is there a Linux alternative to windows 10/11 that is similar?
So ive use windows pretty much for everything and ive kinda had a enough of windows. i was thinking of trying linux on an old laptop that i just upgraded to 8gb of ram and im not sure wha tos to put on it. i was thinking something lightweight maybe ubuntu mate? i need somethign like windows that will allow me to game and do other things liek gaming maybe even streaming or reading? idk. also what are some neede dsoftware, browser so rthigs needed for linux. i com efrom a family who has never trie dlinux and hates it because its "the smar advanced coders os" somethign liek that.
anyways im a noob so go easy on me please als i may have ben linux distro hopping but i still feel lost.
Linux mint is often recommended for new people, and has a interface very similar to windows. In my own experience, it's very fast to get it up and running.
I'll second this. When I finally switched to using Linux exclusively on my personal PC, I found that Mint had everything working perfectly right out of the box. The most complicated part was switching the driver for my dedicated graphics card (which was provided in a neat little list for me to choose from).
I use the terminal because I'm familiar with it, but you could easily set up and use Mint without ever opening a terminal.
Driver support has always been excellent on Mint. My MacBook air Wifi adapter would normally not work on other distros, but Mint was out of the box fine.
I am a gnome user. However, for my parents I went with mint. It was quite stable. I think both desktop environments do not give you choices hell. That's something I hated with kde. Too many choices. Although it's been a while.
So, how deep does the "similar to Windows" needs to go? Are you thinking in terms of ease of use, things that works out of the box, something that looks similar to Windows?
In terms of look and feel, I'd recommend something based on KDE. KDE out of the box looks a lot like Windows (in fact, Windows 11 has some stuff that looks like it's been ripped off KDE) Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Manjaro and Mint all have KDE versions you can install. I think Cinnamon also looks a fair bit like Windows. Although I wouldn't exactly rule out other desktops just yet - maybe you'll quickly realize hey, that other desktop I tried does look and function pretty neatly for my needs and you won't feel like you need something that looks like Windows.
In terms of tutorials and being able to look things up online, Ubuntu and Manjaro tends to be the two most popular and therefore most documented. pop_OS! is also fairly popular and they do a good job at making Linux accessible for newcomers, but it's based on Gnome so the experience will be different.
My personal advice is get VirtualBox, pick a few distros and try them out. You won't exactly be able to game on them, or if you do, you'll probably be limited to more lightweight games. But that should be plenty enough to install Discord, OBS, Steam and give a few distros a try. You can expect real world performance to mostly feel more responsive than Windows, and for games you can expect similar or maybe 5-10% lower performance in most cases. So don't look too much at how fast it runs in a VM - VMs are fantastic piece of technology (and I actually game in one with a VFIO setup, but don't bother just yet it's a whole rabbithole), but especially under VirtualBox or VMware you're not going to get the full performance.
Try a bunch of distros, try a few of the main Desktop Environments (DEs), see what you like, see what you dislike. Gnome on Ubuntu will be very different than Gnome on Fedora. Don't rule out a distro because the DE, and don't rule out a DE because of a distro. You can install as many as you want in VirtualBox, so take your time to get a feel of what you like and dislike and go from there. Once you've made your choice, you can partition your disk and keep Windows around if you want to have that safety net. Sometimes there's that one game that just won't work in Linux, and you can reboot to Windows to play it. I started this way, and found myself rebooting to Windows less and less until I reached a point where I was actively avoiding it and willing to make sacrifices just to avoid it because Linux had become my primary OS. If you have 2-3 distros you want to try, nothing stops you from installing all of them on hardware as well, they'll happily cohabitate for the most part. Spend a day in Ubuntu, spend another day in Manjaro. Get a feel of which one has less friction for you.
In the end, Linux is Linux. Some distros ships everything you need for gaming out of the box and are easier to set up, but ultimately, Linux is Linux, you can (with some effort) get anything that runs on one distro on another distro. Heck, on ArchLinux land, we have a whole bunch of Ubuntu-patched packages in the AUR to bring in some of Ubuntu's modifications in.
Speaking of ArchLinux. It's a pretty good distro, it's also become a bit of a meme distro. Don't feel like you have to jump in all the way and get into ArchLinux, Gentoo, VoidLinux, Alpine, etc. You can if you want - honestly, if you really want to dive in deep and learn Linux from the ground up they will get you there, but beware that the learning curve on that will be steep. Those distros are aimed at more advanced users that want to control every aspect of their system in great detail. There's no shame using a normie distro like Ubuntu or Fedora. Those are made to just kinda work and be reliable, whereas the ArchLinux installer is basically "here's a command line, install what you want, good luck have fun".
You don't have to "commit" to a distro. For some it becomes a bit of a religion, but it's perfectly normal to hop around distros a bit before you find the one that clicks with you. That's why there's so many of them: different goals for different people and different minds. I started with Ubuntu in 2007, ran to Debian around 2010 when they introduced Unity and I didn't like it, wasn't a fan of Debian either, ended up breaking it with Debian Sid, went to Fedora for a bit, and back to Ubuntu with a different DE before I felt like I had enough and wanted something I had more control over, and that's when I switched to Arch and stayed on Arch to this day. Meanwhile my fiancée put Arch on her laptop but increasingly feels like it's too much maintenance for her and wants a laptop that just kinda works to run Chromium and VSCode. So she might end up just switching to Ubuntu. That's perfectly fine! The computer should work for you, you shouldn't work for the computer.
If you end up not liking Linux, that's fine too! Most of us here swear by it, but maybe Windows just happens to be the best operating system for you, just like for some people that's macOS.
With that, good luck, hope you enjoy your Linux experience and ask questions. Lemmy is a great place to ask for help, there's also lots of still very active IRC channels on libera.chat, and there's some Discord servers too if that's your thing.
Zorin is designed to be a Windows replacement, but my personal recommendation is LinuxMint. Sure it's not trying to be a carbon copy of Windows, but it's designed to be easy to learn, stable, functional, and support pretty much everything from the get go (just not bleeding edge), with a readily available store that lets you download everything you need (that isn't already included in the install).
Linux Mint Cinnamon is a good choice. Even as a sysadmin and DevOps engineer I use it on my workstation because it Just Works. It has good window management, settings management, file management and just stays out of the way. Flatpak is well integrated for things you may need that aren't natively packaged, like discord.
I've heard good things about PopOs too but haven't tried it.
I know people have already said it, but Mint is very possibly what you want. I'm not super tech savvy (although I am surrounded by programmers in my personal life) and my husband recommended Mint with the Cinnamon desktop environment for me. It almost felt too much like Windows, at first! I was looking for a big change, and didn't find it there. With that said, I have grown quite attached to it.
Things are largely easy, even for me. For most programs, installing is as simple as downloading a .deb file and running it, much like running a .exe for installation on Windows. I very, very rarely have to touch my terminal, and when I do, it's because I'm doing some unnecessary nonsense, and I have a guide up to tell me exactly what to enter. The GUI has been great for me for navigating files, handling various settings, etc etc.
In terms of gaming, Steam will use Proton by default. It's their own creation, and frankly, it's very good. When it isn't good enough, there are custom versions of Proton, which is a little more complicated but still relatively easy. For games that aren't on Steam, I've used Lutris with largely good results. The only times I run into issues are with anti-cheat, which largely does not work well with Linux. If you want to find out how much of your Steam library would work, you can try protondb.com, which has a handy tool for figuring out how many things from your library will work, and to what degree. Lutris has something similar in their own website, lutris.net, as well.
This comment ended up being a lot longer than I expected, but I hope there's at least something helpful in here! Whether you end up with Mint and/or Cinnamon or not, I hope everything goes well in your search for the right distro and desktop environment!
As others have said, Linux Mint (Cinnamon) is an obvious choice.
Alternatively, I recommend Tuxedo OS. It’s a KDE based distro developed by a German company that makes various computers which run Linux out of the box. You get the developer support of a company that ships machines with the distro (like System 76’s Pop!_OS) and a more Windows like experience than Pop!_OS’ gnome desktop environment.
Linux Mint, as other people have mentioned, is an awesome system that has a default look similar to Windows. I would also like to add Pop!_OS, it is another very popular distro meant for the general public, it is very complete and functional.
By "something like Windows", do you mean suddenly getting a "Configuring updates... please wait" on the screen, and having all open jobs killed by a sudden and unasked-for restart? 😂
Just joking of course! Welcome to Linux! I moved a year ago and haven't looked back once. In my case Ubuntu+Gnome did the job well, but soon I moved to KDE-Plasma. It offers available customizations that Windows only dreams of – but can still be made to look quite like Windows if you like. I think there are even desktop themes available to make it look like Windows.
But most posts here give much better and more expert advice :)
The similarity is really only superficial. You would have to learn about the OS one way or the other, even if some distro has Interfaces similar to Windows. You might need to find software alternatives for example, or be comfortable with package manager.
For gaming, you want to checkout Steam w/ Proton and Heroic Game Launcher
Linux is not Windows. Don't try to make Windows from Linux. It can be visually similar, but it will never be the same. Don't expect a seamless migration. Stay on Windows or be ready to learn new things.
I would encourage you to try a Linux distro with KDE plasma. It really looks like windows 10 now, and I always get comments from non tech people asking what it is and being surprised that it is linix but "looks good, like windows".
I'm on debian stable. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. My current beginner recommendation is to use m Linux mint, which is downstream from debian.
ubuntu mate is a good choice for a beginner, but if your computer is old enough, the system may slow down. This is due to the fact that snap images are slowly decompressed on older processors. You can try Linux Mint too.
About the software. The main thing is to accept the fact that not all Windows applications have analogues on Linux. some people actually make such a mistake. no need to try to install wine and migrate literally every exe file. Look at the software specifically for linux.
The default browser is firefox. But you can install chrome or chromium without any problems. There is OBS studio for linux for streaming. For games, you can put lutris. There is also an official steam client. if the game has an anti-cheat and this anti-cheat is not optimized for linux, you will not be able to play it.
+1 about the software. Actually it'd be great to have a post here on Linux where people can comment about desired apps, and subcomments point out Linux alternatives – or simply different "angles of attack" so to speak.
If you want a familiar Windows-like experience, the general consensus is that Mint and Zorin are the best for helping people transitioning. Lightweight-wise, Mint MATE, Xubuntu, or Lubuntu would work. Could install MATE, LXDE, or XFCE on Arch, too. Might be a Fedora spin, too, for some or all of those.
If you want super lightweight, Void is awesome to play with, but you have to get it going yourself somewhat like old-school Arch. It’s definitely more advanced, but worth doing for the learning.
There are excellent suggestions in this thread. However, I want you to change your mindset. What you're asking is like "I don't want to drive my car. I'm sick of 4 wheelers. I want to ride this new thing called a motorbike. What are some good motorbikes? It should have AC and the safety and comfort of my previous car. Also are there any 4 seater bikes which is family friendly?"
When you are shifting from one platform, please be prepared to make some changes in the way you normally operate. You can't magically expect the new platform to be perfect when you have a decade of experience in the previous platform.
I really like Pop!_OS and recommend you give that a try! It’s like the beginner friendly Ubuntu but better with flatpak support and tiling windows out of the box.
Linux is very modular. Distros are mostly unique in the way they combine software that other people wrote, and usually there's just a bit of code or theming that the distro adds. Usually you can take a distro and swap some pieces out for others if you want because it's so modular.
When you ask for something like windows, I assume you're asking for an interface like windows. The interface comes from the Desktop Environment(DE). You probably want either KDE or Cinnamon. I'd pick KDE out of those two, but you should try then each out.
You can put one of these DEs on top of any distro. The bigger distros generally come with a prebuilt version of all of the major DEs, but you can install a different DE even on distros that don't. Personally, I'd always go with a prebuilt one, because switching DEs can get messy for reasons I won't get into.
As far as distros, there aren't really any that are like Windows, because they're all Linux and it's just different. Most distros have reached the 'it just works' point, although you might still hit challenges with wifi or sound or something. Worst case is it takes some googling.
I'd recommend going with something either Fedora or Ubuntu based. I prefer Fedora, but other folks live Ubuntu. Both are great. If you do get drawn in by the Arch side of things, I'd recommend Endeavor OS.
I don't think I saw anyone here mention Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix (obviously free) or WindowsFX and LinuxFX (paid). Those are all pretty cool in my opinion.
1.) Linux Mint right now; I like to distrohop and I stuck with it on my primary server for two years. It's very clean and neat and the default desktop config is exactly what you need while getting used to everything. Desktop is insanely configurable as well. It's also beautiful; Solus Budgie is the only one that beats it. These both blow literally every OS on earth out of the water.
2.) Xubuntu: it's pretty similar in structure to Mint but more lightweight. Before Mint, it and Kubuntu were my go-too when I needed something with a desktop environment.
The most important thing I wish I'd done: after you install, join a community/messageboard/something so you can get all the tricks early and smooth over any surprises.
I seriously envy you if this is your first time using Linux. I remember my first install--Ubuntu Server, no desktop--and it was amazing.
Mint was the first distro I tried. It seemed very nice, but it has been like 5-10 years since I have used it and I cannot really speak to what it is like today.
Manjaro is also a good distro which I got into more recently when I was trying to daily drive Linux (I used the KDE version). It also has access to the Arch User Repository, which is incredibly powerful and gave me access to certain programs which I might not have alternatives for otherwise.
Regardless of which distro you go with, my experience switching to Linux for a daily driver is to have a mindset that you are learning a skill. I can't speak for Mint more recently, but my experience with Manjaro is that not quite everything "just works" first time, every time. For daily use-- web browsing and such-- it works fine, and I have rarely had anything spontaneously break without me doing something, but if you have certain types of programs you want to install where you might run into some kind of compatibility or configuration issue, be prepared to look around online to solve problems or ask questions on forums as needed when you need help.
Linux mint is the go-to for people who want something similar to windows. It has a similar layout and feel, and a lot of software that you’d normally expect on a windows computer that others distributions just don’t have
PopOS is the distro that is most optimized for gaming, but you can also game on any other distro
I would always recommend mint. If you want domething which looks a lot similar then zorin does that really well, and it also has you pay if you want some stuff preinstalled so that part is like windows too. Keep in mind that Linux is not windows and it will never be 1:1.
Gaming on Linux is pretty awesome if you use steam. It is painless in my experience.
Linux is used by a lot of professional programmers who might also have gotten training during uni, but honestly, I don't think that is needed anymore. It can be used by anyone who is willing to accept that Linux will never be 1:1 to windows.
I can 100% back this up. I never had any issues with any of the games I play. The most effort I put in was get dotnet for assetto corsa using protontricks, and that is pretty much the only game which required tweaking from me. I mostly play metroidvanias, and all of them work for me. I can also vouch for 99% of the games out there. Warframe and csgo also work really well.
Iv been running garuda Linux GNOME edition on my gaming rig for years. Best Linux experience iv had. Honestly in my opinion and theres 2 schools of thought on this. The windows paradigm is literally shit workflow design, and thats just objective assessment. The only reason it has carried on is because people got real familiar with very shitty design choices.
I think you may want to consider opening yourself up to trying a whole new UX. Try out GNOME would be my suggestion. NixOS is another positive choice. You can install almost all your software graphically in basically 1 click using flatpak too these days and thanks to steam and their investment in proton. Most steam games work REALLY WELL on Linux.
A lot can boot from a usb stick and you can look at them. Linux Mint should look very familiar to a Windows user. Their main edition is Cinnamon, however they have an Xfce version that is lightweight. Xubuntu is another option that is also using Xfce. Ubuntu Mate is an option but it will be less familiar out of the box and with more of a learning curve.
Most distributions will support your use case, but how old the laptop is might influence how well they run. That said, even full GNOME can often run perfectly fine on older systems, and there is no downside to trying a bunch of things.
I wouldn't recommend Manjaro - or Arch/Arch derivatives - to beginners. Installing them usually goes fine (especially nowadays thanks to archinstall) but Arch comes with a lot of quirks and ongoing maintenance burdens that newbies won't be aware of until a few months down the line when their system blows up in their face.
People usually recommend Linux mint or some Ubuntu version. I recommend neither.
Ubuntu is a proprietary-solution-ridden piece of hot garbage that tries to hinders what you do at any chance. I use it daily for work, unfortunately.
It’s been a few years since I tried mint. It looked good and felt nice for the first few hours, after that I don’t remember what happened, it was maybe lack of configurabilità or lack of support, but I noped out very quickly and I just remember that my thoughts were “never again”.
I never tried it, but it looks like Pop!_OS might be the thing to look out for in this space.
Besides that, know that Linux is different from windows starting from its very philosophy. Keep an open mind, it can be a confusing journey for a beginner (which is why I am holding back about telling you about the many possibilities).
One thing to keep in mind is that some software that you were used to will not be available, and that you might need to look for alternatives. But as far as the things you mentioned go, these are my recommendations:
Linux Mint is a good one to try out for starters. It is Ubuntu based so most of the time if you have an issue you can find tons on it in the Ubuntu help searches.
As for a browser, Firefox is likely pre installed and pretty excellent. All major browsers have a Linux client.
For gaming, steam had great support for windows games running on Linux. There is also Lutris and Heroic launcher which all have support for running games under a comparability layer.
Linux Mint felt like a really good start for me. Its a nice transition from Windows because you still get a lot of functions that can be done outside of the command line. There's a GUI for system updates, driver updates, and an app store of sorts. The interface is also just generally not all that different from Windows.
In my experience, I didnt have any issues running games on Mint. I was using a pretty powerful rig with AMD hardware, which tends to play nicer with Linux, but from what I've heard Mint seems to do well with gaming.
To play games, you'll obviously need Steam with Proton enabled. I picked the latest full release version and it generally worked pretty good with most games. Some games that wont work with Steam might need a separate app called Lutris. For me this was just Battlefield 4, which also worked fine through Lutris. You can check ProtonDB to see if the games you wanna play will work.
If you use Nvidia, I've heard good things about Pop!OS but i havent used it myself.
Linux Mint is the obvious recommendation. It looks pretty similar to windows and is really good for those unfamiliar with Linux.
I personally use fedora which is also pretty good for beginners but the installation process is pretty confusing and setting up dnf fusion might not be what a new linux user wants to fiddle around with right away, which is why I think mint might be better.
Everyone reccomends Linux Mint, but I personally use Kubuntu.
You can use Discover to install apps such as Steam and you'd probably not need the terminal
Then you never re-format again, but just drag and drop any .iso-file you want to try. You can try any Linux distro in live mode without installing anything into your computer before you found your favorite distro.
First, welcome to the Linux family! I switched completely to Linux on all my computers about 3 years ago and I've been super happy :)
I would recommend trying out Linux Mint first. Cinnamon edition, which is their default version, is designed specifically to look and feel similar to Windows and be easier for people moving from Windows to Linux.
It's built off of Ubuntu, so you have all the compatibility with the general Linux world that an Ubuntu distro gives.
It should be fine for all the things you list. If you want to try a different Debian based distro (like Ubuntu) that's user friendly, Pop_OS is another good one. It's less Windows-ish, but still has a very nice user experience and is a little better out of the box for gaming, because of their app store.
I think it still isn't officially out yet. At least the new version and I wouldn't recommend the old one.
On integrated graphics (which I assume op has) gaming should work generally the same across ditros. I use mint personally and that's a great way to start off. Simple, similar layout to windows, and I have run into any issues with games.
Just wanted to add that the OS running on Steam Deck is SteamOS 3 (aka Holo). Valve says it will be open source, but hasn’t released the code yet. Meanwhile, you can try HoloISO if you have an AMD GPU.
I run Mint 20.3 on a 10 year old laptop with 8gb with absolutely no problems for the basic stuff I do with it. Upgrading the hdd to an ssd made a huge improvement though.
I would however suggest you install mint 21 (current version)
The only reason the above laptop is on an older version is I'm worried about what I'm going to break if I do (I have a bunch of "non standard" stuff on it) and it currently just works and is still in support...so if it ain't broke...
I highly recommend trying Manjaro. I haven't moved past Windows 7, so I can't compare doesn't to Win 10/11, but it's the only Linux distro I've found that was Close Enough (TM) to Windows to make it possible for me to switch.
Like any Linux, things aren't going to Just Work (TM) as often as in Windows, but this is the closest I've gotten.
for someone who wants an arch-based distro without tinkering too much there are other alternatives like endeavourOs, and I think Garuda too.
For someone who wants something that looks like windows, no need for Manjaro, just something with a desktop environment that looks like windows. I'd recommend Linux Mint, very simple to use (and for low end computers there is the XFCE edition), or distributions with KDE (fedora KDE, Kubuntu...) or maybe ZorinOS.
edit: also nobara Linux (based on fedora)may be good for games, they have a version that kinda feels like windows
I've been using Manjaro for a couple of years now on my desktop (with an Nvidia GPU). Their package situation is not great. Updating the Linux kernel and Nvidia drivers is a process separate from pamac that you have to just know to do, or one day X will break and now you have to figure out how to fix it.
On top of that, because they delay the release of non-aur repo packages for stability testing, but don't delay aur, some aur packages will just break occasionally. I now manually install discord from their tar ball because of this.
Because of these little unnecessary quirks that you just have to know how to work around, I can't recommend it for new Linux users, and honestly don't recommend it to seasoned users either. I'm trying out endeavor OS on my laptop now and I think that is what I would recommend; but possibly only for more seasoned users because it's arch. Might be more stable if you install the linux-lts package and remove linux.