that if you use ANY computer to a big degree you will need to troubleshoot at some point, it really isn't that big a deal on Linux either! Also, a lot of people have good experiences with Nvidia, and they've recently made a native Linux app, so it shouldn't be that difficult to figure out what you need!
AMD and Intel is fine don't even worry about it it's so chill.

In terms of other software, it's important to note that some software like Adobe products may not have native Linux ports. You could try using programs like Bottles or a virtual machine to run them, but I highly urge you to explore alternatives to what you currently use, I understand it can be really difficult to massively change your workflow, but it's worth it to move over to free and open source software. You can even start using these programs on Windows to get used to them! Krita instead of your current art program, Libreoffice instead of Microst Office (OnlyOffice is also a good choice if you want something more familiar but has AI nonsense) GIMP for image editting, Kdenlive for video editing, Blender is already industry standard... etc. etc. There are other options available and I encourage you to take a gander, but to be honest I think the average person will get on fine with any alternatives, or probably won't even need to use them. Get comfortable with the fact they might have to learn something new, or do something differently, and understand that different isn't necessarily bad.

I must note that I personally think DAWs are currently lacking on Linux... While great software like Reaper exists, many plugins like Splice may not work properly on Linux which makes it difficult for people who use a lot of third party plugins to use them, inclduing me... However, there's some optiosn still...

If you really can't give up your current software, or aren't already using something usable on Linux, then I encourage exploring workarounds like Bottles/Wine, or running them in virtual machines. At the end of the day, you can always dualboot (having 2 OSes on your system at once) for whatever program you might need! On that note...

The biggest impact YOU can have is switching. If you care about better software support, "I won't swap until X is supported better!" is by directly giving companies more of a reason to support Linux by aiding to a bigger userbase of Linux users and switching. I understand this isn't always in the cards for someone, especially for work purposes, but please consider doing so if you are able, even dualbooting can contribute to a rising userbase and encourage more companies to start supporting Linux.

Alright, alright already! How do I install this thing anyway?

So, I'm going to be writing this guide for someone who doesn't really know what they're doing and is probably currently using Windows, if you already have alot of computer knowledge or are already on Linux, you don't need my advice, but maybe it's a fun read anyway! For this guide I have chosen to guide the reader through an installation of LMDE and Linux Mint because I consider Linux Mint to be a very good distro especially for people who may not be that tech savvy and just a familiar and easy experience. These are both basically the same thing, but LMDE is forked from Debian, and Linux Mint is forked from Ubuntu. A "fork" means that this distribution is based off of another one (Debian/Ubuntu) and was modified into a new distribution (Linux Mint.) I personally use a fork of Debian called Devuan, for example, and I generally recommend LMDE over Linux Mint as I personally prefer Debian based projects in general, but they're both pretty much the same. A distro or distribution is just one OS of Linux, because Linux is open source so many people have made their own Operating systems based on it! if Linux is a car engine, then a distro is the whole car with a wheel and chassis and stuff, and Linux Mint is just one of many types of the Linux line of cars! In this analogy, Windows 10, 11, XP etc. are just one of many types of Windows cars!

The purpose of this guide is mostly to show you how EASY it is install Linux to remove the stigma of it being scary and unkowable, so let's finally dive in!

Prerequisites:

-A computer or laptop
-A USB
-An internet connection

Step 1: Downloading and creating the installation media

Let's start off by downloading either LMDE from here or downloading Linux Mint from here. The only real difference is that Linux Mint offers 2 more "desktop environments" over LMDE. A desktop environment is the graphical interface that sorts out/organizes programs! I personally reccommend Cinnamon (the default for Mint) as it's nearly identical to using a Windows desktop, but Mate is a bit similar to an older Windows-esque desktop too. Xfce is less frequently updated and has some older style design, and is generally a bit more barebones, but also has an extensive amount of customisation options and is my de of choice, but can be a bit lacking for some people, so I personally recommend going with Cinnamon if you want something similar to Windows and don't know what to choose. LMDE uses Cinnamon by default, but past this LMDE and Linux Mint are functionally identically, I personally prefer LMDE because I prefer Debian based forks but both are perfectly servicable and incredibly stable. If you decide you'd like to switch your de after installation, you easily can! Just look up what you want to do and it should be easy to follow along :)

Personally, I reccommend using the torrent download through something like qbitorrent as that is generally safer than direct downloading, however direct downloads are fine too. On the webpage it gives you some instructions on how to check that the iso you downloaded is legitimate, I recommend you do this, ESPECIALLY if you went with a direct download over a torrent download. If it turns out to be illegitimate, then re-download.

Now that you've downloaded the iso, it's time to put it onto a USB! You can't just drag the file onto the USB, you have to "flash" the iso onto the USB which basically turns the USB into it's own bootable OS for installation! On Windows this can be a bit annoying to do as there's no easy built in way to do this, so I personally recommend using the program BalanaEtcher as it's incredibly easy to use thanks to it's simple user interface. This may take a few minutes so hang tight, but once ready, it's time to install it onto your computer or laptop!

Step 2: Installing Linux Mint!

Now for the fun part! First, turn off the device you wish to install Linux onto and plug in the USB you recently flashed into it. When it boots up on the screen where it shows the maker of your PC's logo, you want to enter the boot menu! This is commonly done either by spamming/holding f2 or f12 on the keyboard while it boots on the logo, it might tell you on the boot screen but if not either just try it out or look it up!

Now just select the USB from your PC/laptop's boot menu, however that's done on your system (On my acer laptop for example I have to navigate to the boot entries and manually reorder it to choose the USB as first priority on next boot, but this is much easier on most systems.) When you boot into the USB, you'll see something like this:

You'll be seeing this screen a lot from now on, this is the GRUB bootloader and gives you a bunch of options for booting into your PC whenever you boot it up! You can just let it go onto the default option (the top one) or choose it yourself, if you do have an issue then try the compatibility mode but it should be fine. After installation, if you have a dualboot, this is where you'll get to choose whether to boot into Mint or Windows.

Wooah! You're now booted into the Cinnamon (or other) desktop environment! Feel free to play around a little and get a feel for it! You'll probably find it's pretty similar to Windows, frankly. This is also a good way to try out the different DEs before installing! If you decide you'd like to dry a different "flavor" of Linux mint, just repeat the flashing process for that onto the same or a different USB and have a mess about! When you're ready, just click the install icon in the top left and follow the instructions.

Now these instructions are all really easy to follow, but there's a few things I'll explain really quick that might have some terminology you've not heard before, it's generally safe to go with the default options in this case, though. In the image above it asks for a device name, you can put whatever the hell you want here, so don't get too hung up on it because it doesn't matter, and it can be changed at any time. A screen may ask you about "partitioning," this is basically how computers decide how to use storage and you should just let the installer do it automatically. The only reason you may need to do it manually is if you plan to dualboot, but it normally has an option to install into any pre-defined free space alongside an existing system. There's also a checkbox that says "use LVM," this is just an alternate slightly more modern way of partitioning things, but has basically no effect on your user experience. If you use a laptop, then I recommend doing this so you can get access to setting up an encrypted LVM, which will ask for a second password upon booting (it will also take a little longer to install) and make it more secure. Especially for a portable device where anyone could easily have access to unattended devices (which you should never leave unattended to be clear...) it's generally a good idea to be safer than sorry. For a home PC, this doesn't matter as much but is a good safety measure anyway if you're worried.

The rest of the install should be very easy for you to figure out and follow the instructions of, so I'll leave you to it! At the end it'll ask you to reboot and remove the installation media, do as it says and when you boot your pc back up you might have to go back into the boot menu to choose the newly installed OS, or manually add the entry, but this should be a piece of cake for you now that you've done it before. If you have any issues, look up your specific device with the issue and you should find it - my Acer laptop had to have the new OS manually chosen as safe to boot and have secure boot disabled (you might need to turn secure boot off in general it depends on your system, despite the name this doesn't really make your device any less safe) and it should be easy to solve.

Step 3: That's it! Done!

Really! It's just following a few instructions! Welcome to your brand new OS! Explore around a little, follow the welcome scren instructions (I recommend taking its advice for system snapshots, this guarantees that if anything goes wrong you can easily reset your system to a usable state! But your a clever cookie aren't you so this will never happen, right? Mmmmwah. Whose a smart little computer user now?) When you want to start installing software, open up the startup menu and click here:

Aaaand here's the appstore! You can download pretty much anything you need here from Steam to VLC media player to Krita to Vesktop etc., but if you ever need something from not here it's not that difficult to look it up and either install it with a few lines in the terminal, or through a GUI package manager!

The default browser is Firefox, which is pretty good! You can replace it with pretty much any browser you like though, very easily, and if you need some guidance, check out my sexy browser tierlist... But other than that, after you reinstall all the stuff you need, you'll probably settle in to finding it a really average and honestly not that different experience overall, with the peace of mind that Mr. Gates isn't spying on your every move. If you ever need help with anything, just look up what you want to do and you'll probably find what you want! Don't be afraid to go to the Linux Mint forums too, most people there are very nice and just wanna help!

THE END

If you've decided that Linux just isn't in the cards for you right now, that's fine too, but I sincerely hope this guide at least helped to de-stigmatise how "difficult" Linux is and made it clear that it's just another type of OS and it's easy to use too. If you've decided to switch because of this guide, then that's really great and I'm ecstatic to hear! And if you concluded that there's some software you just can't give up, or a game you really want to keep playing but can't, then that's okay, but always keep Linux in mind and try working towards it.

Keep in mind that Linux Mint is just one of many different distros! While I think it's great for a beginner, and is probably all you need to be free from the chains of Microsoft, try looking around if it's at all interesting! You might even get really into this kinda stuff and try out some niche distro I've never heard of because it's just perfect for you! The beauty of Linux is the freedom of it, and whether that's just sticking with Linux Mint because it's nice, easy and familiar, or just making your own distribution, then that's great and I hope you have fun with it!

Fuck Microsoft, switch NOW!

Snorting lines of Ann up my asscrack. Annesiac 2026