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Prakhar Jaiswal
Prakhar Jaiswal

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How and Why I switch the Windows 10 to Linux (Ubuntu 18.0 LTS)

I bought my first computer when I started the journey of my B.Tech education. I didn’t know anything about linux and also much more about operating systems. I bought Dell vostro 15 which is a very low-end pc for me. And windows 10 is not good for intel i3 5th gen. It's very slow and takes a lot of time to update. Update package is very high in data. I have to give all of my internet data plan to Windows 10 for update. But I see the computers in my college, lot of computers have Linux based os ubuntu and it was very simple to use. Then I started to collect the information about Linux based operating systems and decided to install Linux on my laptop.

I download Linux based os Ubuntu 18.0 LTS which is completely Free and Open-Source and then installed besides Windows 10. I experienced a lot of features on Ubuntu and don’t need to install any kind of antivirus because it is hard to get viruses on linux.

But linux is not simple to use until you don't know about coding and basic programming. Because in linux we have to use code on terminal to get any new software or feature. But it is best for computer science students.

Top comments (65)

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sasoram profile image
Soram

"I have to give all of my internet data plan to Windows 10 for update"
Previous month total data used by windows update was around 500 MB, are you living on 500 MB/month internet plan? Last time I checked Arch Linux updates had around 1.7 GB of updates after a month.
"it is hard to get viruses on linux."
Lol it is completely untrue. It is just that linux cult community is so small that it is not profitable to make viruses for linux. In reality Windows 10 offers modern exploit mitigations and advanced security features and on linux a simple script can snatch your root password and the major part of so called linux open source community does nothing about security. Lol.
I really don't understand why linux users are so misinformed XD.

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sysgrammer profile image
Sysgrammer

misinformed isn't the word I would use. Also what the fuck 500 mb only for a update? The majority of major updates of windows 10 are 2GB+ and plus all the background updating of UWP apps installed which I don't even need but came bloated with windows 10. Last time I checked arch doesn't have bloat.

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sasoram profile image
Soram

Many people using linux and open source software belive they're using the most secure and privacy friendly OS without knowing the reality. What else they should be called apart from misinformed? Imo people using linux should know what they're getting into. Traditional linux distros doesn't implement verified boot, selinux, strong sandboxing etc moreover linux is written in memory unsafe languages which makes it prone memory bugs. Linux only have security through obscurity since it isn't active target for malware but security model is non-existent on linux. I'm gonna say again Android != Linux.

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sysgrammer profile image
Sysgrammer

written in memory unsafe languages? i.e. C, C++? show me a Modern Desktop OS which is on par with Windows and Linux and isn't in C/C++.

Traditional linux distros doesn't implement verified boot, selinux, strong sandboxing etc

Does an everyday linux user need to know this? Don't assume Linux User = Tech Kiddies, there are people who use Linux as their daily driver.

Verified Boot? I'm assuming you're calling UEFI secure boot? The reason behind you have to disable it due to security and yes I agree but you know OEMs disable it so that unauthorised/harmful/3rd party software can't mess with the boot partition and that 3rd party software will include Linux if the OS shipped by OEM isn't Linux. If it is you'll notice it is enabled.

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sasoram profile image
Soram

There is none, but Windows uses modern security tools to prevent, to an extent, issues arising from memory safety. Also there is a lot of work going into switching to memory safe languages especially rust and many parts of Windows and Android are already written in memory safe languages like C#, Java etc.

Does everyday Android or Windows user knows or need to know about the security features? No but security features are there. The point of these security features is to minimize attack surface and if the machine ever gets compromised then try to reduce the damage.

Secure boot != Verified boot
Verified boot is a linux security feature but not widely used. It is used to verify the integrity of the whole system and even apps installed not just boot partition. If you want to know more read this whonix.org/wiki/Verified_Boot#Veri...

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sysgrammer profile image
Sysgrammer

Understandable, Have a nice day!

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gronkdaslayer profile image
gronkdaslayer

You're talking about major updates, not regular fixes and whatnot that are usually fairly small.

You can always uninstall what you don't need... /smh
Maybe people should be impressed with the fact that you're using Arch, woohoo!

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kerawr0 profile image
KeRawr

Last time i tried to update my win10 laptop it has 3GB+ update. Then next day update again with 4+GB. Everyday win10 keep doing update and it increases until 7.1GB. It really frustrated because i only had 2GB/week as my budget. And had to revert to win7 and no more everyday win10 and force update that ask you to download 10GB+ update.

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shaharyael91 profile image
shahar

And you are getting a lot of sh** like app you don't need.

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Sloan, the sloth mascot
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gronkdaslayer profile image
gronkdaslayer

You can't spell newbie correctly, therefore you can't tell how poorly written that post is. Not a dig on the author, who I assume isn't an English native speaker.

Besides the grammar, some things are inaccurate, like how hard it is to put viruses on Linux. That simply isn't true. It's just as easy as for Windows or Mac, but Windows is where the money is.

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Sloan, the sloth mascot
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aliasbilly profile image
aliasbilly

I disagree, it's the file and partition as well as the permissions that make it so difficult to hack a Linux box, plus tons of dependency problems from one flavor to the next. Take that root password but actually doing much with it that is modular enough to be used is not so easy. Windows NTFS file system should've been scrapped years ago for a better model. It's over 20 years old. Linux was wrapped around a system built with security as primary concern. How many of you guys remember how exploitable Windows NT was. If you polish a turd it's still a turd. Once you deal with the learning curve Ubuntu is way more usable than windows box and you don't spend a fortune on antivirus protection eating up system resources. Also I would be a Ubuntu Desktop running a Windows 10 VM will outbenchmark any Windows Install over a month old.

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sasoram profile image
Soram

See this: madaidans-insecurities.github.io/l...
No, linux was not made with security in mind. I've been researching this security related stuff for over 5 years now and the above article that I linked to well summarizes my findings. Windows security have improved a lot, same with Android (Android != Linux) and MacOS but traditional linux distros haven't improved and incompetent solutions like flatpak, firejail etc aren't enough for reasonably secure desktop. Although there are some good security tools like bubblewrap, selinux, verified boot etc but they're not widely used. Also Ubuntu is just marketing.

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gronkdaslayer profile image
gronkdaslayer

Wrong. What does the file system have to do with the difficulty of hacking? Seriously people, read a book. NTFS is actually a really solid file system, but I don't expect you to know that.

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coreydrewbruce profile image
corey Bruce

Solid? Ahaha no it's a shit file system with fragmentions issues but the way the file system and Windows mainly works is the reason the OS is a insecure mess unlike Linux and other Unix based systems

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devilmehoney profile image
Me • Edited

Been using windows since win 3.1, msdos even earlier, linux since readhat 8 (probably earlier) and i tell you a few things: linux wont catch any virus of the likes of windows (linux has no registry like windows), no antivirus are required, (which makes your machine very slow), just a good privacy configuration. The update size is way way way smaller and faster than win10. Has no bloatware. Unless theres an exploit or you do it on purpose, rootkits will be the only viruses you get. I can keep on giving reasons about why linux is better. My only reasons to use windows are gaming, playing blurays and using visual studio (you cna always pay for jetpack's rider in linux and i actually prefer it over visual studio).
Linux users are no missinformed at all. Biggest computers in the world dont use windows for a very good reason (microsoft servers do actually use linux)

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gronkdaslayer profile image
gronkdaslayer

The windows registry is actually better than storing stuff into individual files. Of course there are less viruses on Linux, people don't write viruses and ransomware for something that has no measurable value. Linux gets ddos and hacks all day long, why? Because that's what most servers run. Following your logic Mac OS is the most secure OS in the world (another myth).

I use Linux everyday, so no, I'm not a Linux hater. It just ticks me off to read such a load of bullshit from people. If you don't like Windows, don't use it and just stop bashing it. That horse that y'all are beating can't get any deader.

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winuxguy profile image
winuxguy

accurate mate!

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coreydrewbruce profile image
corey Bruce

You can play blueraysajd use visual studio in Linux also what games do you mean because most in steam work in Linux

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divinity76 profile image
divinity76

Arch is a bleeding-edge distro, constant beta-updates akin to Windows Insider / dev channel. Ubuntu, especially the LTS versions of Ubuntu (and 18.04 Along with 20.04) is LTS, is the exact opposite of bleeding edge. Updated more often than Debian or CentOS, but far from bleeding edge

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vinukathejana profile image
Vinuka Kodituwakku

From your comment I can clearly see that you know nothing about Linux.Arch Linux is a rolling linux distro as per the definition of the name it gets updates every day I my self gets sometimes 5GB worth of updates every month thats the cost you have to bear to get the latest and greatest software and Kernel if you dont wont updates you can do with a vanilla Debian install or pop os (although I wouldn't recommend ubuntu).speaking of security its not that its not profitable to make a virus that work on linux there are many viruses that target linux but they are not efficient as that made for windows because of the permission management system of Linux.

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sasoram profile image
Soram

Security through obscurity just hides the fact that base system is actually less secure, the users being deceived. Have you ever read Android security docs and bulletin? Whonix docs? Qubes docs? Windows security docs? Do you even know the things I'm talking about? Probably not. You're just like "our permission model is best and prevent all security vulnerabilities from happening" ignoring how vulnerable is having xorg installed, the /proc leaking information, lack of strong sandboxing, moreover a compromised non-root account with sudo equals full root permission and your permission system won't help. We're talking about security model dude not permission model, they might have a tiny overlapping but dude they're not the same thing.

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debarkamondal profile image
Debarka Mondal

Try out zen kernel bro... I update daily on normal kernel the update varies from 2mb-250mb

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coreydrewbruce profile image
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corey Bruce

Ahahaha nice lying

In reality Windows is a broken buggy OS with horrible security and bloated updates when meanwhile Linux and it's updates and smaller.

Also you clearly know nothing about security if you think Windows contains good security and a simple script can get passwords off Linux you retard ahahah 😅😂🤣

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sasoram profile image
Comment marked as low quality/non-constructive by the community. View Code of Conduct
Soram

No point in explaining facts to linux cults smh.

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coreydrewbruce profile image
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corey Bruce

Ah so your addmiting you have no facts that and making excuses because in reality there is no cult and I only follow facts 😉

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Sloan, the sloth mascot
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fhek789 profile image
Felipe Kinoshita • Edited

on ubuntu there's probably an app store so you don't need to use the terminal to install software, also why are you using ubuntu 18.04? ubuntu 20.04 lts and 20.10 are already available!

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abhijiths0098 profile image
abhijiths0098

My only problem is that it can't play game , otherwise I quite enjoyed using linux , I used arch Linux , ubuntu and arch based os manjaro.

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prajai1803 profile image
Prakhar Jaiswal

You can definitely play games on steam otherwise try wine to install windows application.

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p3t3ru5 profile image
Pedro Miranda

Civilization V for example had worse performance in Linux in a dual boot machine between Windows and Linux I previously owned

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aliasbilly profile image
aliasbilly

Sure you can, they are called Virtual Machines.

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gronkdaslayer profile image
gronkdaslayer

You ain't gonna get 60fps in a game that's running in a VM. Best is running something like Steam.

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Sloan, the sloth mascot
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clash000 profile image
Clash000

You cannot play games but you can make games on Linux more faster than windows since Unity hair engine runs crappy on my windows and on Linux it runs much smoothly .

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devilmehoney profile image
Me

Lots of linux friendly games in steam. I run nier automata in ubuntu

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aqil_mostafa profile image
Mostafa Aqil

Yep but you can also play linux non friendly game using Proton something that steam uses to run Windows games on linux

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hemanthjabalpuri profile image
HemanthJabalpuri

Today, for many distros we don't need to use Terminal for most of the time. Examples include Linux Mint, Elementary OS etc.
All distros have Software Centre's, Browsers, Office Tools etc.
And also Linux downloading is also very simple and takes less space.
The interesting thing in Linux iso is, we can use it live without needing to install it.

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aliasbilly profile image
aliasbilly

While I prefer a term myself, the guis most Ubuntu flavors use make it idiotproof, Yes that's one word. There is a reason why it's the most used OS in the world. It's around 15 billion devices running Linux, and if you count ios utilizing Linux Kernel (which makes it Linux too) Windows is kinda lonely.

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killdozerx2 profile image
Himanshu Pant

No, iOS and macOS use BSD, not linux. You guys really need to stop the hate. We understand that it's good, but like stop harassing people for pointing out flaws in it. It doesn't have very good support of Nvidia cards, the sound codecs suck, etc.

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sasoram profile image
Soram • Edited

Are we still talking about desktop linux distros? You're saying "X is used in Y with Y being used by almost everyone on planet then X' (another product of X) is better than Z". This is very flawed logic in itself.

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leenjr profile image
Leenjr

Bro I am fan of Ubuntu. It saved me many times. Whenever my windows PC shows its back, I simply use live Ubuntu to back up drives(not wasting money on recovery softwares).
2ndly I now use dual boot win 10 and Ubuntu to use my every possibility open to me. I recommend Easy BCD with grub 2 loader for dual boot. Thanks Linux:) time to upgrade my Ubuntu
$ sudo apt-get-dist-upgrade

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gronkdaslayer profile image
gronkdaslayer

Ever heard of UEFI?

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winuxguy profile image
winuxguy

There is no need to argue about Windows and Linux security since who needs security if you openly allow any apps out there get your personal data (Google, Facebook, Instagram etc.). The OS is a preferrence. I myself have a Lenovo X230 running Ubuntu 20.04 and it's great for me because I prefer it that way. I have used MacOS & Win10 but I choose Ubuntu as my daily OS. #respect

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jhilgeman profile image
Jonathan H

"don’t need to install any kind of antivirus because it is hard to get viruses on linux"

Ahh, the overconfidence of youth...

I'll add that to my collection of quotes from other people who doomed themselves to learning things the hard way.

"I don't have to update my system regularly because I have a firewall."

"I don't need two-factor authentication - my normal password is safe enough."

"Nobody else uses my PC, so it's okay to use autofill for all my credentials."

"Once a month is often enough for my backups."

"I'll commit that tomorrow morning."

"Nobody will ever hit my IP. I'm behind NAT."

"Nobody will ever know this URL."

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minaa_osha profile image
mina • Edited

"windows 10 is not good for intel i3 5th gen. It's slow" most likely hardware problem. I own a tablet that is powered by atom x5 CPU (probably the bottom end of modern x86 CPUs) and it runs fine
"Updates takes a lot of data!" Well I'm not a mind reader but I can tell that you're someone who never ran the "apt-get update" command before..better get used to it because you'll need to run that before installing any app to avoid dependency and incompatibility problems.. in Windows u could just use Use metered connection.
"it is hard to get viruses on linux!" Because no one uses it at least not as many as Windows..when it becomes popular you'll see more and more destructive malwares because Linux allows apps to run in kernel mode which can cause disasters if used maliciously and can even result in damaged hardware.
"Linux need basic programming knowledge!" bro I've been a C# programmer since 3 years and I still struggle with Linux's terminal..using a CLI to do simple tasks such as installing an app is outdated and backwards in 2020

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clash000 profile image
Clash000 • Edited

You said that using a CLI for Installing apps is backwards and outdated but you should know that it is faster than using GUI . " And time is the most precious thing " . And on your point of havoc difficulty with using Linux terminal is totally your fault as I am a python and android programmer since 7 months and Linux from 2 months and I know almost 90% of Linux commands and I am dependent on the Linux terminal for almost half of the tasks and I am even 12 years old . And top of everything else it gives all of Linux for free and windows takes money windows runs for profit and Linux runs generously .

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devilmehoney profile image
Me

You dont know 90% of linux commands. Ive been using it for 15 years and i dont know them either. Your age hs little to do with your tasks. Not all linux distros are free and win10 is 99% free, just for the record.
Nice to see very young people learbing programming and linux but dont be that cocky dude, i made my first program on basic 1.0 when i was 7 or 8 yo and I dont go around forums saying how good or bad i am.

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arminlinzbauer profile image
Armin Linzbauer

Not profitable to target Linux because of the small user base??? "96.3% of the top 1 Million Servers on the Internet run on Linux"... Seems veeeeeeery profitable to me... Also, most IoT Devices run Linux, all Supercomputers I know of run Linux, all Android devices are using an (outdated) Linux Kernel, ... I'd say that while the market share for linux on the desktop is pretty slim, that linux is more widely used than any other OS in practically all other markets.

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surajsingh12 profile image
suraj-singh12

Ubuntu has become more user friendly now, you have a snap store rather than a standard ubuntu store, and this snap adds more security and ease. You have a loads of applications already pre-installed. I also used to use windows, indeed I use it even now, but way back in 2017 I started to live boot many different linux distros including debian, ubuntu, fedora, elementary, kali, mint, and many many more. I almost live booted in many linux distros to check the one that fits my style, and I finally found ubuntu working for me. Those days it was bit hard to do things when it came to terminals, but now it's like, without terminal I don't think I do something much there. It has become a habit, a way to interact with the system and files, and specially root gives you a special taste.
I'm first year B.Tech CSE student.

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debarkamondal profile image
Debarka Mondal

Wait what is going on there? I read someone said 1.4 gb of update on linux after a month... And use arch ubuntu is jast a s#it Os lot of bloat. Use arch and see daily updates of hardy 50mb and monthly update of probably 600mb and dont add the apps that get updated along with it in calculation as windows apps update seperately

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p3t3ru5 profile image
Pedro Miranda

was due to those magnific package managers that my desktop environment got fucked up on my work laptop, so yeah "freedom"

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nikhilshetty13 profile image
nikhilshetty13

Really arguments are getting weirder and weirder every os has it fair share of issues and windows is safe to some extent only as for Linux only some of the distribution are security focused not all of them still they are secure to some extent as well and as for compatibility issues some programming language runs better in Linux ex:python and some of them are Not some of them works well in windows so stop complaining about it. Just use what works well for you. If windows works for you use windows or use Mac okay if didn't works use Linux anyways it's free.if you like one or more systems just use it in dual boot or something so there is a shit ton of options so

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sagarkumarsutar profile image
Sagar Kumar Sutar

Hackers use Linux to destroy Windows...

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abhishekraj272 profile image
Abhishek Raj

Dude update your OS to 20.04, 18.04 won't get any security updates from now on.

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morhogg profile image
Lucas Nascimento • Edited

18.04 is a LTS version that Will be supported until 2023

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