i’ve only ever used linux for servers as a web dev but friday i decided to erase windows on my laptop and install mint and i’m basically obsessed now (the best part is how updates just happen but they don’t restart your computer randomly when you don’t ask)
I’ve had a Steam Deck for a few years, and it runs Linux. I have come to the conclusion that I could easily switch at any time if I needed to. Windows only has an an advantage when hot swapping between my office and TV dock. Linux just doesn’t yet handle desktop resizing on the fly well.
Linux is better than Windows.
I’m really curious what things people can’t get running or didn’t have good enough alternatives for in Linux? Obviously, if you are a professional in X field and you need a specific program that will not work on Linux for your job, then Linux is not for you at that job. You didn’t choose MS Win or MacOSX, the company that makes the software that you need to do your job made that choice for you.
If you are not a professional, and you pirate Adobe XYZ (or whatever), and feel like you must have it on Linux, and that GIMP or Krita (or whatever) are not good enough, I don’t know what to tell you. Ask yourself, if MS and Adobe found a way to require you to pay full price for that software, or you could not use it at all, would you pay? Or would GIMP or Krita (or whatever) suddenly be good enough? Is having that software (when you are not a professional) really a good reason to stay on an operating system with so many other drawbacks?
In my experience:
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MS Windows Explorer is crap. I ended up buying Directory Opus to get a decent file manager. Too many good ones to mention in Linux (though I admit, most are not as powerful as DO; maybe Dired in emacs comes closest?). (DO is awesome - if you are stuck on MS Windows, I highly recommend it.)
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KWallet (and similar security apps such as KeePassXC), the various clipboard apps, the various text editors, the media players, etc. are excellent in Linux and don’t have alternatives in MS Windows that are as good or as easy to install. Actually, I guess it comes down to the repositories having everything, and much of it being installed by default. (Of course, if you are just streaming stuff through your browser, media players matter much less.)
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The choice of window managers and desktop environments is a killer feature for Linux. MS Windows barely even has virtual desktops.
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I am not a graphics professional, so for me, GIMP and Krita are fine. And Inkscape. And Scribus. (And, for many people who are not me, LibreOffice Draw.)
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I do do a lot of writing. LaTeX (several types) and all supporting software is super helpful, but must be found and installed separately in MS Windows. Will pandoc run natively in MS Windows - you have to install python first, right? It is python, right? I’m not sure, because I didn’t need to worry about it when I installed it on Linux, from the repository. On MS Windows, you’ll probably have to worry about it.
Sure, as mentioned above, you can install many of those on MS Windows. Are they in the MS Windows store? Do you have to update them all individually each time there is an update? I don’t - they get updated when I update my system, along with the rest of my system.
One little observation sort of sums up the Linux / MS Windows debate for me: in LibreOffice, no matter which program I am using, I can open or create a new office file of any sort. Last time I used MS Office, you couldn’t create or open an MS Word file while in MS PowerPoint, nor the opposite. Instead, you had to open MS Word separately. MS Office is a ‘suite’ in name only. LibreOffice is a suite, designed to go together. Linux distros sort of feel like that too. MS Windows (last I used it), not so much.
(Obviously, I have feelings about this. Been using Linux since 1998, so yeah, feelings.)
edit: spelling error / typo
Linux is the best OS. Thanks to Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and the Linux community.
I just installed Mint on my gaming TV table. I’m currently struggling to install a driver that works with my displaylink adapter. I’m also having an issue with my VTT (Arkenforge) where it fails to update and crashes.
Plenty of video games that will not run on Linux simply because of stuff like anticheat. Like Apex Legends (ran fine for a while but got blocked again recently) and Valorant, just to name 2 I’m personally aware of that’s stopping some of my friends from going to Linux.
You can say that dual booting would fix that, and my bf actually does that, but that’s obviously not a workable solution to the vast majority of people.
As long as games like that won’t run on Linux it’s simply impossible for a lot of people to switch.
Firefox likes to crash with the nvidia driver
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When I get back to my personal computer, I’m going to finally move to Linux. I’m a developer primarily on Microsoft technologies, but I’m willing to see if there is a way for me to work on Linux and branch out to other tech.
Vscode and dotnet core (5+) work well on linux
You can also run SQL Server via docker
Do you even need docker for MS-SQL?
I run Arch, so docker was the easiest method of installation.
Rather than try and figure out how to install a .deb manually (and lose package manager perks)
So glad I made the switch to Mint back when the EoL for win10 was announced. It has “just worked” with a bit of research beforehand. I like it way more than win10 - looks better, feels better, runs everything I want it to (except games with kernel level anticheat, but whatever), hardware is under less strain and PC no longer sounds like a jet engine. No regrets at all.
And, another perk I didn’t hear as much about, it is really easy to automate stuff. For instance, I play CloneHero streaming from my PC on an Nvidia Shield on a controller with a USB dongle plugged into the shield (shield doesn’t do that normally, linux allowed me to connect to the dongle over wifi with a little finagling) and I have it set up to automatically connect to my computer any time it’s plugged in. I also have certain files set to automatically back up to cloud storage with a simple crontab task (automatically repeating tasks are very easy via crontab).
Mint may not be as fancy as a lot of other distros, but damn if it doesn’t work well.
Where is the conversation about the mountain of e-waste that’s heading to landfills if a concerted effort is not made to put Linux on millions of machines and to put those machines into the hands of people who can benefit from them?
That’s why I switched go Linux. Fuck Microsoft and their corporate spyware.
I have to make the switch…
The simple fact is there will always be that one little thing that stops windows users fron switching. If 99.999999% of all windows software worked on Linux windows users would say “well ill switch when that extra 0.000001% works”. The fact is when Windows users come to Linux they dont want Linux, they want Windows but not made by Microsoft and the fact is Linux is not that. I would take that one step forward and say that when Windows 10 goes EOL half of people wont care and the other half will get new computers, the amount of people who switch to Linux will be statistically insignificant.
“well ill switch when that extra 0.000001% works”.
I am well past the point in my personal life where if it doesn’t work on Linux, or in many cases isn’t FOSS itself, it just doesn’t exist to me. I can be motivated to learn new programs when it feels like there’s a good purpose behind it.
I’m in my 40s so maybe it’s combination of “I’m too old for Windows’ shit” and “I’m not too old to learn a few new tricks.”
The fact is when Windows users come to Linux they dont want Linux, they want Windows but not made by Microsoft and the fact is Linux is not that.
Linux Mint Cinnamon may not be that, but it is very close.
My parents mentioned the windows end of life message to me a few weeks ago, and I think I’m going to try mint for them. As far as I know they basically need a file explorer to copy photos from SD cards, and of course a web browser.
Statistically insignificant is one way to put it, but I would argue it is somewhat significant. Just perhaps not to the extent we’d like to see. What I’ll be watching for is the major uptick in viruses, malware and ransomware infecting that one half of users that will stay on win10 without a care in the world.
I think there will be a big jump in Europeans switching to Linux because of America going to hell at least.
I was in a meeting today with a few people where we were discussing what direction we want a part of a European government to go in for tech. Getting rid of USA companies and on-boarding open-source solutions. The main issue, as usual, are the users. They’re so used to the M365 suite they won’t accept anything else.
Apart from the fact that most open-source solutions don’t cover the stack Microsoft delivers, IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.
We need more guidance from the EU to start producing viable alternatives.
Honestly I don’t really see why some Linux users are pushing so hard for everyone to move to Linux. Use whatever floats your boat.
One of us, one of us! Hahaha. I think at the core of it we care about other people and don’t want to see them be stuck in a privacy nightmare with no way to escape… and they paid for that experience. But yes, I also support people doing what they like, I sincerely mean that.
Working in IT also changes your perspective as well. It all boils down to ain’t nobody got time for that
Sad but true. I switched to Linux mint for private use.
Lots of comments about gaming from people assuming that companies will continue supporting their kernel anticheat on Windows 10 after it hits eol.
Windows 11 is much more convenient for identity tracking, so they’ll probably push for people to upgrade because Windows is too “insecure” for their games.
I’d switch in a heartbeat if Linux can play all my games including non-steam ones
You can. Now it’s mostly games with kernel anti-cheat that don’t work.
For epic and gog you can use the heroic launcher. For ther stuff with an installer, you can use wine to install it and manually add the exe to steam.
Ugh I have ONE game that’s 20 years old and does not work on Linux whatsoever. It’s an extremely important game to me because my best friends and I play together. We’re the only people who play it anymore. I can’t live without it, so I’m stuck on Windows for my main game machines.
My other machines? Linux lawl
Even with wine profile and setting Windows version to “emulate”?
Unfortunately yes D:
Which is it?
It’s a Half Life 1 mod called “The Specialists”.
I’m shocked that doesn’t work. Have you tried using Xash3D? What versions of WINE/Proton have you tried?
I have the same issue. I have a 10 year old laptop that I use as well. My solution was to dual boot Linux mint & Win10. Most of the time I use Mint on that computer and load the windows only when playing that game.
Why won’t you share which game it is? :)
I did in another comment~ it’s a Half Life 1 mod called “The Specialists”. It’s amazing.
But…
Check here: protondb.com
There are a few multiplayer games that don’t work, but most do. Basically every singleplayer game does. It doesn’t matter where you download it. Steam makes it slightly more convenient, but Heroic Games Launcher, or others, make it pretty easy to add any executable from anywhere to it and runs it.
Conversely, I’m coming to the conclusion that I could probably live with just a steam deck, instead of a laptop etc. A portable screen, or my projector, my nice Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and I reckon it’ll do everything I really need day-to-day.
I know just enough about Linux to know I should have been getting into it when I graduated over a decade ago.
I also know just enough to know it can do pretty much everything I need, as long as I’m willing to switch to a Linux alternative with similar capabilities.
However, I am Linux-dumb and deeply set into my windows, to the point where I’m not sure I have the technical savvy to switch.
From my understanding, Linux works very well, as long as you know what you’re doing.
I’m sure I’m overestimating the learning curve but it’s still intimidating.
What’s wrong with Windows?
The better question is why Linux over something you know how to use. Both systems have there own issues.
I felt the exact same way, still do, but I bought a new drive and installed Linux Mint on it (it’s the most Windows like experience I’ve found). I kept my old windows drive just in case, but I haven’t needed it so far.
The only time I ever used something that wasn’t Windows was DOS when I was very little.
It’s definitely overwhelming when trying to get certain things working that aren’t natively supported, but thankfully those are few and far between. There’s also a lot of people in the Linux community that are passionate about it, and tend to be very helpful.
You can always download what I think is called a live distro, and run it off a thumb drive just to test the waters. Nothing you change will be kept though, and it will be sluggish comparatively.
Go for it. You don’t need to install Linux in order to start getting your feet wet. Get a USB 3.0+ flash drive and put a “live” (CD/USB, whatever the distro wants to call it) distro on there. There are plenty of directions out there on how to make one from Windows. Most live distros nowadays are persistent, so any programs you install will be there next time you load it up. It will definitely be slower than a normal install, but it’ll let you get a feel for how things work.
Go ham wild on there, break stuff, see if you can fix it, don’t, then remake it again. Try different desktop environments (DEs) and see what you like. Your distro of choice is less important if you’re just starting, but any of the big ones will be fine. I’d recommend trying a few different DEs from the same distro, see what you like the feel of, then try a different distro with what you liked best. They’ll usually all have gnome, kde, and a third lightweight option, but in my experience if Wayland (the other choice is X11) works well, kde and gnome will feel pretty light. I use kde Wayland on this guy and trust me, this review is giving it a lot of grace. Windows 10 was completely unacceptable on it, so if your specs are any better then this, you’ll be fine with whatever you choose. Beware that Nvidia cards have driver issues, they’re fixable but if you do have an Nvidia card, I’d just use the built in graphics chip for trying out Linux at first.
Don’t start with arch, btw.
Beware that Nvidia cards have driver issues, they’re fixable but if you do have an Nvidia card, I’d just use the built in graphics chip for trying out Linux at first.
Well, shit. Extra work for me. I knew I should have waited for the AMD series to be in stock…
The os itself doesn’t require a whole lot of learning, if you stick to something user friendly like mint cinnamon. Key differences are how you install programs and drivers. File structure is very different. After two years of daily driving mint cinnamon, I find it more difficult to do basic stuff in windows, especially 11. If it feels intimidating, the recommended approach is to try it out on another pc, dualboot, or use it in a virtual machine.
Honestly, dont install Linux. There is absolutely no reason for you to do so. The fact is Linux will NEVER run all Windows games, it is simply impossible. Furthermore Linux will never run exactly like Windows or look exactly like Windows. So as a Linux user, just install Windows 11.
That’s probably true. Windows cannot run all Windows games either.
Voice of reason right here
I’m in the middle of moving, but once I’m set up I’m going to look into dual booting. I’m not sure I’ll 100% be able to get rid of windows, though. For a start, I’ve heard NVIDIA is a nightmare on Linux and I’ve only recently got a new computer so i don’t really want to buy more hardware.
Hopefully dual booting will allow me to experiment and try alternatives for software which doesn’t have a Linux version, and i hear that one of the things that chatbots are actually good at is diagnosing and fixing Linux issues. So I’m hopeful, but I’m not assuming it’ll be entirely painless.
No issues with Nvidia for me on arch. The drivers are fine and there’s even a cool Linux version of shadowplay if you use that.
The Nvidia open-source driver situation has been improving. Supposedly Valve has been working with them on it alongside their ARM support.
You can also try your hand with the closed source drivers but ymmv.
Games and especially modding. I’m holding on to 10 until I can’t. Then i’ll figure out Linux.
Coming from windows 10, last year I tested installing linux mint which is one of the most accessible distros. I found that around a third of the stuff I had running perfectly under Win10 didn’t work. I didn’t find alternatives that were good enough either…
So I said fuck it and did a clean windows 11 install, It’s been a month now and I can really say that it’s way easier to upgrade to windows 11 and turn off all the shit, than to deal with all the stuff that won’t run under linux.
Hopefully this changes in a few more years…
Yeah, no, that shit ain’t turned off, and if it is, Windows will just keep turning it back on.
people have claimed over the years this happens, but I’ve never had this happen with windows 10
there are no settings for all the shit, just some of it, that Microsoft is permitting to switch off. you therefore just have a half-still-shit-on system. that’s totally fine, i don’t expect anyone to invest time into anything. we ain’t got much to start with. but no one using windows is really in control
I jumped ship from windows 10 to Linux on August and it’s been smooth I have found alternatives for everything, but to be fair I used a lot of foss already on Windows 10.
Started with Debian but although I love it for my homelab I didn’t like it being behind on KDE release so I switched to endeavourOS and I just love it.
tip: Windows 10 21h2 IoT Enterprise LTSC is supported until 2032
Honestly Windows 11 isn’t terrible. It is mostly the same as Windows 10 except more demanding for seemingly no reason.
I’ve tried it a couple times and I hate it. The UI sucks, I can’t find shit, and they’ve stripped back control panel even further. Tried to help my mother with virtual disc’s and you can’t simply mount them anymore, instead there was some strange 3rd-party tool I’d never heard of and it didn’t even export files that were too deep in the folder tree. Fucking useless.
All the bloatware sucks, search defaulting to AI and Bing instead of your own computer sucks. Removing administrative controls sucks.
But I’m a visual designer and the market needs powerful industry-ready software like Adobe and Affinity. I can’t design publishing in fucking GIMP. The Linux alternatives aren’t enough. I’m considering using a Linux home machine with Mac for work but the apps I own already are Microsoft so it would be very expensive to switch. So I’ll probably end up using W11 and just complain the whole time.
For the most basic casual PC gamer SteamOS will be a game changer once they add more hardware support for it.
This keeps getting brought up, but the reality is that there is nothing special about SteamOS 3. If people want a SteamOS-like OS (Immutable, Steam/Proton integrated, Steam Big Picture as Primary interface), then it already exists. Chimera, Bazzite, probably others. The only thing Valve could realistically improve on is the installation experience.
SteamOS’s only real advantage is that it is hardware restricted. Valve is able to test against a narrow field of hardware and insure a high degree of stability because of it.
Bazzite wants to say hello
So does Nobara.
You mean Nvidia hardware. Nvidia purposefully sucks overall on Linux. Don’t reply with “mine works great” because you’re lying or haven’t had an issue yet. Fuck Nvidia.
