So up until very recently, there has been
what I would describe as a friction
parity between Microsoft Windows and
something like a Linux
desktop operating system.
Friction parity is the idea that the
price you pay by switching from one
platform to another is going to be
approximately equal to each other.
Friction is the arbitrary issues that
crop up that get in the way of you trying
to actually achieve what you're trying to
do on your favorite operating system.
Now, the slow march of progress in the
free and open source world has led to, I
would say, you know, a major closure in
that gap between Windows and Linux.
You know, us Linux nerds learn and we're
trying to make the
best product that we can.
But I can't honestly say that the
difference between where we're at now
versus where we're at a year ago is all
due to free and open source developers.
In fact, it's not.
Microsoft has been doing their damnedest
to absolutely ruin Windows 11.
You've seen it.
I've seen it.
We all know that it's real.
It's feature creep.
It's, you know, surveillance malware
baked right into the operating system.
It's advertising at the OS level,
fundamentally broken and largely untested
updates or malignant behavior.
Do you want to open this link with edge?
No, I don't.
I never want to open this link with edge.
And of course, foisting cloud services
like OneDrive on unwilling users.
I mean, Microsoft has been doing
everything that they possibly can to ruin
Windows 11 at this point.
So the disparity between how much it
sucks to be a Windows user now versus how
much it sucks to be a Linux user is
approaching one, right?
That's not to say that they offer
identical experiences.
Linux offers a much improved, you know,
privacy aware
experience if you're into that.
But also, you know, if you set aside some
of the app incompatibilities that Linux
has, which is partially due to
Microsoft's underhandedness in the
managing the Windows market, then then
really, there are few excuses left for
not switching to Linux.
And I really do believe that at this
point, everything that we've talked about
so far in this video has given the Linux
desktop the friction parody edge.
Linux is coming into its own and I'm here
to explore it with you.
But Linux is too hard. I can
hear so many people saying that.
But if you've ever built your own PC, if
you've ever had to nuke
and pave your Windows install
because something got broken, if you've
been a PC gamer for any
length of time, or if you're in any
way, shape, or form a coder, I cannot
stress this enough. Linux
is better than Windows now.
That's not to say that it's perfect, or
that every distro is going to
suit your specific use cases.
I can guarantee you, in fact, that they
will not. However, if you
fall into any of the above
categories I just mentioned, or if you
have ever in any way
recognized that the way things are on
Windows is not how they ought to be,
you're at least ready
to give Linux a try.
No, I want to be like completely
straightforward here.
Not everyone's going to
benefit from using Linux, right?
The fact is we as a community have
eliminated much of the issues that,
uh, get in the way of people
wanting to switch to Linux.
The app ecosystem on Windows is the last
major friction point.
Indeed, the availability of apps like
Affinity Photo 2 are why I still
dual boot this PC and Microsoft has done
a tremendous job capitalizing on
the FOMO of proprietary
apps and vendor lock-in.
I mean, Adobe, Affinity, FL Studio,
Microsoft Office, and many, many other
productivity and creative tools,
especially, are Windows
and sometimes Mac only.
They don't offer Linux versions and most
of these desktop tools are
incredibly difficult to get running in
line thanks to, you know, always
online DRM schemes and whatever.
Now there are some Linux users who will
say that there are great
FOSS alternatives to these utilities,
free and open source tools that you
can drop in and replace, uh, you know,
the proprietary apps with to some
degree, they are correct.
I mean, Creda is terrific.
Um, Inkscape is awesome.
Caden Live is fantastic.
But if your day job requires you to be
fast, adept, and knowledgeable with
your creative or your productivity app,
then the level of financial and
creative friction is insurmountable.
If you need something like Microsoft
Outlook or something like Adobe
premiere, Linux is going to be a
non-starter for you, unless you have like
the latitude to lay aside your existing
experience and have the luxury of
relearning basic skills, or there's a
comparable web app version of the
toolkit that meets your needs.
And if your day job requires that your
work be produced using quote unquote
industry standard formats, then you're
shit out of luck with FOSS tooling
in a lot of cases.
Similarly, Linux gaming has made leaps
and bounds in the last few years.
But if you are playing a handful of very
specific online multiplayer games,
which you can't seem to divorce yourself
from, Linux will not be a good
option for you, just
point blank for everyone else.
And mind you, this is an
enormous, everyone else.
Linux is not just a viable option.
It is the best option.
There's also the possibility of dual
booting, but this is a genuine pain in
the ass for all, but the most fastidious
folks, dual booting ends up being
another friction point against Linux.
Like for example, I have Linux installed
on every PC in my home, including
this one, this is my primary work rig
where I do all my video editing.
I almost never boot into Linux on here
because dual booting is such a
stupid pain in the ass.
Now, the other big friction point for
switching to Linux is just the fact
that you have your PC set up the way you
want it to, and it just seems like a
huge hassle to even figure out which
Linux distro you want to try.
And frankly, there's much how to do and
performative hand wringing when it
comes to influencers
going on the Linux journey.
Why?
Because it's easy drama and it makes for
effective storytelling.
The sheer variety of options
in the Linux world is so huge.
I need to explore every option.
Should I go with Fedora or Linux Mint or
maybe Hana Montana Linux?
That's me paraphrasing
some algorithm brain YouTuber.
But I am here to tell you as a seasoned
Linux user that there are two and
really only two meaningful differences
between Linux distributions that
matter to new users.
The first is software selection.
And the second is
your desktop environment.
Now your desktop environment is the GUI
or the graphical user interface.
It's how you interact with your computer,
how you launch applications, how
you manage the various windows that you
have open, how you delete and edit
files, et cetera.
There is no right answer here.
Only what's going to work best for you
and your experience.
For new users, I recommend sticking with
something that's popular,
something like Steam game mode, which
I'll get flack for calling it a desktop
environment in the
comments, but whatever it is.
And then there's also KDE
plasma, cinnamon and gnome.
Now these desktop environments provide
experiences which are similar to what
you'll find with windows or Mac OS.
And given their popularity, they'll also
have a bunch of resources online that
can help you as a
newbie find your way around.
Again, I recommend one of the four
choices above for beginners.
I won't go too deep into any of them
since my distro recommendations.
We'll get into that a
bit later in this video.
The other differentiator between Linux
distributions is going to be
software selection.
Now, in my experience acting as a
missionary for the church of Linux,
I've learned a thing or two.
What I've found is that the software
selection is the most important
consideration.
If you're looking for a successful Linux
transition in the modern Linux
world, there are a few different avenues
for acquiring software.
So let's go over those real quick.
The first is your package manager.
Your Linux operating system is going to
have something called a package
manager that downloads and installs
software from you that's sourced from a
developer maintained software library
called a repository or a repo for short.
Then there are app containers. In the
Linux world, the Flatpak is the lingua
franca of app distribution
in 2026. If you want Minecraft Java
Edition, Discord, Spotify,
Obsidian, or any number of other
popular apps, Flatpak is most likely
going to be the easiest and best way to
install them on your
system. Except for Steam, trust me, do
not install Steam as a
Flatpak, it's a pain in the ass.
Now in most distros, you'll get the
option of how you want to
install the app. For example,
on my desktop, I can open up the App
Center, search for an app,
and it will give me the choice
of a Flatpak installation or the repo
version. Suffice it to say,
Flatpaks are going to be more
up to date than the system version.
However, there are other
app container formats because,
of course, there are. Common ones that
you might see in the wild are
app images and Snap. Snap is
really only compatible with Ubuntu and
maybe a few other Linux
distros out there. Given that
Ubuntu is not one of my recommendations,
I'm not going to really
touch on Snap after this.
But app image will be the last critical
thing that you should
know about apps on Linux.
If you go to virtually any GitHub release
page with the intent of
downloading Linux software,
chances are very high that it's going to
be distributed as an
app image. You might find
other packages there, but generally
speaking, the app image one is going to
be the one you want to
go with. This will get downloaded to your
disk and then you can
usually just double click the
app image and it will start up just fine.
The last major way that Linux users get
apps on their machine is through Steam,
GOG, Zoom platform, etc. Now, these app
stores provide paid
software, usually games, to their
customers. Steam has a native Linux
client and installing it is really
simple. Just go to your
app center, choose the system version of
Steam, and then click
install. GOG, Epic, and other
platforms don't have native Linux builds,
but there are great
resources out there if you're
looking to manage your library in a nice
native Linux interface.
Heroic Games Launcher is the
best in my opinion. It lets you manage,
install, and play your GOG,
Amazon, and Epic libraries
from a single unified interface. Last but
not least, Lutris is
also terrific. It gives you
access to the above, plus a few more.
Plus, the community scripts feature in
Lutris gives the odd
physical media, not like me, the
opportunity to install their games from a
DVD or a compact disc.
I haven't tried this, I don't know if
it's supported in Lutris,
but this is a great game,
and it's over 20 years old at this point.
It blows my mind. Okay, so now
that I've talked your ear off
for like 11 minutes, and I've convinced
you that it's time to try Linux for
yourself, how do you
begin? Where do you start? So switching
to Linux can be intimidating.
That's why I'm offering some
level of guidance here. Now I've made
other videos, and I've
written many articles over on
the Bryant Review about picking a Linux
distro. But if you're looking
for a hand curated selection
of distros to peruse,
I've got you covered.
Now, if you're a gamer,
Bazlite is a terrific option.
In fact, Bazlite is a great option
even if you're not a gamer.
I've written a guide about setting up a
living room computer
as a home theater PC using Bazlite.
And this article has a ton
of positive feedback too.
So I think that's a qualification
for recommending it here.
Now I run Bazlite on my living room PC
and it comes in multiple flavors.
There's a SteamOS-like version
that starts into big picture mode,
just like the Steam Deck.
There's a desktop
version that's meant to run
on a laptop or a desktop.
And as of writing, if
you have a Nvidia GPU,
you're probably gonna
want the desktop version.
And then there are
multiple hardware specific spins.
So take your pick and give them a try.
Either way, no matter
which flavor you choose,
Bazlite offers you a
terrific way to play your games
and get your
computing done on your terms.
For beginners, if you have an AMD GPU,
you can go with game mode.
Everybody else I
think should be going with
KDE Plasma at this point still.
Now, if you're aiming
for a little bit more
of a Windows-like experience,
you can check out Linux Mint.
Now again, I've written a guide
for getting started with Linux Mint.
You can check that out up here.
Linux Mint is terrific.
And like I said, it offers a UI
that should be quite familiar if you're
coming from Windows.
It also has rock solid stability
and a good measure of testing too.
Also Linux Mint ships with Cinnamon,
which is one of the desktop environments
I recommend for beginners.
It also has support for Flatpacks and
consequently a wide array
of apps at your fingertips.
Now, if you're looking for a desktop that
offers a little bit of everything in the
desktop experience department,
look no further than Zorin OS.
It has a beautiful desktop environment
with a half dozen or so desktop themes
that run the gamut from classic Windows
to modern Mac OS and more.
I've reviewed Zorin OS on the review as
well, which you can check out up here.
Plus, the latest version
of Zorin OS, version 18.1,
it has even greater support for Windows
applications on their system.
Again, you can check that out up here.
The thing is, it's
time to make the switch.
There are so few excuses left.
And hey, maybe you try it and you realize
Linux isn't for you.
And you know what? I
couldn't fault you for that.
But you miss 100% of the
shots that you don't take.
And there has never been a better time to
take a shot on Linux.