Full Linux, I’m not installing that anti-privacy, ad-ridden Windows 11 OS. It’s dangerous to use an unsupported system, so I’m going to be deleting my Windows partition. I know I’ll run into some issues on Linux, but I’m forcing myself to learn more and work through them!
6* months away now. If you're on 10, do you plan to upgrade? Make the jump to Linux?
Submitted 2 days ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fcae1f6f-a38e-4ff5-ac19-130b34f5b028.jpeg
Comments
Empricorn@feddit.nl 1 day ago
victorz@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I play only on Linux, and it works great. Come on over!
blindbandit@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I already switched to Bazzite Desktop and it’s been so good. I had some pains configuring somethings to my liking, but that was more due to me not being familiar with Linux. I’m never going back.
Tangent5280@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If I was considering Bazzite and Pop OS as options, which would you suggest I go with?
blindbandit@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Well, I cannot comment about PopOS because I simply don’t know how it is, but Bazzite on desktop has been great. I didn’t need to install anything related to gaming because it already comes with everything on it.
Pretty much anything I needed is on the discovery store and it’s handled like the app store on Android, so no headache of messing it up with installations or worrying about updates. Although, Bazzite is an immutable OS so anything that you need to install that’s not on the store can be a headache.
Also, my computer is an old laptop, so I got a performance boost as the system feels way smoother now than with Windows.
About games, I played some indie games on Steam and Lutris and it worked flawlessly. But do note that for more recent systems, it appears to be some headaches, especially with NVIDIA graphics cards. I only play new games on streaming services, so I don’t have those problems. But I do have some problems with the streaming service using my 8BitDo controller, but it’s not related to the system, it’s related to the service’s bad drivers. When I stream the game using Steam, it’s smooth sailing.
rolling@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I have used both Bazzite and PopOs for more then a year. They are both great distros. The reason I stuck with Bazzite is ease of updates since its immutable (I am lazy and updated PopOS only when I absolutely needed, and updating bunch of system packadges after a long time always causes something else to screw up). PopOS on the other hand gives you complete control over how to install things, and system configuration.
TLDR, if you are a power user, then decide based on if you want an immutable system or not. If you are not, you can just flip a coin and choose, Bazzite has better ease of use compored to PopOS on theory, but if you encounter issues PopOS will be easier to troubleshoot because it has more users / information online.
kazerniel@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’ll upgrade to 11 Enterprise via massgrave.
Sadly with Adobe and some of my online games not supporting Linux, I have to stick with Windows :/ I’ll just try to rip out all the telemetry, etc. via O&O and group policies.
rabber@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Ya I can’t live without Adobe suite so same boat
Asafum@feddit.nl 1 day ago
What is O&O? I’m not to keen on jumping to Linux either, but I REALLY don’t like the idea of having recall active and having Microsuck know literally everything I do…
kazerniel@lemmy.world 1 day ago
O&O Shutup10++ (theoretically works on 11 too)
Not sure what it can do on Home/Pro editions, I’ve only ever tried it on Enterprise.
Retrograde@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Damn, Adobe doesn’t support Linux at all? Guess I’m staying on Windows too :/
kazerniel@lemmy.world 1 day ago
No, all the current versions are reported various levels of broken :/ Generally they can’t install, so you have to copy an installation from Windows, then there are some that don’t load at all, some only load to splash screen, some do work after you patch their broken UI and manually copy some Windows DLL-s. So idk, you might get lucky with the specific program/version/feature combo you need, but it just sounds like a pain to me.
Soapbox1858@lemm.ee 1 day ago
The only way to use Adobe products on Linux are the web apps (which are limited) or in a windows virtual machine (slow) or by dual booting into windows (annoying).
You can run really old versions of Photoshop via Wine. But if your needs are that simple, you can probably just use Photopea.
For my use case of Lightroom for accessing and editing final photos across my computer and phone, and occasional photoshop use (mostly for printing) I am able to get by with the web apps, and windows virtual machine.
I would love to drop adobe. But the Lightroom Mobile cloud storage sync feature is too invaluable to me right now and there is no other option that comes close to that feature.
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s going to be purchase a new hard drive and then jump to Linux Mint this August.
It’s not an experience I am looking forward to (5080S, I do a lot of modding, and enjoy fangames/indie games which do not always play nice with linux) but needs must - the Linux community in general is very friendly, so we’ll get through it, even if the first 6 months are rough. I’ll keep the dual boot and push the windows partition to 11 if needed by work, that way I can put off rewriting my elderly access database for another few years.
Honestly, Microsoft are committing suicide when it comes to home users. It won’t be sudden, but the wheels are turning, all the IT savvy folks are switching people over (already did my aunt’s potato, mum’s demi-tato is next week). Eventually, a tipping point will be reached and offices will start switching - I hope that day comes before I die of old age!
kjetil@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Tip: Add your non-steam games to steam to launch launch them with Proton. thats probably the easiest way.
Otherwise there’s Bottles and Lutris (and maybe HeroicLauncher)
Iceblade02@lemmy.world 2 days ago
There’s also umu!
It essentially (if I’ve understood things correctly) aims to replicate the behaviour of proton.
Works like a charm, I have a simple alias set up that will run almost any .exe - even installers and stuff. Only thing that hasn’t worked so far was my digital exam software (that is essentially a windows rootkit) because it couldn’t find the cursor images lol.
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Thanks for the tips!
Lutris I’ve used with some success, and I’m somewhat ok with wine when it works out if the box (or troubleshooting using the wine wiki).
Do you recommend any other sites/guides for troubleshooting?
communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 2 days ago
Mint
I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.
I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.
The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).
How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.
Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.
Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.
I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 1 day ago
So, oddly enough, I’m not a complete novice. My background is mostly just lubuntu, puppy, mint and a bit of debian. I’ve shifted away from Ubuntu after the pro service ads in terminal, and the absolute fucking nightmare that is snap.
I’ve done my time in “oh shit I fucked up Linux again” purgatory, and it’s my daily driver for work. Terminal is a place I’m generally ok with; I know enough to find my way around and fix things as needed.
My issue is I’ve never really run dedicated graphics from a Linux distro, and because of the continual updates and proprietary elements I worry about keeping up. I don’t mind breaking things, it comes with the territory.
That said, bazzite sounds interesting - especially the optimisation. The guides on the main page also alerted me to something I’d not considered - going to have to redo my filesystem on every drive. Thanks for the idea of an alt distro, will dig into this a bit more - if it’s built in fedora I might have a bit of a learning curve (never used it as a distro).
AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 2 days ago
…all the IT savvy are switching people over…
Totally feels strange because my dad’s laptop doesn’t have the TPM requirement and he was telling me about how he was talking to the IT guy at his work about possibly switching to Linux just so he can keep his laptop. Absolutely insane because I might not be the only person in my house using it anymore (android not included because I view it as a completely separate entity).
I was telling him that day that I could flash Mint (have the most recent addition on my laptop) to a thumb drive if he was actually wanting to switch over. He’s definitely an average computer user, so nothing too special, but it still feels real weird.
Though this will also suck for a while because the tech savvy people helping them switch over will also be running IT for these people who have never used Linux before and most likely have never even used windows CMD either. Cannot wait for stories of people being fed up because their parent/aunt/uncle/friend/whoever looked up how to fix their device and entered the cursed rf command without thinking once about it.
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 2 days ago
So, in the case of my aunt, there were a few teething troubles. That said, a lot of it was just requests to add web page shortcuts to her desktop.
The really big thing is that she’s stopped complaining about how slow her laptop is, and openly says she finds it easier to use.
Most of the troubleshooting is going to be around office software and games. It’s also going to be about replacing windows tools (I am really going to miss my “.bat cave”), and learning new troubleshooting skills (wine is a bit rough to troubleshoot unless you’re willing to get your mining gear out and dig deep into logs).
dreugeworst@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
good thing about the terminal is it scares most general users so much that they won’t touch it even with instructions. There will be many issues, but I don’t think people running random commands in the terminal will be one
Frieren@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Best part is, if they do switch over they won’t go back. Not having to deal either bloat and telemetry is worth it.
JigglySackles@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s tricky because I have things that just don’t translate well to linux, or become considerably more expensive or time consuming to manage / deal with. Linux has a lot to offer and a lot of great. But I’m just going to keep running an out of date OS until I can switch.
CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What kind of things are holding you back?
JigglySackles@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I don’t want to get into a big debate on it so if you are just curious and have a couple suggestions I’m down to talk about it. But I’m tired of people telling me that my reasoning isn’t good enough for them. Like, great, thanks, glad you can be happy with it, but we aren’t the same person. So I’d prefer to avoid any conversation where I’m just told to suck it up and deal with something. I am working on finding alternatives but all the ones I’ve come across so far are coming up short in a way that’s non negotiable.
My biggest one is my O365 bundle with office apps, oneNote, and OneDrive.
I am going to be trying out libreoffice and OpenOffice this year to see if I can replace word and excel. Last time I tried they weren’t there for me.
OneNote is my second most vital. I’m looking at Notesnook at the moment but I’m really not enthused by a monthly price or the idea of self-hosting in a docker container. I’ve hated most note apps and OneNote was the only one I’ve clicked with so far. I refuse to touch markdown so that kills a lot of them. I’m taking notes with minor edits, and I refuse to add markdown to the process just to do that. I also will not be ok with a webapp. I don’t like webapps in general.
OneDrive is probably my most vital. I have 1TB for me and 1TB each for 5 family accounts. So 6TB total. And I definitely use the space. On top of that I rely heavily on its integration to the file explorer and the mfa locked personal vault section. I don’t want to deal with a web interface or separate app, outside of an authentication hook for the vault, just to access storage.
Outside of the 365 bundle, it’s mostly running dedicated game servers that have no Linux option. And that’s it I believe. Certainly the most impactful applications. I think most other things I run, I can find acceptable alternatives to or can run in wine or something similar without major issue.
Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
I want to move to Linux, but I need to be able to use the VPN service my work uses and I’m just not sure how to get it working on Linux. I should just dual boot.
techognito@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Without prodding too much into what VPN you work uses
Most VPN solutions run on linux just fine, even Microsoft PPTP VPN solution works fine. I would probably check with your IT department what protocol they use and any connection caveats (like machine certificates used for authentication) and look into the different VPN solutions (some examples; WireGuard and OpenVPN are very well supported, IPSec (libreswan or strongswan are options here) depends on setup, PPTP/L2TP should work with most setups (I have to admin I havn’t touched those enough), vpnc works with Cisco base IPsec setups and openconnect works with most SSL VPN connection)
Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
It’s Watchguard. Though looking at their site, it seems like there might be support that I wasn’t able to find last time I looked into this. Definitely want to dual boot at some point. I’ve got a Surface Book 3 though, and I know it needs special kernel stuff to get working properly, so I’d almost rather just wait until my boss retires and everyone’s out of a job to dive into Linux. Easier than finding spare time in my life. Living the dream
tomenzgg@midwest.social 22 hours ago
Dual-booting was how I first got into Linux; it truly leaves open the ability to keep everything you’re worried about not having.
What’s the VPN?
Vari@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Sticking with 10 for a bit, moving to Linux
Adalast@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ditto. They are stopping support, but I highly doubt they will just brick all Windows 10 machines. If they do, I will just throw Linux on a flash drive and boot from that to recover my data ahead of switching fully to Linux.
I remember seeing a leaked paper about them putting an omnipresent advertising ticket at the top of the screen that will be displayed regardless of full screen status. The only reason I can think that they are forcing this so hard is that a lot of their forced ad servicing plans are not possible to implement in earlier versions of Windows due to root level functionality that cannot be changed. I’m guessing things like direct injection of ads in running processes or that ticker.
Ads have no place in an OS, especially not as kernel level processes. If ads on the internet have taught us anything, it is that bad actors can inject malicious code directly into them without content servers or hosts knowing and compromise untold numbers of machines who just, let me check, rendered the ad.
Between the aggressive plans for in OS advertising and the privacy abolishing actions and policies with AI datascraping, I am done with MS. Windows 10 will be the last one of theit OS’s I run. If work needs me to do something on Windows, it will be on a virtual machine that I remote into.
Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 2 days ago
They won’t brick it, but you can bet that a lot of people are sitting on unreleased 0-days for win10. It will likely be dangerous to connect to the internet on day 1.
MehBlah@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m blocking addresses at the router daily. I could live with 11 if I could uninstall their garbage. I’ve tried any number of things to keep crapilot 365 off of my domain machines but I’m told I have to have the enterprise edition to do that.
Vari@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Plus, I just want to own my fucking computer. I shouldn’t have to go into the registry to get rid of edge.
frog_brawler@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
I run Fedora KDE now, but I’m going to keep my Windows 10 install on Windows 10.
HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
How are you finding it?
frog_brawler@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
No complaints about Fedora KDE specifically. I’ve had it on my spare laptop since version 30 or so. Desktop is on 41 now. The only “issues” I’ve had running this full-time is lack of support for Fidelity Active Trader Pro (which kinda sucks anyway), I haven’t been able to make my bluetooth shipping label printer work yet, and I haven’t gotten my Logi MX Keys / Master S mouse working as it works in Logi Options (on windows or mac) to switch over to my work mac as intended. Otherwise, I prefer it to other distros I’ve used.
bluewing@lemm.ee 2 days ago
So many perfectly working older computers are going to be headed to the landfill as e-waste. That’s the horrible part.
What a waste tech dollars just to play some stupid game.
LeFantome@programming.dev 1 day ago
I hope many of us are able to pick them up cheap instead.
ploot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Yes, “reduce, reuse, recycle” in that order. It is better to sell or give away an old PC instead of just sending it for recycling.
Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Man, I really tried today to get Linux on my Framework laptop.
I can’t believe how goddamn frustrating the experience has been, and I’ve dabbled in Linux for decades.
I try Mint. Install as a dual boot… Installation done. Reboot. Straight into Windows. Check partitions and nothing has changed.
Try again. All seems fine. Boot. Some error screen that won’t let me get into Mint.
Do this like four more times with no luck.
Tried Ubuntu. No easy way to install as a dual boot unless I want to mess around with custom paritions. Also, GNOME sucks ass, but Ubuntu seems way more polished than Mint.
I did get mint on a mini PC I have running through my TV. But audio wasn’t working, so that took a while to sort out. And the onscreen keyboard does nothing on the lock screen. So unpolished, and I have no idea why it’s recommended “for beginners” when it feels unfinished.
With windows, there’s no messing around. Everything just works. And I fucking hate that I feel forced to choose a miserable, hacky, terminal-based experience with countless hours of installing shit through commands… Or a smooth, reliable, easy one with bloatware and spying on the backend. Goddammit!
CitricBase@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Your experience is not invalid, but It’s fucked up that you’re giving Windows credit for “just working” when Windows doesn’t even try to support dual booting. In fact the reason Linux is having so much trouble is because it has to tiptoe so that Windows doesn’t break.
If you don’t like Gnome or Mint Cinnamon, why not try KDE? Something like Kubuntu, perhaps? I use Fedora KDE myself.
Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
From Window’s perspective, there’s no need to dual boot. But I get what you’re saying. I’m not trying to defend Microsoft, and think that they’ve been enshittifying windows for years now.
But everything works without jumping through hoops. And if it doesn’t, the fix is usually very easy and done through a GUI 99% of the time.
But you are right. There are many flavours of Linux to try. Aesthetics aren’t my priority, though. I do need things to work without spending hours trying to figure it out.
I’m at an age where messing around on my computer for days on end is long gone. 😵
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Couldnt OP use the boot loader feature of Windows and add their distro as anotger option?
Schortl@feddit.org 2 days ago
Had the completly oposite experience: mint installed in 2 hours with everything working. No bloatware, no bullshit. Biggest obstacle was, that changing the device bootorder is nog enough- uefi seetings needed some love to. I can imagine that this is not necessery if you do not use dual boot ( like win…talking about experience…)
For me everything works perfect- mint is my primary os now
Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 17 hours ago
Ok, a quick update.
After posting, and a little soul-searching, I decided to install Ubunu and give things another try.
Installation failed the first time, seemingly right at the end! Tried again, and it went through.
Set things up, and things seem to be OK. I’m only running a browser, and needed to try a paid windows program through Wine, which installed and loaded up without any real issues.
I go for a walk during lunch. Come back to the Linux login screen (expected, as I’d assume it locks like Windows). Log in… blank slate. All my work was closed, and it was like a fresh reboot. What the hell??? No error messages or anything. I literally have the browser and like a few other programs installed, so it’s not like the system is a mess from years of bad software installations.
Sigh…
Then I try another paid Windows program used to convert video files. It seems to work, but it’s not detecting my Intel graphics card. As I look for help on how to do this (officially, from my Laptop vendor), I get pages and pages of things to try… all through the terminal.
I mean, this is stuff that just works on Windows. No messing with stuff.
I really want Linux to be my daily driver, and even I type this from Ubuntu, I can’t help but feel like something is going to catastrophically self-destruct at any moment, and that kind of anxiety is never felt while using Windows.
I couldn’t imagine setting linux up for my wife, if this is the experience I’m having.
Gibibit@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah with Linux if it doesn’t work you’re often just screwed.
I can recommend a rolling release distro, having the latest and greatest can sometimes give you bugfixes that are critical for your setup. It can also break stuff but nothing a rollback won’t fix.
Another reason to prefer rolling release is the upgrade path. For Ubuntu upgrading is just awful when you do any tinkering. I ran Kubuntu 20.04 for a while and because I had some custom package sources installed it wouldn’t let me upgrade to 24.04. Nobody could help, and the package manager is awful it doesn’t let you trace which packages are blocking the upgrade.
I’m kind of miffed that everyone is recommending mint as a starter distro because as soon as they start looking for guides on how to tinker there is a high chance they are going to make their system un-upgradable.
Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Yeah with Linux if it doesn’t work you’re often just screwed.
This has been my experience for decades. Even if it works, something will suddenly stop working and I’ll have no way to fix it without hours of research and messing around.
With windows, I can fix anything quickly through the GUI. But haven’t had to in a very, very long time.
I’m going to look at other options. I want to stick with a distro that is fully supported by my laptop to avoid even more issues. But the options are limited.
communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 2 days ago
I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.
I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.
The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).
How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.
Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.
Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.
I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.
Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I appreciate the reply.
Fedora and Ubuntu are officially fully supported by laptop, so it’s Mint and a few others to a lesser extent.
I won’t use Fedora due to it being American, but the Fedora experience was quite nice the last time I tried.
I may explore other options through the Framework (laptop) community to see what else I can try.
mlg@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Gonna be a useless recommend, but try Fedora or Bazzite (Fedora Silverblue gaming with tweaks to make it easier).
I’ve had some friends with similar complaints about Mint having one off issues with hardware, which is usually because its downstream Ubuntu which means kernel support can be all over the place.
Fedora is probably best bang for buck in latest stable release without entering the realm of unstable rolling like Arch. Really the only thing I’ve found that it lacks is more varied support for ARM boards out of box and a cross compile package for ARM from x86.
By default it does have a slightly annoying repo setup because software that isn’t FOSS ends up on RPMFusion which you have to enable as a user, which is why I suggest Bazzite, which also uses the immutable Linux design which makes it much easier to prevent from breaking or fixing by rolling back a change.
Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Fedora is fully supported on my Framework laptop (as is Ubuntu and Mint), and I did have it working off an external SSD to try.
But… Sigh…
It’s American, so I won’t use it. American is one big reason why I want to quit Windows. Maybe I’ll just keep trying. 😮💨
Surp@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Unfortunately not. Even as an IT person I can say I just wanna come home and boot up my games without hassle. Sure alot of things have been done with proton etc but still a massive amount of games don’t work without Soo much dang tweaking. I don’t have time for that especially with a job/being a single parent. I am highly interested in steamos though.
gigglybastard@lemmy.world 2 days ago
that’s also my excuse, but then again, i don’t even game that much. and i’m on rtx 3070 which will be getting too old soon for new games and new GPUs are just too expensive.
And god i hate w11. i mean it’s not that different than w10 but things just don’t work!
my logitech mouse stutters for no fucking reason, 10 year old games lag for no fucking reason. the whole windows lags after being waken up from sleep after a few days, i could go on and on. none of these problems existed on w10.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 days ago
stormeuh@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Why not dual-boot with steamos in that case? Sure, some things may not work out-of-the-box now, but work is constantly being done and at least won’t regress like the step from W10 to W11.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I thought the same, especially since I had tried Linux one my main several times since the 90s (yeah, at one point I used Slackware).
Then I did the transition, and installed Pop!OS since I’m a gamer plus I have a NVidia graphics card and didn’t want to go through the whole hassle related to that (Pop!OS has a version which already comes with those drivers).
Mind you, I did got a separate SSD for Linux (and meanwhile added a new one, which is where my games directory is mounted).
So, this time around, what did I find out in about 8 months of use:
- Once, I did had to boot into CLI mode and have apt do some failed upgrades, which included doing some kind of rebuild thing (you get instructions of what command to run when apt fails). This was due to a upgrade of the apt itself, I believe. All the other times it just boots to graphics mode (I’m using X rather than Wayland) or if it fails to start it (happened only a handful of time) you just reboot it.
- In general even though I’ve done things like add and change hardware components, I have done little tweaking via CLI and some of it I did it because I’m just more comfortable with it or wanted so obscure options (for example, I wanted to mount the drive shared with Windows with a specific user and group, so I had to edit fstab). Except for the more obscure stuff there are UI tools for all management tasks and one doesn’t have to actually do much management and things almost always just work (for example, I changed graphics card - whilst staying with NVidia - and it just booted and worked, no tweaks necessary)
- As for games, I use Steam for Steam Games and Lutris for all other game versions including GOG. Both have install scripts specific for each game, that configure Wine appropriately, so you seldom have to do anything but install, launch and play. That said in average I have had to tweak maybe 1 in 10 games. Further, about 1 in 20 I couldn’t get them to work. If you do install pirated games, then there is no install script and you do have to do yourself the whole process of figuring out which DLLs are missing and configure them in Wine using Winetricks (curiously, I ended up having to install a pirated game because the Steam version did not at all work, and the pirated version works fine). Note, however, that since I don’t do multiplayer games anymore, I haven’t had problems with kernel-level anti-cheat not working with Linux.
- Interestingly, for gaming you have safety possibilities in Linux which you don’t in Windows: all my games launched via Lutris are wrapped in a firejail sandbox with a number of enhanced security restrictions and networking limited to only localhost, so there is no “phone home” for the games running via that launcher (Steam, on the other hand, is a different situation).
I still have the old Windows install in that machine, but I haven’t booted into it for many months now.
Compared to the old days (even as recently as a decade ago), nowadays there is way less need for tweaking in Linux in general and for gaming, even Windows games generally just install and run as long as you use some kind launcher which has game-specific install scripts (such as Steam and Lutries), but if you go out of the mainstream (obscure old games, pirated stuff) then you have to learn all about tweaking Wine to run the games.
If you have a desktop and the space to install the hardware, just get a 256GB SSD (which are pretty cheap) and install a gaming-oriented Linux distro (such as Pop!OS or Bazzite) there, separate from Windows and you can dual boot them using your BIOS as boot manager: since the advent of EFI, booting doesn’t go through a boot sector shared by multiple OSs so if each gets their own drive then they don’t even see each other and only the BIOS is aware of the multiple bootable OSs and you can get it to pop up a menu on boot (generally by pressing F8) to change which one you want to boot.
For the 20 or 30 bucks it’s worth the try and if you’re comfortable with it you can later do as I did and add another bigger one just for the directory with you games (or your home directory, though granted to migrate your home like this you do have to use the CLI ;))
Kinperor@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I had the same outlook before switching to Arch Linux, but honestly gaming on Linux is actually the lesser of my hassle. I can genuinely just grab msi files or exe files for games and feed them to Steam to get them playing via Proton. There’s only one (1!) game that I can’t play, and I’m 99% certain it’s a problem with my hardware, not my OS (Monster Hunter Wilds seems to hate my GPU and crash all the time). But even that was fixed with a mod (up until the latest update).
With that said, I’ve had a lot of hassle handling other things that are upstream of gaming so it’s not like you’re unreasonable in wanting an OS that is mostly stable. Then again, I made the decision to use Arch Linux, there’s distros that are simpler afaik.
lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Is Windows actually stable though? I used to have to use it for work, it’s a disgusting OS. Now I use Ubuntu for work, also disgusting, but it’s much better than Windows
SolidShake@lemmy.world 1 day ago
yeah i need star citizen, ableton, fl studio, premier, photoshop and more before i can dedicate a jump to linux
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
don’t forget that LTSC is also a solution
SolidShake@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
There’s nothing wrong with windows 11 imo
sdtg5afwooasiwefr@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This year will be the year of the Linux desktop for shure. I believe in it like the years before.
pulsewidth@lemmy.world 2 days ago
For Shure maybe, but what about for other audio products companies?
P. S. I unironically believe 2025 may be looked back on as the year of the Linux desktop. May have finally got through the trough, we’ll see though.
TheTimeKnife@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I switched a year ago and I love it. All my old games run better on linux than windows at this point. Proton is fucking amazing.
WasteWizard@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Already prepared everything for the jump. Switched MS Office for LibreOffice, and Outlook for Betterbird. Tested install, configuration and access to backups in a VM. Next vacation I take I’ll go for it. Mint is my choice of Distro, because of Steam/Gaming reasons. With the US being antagonistic, if not outright hostile, right now, and Microsoft having their disgusting Copilot AI Analysis Fingers in everything, it’s the rational choice I think.
communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 2 days ago
I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.
I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.
The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).
How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.
Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.
Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.
I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.
WasteWizard@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Thanks, that was some great insight. Especially the drawbacks regarding cinnamon. Those are 100% things no normal user should ever have to think or worry about.
MajesticElevator@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Didn’t know about betterbird! Nice :)
VolumetricShitCompressor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Just imagine 43 % market share in the next hardware survey.
naticus@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Made my jump to Arch (btw) a couple of years ago and haven’t really looked back. I have Win10 as a second boot option, but that’s reserved specifically for Game Pass and VR, but it’s very rare I boot it. Don’t care to upgrade even after EOL, and I’d never recommend Arch to anyone but the most comfortable with Linux, but it’s been a great option for me.
ugjka@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
That’s LTSC versions, they aren’t meant for normal consumers, although you can find them if you want.
Or, of course, you can use their script to just activate it.
ugjka@lemmy.world 2 days ago
They are on that website, not just only the activator
notarobot@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Ill bet right before the deadline, they will magically make TPM optional, even though they said they wouldn’t.
nuko147@lemm.ee 2 days ago
I’m in Windows 11. I have regret it, but after so many tweaks of the system, removing telemetries, changing menus, and other Windows shit, i had not the energy to move back to Windows 10.
Only OS change i am willing to make is to move to Linux, but gaming is not there yet, and am now trying to move from big proprietary companies to FOSS, so time is needed.
calum@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Gaming on Linux has never been better. Out of the top 100 (mostly Windows platform) games, only 7 are entirely unplayable according to www.protondb.com
80/100 are Gold or Platinum rated which means very playable. I often get better performance in Linux than Windows, even with the default open source drivers. I am using an AMD GPU which gives an advantage as they have better open source support, but for NVIDIA all the Linux distros I’ve used have had a documented path to install their binary drivers for better performance.
It’s true that it sometimes takes a bit more tinkering, especially if you’re using some esoteric controller or other funky hardware, but in the days of LLMs that can coach you through issues it’s more accessible than it’s ever been.
nuko147@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Nvidia GPUs are not good in Linux at the moment. And yeah all what you said. But i had tried Linux for gaming like something 5-8 years ago, and the situation is so much better now.
glog78@digitalcourage.social 2 days ago
May i ask why gaming on linux isn't for you ?
sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
My experience with Linux gaming has varied pretty wildly. My old r9 290x could hardly run anything on linux. And if it did, it would run horribly compared to on windows.
Recently I upgraded to an rx 7600, and nearly everything works out of the box or with minor tweaks. And it performs similarly to windows, even better on occasion.
Elevator7009@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Windows 11 -> Linux just for gaming and I am satisfied!
However, I also do not play things with big graphics requirements, kernel-level anticheat, and I do not have any fancy GPUs like Nvidia that make things incompatible. I transitioned on a laptop. So YMMV.
robdor@lemmynsfw.com 2 days ago
Where’s that steam os release
garretble@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
My Windows 10 PC’s only function at this point is to play FFXIV in my living room, so I’m not super worried about viruses or anything.
But maybe eventually I’ll switch to Linux on that box and do that weird set-up to get FFXIV running there.
pycorax@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Unpopular opinion but I’m just using 11. I deal with enough problems with Linux at work and as hard as it is to believe, Windows just work and fits my workflow too well. Linux works great on my Steam Deck but the occasional weird quirks it has with certain games/launchers means I can’t use it as my main gaming platform, it’s only fine on the Deck because it has advantages for the form factor.
Firipu@startrek.website 2 days ago
I run Linux on a small mini pc for some casual browsing.
I run windows on my main pc.
As long as some kernel anticheat (fortnite, cod, etc…) doesn’t run on Linux, I won’t be swapping.
30+y of windows use also makes me infinitely more comfortable with windows. All the complaints I always read about are totally moot for me (I understand the issue of privacy in windows. It’s the price I pay to have an OS that “just works” for me) .
While I enjoy tinkering, Linux is a royal PITA to use if you’re not used to it. I spend hours trying to figure out how to fix something that takes me 5m max in windows. I understand it’s a more a me than a Linux problem. But I’m certain many people struggle with the same things.
steve@lemmy.ca 22 hours ago
Why is Bill Gates in the picture? lol
kyub@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Obviously Linux is the correct choice but I fear most will simply continue to suck it up and upgrade their Windows.
SpaceCheeseWizard@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Made the switch over a year ago. No regrets, everything works as I would want it to.
julysfire@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Made the jump to Linux. No issues so far, very happy with the switch
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Linux is fine. Ive been using it since before ubuntu was invented. But Windows has the most goddamn computer games.
Womble@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The vast majority of which now run fine on linux with proton.