Don’t have the energy to play myself. But started watching a Let’s Play today and I really love the premise.

It’s usually just one command to run.

Oh, also the biggest difference between Linux and Windows is that you don’t go to different websites to install new software. In general you use your distribution’s package manager. Think of it like a software center.

Going to a website to download software is a last ditch effort if your distribution doesn’t have what you are looking for.

Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

Many games with draconian anti cheat don’t work. You can check that on https://areweanticheatyet.com/ and https://www.protondb.com/.

Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

Do you mean creating or applying mods? Some of the tools might not run out of the box. But for most mods you actually just have to place the files in the correct folder.

If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

Wine is the program used to run Windows software. It is used by Steam together with some other tools under the name Proton or Steam Play. It is best to use Wine with a helper frontend like Bottles. That creates an encapsulated Windows environment for every program and helps you in keeping potentially conflicting workarounds separate from each other.

But you can also run Wine standalone. Then every program will be installed to the same fake-Windows environment.

Missing libraries like .Net or the Visual C++ Runtime are actually the most common pitfall when trying to run Windows software on Linux. Bottles, Steam and other helpers will aid in their installation.

How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

Every distribution has an application repository that also contains the system files. In general you update everything at once through one interface.

How does digital security work on Linux? Is it more vulnerable due to being open source? Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

Open source makes it more safe. You have more eyes on the software. And something that is only safe because nobody knows how it works isn’t really safe.

Antivirus software’s is not necessary. Neither is it necessary on Windows. It makes a system less secure because it opens up more possibilities of something going wrong. There have been enough cases of anti virus software with security issues on Windows. Or even anti virus software attacking important system files directly.

That said, if you still want to install a virus scanner there is ClamAV.

Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux

AMD and Intel greatly, because they are open source. They are integrated and don’t need any configuration or installation.

Nvidia is worse. You have to install them yourself and sometimes they are unstable. But it’s not worse than on Windows.

Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

Only if you really try and even then it’s probably impossible. Hardware nowadays has many safeguards.

And also, what distro might be best for me?

If you have friends or family already using Linux you should install what they use.

I like OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

Valve recommend against using NTFS for the Steam library on Linux. I don’t know the specifics as to what could go wrong…

Simpsons at it again, predicting computer prices.

Upvotes minus downvotes

Try growing up with fdisk.exe!

Correct. The whole thing is lauded as this revolutionary new thing but in reality it’s just a bullshit VM isolated from the rest of the system. We have had that almost for as long as Android existed. Along with Termux and similar that actually can access everything.

Yeah, but that means that not the entire storage is available like the headline implies.

In Germany the bureau where you register your child they have a book with tons of names in use around the world. But apart from that it depends on the bureaucrat handling your case. And of course you can always sue in case you don’t like their decision.

There is a German actress whose first name is Wolke (Cloud). She doesn’t know how her parents managed to get that approved. But now she is a case you can point to if you want to name your own child Wolke.

Press X to doubt.

The root filesystem will very likely still be locked down.

Especially annoying since you’re allowed to freely distribute the original.

If for some reason you don’t like Libre Office then MS Office works in the browser.

I use email.

I helped my son install Windows 10 on a spare SSD for Fortnite. His first comment after booting into Windows: Why is it so ugly?

After the novelty of playing Fortnite wore off he’s back to Linux.

Overkill.

I used to run a router on a 386 from a floppy disk.

Click here for the NDA.

My first time trying out Linux was with a bootable CD from a PC gaming magazine. It was Corel Linux. If I recall correctly it booted into KDE.

Unfortunately on my system the mouse cursor was invisible. The mouse worked, I just couldn’t see where the cursor was. My brother who was using Linux full time couldn’t help me fix it.

Sometimes they still look at a petition even if it didn’t reach the threshold. At least that has been the case for German petitions.

In the end they still get ignored, whether they reached the threshold or not.