libre

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Welcome to libre

A comm dedicated to the fight for free software with an anti-capitalist perspective.

The struggle for libre computing cannot be disentangled from other forms of socialist reform. One must be willing to reject proprietary software as fiercely as they would reject capitalism. Luckily, we are not alone.

libretion

Resources

Free Software, Free Society provides an excellent primer in the origins and theory around free software and the GNU Project, the pioneers of the Free Software Movement.
Switch to GNU/Linux! If you're still using Windows in $CURRENT_YEAR, take Linux Mint for a spin. If you're ready to take the plunge, flock to Fedora! If you're a computer hobbyist and love DIY, use Arch, NixOS or the many, many other offerings out there.

Those on Apple Silicon Macs can consult Asahi Linux for available options.

Rules

Be on topic: Posts should be about free software and other hacktivst struggles. Topics about general tech news should be in the technology comm or programming comm. That doesn't mean all posts have to be serious though, memes are welcome!
Avoid using misleading terms/speading misinformation: Here's a great article about what those words are. In short, try to avoid parroting common Techbro lingo and topics.
Avoid being confrontational: People are in different stages of liberating their computing, focus on informing rather than accusing. Debatebro nonsense is not tolerated.
All site-wide rules still apply

Artwork

Xenia was meant to be an alternative to Tux and was created (licensed under CC0) by Alan Mackey in 1996.
Comm icon (of Xenia the Linux mascot) was originally created by @ioletsgo
Comm banner is a close up of "Dorlotons Degooglisons" by David Revoy (CC-BY 4.0) for Framasoft

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

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apparently the £30 I paid in 2010 for a copy of windows 7 isn't good enough for Bill anymore, so I need some questions answering before I switch to Linux: (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net to c/libre@hexbear.net

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Linux is still for nerds but I hate windows 11 more than I hate being uncool so I'm just going to have to step down my rizz and learn more computer stuff.

My 3 concerns are, in order, gaming (mostly through steam or fitgirl), playing TTRPGs through Foundry Virtual Tabletop and Discord, and image editing (but really simple image editing. more paint.net than GIMP). What distro would be best for this? What are the actual differences in distros beyond appearances? Is it worth installing the Steam OS, or is that still really only useable with handhelds?
Can I just shove all the data I want to save on an external drive, install my chosen distro, and transfer stuff back on? Will the external drive need to be formatted in a specific way first? can I just slot stuff like program settings back in the new system or will I have to convert them to a different file format?
Do I have to buy the thigh highs or do they just appear? Will it still work if I don't wear them? I don't like wearing socks so I'd prefer a distro without them if possible.

If it helps I'm running a Ryzen 5 2600 and RX 7600, and my favourite colour is purple.

Edit: Thanks for the answers everyone, I'm going to do a bit more reading on distros before choosing one, but I have a better idea what I'm looking at now.

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[–] TauZero@mander.xyz 7 points 1 week ago

can I just slot stuff like program settings back

There isn't really much software that is A) cross-platform, B) popular enough on Windows that you would have been using it, and C) the best choice for the task on Linux. Maybe Firefox the only one? Firefox profiles actually can be copied over without change, I believe. A torrent client - you'd probably want a new one and configure the destination directory, re-import the torrent files, and re-verify local files. Photoshop would get replaced with Gimp. For software that runs under wine, you can and should copy over stuff like game profiles and savegames - wine creates a "fake" drive_c directory so they'll go into there. You just need to track each of them down in your Windows %APPDATA% directory or wherever it is Windows hides them in before you erase the drive.

Will the external drive need to be formatted in a specific way first?

No. It's easier to let Windows format the backup drive how it wants (NTFS) and let Linux read it later than to teach Windows how to read/write Linux preferred filesystem format. Most Linux distros already come with ntfs driver pre-installed, or it is a single install command away.