I’ve some weeks ago moved my main computer from Windows 10 to Linux, specifically OpenSUSE Leap with the Plasma user environment, mainly because it doesn’t have the magic Windows 11 chip. I had never used Linux and have been a Windows user since I was six years old or somewhere around then (I’m in my late twenties now). I’d just like to share my likes and dislikes.
Things I like about Linux (my specific install, anyway):
- Not being a corporate environment. There aren’t any cheeky attempts at making money or advertisement anywhere, like the annoying fake widgets in Windows 11 and the half-filled start menu. I’ve gotten used to that on my laptop (which is running 11), but you do always have the feeling of ‘what are they trying now?’ That not being a thing is quite refreshing.
- In that veign, having actual widgets. I loved them in Windows 7; I’ve got a webpage widget on my second screen showing a Zoho sheet I made with an RSS feed. Just being able to be a bit creative like that is cool.
- The system seems quite a bit quicker than it was in Windows - though in all honesty this will also be because I’m still on a fairly fresh install.
- I’m positively surprised by how little I miss from Windows when it comes to programs. Steam having compatibility tools is great, for example. Otherwise there are often replacements for what I’m missing (eg. I’ve found one to allow general settings for my Logitech mouse).
- The general ability to change the way everything looks and feels. I feel technical people sometimes look down a bit on aesthetics, but I really care about the user interface I use day in day out looking and feeling nice. While I’m a fan of the Windows 11 look myself, I really like how much I’ve been able to get my UI to look how I want it to in Plasma. Though I’m a bit surprised that it’s so hard to change the appearance of the start menu and bottom panel. I’ve had to install a specific program to change their colouring.
- The little icon jumping next to your cursor when opening a program (I know, I’m easily amused).
Things I’ve found annoying:
- Not knowing where to find anything. Of course, coming from Windows I’m used to there being a program files folder with my programs’ folders, and a documents folder with (often) user settings for those programs. In Linux, everything just seems to be everywhere. What seems to be the ‘documents’ equivalent for the game Factorio is in my user folder in a hidden .factorio, but I’ve to no avail been trying to find out where my ‘documents’ for Workers and Resources are. I’ll find them eventually, I’m sure. In general, I’m looking around a lot, though.
- The lingering feeling of instability. This is my second install of OpenSUSE, after I messed up something leading to my computer having some files which it wanted to update, but using urls which didn’t exist. After this, I’ve been feeling a bit insecure and afraid of doing something that ruins my installation. I know there’s the saying that Linux ‘just works’, but I’ve never messed up a Windows installation…
- The capslock works differently, apparently. I’m used to writing every capital letter using the capslock key, meaning if I write a capital at the beginning of a word, I press capslock, then type the first letter, then quickly press capslock again and type the rest. In Linux, this often doesn’t work as it somehow takes a while for the capslock press to go into effect, so you often end up with ‘LInux’, for example. After lots of looking around, I have found some script that seems to fix this (‘Linux CapsLock Delay Fixer Master’), but it also randomly stops working and there are other ‘oddities’ I can’t really explain.
- Every once in a while, my desktop icons get rearranged. This seems to be a known issue, but it’s really annoying.
- It seems impossible to get Firefox to not restore sessions after shutting down the computer with it still open. I’ve tried several things, but I can’t get Firefox to just give me a fresh session on startup.
- The above all add to a bit of a general ‘stuck together with adhesive tape and love’ feeling.
- Not knowing how to install programs. This is more of a learning-curve thing, obviously. The software centre didn’t contain everything I could find online - for some programs, you could use ‘one click’ in OpenSUSE, but that seems to work more like a self-destruct button: I’ve tried those several times and have always had bad results >.>. I’ve found it’s easiest to install programs just using flatpaks.
All in all, I am quite happy. Though I am still afraid I’ll mess up my installation, and I’m now at a point where that’d hurt. I have installed Timeshift, but also with mixed results…
The capslock works differently, apparently. I’m used to writing every capital letter using the capslock key, meaning if I write a capital at the beginning of a word, I press capslock, then type the first letter, then quickly press capslock again and type the rest.
The caps lock thing hurts my feelings (ಥ_ʖಥ)
Welcome to Linux. You’ll learn, and for the better, by using it more. Like picking up anything new there will be difficulties at times, but well worth it. The first positive on your list is good enough reason that makes any difficulties worth surpassing.
My first positive is first for a reason, indeed :)
The lingering feeling of instability. This is my second install of OpenSUSE, after I messed up something leading to my computer having some files which it wanted to update, but using urls which didn’t exist. After this, I’ve been feeling a bit insecure and afraid of doing something that ruins my installation. I know there’s the saying that Linux ‘just works’, but I’ve never messed up a Windows installation…
IMO this is a right of passage. Sure, windows babies you to the point where you can’t really mess much up, but that doesn’t mean its impossible to mess up. I’ve also borked Windows installs just by using them over long periods of time. You bork linux a few times and learn what not to do.
Pressing caps lock for a single capital letter should be outlawed or be painful or something. That’s just weird.
I agree, but it’s more common than you’d think.
I used to work at an organization that used Chromebooks, which replaces the caps lock key with a search key (same shape, different behaviour). I was surprised at the number of people who struggled with their passwords because they would hit the “search” key, enter a single letter, and then hit “search” again. It took me a little while to figure it out because… Who does that?
My sister hated me for it when I was ten, it gives me warm feelings :p
🤣
As for it feeling quicker due to it being a fresh install, don’t really expect it to slow down. Windows always slows down over time because its Registry is clogged, the code gets more bloated over time with updates, and the filesystem is kind of trash.
Linux generally stays quite nimble and quick in the long-term. It’s why you can take a decade old computer and still accomplish quite a bit on it with Linux.
My single longest install of Linux was 6 years and only ended because I built a new PC. Windows I generally reinstalled at least every two years. I couldn’t stand how slow it got.
yeah i was just thinking this the other day. i have alot of packages on my linux boot. i run mysql,postgres all kinds of stuff, many python versions, still fast as the first day i installed it. windows on the other hand starts bogging down fast. i keep my windows boot withonly the bare minimum of things and turn off almost everything from the start up, woth the hopes of keeping it useable.
No workee?
That’s turned off, yes.
If you try installing the flatpak version of FF rather than using the zypper version, does that work better? I’m not too familiar with OpenSUSE, but that seems like a problem with the packaging.
Interesting idea. I’ll give that a shot soon.
Yah, it sounds like a quirk. I kinda like it reopening my tabs, but I just tried it on the stock FF in a fresh Fedora KDE install and it works fine.
It seems to have done the trick, cheers! I do get the ‘Your Firefox session has closed unexpectedly, do you want to recover it?’ screen, but I read earlier that Firefox on Linux indeed thinks it has crashed when it’s not closed the ‘proper’ way, which is by closing it from the menu. It doesn’t do this on Windows, which is really odd. But I should be able to just turn off that screen in about:config. Perfect.
ive been using linux for about 4 years now and I still have no idea where the things are kept. Im getting the feel for it slowly like everything flatpak is in a hidden folder .var my solution is to just make a simlink to folders I want to vist and put them in my home folder.
Brilliant. Gonna use this idea myself 🙏
Config files for programs are in hidden folders in ~ (as you discovered) OR in ~/.config OR in ~/.local/share (yeah it’s a bit of a mess)
Config files for flatpaks can be found under ~/.var/app (usually, some flatpaks have permissions to write outside that directory).
Just want to point out that, while it’s a mess in practice, there is a correct place for these files and the problem is that many applications ignore it. Configuration files should be written to an aptly named folder in ~/.config/ (or more precisely, in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME which is set to ~/.config/ in most systems). ~/.local/share/ (or $XDG_DATA_HOME, respectively) is for user data, which is different from config.
Do you need Timeshift on an opensuse system? I haven’t used Leap, but had a Tumbleweed install for years which has Snapper pre installed.
You can install btrfs-assistant to help you manage snapper. You could have it create backups of your /home, then you can rollback if you think you’ve messed up too much.
The firefox thing seems just firefox behaviour to me. Does it not do that in Windows? But you could use a firefox based browser that respects privacy more. Librewolf and zen browser you can install via Flathub or an appimage from their website. Librewolf at least will by default end and forget a session when you close the browser.
(FYI - best way to deal with appimages is to install Gearlever from flathub, then when you download an appimage you open gearlever and “install” the appimage. Gearlever is just for better integrating appimages into your system but also for keeping them updated).
My last Tumbleweed install I ran from 2019 to 2023. During this time flatpaks got a lot better and flathub got a lot more programs available. Now I use flatpaks as my first option for software, unless I think it’s something that will give me problems being containerised.
Opensuse 1-click… you’re right, those can be a pain. You often end up adding additional repos, and it’s never fun trying to clean up the problems that come with that after a while.
My suggestion is search for “opensuse ‘programs name’” and see if they maintain it in their repository first. (You can use Opensuse’s preinstalled Yast to search for it even to keep it simple). If no, look for it on flathub, remember to look to see when the flatpak was last built, in case it’s been unmaintained for a while. Failing that, check the developers page (usually GitHub or gitlab or similar) to see if they have recommended steps for install.
Do you need Timeshift on an opensuse system? I haven’t used Leap, but had a Tumbleweed install for years which has Snapper pre installed.
To be honest, I just installed Timeshift because I first tried Mint and that had Timeshift pre-installed, so it’s the only program I knew for making backups.
The firefox thing seems just firefox behaviour to me. Does it not do that in Windows?
It really doesn’t. The first thing I’ve been doing is getting everything to behave as much like I’ve been used to on Windows, and this Firefox behavior is really sticking out like a sore thumb. But I’ll fix it at some point, hopefully.
Thanks for all the helpful information :)
I think the Firefox thing might actually be KDE restoring your session and not Firefox. Try to check KDE settings to see if you can start with a blank session on login.
I already had that turned on as I want to start with a completely new session everytime anyway.
If the Firefox thing is a real pain, do consider the librewolf project, since it won’t save your session every time, but also has ublock origin already set up by default.
Remember that even if you’re unsure some software is for you or not, just try the flatpak. One command to install, and one command to remove if you didn’t like it. Because it’s containerised you don’t need to worry about it leaving behind unused libraries or cluttering your system with leftover bits.
@DonAntonioMagino making backups of your home folder (/home/username) is a great ways to survive reinstalls. also install discovery if you don’t have it. its an easy way to install and find software… i dont know opensuse package manager… but it should be a simple command
For backing up my home folder, I just plug in my external drive and use rsync from the terminal, like so (change to your user name; mine is gecko. Double check the paths and edit as necessary)
rsync -av /home/gecko/ /media/gecko/media/emmahomebackup/ --delete --dry-run(test first, check for errors at the end of output, there shouldn’t be any unless you messed up the paths)then,
rsync -av /home/gecko/ /media/gecko/media/emmahomebackup/ --deleteThis command will back up your home folder the first time you run it, and on subsequent runs will sync any changes that have occured since the last run.
To restore, reverse the paths.
For backing up my system files (basically, everything outside of my home folder) I just use Timeshift.
JBOD is nice, but if you’re interested in backups, check out an actual NAS. They’re very much worth the expense.
I’m happy with my routine. Simple, quick.
The system seems quite a bit quicker than it was in Windows - though in all honesty this will also be because I’m still on a fairly fresh install.
I don’t think your Linux install is likely to slow down the way Win does.
The little icon jumping next to your cursor when opening a program (I know, I’m easily amused).
I consider Win unique as an OS that doesn’t provide feedback when something is happening in the background. It’s infuriating.
The lingering feeling of instability.
You’ve spent decades on the other system and when you started, you were too young to feel anxiety about it. You’ll get used to it.
The capslock works differently, apparently. I’m used to writing every capital letter using the capslock key, meaning if I write a capital at the beginning of a word, I press capslock, then type the first letter, then quickly press capslock again and type the rest.
I don’t understand why you don’t use the Shift key. I’m not trying to be an ass; why not use Shift?
I say all of this as a Mac guy who uses Linux for servers and such. I don’t daily-drive Linux as a desktop platform. But I greatly respect Linux and pay to support the Asahi Linux project (they are building Linux for Apple Silicon). I wish you all the best finding your way in a Windows-free world.
Zypper (openSUSE’s package manager) is what I use for installing programs and its relatively easy. Find the package name on openSUSE.org, then put “sudo zypper in [package-name]” into the terminal.
The lingering feeling of instability. This is my second install of OpenSUSE, after I messed up something leading to my computer having some files which it wanted to update, but using urls which didn’t exist. After this, I’ve been feeling a bit insecure and afraid of doing something that ruins my installation. I know there’s the saying that Linux ‘just works’, but I’ve never messed up a Windows installation…
Regarding this. How often did you mess your windows installation when you started? Because I started around 8 years old with MSDOS and I screwed Windows many times, eventually I learnt what to do and what not.
Regarding software today it’s easier than it’s ever been in Linux. With flatpack, appimages and the different repos.
Anyway there is this scene in the show “Bojack Horseman” where the titular character was trying to do some exercise by running up a hill and he is tired, exhausted, another characters pass by and says: “It gets easier”, “uh?” answers Bojack, “It gets easier but you have to do it every day, that’s the hard part”.
What that means is, it will get easier, specially when you are young, but you have to be constant, you have to keep messing around and do backups.
That being said, I am huge fan of opensuse and debian but eventually on my desktop I went with endeavour-os, the only time I screwed it up it was easy to fix it by using the live-iso editing the config files and fixed, now I keep a journal when I change anything :)
- Can’t find anything: everything is meant to be searchable in lieu of having a programs menu and such. Hit your meta key (Winkey) and start typing to find or launch something, use URL bar in your file manager to search for names or content of files…etc. You can also just set icons for things if you wish.
- Instability: there is almost zero chance of you being able to destroy your environment so bad that it would require a reinstall of the OS. Since it’s just flat files on a disk and no central registry like Windows, everything can be repaired quite simply, you just need to be familiar with how.
- Capslock: unfamiliar with your intended behavior as I’ve never used Capslock like that before, but I bet there is a solution for this if you just search around. Input behavior is totally customizable.
- Desktop icons: no idea what that could be, but as mentioned above, most DE’s have or are moving away from desktop as a launch source.
- Firefox: ‘about:config’ has these settings
- Software center is just one GUI for finding things. You can install whatever you want however you want, and that’s just up to you. If you find some piece of something you want to run, the preferred method is also using a package for your OS’s package manager, but that’s just for convenience and not a hard rule. There is no “best” solution, just good habits.
Good luck!
Instability: there is almost zero chance of you being able to destroy your environment so bad that it would require a reinstall of the OS. Since it’s just flat files on a disk and no central registry like Windows, everything can be repaired quite simply, you just need to be familiar with how.
Yeah, but I spent half a day faffing about trying to see what I’d done wrong and searching online for hints. I suppose I didn’t literally ruin my installation, but I’d messed it up enough for me to not know how to fix it, so I gave up.
Firefox: ‘about:config’ has these settings
That’s the first thing you find online, pretty much. Changing settings in about:config doesn’t work (in this case), and I’ve followed instructions involving adding an autoconfig.cfg file to the Firefox installation folder, which also didn’t work. But yeah, like I said, I tried some things and have not been able to get Firefox to start a fresh session on startup, after shutting down the computer with it still open.
Thanks for the advice!
