What hardware did you go with?
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2026
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Existing laptop. It was mid range 4 years ago, so it would have been compatible with windows 11.
What did you switch to and why is it not Hannah Montana Linux?
Temple OS
RIP Terry Davis. Wish he'd gotten the help he needed
Seriously. If he would’ve been able to properly focus his brain.. man. What could’ve been, ya know?
It was a toss up between debian and Ubuntu, so I decided to race them against each other in the download window and see which one won. Debian 13 just took the cake! Let's see how long it stays...
Debian is a good choice, I would encourage you to never touch Ubuntu or any of it’s derivatives.
Why?
The short answer is to just search for reasons why people don't like Ubuntu. They are many, and varied.
FWIW, Ubuntu used to be seen as the default choice, and these days there are just so many better options.
Debian is an excellent choice. I run Debian KDE on one of my computers.
Short answer for one of the reasons: the default "app store" nowadays installs basically the entirety of your OS again for every application.
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+1 Hannah Montana Linux. Has been the most satisfying, user friendly and stable distro ever. In an ideal world, we all would be using Hannah Montana Linux.
It really gives you the best of both worlds.
Fun fact: someone actually released an update to hml and is now actively maintained
The biggest reason to switch to Linux is because it's boring. The biggest reason not to switch to Linux is because it's boring.
Pretty cool that your life was unchanged though. Seems crazy, but that's been the dream.
Idk, I found it quite the opposite of boring to tweak all the little knobs and dials Linux has to offer. But to be fair, using the CLI won't excite that many users.
Boring is exactly what you need for something to function as expected. I wouldn't want my pc to suddenly feel exciting, or give me a surprise.
Boring is good.
Boring is exactly what I need. I configured my installation just right and it's been great since 2022.
What distro have you chosen?
Asking this on Lemmy is like asking OP what religion is correct.
I started off with the vanilla ice cream (good enough, no one's favourite) Debian....
Let the crusaders rise ⚔️
Thats a respectable choice.
Hey, some of us love Debian!
Debian really is the best
Debian rules
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Great news! Very happy for you. The hardest part of my switch was settling on a distro, and then setting up a dual boot with windows because I was told that I'd have programs or hardware or banking apps that wouldn't work. But honestly, everything worked, and I never once booted back into windows. Even my Starbucks drinking uggs wearing wife asked me to switch her computers to linux and she hasn't looked back either.
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I did this just over a year ago. I expected it not to change much. It was surprisingly simple. The only thing that changed is I am no longer annoyed with windows, and am actually enjoying my OS. Makes my hardware seem much faster too.
Congrats, and welcome!
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Good job!!
For me it was actually life changing and made me love computing again like when I was a kid. But I'm glad it was smooth and boring for you haha. It stresses me out sometimes but its all my own doing. My friends think my computing setup is bonkers lol
Welcome to the team!
I decided to try it on a spare netbook 16 years ago and Linux swallowed me whole... it still is a fun ride
I read through the comments, and didn't see what DE you chose, so I'm just wondering which DE you chose?
I went default with debian 13. Spent 10 minutes trying to figure out why I had no desktop then discovered DEs :).
Thinking xfce. Do you have any other recommendations?
IIRC The Debian installer gives the option to install multiple desktop environments. Just check mark all the ones you want and it will install them. Then at login there's a little drop-down list and you can pick the one you want to use. So that's a super easy way to try all the ones you want to try. I like Mate. It's basically a really nice polished version of Gnome. And there are some really cool, weird modern ones too. So you may as well try those out too and stick them on the list.
Mate. It's simple, easy, obvious, lightweight and perfect
The way I always heard it described (with the default setup) for the most popular DE's:
- KDE Plasma is the most "windows like" DE by default. Layout and most common behaviour will be very similar
- GNOME is more oriented towards a macOS like style. It doesn't allow as much customisation out of the box as others.
- XFCE is also a solid choice, not many integrated applications (KDE have their own version for many things like file explorer or search)
There a lot of others like LXQT, options that are not the "usual" Desktop Environment e.g. tiling window managers like Hyprland.
A lot of these can be installed in parallel and you can then choose which to start on the login manager, if you want to experiment which you like more.
There is also the choice of display protocol (X11 or Wayland), with X11 being the older more widely supported option. Not all DE's will work on Wayland.
I have two notes.
If you want a fancy tiling manager I would recommend Niri + Noctalia. Hyperland is run by a right wing chud who was such a chud he was banned from the free desktop foundation for being such a chud. The dude is a 4chan type who thinks he/him is normal and she/her is political to the point where the admins overwrote people’s profile pronouns to who/cares.
As for x11 vs wayland i would strongly recommend picking wayland. Its the default on all mainstream Linux distros now days and is massively more secure.
Under X11 any application can just keylog and screen record your whole desktop no questions asked. With Wayland apps need permission to do things like record your screen or intercept keystrokes.
3-4 years ago there where some reasons to not use Wayland . But nowadays these major issues have been resolved. That and those specific x11 desktops tend to have Wayland versions that by coincidence generally speaking have more active communities. (i.e. i3 vs the Wayland equivalent sway)
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sudo welcome
Isn't it weird when you finally get around to something you've been meaning to do and you finally do it and it's like "oh wow! Okay... uh... now what? I guess I... go to the same sites as before. In the same browser as before. But here now..."
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And radically changed, according to big tech. Great work, and welcome
You can't say that without telling us your distro so we can tell you that you should try our favorite one as well.
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Congratulations! And don't worry, I'm sure it will get spicy within a year or so.
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I'm in the same boat. Just got a Framework 13 pro and installed both windows and Linux. Currently in Windows for client use. Looking forward to getting more familiar with Ubuntu again. I used to run Linux on a USB stick to get around limitations on my work laptop.
Nice! Yeah that initial "Let me just do it" is such a big thing to overcome when you're all up and working.
The motivation came from a used robot vacuum cleaner I bought, which needed a Linux system to root/install valutedo. It was the motivation I needed to bite the bullet!
Welcome to the Dark Side^tm^!
yeah when I did it I kinda looked back and wished I had done it a few years sooner.
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