I'm taking the plunge and going full-time with Linux after mostly using it via VMs for some cybersecurity learning in uni. I'm leaning towards Linux Mint because I've heard it's user-friendly and similar to Windows—definitely want to keep the learning curve manageable! My main laptop uses include university work (documents, PDFs, and research), browsing the internet (YouTube, web apps, and email), and some light gaming (nothing too intense). I'm also curious about compatibility: can I use MS Office or something that's just as good? I've heard of LibreOffice and OnlyOffice—are they reliable? I would love some advice on which distro to choose (Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.), or anything else I should be aware of before I make the shift.
1 Answer
Mint is a solid choice as your first distro! Browsing the web will feel super familiar, so you won't have any issues there. For gaming, you can use Steam and Lutris to run Windows games via Proton, but MS Office won’t run natively on Linux. You might want to try the web app, but I've found LibreOffice to be a great alternative—it's pretty user-friendly too, and you can integrate tools like Mendeley for references. If you really need MS Office, consider dual booting or running a VM to access Windows when necessary. Let me know if you have more questions!
That's cool! I've seen plenty of posts about customizing desktops—can I do that easily with Mint, or is it tougher compared to Arch or Fedora?