I am shocked at how great Linux is. I have been on and off with the OS for years. This year, I dedicated a whole machine to it and have been maintaining it, learning about security, installing software, using the command line for updates, and just getting my feet wet with a distro.
Go with Linux Mint, or if you just want a starter OS that everybody uses, Ubuntu. I know how bad Ubuntu is and all the terrible choices they made with Amazon, packaging, and other things. If they use Ubuntu at your place of work, trust me, install it on an old machine and learn it. I like Mint a lot, but there are things about Ubuntu where I see them pushing the OS forward, especially with their (controversial) Rust rewrites of the core libraries. Debian recently announced Rust rewrites, too, so the writing is on the wall.
I know people dislike Ubuntu!
But hey, Ubuntu is one thousand times better than Windows, and if it starts you off as a "first distro" before you move to Mint or Arch, then you took that first step on a long road of learning and discovery.
You will learn, and it is good to learn in a distro that holds your hand. Plus, if they use Ubuntu at work, do it to increase your job skills and justify it that way.
But install something and start learning!
Rewriting the entire OS in Rust is one of the most forward-looking ways Linux can cement its position in the enterprise market and finally replace Windows. Decades of C and C++ code in Windows versus an OS entirely written in a secure development language that allows zero exploits and buffer overflow attacks? This is your future cloud OS, and Steam is 100% onboard.
If you have old hardware that can't run Windows 11, why not try this?
Oh, and Steam runs on Linux too, along with thousands of games. If I want to be distracted, there are excellent ways to do so here, too, but that's my choice.
The fact that the GURPS Character sheet comes with a Linux version is just tremendous joy for me, and it frees up my creativity from the constant annoyance of Windows. Windows is becoming highly trashy; it annoys me with notifications every five minutes and constantly puts news, entertainment, and information from sites I do not care about in my face.
Windows is making the world's "second screen attention disorder" worse.
With Linux, I have a choice. The default state of the operating system is quiet. There are very few notifications outside of system updates, and even then, those are very infrequent. I love the peace and quiet. I can focus on something creative, rather than being pinged, bugged, alerted, flashed ads in front of, spied on, and constantly reminded that I am not using my computer the way Microsoft wants me to.
The computer sits quietly and runs.
What I do with it is my choice. I typed 3,000 words of a novel in one day with that peace and quiet. I got into my zone. I felt the creative flow return to me again.
With Windows, forget it—it is like trying to study in a noisy dormitory with music blasting through the wall, people running in the halls, the door won't lock, and people barging in at random. I am always expecting a notification or an ad to pop up in Windows, so I can never get into a peaceful, productive, pure, higher-level of thinking, creative flow.
With Linux, I can.
I know nothing is going to bug me, pop up, or annoy me. My guard isn't constantly up. My mind is at ease. I have nothing to distract me or take me out of that higher level of cognitive thought.
Linux is the "quiet mode" that Windows is missing.
And this helps me think and play GURPS. Since GURPS takes a little more effort and brain power to enjoy, if I can eliminate the constant ping-ping-ping of Windows and its annoying nature, I can get into "deep GURPS thought mode" and really enjoy the game. Nothing will pull me out of my "GURPS zone," and I can really dig deep on characters, adventures, combats, and reading the PDFs.
Linux makes my GURPS experience better.
Conversions especially. A game conversion, like GURPS: Star Frontiers, requires a deeper level of thought and concentration, where I can pick little things apart, identify the most essential elements to port over, and really drill down into translating one setting into GURPS. In Windows, forget it —I am constantly on guard, distracted, and doing something else while a screen full of icons fills my desktop.
Windows is the desk full of dust, crumbs, junk, papers, and clutter where you can get nothing done.
You can build the same thing in Linux, but it isn't the same. You have to actively wreck Linux to get it to annoy you. With Windows, this is the default way it comes out of the box, and it can never really be removed easily.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
You do those things on a terminal, and your software is up to date. It is wonderful. You will have minor hang-ups here and there, but buy a book, go online and search, and even use AI search to look for answers. It is easier than ever to learn Linux.
And with my GURPS PDFs on there, the entire computer becomes a "GURPS station" for creating on. I can theme one workspace for GURPS, and zone out in one of my favorite games of all time.
With no distractions.
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