So you’ve decided to switch to Linux. But what’s wrong with Windows, anyway? And isn’t it hard to make the switch? Joining us today to walk you through the switch to Linux is Rob Braxman, aka The Internet Privacy Guy.
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Nice, have been on Kubuntu for just over 12 months now. The only time I went back into Windows was to degoogle my phone. 🙂
What is strange about this discussion is that we’re having it at the end of 2025. I switched to Linux operating systems back in 2003 and neither installed nor used Windows since 2005. Back then, the discussion among Linux users was how soon the tipping point would arrive. By ‘tipping point’ it was meant the mass switch to Linux (and the demise of Microsoft) due to its obvious inherent benefits (free, no virus threats, powerful and highly configurable, etc.)
Well the tipping point never arrived and it’s not mentioned anymore. However with the direction that Microsoft is taking (increasing control and surveillance of the hapless user) perhaps that elusive ‘tipping point’ will finally arrive? I won’t hold my breath.
In case anyone is interested, after many years of ‘distro-hopping’ I’ve settled on SparkyLinux, a Debian-based distribution maintained in Poland, running on a Raspberry Pi 5 with 16 Gb of Ram. Yes, that’s overkill, but it boots up in around 10 seconds and shuts down in about 3 seconds. Pi computers weigh around an ounce and fits into your pocket.
I’ve never got sucked into ‘smart’ phones, thank God. Smartphone addiction is main problem we need to discuss and seek solutions to in my opinion. But I’m wandering off topic so I’ll leave it there.
I flipped to Linux about the same time as you. We should hope there is never a tipping point, IMO. Once Linux becomes popular you know where it will go. There have already been initiatives to get Linux…intrusive? As it is, I have to disable a few things in Linux when I install it (I’m probably just paranoid). If Linux gets popular, then sooner than later, the PTB will start to mess with Linux through their BS and then we’ll simply get Windows 2.0. Yes, I know Linux/GNU is opensource but that won’t stop them. You’ll be given a choice to take it or leave it. It will be because of the “children”…for God’s sake, think of the children!!!! /s
In any case, mark my words, they will come for Linux soon.
Our only hope then is groups of free spirits putting out their own privacy concerned distros. But what happens when the gov starts to mess with those distros, putting out laws and following up with enforcement? You know, the children!!!!!!! /s
Anyway, I love Linux and would never go back to Winblows. Enjoy it while we have it.
BTW, much of this applies to your home wifi/network. Try to get a modem from your ISP and do you’re own routing and wireless. Those “all in one” boxes the ISP gives you are pure spyware.
kirm
If you listen to Bryan Lunduke you will know that they have already come for Linux…. luckily they cant mess the whole eco-system up and there will always be a decent distro out there.
Guix is easily the most interesting distro at present.
I like Rob, and he is quite knowledgeable. However, this video was rather scattered and difficult to follow, especially if one is new to Linux. It is a big subject to tackle and to try to fit in a small amount of time here. That said, I certainly do recommend Linux over Windows by FAR, for numerous reasons. There is a bit of a learning curve to it at first, but if one has a small bit of tech knowledge and a willingness to try, it is actually pretty straightforward. There are PLENTY of videos and other resources to help someone out with almost every facet of Linux, especially the major “distros” (distributions). If someone wants a near seamless transition from Windows to Linux, I highly recommend Red Hat’s Fedora Workstation using the KDE Plasma desktop.
The nice thing about Linux is if you have a spare computer or laptop you can play with, you can try out different distros to find one you like. Since many of them can boot straight from a USB drive with near full functionality, it’s simple to test drive a few to find out which one you prefer before you actually install it. Have fun!
I switched to Linux right before the “scamdemic” and it is my daily driver. I have a dual boot laptop because some specific programs I need, are not available for Linux.
Best choice I ever made. Try Linux Mint and the learning curve coming from Windows is non existent. Highly recommended.
The learning curve is very small but one thing people should know is that your personal files are in the HOME folder not “c” like in windows, lol, that was the only thing that confused me when I switched.
The guy just heavily reinforced my reservations against Linux.
Even if I’m a Coder, I do not enjoy doing Admin- work instead of coding useful stuff just to achieve functionality I deem basic for an OS.
I had to work a bit with Linux some 10 years ago and it was just awful. There is always a bit of knowledge that’s kind of gross you have to achieve to get basic things working while in Windows you just press a button and you are done.
It’s like you have to put your tires on your car every time you wanne drive to the supermarket for license reasons and what not.
I would spend my 5 bucks for a Win10 version license (one time fee) every day of the week instead of wasting my time to fix codecs to play a video. As long as there isn’t sth more useful and they let me avoid the spyware on Win, there is no argument for Linux.
Maybe the Harmony OS may become a valid alternative some day, but CCP isn’t exactly a beacon of freedom.
>”As long as there isn’t sth more useful and they let me avoid the spyware on Win, there is no argument for Linux.”
Windows is spyware.
SomeOneInGermany
“…Even if I’m a Coder, I do not enjoy doing Admin- work instead of coding useful stuff just to achieve functionality I deem basic for an OS….”
Lol….. seriously, I get if you just ‘like’ Windows (even if it runs like molasses) because its “easy” but LMDE, Mint or even Ubuntu all run just fine thru the graphical user interface.
There are plenty of weird distros that require your Coder Skilz to “do admin” but LMDE, Mint, or Ubuntu users NEVER need to touch the terminal or do anything “admin” like. …. maybe ten years ago Linux required some study but its at the point you can put it on your grandmas computer now.
What “admin” work do you think you need to do? The only admin work I need to do it open my settings panel and click a slider if I wanna change something.
Grandma doesn’t work with Unity or Unreal Engine or Visual Studio or makes .NET applications.
The guy even wasn’t even able to do video editing on Linux. He uses Windows for it. Bc there are a million apps you can choose from in Windows.
Many things have improved in the main stream editing buiz, like writing your docs with google drive instead of horrible MS Word. But now google knows all your docs.
Don’t get me wrong, I would pay top dollar for an alternative to MS, but I don’t see it in Linux.
>”Grandma doesn’t work with Unity or Unreal Engine or Visual Studio or makes .NET applications.”
A wise grandma indeed.
SomeoneInGermany
“…Don’t get me wrong, I would pay top dollar for an alternative to MS, but I don’t see it in Linux….”
If you have money to burn why not buy a Mac?
“…..Grandma doesn’t work with Unity or Unreal Engine or Visual Studio or makes .NET applications…..”
Lol, neither do most of us.
Anyone who wants to make movies in Linux can use OpenShot (for free) or any of the other free apps, or they can pay to use some app on Windows….. its works OK, I’m sure there is some specific use situation where you need Windows but most of us dont need anything else. You can churn out videos just fine on Linux.
“….Many things have improved in the main stream editing buiz, like writing your docs with google drive instead of horrible MS Word…..”
LibreOffice does anything 99% of people need to do, FOR ZERO BUCKS. Personally I like Abby Word to write with and its insane that people pay for MS Word.
“….. But now google knows all your docs….”
No one makes you use google, I dont even have a google account any more. I also hate google docs, but people use whats easy.
Yeah I know what you mean, I’ve always liked the concept of Linux but having dipped my toe in the water numerous times over the years I could never get it to the point where I could get it setup the way I wanted and then leave it alone. Until last year that is. I settled on Kubuntu and, thanks largely to chatgpt I am now a happy customer and rarely need to use windows.
So things are improving, installation was easy, the only tricky bits were figuring out how to add extra drives and nas shares using fstab (on windows they just mount automatically) and getting the printer working. After it was all set up it’s been great.
Worthy of mention is “Slackware Linux” distro – that is the oldest actively maintained distribution of Linux – here is their website : http://www.slackware.com/ The term ‘slack’ comes from the Church of The Subgenius ( a conspiracy, not of single plot, but sprawling satirical myths about control ). Rarely updated, it is simple, logical, and traditional.
In fact it uses the same installation tool as FreeBSD does. FreeBSD is a free version of UNIX but the name UNIX was trademark/patent given to AT&T in legal battle. So while there’s the joke that GNU is not UNIX, FreeBSD IS, it just cannot use the name due to restrictions. https://www.freebsd.org/ It is worth mention as it works great for servers, and is the basis of other systems such as Apple’s OS/X that are based on it.
Also worth noting Linux is ‘democracy’ in practical form. Yes, it’s not perfect, and it’s ever evolving constant construction. It is however for the most part open source, community made. There’s sites like GitHub where projects can be maintained, and bug reports filed – yes it also has ways to give authors feedback if you have problems. Furthermore there are community solutions to common problems. Users are able to participate in the development loop – offering feedback, and possible solutions back to the authors. As such practically it’s living democracy in active practice. This is the result of so called ‘viral license’ many projects have. If you update it, you should offer that update back to maintainers – so that the projects evolve more and more, based on their actual use. It is quite profound.
In contrast to that, FreeBSD is worth mention, as how it is ‘free’ differs from Linux, as there is no commitment or obligation. FreeBSD’s source code is free of all conditions about further use. Thus big companies can build on FreeBSD’s way of doing things. It’s not just Apple… in 90’s Microsoft took it’s whole network stack. BSD stands for the Berkeley Standard Distro. ( of UNIX ). It could be said that it is more anarchistic by comparison – because there’s no rules on what people do with it after it’s released.
It isn’t known for graphical interfaces such as X-Windows – in part because those are complicated systems hard to develop. That is why we see commercially developed interface on top. With that being said, many of the same tools work on BSD too, as where there is source programs can be recompiled for other systems.
These are great options where folks can participate in public discourse, and constructive work that benefits the commons in pervasive ways, and that may create an open and free future where people can take control for themselves of computational tools in constructive ways.
Thank you for a very helpful and informative discussion. Im seriously tempted. As I do virtually everything in Libre Open Office I see no problem with apps.
Started out in the 80’s on a MacPlus using system 7.5 that you loaded on the machine using floppies using a laser printer and a “monster” 50 Mb external HD 🙂
Once I got a Pismo G3 I used it on line till they started loading pages up with far too much for it to handle. Still use it for my music, books, slide shows, etc. on System 9.2.2 that I hacked with ResEdit and still using 3rd party applications from the 70’s and 80’s on it.
When the 20 year old gamers started working for Apple and screwed up every good thing possible I got an iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009) 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo that tops out with High Sierra 10.13.
When that no longer can go on line I will just stop going on line.
Computers are just tools not something to be honored like a pet dog or a 1/2 acre garden. They are all part of the system of addiction and isolation from normal social intercourse and verbal communication that is a rabbit hole to the take down of humanity. You can see it how guys get woodies over this or that system and wasting life time boviating about statistics and such. My brain cuffs are better than yours…
GET OFF THE PHONE (song)
https://old.bitchute.com/video/2QbsxZOkIYjA/
Rob is great but I don’t think he clearly explained Linux for anyone curious about it. If I was a newbie coming from Windows, a lot of what he was saying as default would’ve gone over my head. I understood only because I’ve been on MX Linux since 2017.
Unfortunately, he didn’t make it sound easy to make the switch. The reality is that it’s much much easier than people would imagine. The best thing about Linux is that you can download it to a USB stick and run the entire operating system from the stick. You wouldn’t ever have to load it on to your hard drive if you are afraid of doing so.
Also, here’s a website that offers the possibility of running any number of Linux distros from a web page so you can check out the look and feel of various Linux distros.
https://distrosea.com/
Rob mentioned Lenovo sells a “Carbon” laptop. I have one of these. All hardware in the laptop is fully linux compatible. My wife has a Dell XPS “developer edition” which is fully linux compatible too, but I think they stopped selling this.
We have Beelink and GMKtek mini PCs, and raspberry Pis, that we have connected to all TV and stereos. These all have full linux compatibility.
We just replaced one of our media servers (mostly physical media rips) with a Zimaboard 2. The other one has a dozen drives so we needed to keep a full PC.
I run fedora KDE edition on my laptop. Every other PC and server runs Kubuntu LTS. Which is KDE version of Ubuntu with long term support.
The raspberry Pi’s run various things Like a custom OS from JRiver, and we have a Pi just for Pihole and recursive DNS.
I use GL.iNet routers which run linux too.
The media servers and networks we use function fine without internet. We basically just need to connect for updates. No smart TV has access to the internet, there are no apple or windows products, we do not stream except the wife has spotify, and everything works offline.
Yet here I am writing this on a windows PC that I use for work. Autodesk, Leica software, GIS software, etc. does not run on Linux. This year’s task it move my 30 year old microsoft email account over to tutanota with my custom domain. All this stuff takes time, but is ultimately worth it.
And my family all run Graphene OS on their phones.
I have rarely met another person in real life that cares the slightest about anything I just wrote. No one cares. I would guess the number of people that do not care about privacy is about equal to those that inject themselves with safe and effective things.
nathan
“….All hardware in the laptop is fully linux compatible. …”
Pretty much any normal computer is Linux compatible, esp if you cheep out and buy old laptops to run it on 🙂
I’ve only ever had a single laptop that had any compatibility issues (it ended up running ok on MX linux iirc) and that had some weird graphics card in it and it didnt run that good in windows 7 either , lol
Running Linux:
I have had 3 Microsoft surface tablets with major touch screen issues, no battery level indicator, and other issues.
I have a dell laptop where the screen has no brightness adjustment, so it is just full brightness.
I had a Lenovo laptop with no wifi, and the wifi card could not be switched out because the BIOS would not allow.
I just got rid of old motherboard, wifi did not work.
All above work fine under windows.
The benefit of a Linux compatible device is that it works as soon as you buy it, and no need to wait for driver support like Rob explained in the video. Maybe advanced users can fix some of these issues, but i am not one of them.
Look at raspberry pi’s for example. New versions require support from the mainline Linux kernel to function properly.
Not every piece of hardware will work with Linux. System76 and other similar companies ensure full Linux support for their hardware. The mini PC market also seems to have great support.
System76 is the worst computer I’ve ever purchased, though it has tons of space, memory, and processor speed. It is absolutely NOT compatible with Kubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, or Mint. (I spent over a month trying to get anything to work.) All that will work on it are the company’s clearly-kludged versions of Ubuntu or Pop_OS! factory installed. The Theo Mira is so problematic that their firmware update routines do not work; I have to send the thing back to them for that. And don’t get me going about their technical ‘support.’ I was a computer engineer for 30+ years and could not follow their line of reasoning, several times. And three times they sent the wrong commands to do things and later apologized after I had already trusted their advice. I DO NOT RECOMMEND SYSTEM76.
Interesting, and too bad. Thanks for sharing.
Maybe Framework is a good brand to try. They advertise using hardware with good Linux support.
It is difficult to trust things these days, as most reviews are actually promotions.
Nathan
What distro were you using? Esp regarding the Dell with no brightness control?
Like I said my computers are 2nd hand so maybe you were using new hardware tjat, as Mr Braxman said, had drivers nit intergrated into the Kernal?
In the past I was using Mint, as Debian takes a while to support newer hardware and did not work well. The Dell with issues is Alienware m15 R2 from 2019. I need gaming PCs for work, not gaming.
I haven’t used it for at least a year, but it is coming out of the closet so a family member can try to run Brighteon AI on it offline. I will be trying Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and I will see if the screen settings will finally work. If not, I can still run Windows as the PC is meant to be offline anyways.
The laptop had issues with Debian, Mint, and Ubuntu around a year ago which was 5 years after the release of the laptop. Compare this to the Dell and Lenovo “Linux compatible Laptops” I have, which have had zero issues since day one. The Dell XPS laptop I have shipped with Ubuntu, and the Lenovo laptop I have shipped with Fedora.
The toughest thing about switching to Linux is the guides, forums, and instructional videos. They are all horrible, and over complicate everything.
Mounting a drive, and having it auto mount on startup, takes about 1 minute and is easy. It takes just a few clicks, no terminal. But good luck finding this shown online, and good luck finding someone to explain how you need the drive to be mounted to a folder, and how there is an interface to do this easily. Make sure you set permissions when mounting.
Permissions are another thing that will melt your brain if you research it. But again, it is just a few clicks to add, and edit, if you know what you are doing, no terminal.
I feel KDE makes all of these things much easier, but still I never find simple explanations.
GNOME desktop environment is a bit mental. I suspect this turns a lot people away. It is the default desktop for Ubuntu and Fedora. I suspect this is why people like Mint, it comes with Cinnamon.
Fedora now has “Spins” so you can install with the desktop environment of your choice.
https://fedoraproject.org/spins
Ubuntu now has “Flavours” so you can install with the desktop environment of your choice.
https://ubuntu.com/desktop/flavors
Linux is a bit of a rabbit hole, it can lead to self hosting everything, which I guess is called Home Lab. My goal is to get Tiny Tiny RSS or Fresh RSS running from home, and to do my own VPN (probably from Pi). This all takes time though.
Buy a Raspberry Pi4 and install KODI and then rip all your DVD’S to an external hard drive to watch on any TV around your house…..Pi4’s will run external USB plug DVD drives to play disks on (the blue ray disks , eh, ….’sometimes” )
I have my old Pi3’s running KODI in the other rooms where I might want to listen to an audio book or watch a show from a USB thumbdrive.
Now is the time to gather all your TV slop, as well as documentaries and other media, because the internet is getting skunked and soon you wont be torrenting much in the way of free stuff
I watched all of this and understood nothing. My life experience is that there is always a catch somewhere. Guess I’m stuck with the rest of the techno-ignorant sheep, waiting to be sheared, and then be on our owner’s dinner plate. Why haven’t any of the techno-smartypants people invented a no-brainer option to switch? I’d pay for it.
What do you use your computer for?
I agree with Danny Jay. It is thoroughly frustrating to see the tech community jump into these things and seemingly avoid the chaos waiting for the nontechies of the world. How about building something that will protect ALL of us from Microsoft’s evil empire?
l can’t help thinking that Linux is only there to make us think we have choice. If I were a control freak’s spook I’d be more interested in those who attempt to escape my surveilance. (“I might be paranoid but that doesn’t mean no one’s out to get me”.)
Well synchronicity I just switched to Ubuntu and I’m not tech savvy at all. I watched a few how to you tubes. My tech needs are basic so I am managing fine thus far. I was using windows and decided not to renew when my subscription ended mostly because I hate being tied to idrive/cloud. In the transition I decided to save all my work to a memory stick and will do this ongoing. I was a bit nervous in the transition but it was sort of fun having to work out things for myself.
Linux has definitely been co-opted. For instance, partnering with the World Economic Forum: https://www.weforum.org/organizations/linux-foundation/
I have a hard time believing that anything these days is secure and private–whether it be computers, operating systems, email, VPNs, email aliases, etc. I’ve been running Linux computers for at least 10 years but I do not trust them, like I do not trust Mac or Windows boxes. I also managed Linux enterprise systems under RedHat prior to the Tech Wreck. I’ve seen clear attempted hacks on my systems enough times to become very fast at 100% wipes and re-dos. But it’s tiring.
This video conversation with Rob Braxman is not as clear as it might be, because it is a conversation about the subject, not a tutorial. However, I would urge those interested in switching to Linux to go to Rob’s own videos, as he edits them so that they are logical and easy to follow. His latest video about dual-booting Windows and Linux gives step-by-step instructions about how to do it. If you follow along and take notes, you will end up much more knowledgeable about how to set up a dual boot system, and much less intimidated by the whole thing. Link (copied from the show notes):
https://odysee.com/@RobBraxmanTech:6/dualboot2:c
James, I think you’re on to something. I never updated from Windows 8.1 mainly because it ran programs I like that were “retired” in Windows 10 (MS Streets & Trips), so I never changed and now I’m bumping into login problems on some sites because of my old operating system. I’m ripe to switch over to Linux and I hope you’ll do more on this subject. I even have a spare older HP computer in the closet to do this.