Ok so my computer is a small thinkpad that runs windows 10 I mostly use it to write and use hexbear.

How do i change to linux?

Either a link to a good concise lay person worded article or some kind patient soul willing to help me in comments.

Thank you for your help!

  • Pirate [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    You will need a USB and Rufus and you are gonna use it to burn the ISO of the distribution you choose to your USB... then you will boot from the USB and install the distro basically (it's way easier than installing Windows and the installation is guided)

    I recommend Kubuntu as a distro. It's based on Ubuntu so very stable and runs KDE Plasma which is just great.

    As for guides, you will find a huge amount of them either written or videos. Ubuntu's online guide itself looks pretty good. Btw if you don't have a USB you can use a DVD

    Let me know if you want a more detailed answer, welcome to the penguins' side! :penguin-love:

    • quartz242 [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I went with Kubuntu and am commenting from it! Thank you all for your help!!!

      • Pirate [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Awesome! Welcome fellow KDE Plasma user :) The KDE community is really great btw. I check this blog from one of the volunteers weekly and follow r/KDE.

        KDE Plasma is what is called a Desktop Environment which is basically what is responsible for your desktop graphical interface but the KDE people also make apps like Okular and KDE Connect and a lot more.

        Couple of tips for Plasma:

        Try Latte dock and check the widgets that plasma got (you can find more widgets online by clicking on Get New Widgets)

        Check this post.

        Shortcuts: alt+space to open Kfind which you can use to launch apps or search

        meta (Windows key)+ left click to drag a window around

        To get a dark theme for the whole desktop, go to System Settings > Appearance > Plasma Style

        KDE Plasma uses a specific toolkit called QT while GNOME (the other popular Desktop Environment) uses GTK so apps built for GNOME look different on Plasma and vice versa. KDE is great in that it can somewhat intergrate those GTK apps tho, go to System Settings > Appearance > Application Style and then, near the bottom, click on Configure GNOME/GTK Application Style... and use the same theme

        Some app recs:

        Foliate for ebooks

        KDE Connect - just check it out if you've an Android

        Remmina for remote desktop sharing

        Persepolis download manager

        Use Timeshift to backup your system!

        As for customizing KDE Plasma, you'll find a lot of videos on youtube (which you can access via Invidious) and articles.

        Sorry for the long comment, I wanted to make it a bit comprehensive and will probably turn it into a post. Let me know if you got any questions! :penguin-dance: