Maybe you want one of the turnkey solutions. There are several solutions that offer you a NAS box with everything pre-configured and a management web-interface. Assembling a RAID and creating a network share is just a few clicks with those. And they should come with documentation.
I don’t really know which one is best. There is openmediavault, unraid, EasyNAS, TrueNAS, …
I agree. Configuring everything yourself, Learning about RAID, filesystems, networking and file servers on an operating system you’re not familiar with is some work. And although Linux has adapted quite some Windows-workflows, setting up Samba isn’t necessarily the right-click - properties - share you learned from using windows.
For security cameras there are solutions like Frigate which can be installed in a container.
Dot (.) files are hidden files/folders. Config files, for the most part, are located in the users home/.config folder. You should be spending very little time, if any, in that folder.
Assuming your laptop has hardware that has Linux support—wifi cards manufactured by certain companies are what typically make things difficult—a just works distribution like Ubuntu, Mint, and Pop!_OS will have a gentle learning curve for doing things that you want.
Mint is almost purpose made for people new to Linux or for people who just want to use their computer. It also has a large and friendly community around it, so there is community support, if you get stuck or confused on something. My parents, who are no tech people, have been happily using Mint for a couple of years now, with far less headache compared to Windows.
As others have said, the installation of whatever distribution you chose will probably be the most intimidating aspect of switching to Linux. It doesn’t require being technically savy, just a willingness to learn and follow the procedures. It will be helpful to have your phone handy when you are doing the installation, so you can look things up incase there is something you don’t understand.
If there is anything on the laptop that is important to you, back it up. The simplest way to install Linux will make whatever on the drive inaccessible. Additionally, find and record your Windows product key, just incase you want tk go back to Windows.
.bashrc in your home folder is pretty universal. It’s basically just stuff that gets run when you log into your shell, very useful. Set up some aliases and bash customization.
If you’re not doing anything crazy, there’s no reason linux should be any harder to use than Windows.
Once you’re up and running, daily life will be pretty straightforward.
Plenty of great advice in the other posts that I won’t rehash. One thing I didn’t see mentioned is using a live boot to try out linux. You can basically run it off a USB stick before you install it to get a feel for what it’s like. Most “beginner friendly” distros will have tutorials on how to create the live disk. Example for Pop!_OS: support.system76.com/articles/live-disk/
The standard is to have dotfiles in your ~/.config folder, however not all apps follow that.
Some apps dump their config files in your home, others only have files in /etc or /usr and you have to copy them yourself to modify them
none, you aren’t using gpu, just whatever cpu is the fastest. if you want gpu acceleration you have to specify it. and keep note gpu acceleration is less efficient then cpu so your files will be bigger. though at preset fast it might actually be pretty close
Yes this is indeed what I said. but well calling gpu encoders “worse” isnt really fair, it’s all trade offs, they for sure have worse efficiency as we both said, but their speed is significantly faster usually. I would say that doesn’t make the encoder “worse” just different.
I’m going to reframe the question as “Are computers good for someone tech illiterate?”
I think the answer is “yes, if you have someone that can help you”.
The problem with proprietary systems like Windows or OS X is that that “someone” is a large corporation. And, in fairness, they generally do a good job of looking after tech illiterate people. They ensure that their users don’t have to worry about how to do updates, or figure out what browser they should be using, or what have you.
But (and it’s a big but) they don’t actually care about you. Their interest making sure you have a good experience ends at a dollar sign. If they think what’s best for you is to show you ads and spy on you, that’s what they’ll do. And you’re in a tricky position with them because you kind of have to trust them.
So with Linux you don’t have a corporation looking after you. You do have a community (like this one) to some degree, but there’s a limit to how much we can help you. We’re not there on your computer with you (thankfully, for your privacy’s sake), so to a large degree, you are kind of on your own.
But Linux actually works very well if you have a trusted friend/partner/child/sibling/whoever who can help you out now and then. If you’ve got someone to help you out with it, Linux can actually work very very well for tech illiterate people. The general experience of browsing around, editing documents, editing photos, etc., works very much the same way as it does on Windows or OS X. You will probably be able to do all that without help.
But you might not know which software is best for editing photos. Or you might need help with a specific task (like getting a printer set up) and having someone to fall back on will give you much better experience.
Yeah dot files are config files, and usually apps have one. And yes, you would have to explore each program to see what the settings do.
You picked Debian now, just be aware that all software is very old and when you read docs for programs, you probably have to read about older versions instead of the current one.
Sorry I’m new to the networky world of things, could someone explain what TLS and DNS (seen it in settings here and there) are, and the differences between them.
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