r/linux4noobs • • 8h ago

shells and scripting Made an starship prompt theme that uses matugen to it's color.

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30 Upvotes

r/linux4noobs • • 1h ago

should i switch to linux

• Upvotes

Hi, for the last week i’ve wanting to change my main pc to linux bc is getting slower with a few apps running and i don’t have enough patience to wait 2 minutes for an app to open.

I have a HP PAVILION 360x 11th Gen, I5-1135G7, 8,00GB RAM, Intel Iris Xe Graphics, bought in 2022.

i use this PC mainly for Office work, so the apps the i most used are Microsoft Office and friends (i don’t have any trouble with using them online).

Should i switch (and what distros are the best for my pc) or should i stay on windows till i run out of patience and smack the pc?
(ps: sorry for my english this is not my first language)


r/linux4noobs • • 10h ago

Happy 30th Birthday KDE !

Thumbnail kde.org
16 Upvotes

r/linux4noobs • • 11h ago

migrating to Linux Looking to leave Windows 11 for Linux, what distro suits me?

20 Upvotes

I’m getting tired of Windows and all its bloat, notifications, and stuff constantly being pushed in my face, I’m considering switching to Bazzite or Mint, since they seem “newbie friendly”

What I mainly use my PC for:
- Streaming with OBS
- DJing with Rekordbox, although I’d probably switch to Mixxx if I move to Linux
- Image editing with GIMP
- Video editing with DaVinci Resolve
- Gaming

I’ve been looking at Bazzite, since I’ve heard it’s great for gaming. However I read somewhere that it automatically boots into a gaming mode similar to Steam Big Picture/SteamDeck. Is it true, or can I just boot straight into a normal desktop, like on Windows?

Looking for
- a regular desktop experience, without unnecessary stuff running in the background
- The ability to customize my file explorer (stuff like automatically show dimensions of an image directly in the file name)
- Something beginner-friendly, since I have no coding experience
- Good gaming performance and compatibility with drivers

I got
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600x
- RTX 3060 Ti
- One 165Hz & One 60Hz monitor

Is Bazzite a good choice, or should I look at something like Mint?
Is there anything else you need to know about my hardware or usage to give me a better recommendation?


r/linux4noobs • • 6h ago

migrating to Linux Should i switch to linux on my main computer? if im on windows 10?

6 Upvotes

Just wondering i should keep windows 10 on my main pc or switch to some linux os of sorts? Also im up for os suggestions if you wish to share. I feel like lately performance hasent been that good on my desktop even when idle.

I have a Nvidia rtx 3060 (12vram).
Amd Ryzen 5 3600 cpu.
32gb of low voltage ddr4.
roughly 500gb ssd for my main drive.
i also have a second hdd but its old and slow-ish, but its 2tb. I use it to store misc files and games.

Would it be the right call to swtich to linux, please briefly explain your thoughts.


r/linux4noobs • • 2h ago

programs and apps welcome maidware project

2 Upvotes

maidware project is meant for people who are moving from windows to linux, it's a suite of tools meant for people who are newer and want an easier way to move over.

i'm currently the only developer in my project, and i need help with translators, coding etc. i have gotten to my limit but i would need a bit of help.

thank you, and here is my project website -

https://maidware-project.github.io/maidware.github.io


r/linux4noobs • • 5m ago

PC keeps suddenly shutting down

• Upvotes

A few days ago i switched to linux mint, and since then from time to time my pc suddenly shuts down.Doing a "sudo journalctl -b -1 -e" shows that it just dies immediately with no warnings (i think).

I had this issue on Windows about a year ago, but it went away by itself pretty early on.

Last time it happened the pc wasnt even doing anything too demanding, just watching yt.

Is there anything else i can do to check for possible causes? I can afford a new PSU if it turns out the one i have rn is failing for whatever reason, but id rather not.


r/linux4noobs • • 26m ago

Getting second laptop so gf doesn't take Macbook Air everywhere with her

• Upvotes

I got a 2026 Macbook Air M5 a while ago and my girlfriend loves it. She uses it all the time at home. I'm fine with this, as I have spare Linux laptops I can use.

Recently, she has taken to bringing the MBA in her bag to work. This makes me very nervous. I don't want it to get damaged or stolen. I don't have a spare 2k to replace it.

Is it worth getting an old Intel Macbook Air and putting Linux on it?

She has used Linux on her old laptop before in 2020, when I put it on there, and she was perfectly fine with it. This laptop is too slow and heavy now and its battery is gone. I'd have to upgrade the hdd to an ssd and replace the battery.

I'm also weighing up getting a secondhand laptop for my mum because doing any officework on her iPad with a detachable keyboard is excruciating. But she is old and doesn't feel like too much change at once.


r/linux4noobs • • 6h ago

migrating to Linux Deleting Windows Drive, Adding Storage to Ubuntu?

2 Upvotes

I have a Dell Precision Compact 3260 that has Windows 11 installed on the original hard drive.  I installed a 2nd NVMe drive and put Ubuntu on it, so I can currently boot from one OS or the other.  I'd like to be solely on Ubuntu now and want to have my old Windows OS drive available as storage in Ubuntu, either as separate drives or a combined storage pool.  I am not that well versed in Linux and am concerned about the bootloader breaking if I delete my Windows installation since that was the original drive.  Does anyone have steps or tips I should take to (somewhat) cleanly migrate my Windows drive to be used in my existing Ubuntu installation?  Or would it be best to wipe both drives and just start fresh?  I can do that, but have a lot of data stored on my Ubuntu instance so starting over would be the less preferable option. Thanks!


r/linux4noobs • • 10h ago

NixOS or Arch?

5 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I want to get a framework 12 to switch to linux since my surface works exclusively with windows currently (f u microsoft for that).

Im pretty excited about using linux and i dont know whether I should go for NixOS or arch.

First of all, yes im a big noob and i know arch/nix arent noob friendly, the struggle is worth the larp and i already set up arch on an old laptop and on an imac, got hyprland and caelestia on both of them, works great :)

Honestly i still dont know shit about arch because claude guided me a lot, I dont want to distro hop on my main machine so i would be happy if anyone could share some opinions on NixOS, is there any flaw apart from the learning curve ? the config system seems sexy asf to me

I also have an other question, my plan is to get gnome for the tablet compatibility and hyprland for the aesthetic (with some stolen beautiful dot files), can I set up some kind of shortcuts to switch between them or do i have to log out/log in to switch ?


r/linux4noobs • • 9h ago

distro selection 10-year-old NVIDIA workstation: which Linux distro will keep it running reliably until October 2028?

3 Upvotes

Hello.

I've been distro-hopping since the beginning of the year, trying to find a Linux distribution that will keep my 10-year-old HP ZBook 15 G3 running reliably for the next two years.

For the reference, these are the specs of my machine:

CPU: Intel Core i7-6820HQ at 2.7GHz
iGPU: Intel HD Graphics 530
dGPU: NVIDIA Quadro M2000M
Memory: 16 GB
Storage: 256 GB

For the most part, I've managed to get all my hardware working, including my NVIDIA graphics card.

My GPU requires the NVIDIA 580 driver, which I can obtain on almost all the distributions I've tried.

Debian is an exception. The 580 driver isn't available in its Stable repositories. I've also looked into version 550, but that branch is no longer maintained and the available 590 driver is not compatible with my card.

Although I've managed to get my hardware working on most distributions, my main concern is that the NVIDIA 580 driver is already on a legacy support branch.

I'm worried that future kernel updates may eventually introduce compatibility problems, particularly if distributions stop providing the necessary patches to keep the driver working. At that point, the driver might no longer compile against newer kernels.

What I'm looking for is advice from people who have previously dealt with NVIDIA graphics cards requiring legacy drivers.

Which Linux distribution would you reasonably trust to maintain kernel compatibility with legacy NVIDIA drivers until the end of its support lifecycle?

In my case, I'm looking for a distribution that will remain supported until at least October 2028.

Thanks in advance for you advice!


r/linux4noobs • • 9h ago

learning/research My wifi isn't working on kubuntu

3 Upvotes

I downloaded linux last night everything was running well and i was just watch a YouTube video and my internet turned off an hour ago and i been trynna figure out how to turn it back on the wifi button greys out on restarting the laptop i can click it but it doesn't turn on, i did rf kill list it says the wifi is hard blocked (the rest of the options are good) i asked gemini and it suggested pressing f2 on boot to check if my wifi stuff was toggled which it was so I'm really out of ideas please help...

Edit: well it fixed itself, while trying to figure out how to remove the hard block i ended up hardblocking the other given option too and just gave up for the day, tried it again after dinner and it worked, after that i did go into settings to make it so my laptop doesn't go to sleep when it's not in active use cause gemini mentioned it might've gone in sleep and then not be able to get back up properly


r/linux4noobs • • 3h ago

learning/research Enlightenment needed :(

1 Upvotes

Never used that much pc cuz of financial issues , finally got a used 16 gh 512 SSD laptop , can I use linux regardless of my less time on windows? I heard ppl switch to linux after getting hang of windows . If that's not the case help me download ing it it's confusing, any small help is appreciated:)


r/linux4noobs • • 8h ago

shells and scripting Virtual monitor enabler script not running on startup

2 Upvotes

Hello, im pretty new to linux and im running Mint on an old optiplex with an i7-4770k which im using as a minecraft server.

i moved it to my garage so i need it to be headless, but the rdm program im using (RustDesk) doesnt work unless i have a monitor plugged into the server.

i found a script that creates a virtual monitor to trick rustdesk and it works, but i am currently trying to make it run on startup and it straight up does nothing, i have to run it manually for it to work which wont work for me.

additionally when i try to create another script to put in the autorun folder, instead of the .desktop shortcut it creates, i get an error saying "Failed to execute child process. Failed to execve: Premission denied".

the file is in the following directory:

/home/server/Downloads/virtual-linux-display-0.1-alpha

and its name:

vdl-monitor


r/linux4noobs • • 5h ago

Recommendations for a distro that supports touch+fingerpint reader

1 Upvotes

I have an older Samsung Galaxybook360 with a intel i5-1130G7 cpu and 8gb of ram. Looking to swap it to linux to see if I can make it more responsive. It has a touch screen and a fingerprint reader, so I'm wondering if there is an ideal distro that would support both out of the box? This would be my first time using Linux so if there is something that supports those features and is also beginner friendly that would be ideal. If I had to compromise the finger print reader is not essential.

Any advice would be welcome!


r/linux4noobs • • 18h ago

Is dual booting linux and windows slower than just linux?

8 Upvotes

I started dual booting mint and windows a while ago. What made me migrate to linux was the promise for improved pc performance. And while I did notice that a little bit, it didn't feel like a huge difference. So I wonder, is dual booting making my linux partition slower or is it just not that big of a difference.

Sorry if this is poorly worded, I'm tired right now.


r/linux4noobs • • 10h ago

distro selection What Advantages Of Nixos Over Arch Do You Like?

0 Upvotes

What features, usage patterns, configuration methods, or other aspects do you find in NixOS—but not in Arch—that you particularly appreciate?

Additionally, how would you compare the two in terms of system boot time and package manager installation speed—which one generally feels faster to you?


r/linux4noobs • • 4h ago

I made an app manager for people coming from Windows: drop a downloaded file and it installs it, with a preview and undo

0 Upvotes

When I moved from Windows to Linux, the most confusing part was software. Some apps come from

the distribution, some from Flathub, some from Snap, and some are a file you download from a

website and then... put somewhere? There is no "run the installer, and uninstall it later".

So I built Yar, an app manager that tries to make that simple:

- Drop a downloaded file on the window (AppImage, zip or tar archive, .deb or .rpm, Flatpak

file), or paste the download link. Yar checks what it is without running it, shows you

where it will go, and adds it to your app menu with its icon. Later you can remove it

cleanly, because Yar remembers what it put where.

- See every installed app in one list, wherever it came from.

- Install, update and remove apps from Flathub and your distribution, with a preview of

exactly what will happen first.

- Undo from a history, and removed data goes to the Trash, not away for good.

- Paste the checksum from the developer's website to check the download is genuine.

It is an early pre-release (0.3.0). I use it on Fedora with KDE; other distributions should

work but haven't been tried much. I'd really like to hear where it confuses you or breaks.

GitHub, with screenshots: https://github.com/mirinio/yar


r/linux4noobs • • 1d ago

learning/research Do You See The Benefits Of Immutable/Atomic Distributions? What Are The Advantages?

14 Upvotes

I am curious not so much about its technical specifications, but rather the advantages you experience and encounter in daily use.

For instance, which of the operations you performed here would have likely caused your system to crash—or simply not be supported—had you attempted them on mutable (i.e., non-immutable or non-atomic) distributions?

If you enjoy customizing your system, at which stages did you run into limitations?


r/linux4noobs • • 17h ago

what is the best way to install up to date packages on debian

3 Upvotes

is it backports or flatpak and which apps do i need to keep modern beside steam


r/linux4noobs • • 12h ago

installation Dual booting windows and linux on separate drives that already have data on them

1 Upvotes

Hi, I want to try dual booting windows 10 and a linux distro (bazzite for now i think) on my main laptop to see how much of what i normally do on windows i can do on linux instead.

I have 2 separate drives in the laptop i plan to dual boot on, one 500gb and one 1tb drive, the latter of which has enough space free for a linux install, but that drive already has a couple hundred gigs of data on it that I dont want to erase.

Do I need to do something extra when following bazzites guide to dual boot and which part of the guide should i follow?

the laptop has a ruzen 3750h and a gtx1660 ti mobile, providing the info just in case


r/linux4noobs • • 1d ago

programs and apps Seeking Feedback on a GUI app I'm building

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13 Upvotes

I made a small GUI app that shows your system specs in one sane window: OS, CPU, memory, network, storage plus GPU. It has search and light and dark themes.

Why?
I originally built it for ShopnoOS, a Debian-based distro I work on at my work. We needed a simple system specs viewer for our users. The tools I tried were -
- Either too detailed (hardinfo2) - Had a dated UI (cpu-x) or - Felt more like a task manager (Mission Center).

So, I started working on it, goal was to show just enough information to the user. I tested on bunch of systems and VMs. Detection may miss on hardware I don’t own, so reports of wrong or missing values are the feedback I seek most. Hence, I'm sharing this here.

Repo: https://github.com/fa-saikat/sysinfo-viewer

DEB package is available on the release page.

Again, feedback welcome, especially on hardware where detection fails.


r/linux4noobs • • 17h ago

hardware/drivers Are intel APUs well supported on fedora

2 Upvotes

I'm pretty new to linux so far I have had a Ryzen 3 3250u I pretty much had no problems from the driver side everything worked great setting up drivers for decoding h265 etc didn't take much time . Now I was thinking of getting a ThinkPad with core ultra 7 255h right now I use umbriel wm with noctalia shell how hard will it be to mitigate my setup like configs installed apps whose names I don't remeber and will the drivers be a problem I have heard amd works very well on Linux does intel do the same ?


r/linux4noobs • • 18h ago

programs and apps I’ve installed Bottles and it Flatseal doesn't find it, how can I begin to fix this?

2 Upvotes

I'm using Nobara and I've installed Bottles from the official page and Flatseal from the app center, when I run Flatseal it doesn't show Bottles on the lefthand sidebar, any indication on how I could fix this?


r/linux4noobs • • 18h ago

How to get pc to open to a different boot loader?

2 Upvotes

For a while now I've been dual booting linux mint and windows. And so when I turn on my pc it uses the GNU GRUB bootloader:

Not my actual boot options, just an example.

But I tried installing cachyos on a different partition and selected GRUB for the boot loader. But when I turn on my pc it still shows this menu with no option to boot into cachyos. How do I configure it so I can boot into cachy as well as windows and linux?