About a month ago I switched to Linux mint from windows 11.
The first thing I noticed was mint being faster and less bloated than windows 11.
I also liked having actual control over my settings without a corporation being able to undo them at will.
Another thing I noticed was not having to add extensions to text files to run as a program instead having the option in properties.
For certain windows programs and games I was able to use wine which was great because I like to use gamemaker 8.1 which was made before they added linux support.
I tried different wine environments starting with bottles then trying Steam proton and Lutris. With Lutris being the one I ended up using due to it being the only one that I could get to run every program I needed.
The ms paint alternative called drawing took some use to due to it automatically cropping out parts of the image outside of the line when pasting in a screenshot from the clipboard.
Although I do still miss ms paint but that is mostly nostalgia.
Fortunately there is an option to save the screenshot after taking it.
Migrating from windows I appreciate the SUPER key bringing up a menu on the bottom left which brings up some apps and the search bar. Which always searches on the OS unlike windows 11 which sometimes searches the internet instead.
Another detail I noticed is if you type paint or notepad in the search it brings up drawing and the text editor which is nice for people transitioning to Linux.
Being able to move the panel or add new ones was also a breath of fresh air from windows 11 making the task bar more restrictive.
Having the option of deb packages and flatpacks is really useful as well.
I also no longer have to worry about telemetry or microsoft trying to show me ads or pop ups.
TL:DR Mint is a way better experience than windows 11.
This is pretty similar to my experience. I don’t have time or inclination to muck about with my operating system more than strictly necessary. Mint just works out of the box and does everything it needs to do without getting in the way.
There’s a great ms paint alternative from KDE called Kolour Paint, which you can grab from the software center.
Welcome aboard! Have a look at krita, Albert, and flameshot for some alternatives to the things you talked about. I like em, maybe you will too :D
Check out Pinta for a decent paint replacement
Pinta would be great if it didn’t crash. I’ve only noticed it getting worse over time.
Also KolourPaint
LazPaint is also a decent alternative, very lightweight, though it does take a while to get used to it, several shortcuts are unlike other programs
Seconded - most notably the ability to tell it to resize when you’re pasting an image larger than the canvas. It strikes me as a mix between Paint and Paint.NET.
Mint was my first distro after migrating from Windows and I loved it! It was exactly what I wanted from my computer without any bs. I’ve discovered that I can change a lot by editing dconf files (or actually using a program for it).
Later I’ve tried KDE Neon and never looked back.
I have been meaning to create a mspaint for Linux. I typically try to copy the layout and features almost exactly so people can enjoy free and open source versions of software they may miss.
I’ll get right on to it as soon as I can, but I have been having trouble with drawing programs in Godot.
run text files as a program?
No .exe, just run scripts that you don’t need to make .bat or anything like that. That’s what I assume they mean.
Change permissions and it will try to execute. If you have a valid script then you are good to go
yeah just sounded like a file with actual.txt which I would change to .run or something else if I was going to make it an executable.
Convention is to use the language extension (eg. .py, .sh, .rb, etc.), but I just put my scripts into my ‘$HOME/bin’ directory without. Chmod 700 them and they can be used in my terminal.
Congratulations. My experience is pretty close to yours. Besides some software and shortcuts I miss from windows, it just works, and in these little moments I need help, there probably a dozen of threads with suggested solutions.
Be aware of Time Shift though. A part of new users report it taking all free space on the drive and crippling system, if used on ext3-4 file system + saving back ups to the system drive + having things like flatpack or TS’s own folders not excluded. It happened to me and a lot of others, as I’ve encountered this question multiple times on the web, so keep an eye on it. You can actually open any save point as a folder from TS’s interface and see if it saves what it shouldn’t.
Another detail I noticed is if you type paint or notepad in the search it brings up drawing and the text editor which is nice for people transitioning to Linux.
That feature is actually implemented on a per-application basis. Each application has a .desktop file in /usr/share/applications/ or possibly in ~/.local/share/applications/ which includes a lot of the stuff you see in the Menu, including the application’s name, the comment it displays when you hover over it, etc.
Check this out: In the Nemo file manager, go to /usr/share/applications/, then scroll down until you see Text Editor. If you double click this, it will launch Xed, Cinnamon’s text editor. But if you right click, Open With…and choose Text Editor, you’ll see a text file named xed.desktop with a bunch of stuff like Name{en_GB]=Text Editor so that it displays the name correctly in a bunch of languages. Scroll down near the bottom and you’ll see an entry that says “Keywords=text;editor;tabs;highlighting;code;multiple;files;pluggable;notepad;” or something similar. If you type any of those words in the Menu’s search bar, it’ll come up with Text Editor. You’ll need root permissions, but you can even add your own here if you want.
On the same note, if you type “letter” or “document” it will find LibreOffice Writer.
I never did like the idea of trying to make the search bar in the Start menu an omnifunctional thing, because all it does is make it useless. The Menu’s search bar should be for finding and launching applications. Searching a couple directories full of .desktop files for names and keywords is very fast and responsive, which is what I want for launching programs. Recursive file searches through the entire file system take longer, as do web searches. Those functions should be separate.
My personal experience with Linux over the past few years has drastically changed from before being limited by how few games work on Linux when many tools do a decent job, to almost all games running thanks to proton and being limited to some windows specific tools not existing/working on Linux (mostly adobe suite). I’m really in awe how much the Linux ecosystem has improved over the last few years. I’m daily driving it with so few roadblocks for day-to-day use that unless there is a specific program required for work, there’s no hurdles for the majority of my tasks.
There’s always going to be that game… For me it’s home world. The best space game without drama. If they made it for console… No issues. But I hate computers. I didn’t know there was a home world 2. I’m now going to have to buy a computer and it’s going to have to run home world 3. I’m sure there isn’t going to be a linux port of it. Not yet. When there is. It will be amazing.
Homeworld 3 is looking well received on Linux via proton: https://www.protondb.com/app/1840080?device=pc
I’ll mostly share tips regarding what you said, OK?
Quite a few programs still rely on files in ~/.config/. So if you feel like the options in a program are “missing”, give its config file a check. (To see hidden directories: Ctrl+H)
There’s another MS Paint alternative called Kolourpaint. I personally prefer it over Drawing; once you install it you’ll need to install quite a bit of stuff from the KDE environment, but I think that it’s worth.
The super key can be configured to your taste. For example mine brings up composing, so if I type Super+e+1 I get ɛ, Super+a+1 I get ɐ, so goes on. (I open the menu with Alt+F1, by the way.) As implied, as a further tip - if you need certain characters you can create custom keystrokes through a file called .XCompose.
To expand on this some if you’re more of a visual person:
If you open the keyboard application, (just called “keyboard” when you do a search in your applications.) the second tab is “Shortcuts”. From there you can see an interface that shows and helps you change all the shortcuts on the system.
You can use the search feature to narrow things down quickly. The multiple “screenshot” shortcuts were nice to find for some common use cases I do.
Sometimes i like to thinker, but when i need a Computer to just work/rely on (to play bills and stuff) i use Linux Mint
On of my favorite small Linux things is you have a second text buffer other then the ctl+c ctl+v. Middle click pastes whatever text was last selected.
Ooooh I though middle click is just a shortcut for Ctrl+c or Ctrl+v, depending on the context. Good to know it’s a separate buffer!
Another detail I noticed is if you type paint or notepad in the search it brings up drawing and the text editor which is nice for people transitioning to Linux.
These are the sort of details that make me happy. Similar thing with the Spotlight menu on MacOS.
