I switched to Linux on my laptops years ago. Recently, I retired and started playing video games like Skyrim. I play on a Nintendo Switch. I considered playing Skyrim on a laptop so I could use/build mods. I bought a laptop with Windows 11 and spent forty minutes removing the bloat, ads, spyware, ai nonsense, and other dross, fixing it so it did not ‘update’ to restore everything I deleted, and installing my preferred alternatives (browser, search, email etc). It reminded me why I hate Windows almost as much as Mac OS (which is even more controlling). Microsoft have hundreds of engineers ‘enshitifying’ everything. It is more than a full-time job trying to stop them and block their ‘improvements’. I am retired. I have better things to do.
I did not enjoy playing games with a laptop (hurts my arthritis, I prefer using a console and an easy chair) and resented having to reverse engineer everything I installed to keep it running but without sacrificing my privacy so the laptop now just sits in a drawer. It amazes me that anyone still tolerates Microsoft products, or any of the monopolists stuff. Why is anyone still using google search or chrome browser, why bing or any of it? Why is anyone still seeing adverts? Why is everyone still being fed by algorithms? You must chose this - but why? I always sought out better and if it did not exist, I built it, and if I could not build it, I did without. There is a lot of dumbing-down around technology. Back in C20th, we used to build our own hardware, write our own software. We were skilled hobbyists (later I got an M.Sc. to reinforce my hobby skills with theory and even ran a business for a while as an engineer). Around 2000 +/- five years, the monopolists offered ‘help’ in the form of WYSIWYG editors to write code for us or ‘click buttons to register your account’ platforms to host content for us instead of us running our own websites (blogger, wordpress, facebook, twitter etc). They dumbed us all down, farmed us like animals for data and used clickbait to get ad revenue and undermined our politics, culture, even changed our sense of being human. Now old folk can build resources but younger people can only consume. We have to re-skill and resist the seduction of the easy and free-to-use. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Never trust a tech bro, whether USA or any nationality.
Personally, I want to ‘jail break’ my Switch and make mods for my console version of Skyrim. I can’t do that now as it is illegal but when they bring out the Switch 2 and the old console is ‘obsolete’ and they stop trying to get money for Skyrim, I reckon we tinkerers will get a chance to re-purpose the old console to play the old games in our own way. I reckon some exciting engineering is happening amongst the recyclers and re-purposers rather than amongst the corporates. I only buy second-hand for ethical reasons and to save money. I always install my own software based on AOSP or use a more ethical distro or alternative to the commercial options. I always debloat or degoogle or remove unwanted stuff. I wish that kind of personalisation were more common. There is a zero sum relationship with tech: either the technology controls you, or you control it. I urge you to control your own tech. Don’t be enslaved by it. I feel I am in a minority in wanting sovereignty over my damn phone. It makes me sad.
Personally, I want to ‘jail break’ my Switch and make mods for my console version of Skyrim.
Why not just get a steam deck?
I tried creating a Steam account and was blocked by the revolving captcha security thing - took days to try to get help from their customer care and by the time they got back to me I had lost interest. I spent the waitjng time researching Valve and I decided they are not an ethical business. Made me sad as I loved the idea of a customised-for-gaming-on-console linux OS and liked the look of the hardware. But Valve is a monopolist and has too much market share and too many users and thus too much power - USA politics today shows how big a risk that is. Valve supports unethical business models like ‘rent game to play’, AI-generated junk games and IP violations so it debases game development and hurts indy developers, live-streaming games which is bad for environment. It promotes ‘easy access/always on gaming’ and is thus profiting from addiction-to-gaming, which ix a MASSIVE problem and few gamers admit it. It’s an American corporation and I distrust American corporate culture. Most of which might be said of other console/platforms so its not just Valve/Steam, I feel wary of but the whole industry. I bought a second-hand Switch so did not help Nintendo/Japanese corporate power directly. I bought a bundle of 2nd-hand games on sd card with minimal download content (except for ‘No Man’s Sky’ which constantly updates). I am trying to be an ethical gamer - limit my time gaming to stop me becoming an addict etc. But I admit I am compromised - I spend too much time gaming, being retired its easy to lose track of time. Honestly, I feel like a vegan who wraps bacon in thick wholemeal sandwiches and pretends they are not really eating pigs since its mainly bread. I am ‘a work in progress’.
Valve isn’t like most USA corporations, they’re private and generally a lot better.
As an indie developer, Valve has helped me a lot. I have my game on Switch, Xbox One, Epic, and Steam, and Steam is by far the most revenue, and was the first platform that accepted my game. They make it so easy for indie devs to ship games - yeah the downside is they get a lot of low effort submissions, but the user rating system takes care of that (mostly). And they’re adding more warnings for gamers about what games have AI generated content/art.
blocked by the revolving captcha security thing
I’ve seen this happen for people behind VPNs or using public access points (coffee shops, schools, etc). Valve has to do this to prevent spammers, and the sad part is a lot of real users get hit too. But before they did there was a lot more spam user accounts in the steam forums and messaging users, usually scams. If you still want to create an account and can’t get past the captcha send me a private message and I can help you out with it.
I don’t love Valve, as they’re just a company at the end of the day, but they have done a lot of positive things for Linux gaming and the indie developer scene. Especially for linux graphics drivers.
The form factor of switch/steam deck is expanding, valve doesn’t by any means have a stranglehold over it, they are by far the biggest player but the benefits to linux gaming are shared across the board which opens up the entire industry not closes it down?
Not saying I trust Valve or think they are somehow a company but good but yeah out of the current options I will happily give Valve my money.
But I admit I am compromised - I spend too much time gaming, being retired its easy to lose track of time. Honestly, I feel like a vegan who wraps bacon in thick wholemeal sandwiches and pretends they are not really eating pigs since its mainly bread.
Fuck that noise, play video games, they expand and stimulate your mind and you don’t hurt anyone or waste any significant amount of resources playing them!
You make fair comment. I don’t disagree with 99% of what you say. However, I stand by my words about addiction. I agree gaming is potentially a very benign thing and I get a lot of pleasure from gaming but I still want to red flag some aspects of it where addiction does seem to be a factor. Being addicted to gaming has led to health problems for players e.g. repetitive strain injuries or tendonitis - it has adversely affected my health, made my arthritis worse, caused tendonitis so I have had to cut back etc. In extreme cases, addicted gamers have murdered their own babies or been violent to partners because they were distracted by them while playing, lost their temper, and lashed out. And getting players addicted is obviously potentially profitable but making profit from addiction is evil. I say ‘responsible gaming’ needs to be the uncompromising rule just like with anything else that can be addictive or mood-altering or get under our skins the way a well-made game can.
Bring on the cheap non windows 11 computers. I’ve already told everyone i know if they didn’t want to have to buy another computer for years they just had to start using linux. Then I show them what that looks like if they are interested. I show them that they can put menu/start button at the bottom left if thats what they want. That they can have a the same browser they use and many of the same applications. I’ve had two people willing to try. Most insist that they don’t want to learn anything new. Its depressing but its a boon for me when people start getting rid of their perfectly usable gear.
Linux
eli5? people can continue using windows 10 but becomes insecure?
Ms will stop supporting windows 10. Windows 11 has hardware requirements for a specific security chip and processors with specific features, so upgrading components isn’t an option.
If you have an old pc you can’t easily upgrade. Theres ways of forcing it to work but it’s not supported.
A lot of businesses will be getting rid of their old pcs so they dont need to deal with the hassle.
Linux will still support and run on the older hardware, so a lot of people are expecting used hardware prices to drop.
And thanks to Proton you can now do pretty much everything that you can do on Windows. Unless you do graphics design.
That’s definitely been true in the past, but the gap’s narrowed a lot. GIMP (with plugins) and Krita cover most Photoshop-style workflows, and Inkscape does a pretty good job with vector work. For many graphic design tasks, Linux has solid native tools now—just takes a bit of adjustment if you’re used to Adobe.
GIMP is nowhere close to Photoshop in usability. Don’t know about others.
Yes. They also added an option to pay for patches.
No, the police will show up at your door on October 11th and arrest you on the spot.
If you’re in the US you’ll be sent to El Salvador. If you’re anywhere else you’ll be sent to the US, receive a few tattoos, then El Salvador.
Can I pick the tattoos?
You can choose between Microsoft, Tesla, Google, Amazon, or Blackrock.
Blackrock makes some decent funds, I’ll take that one.
In soviet US, tattoos pick you
Translation: “Install Linux.”
I would, except there’s always some software or some feature missing. And there’s always the FOSS app that “might” meet “some” aspects of what native software does but it’s almost always never “native” support.
Sure, I know I can play MOST games on Linux, but I know for a fact they’ll launch on windows.
Or things like, sure, I know that my corsair Hardware MIGHT be controlled by signal RGB, but what about controlling the pump in my AIO? Or the sound levels on ny headset? Or the DPI in my mouse?
Then you have things like drivers. I’m not using any Nvidia GPUs right now, but the nvidia support for Linux is atrocious and you lose access to things like RTX-HDR and RTX Voice, and hell, even in AMD you lose access to certain features like AMFM2.
Then the software, not only does things like Adobe or Office just don’t exist, the FOSS solutions are not industry standard, so sure, I can learn to use LibreOffice, but that’s worth absolutely nothing when you apply for a corporate job and they expect you to know how to use outlook as a bare minimum, hell, even the Google office suite is being adopted faster… Ah, but if the software is available there’s still a chance it doesn’t work because it’s missing a dependency or something and you have to ask people to use the terminal and… Sigh
All in all, it’s just behind in many ways, sure, for some people it’s ok, and for laptops I’d think is mostly ok, great even. But I know I could deal with Linux, and I don’t want to troubleshoot a whole PC to play a game when I already spend the whole day dealing with solving issues or servers or services on my job.
I’m rooting for Steam OS to release to desktops because my living room PC is LITERALLY just for gaming, so that “could” work nicely.
Hardware MIGHT be controlled by signal RGB
OpenRGB to the rescue: https://flathub.org/apps/org.openrgb.OpenRGB
controlling the pump in my AIO?
What do you need to control about your pump? I sure hope it works without OS support.
Or the sound levels on ny headset?
Move the volume slider up or down?
Or the DPI in my mouse?
Save them to the mouse as profile if it can or use Piper: https://flathub.org/apps/org.freedesktop.Piper
in AMD you lose access to certain features like AMFM2
FSR Frame Gen works just fine, not sure why you need fake frames in more games.
the FOSS solutions are not industry standard, so sure, I can learn to use LibreOffice, but that’s worth absolutely nothing when you apply for a corporate job and they expect you to know how to use outlook as a bare minimum
There is also OnlyOffice and online MS Office. Not sure what you need to know about Outlook to open it and use your eyes to read the mails.
even the Google office suite is being adopted faster
Good news, it runs in a browser and works on every OS!
Ah, but if the software is available there’s still a chance it doesn’t work because it’s missing a dependency or something and you have to ask people to use the terminal and… Sigh
I have not fixed dependencies issue on Linux since the early 2000s. Flatpaks are your friend https://flathub.org/ .
All in all, it’s just behind in many ways, sure, for some people it’s ok, and for laptops I’d think is mostly ok, great even.
I run it on my high end PC and I disagree. It’s ahead in many ways.
- The graphics drivers are included and don’t need any bloated software to work
- It has a banger OpenGL driver, which makes games like Minecraft run significantly faster.
- It has a very active community for game support for games where the developer does not care
- It translates older DirectX versions to Vulkan automatically, resulting in a performance uplift and more stability. People on Windows are installing DXVK just so older games work. Look up DXVK in the Steam forums.
- It downloads shader caches from Valve, preventing shader stutter in games that don’t do it on their own
That list could go on for a while and it’s only for gaming.
I haven’t even gone into installation and not having to run ShutUp10 every time just to make the OS usable. Or how KDE is so much cleaner than Windows. Or how I don’t have any ads in my start menu, don’t have to force download Candy Crush on first boot, don’t have pre-installed apps I can’t remove, don’t have to block my own OS in its firewall to get rid of telemetry, don’t have to be told that I need to upgrade to Windows 11 constantly.
For work: Docker just works, complex networking setups are not a pain to setup, creating VMs is so much easier and has so many more features. VPN is so seamlessly setup. I can read almost every file system on the planet and use ROCm without jumping through hoops. Not to mention I don’t get Copilot and Recall shoved down my throat.
Are there issues on Linux? Sure, lots of them. But if I find them I can tell somebody about it and don’t have to deal with them for centuries.
I’m rooting for Steam OS to release to desktops because my living room PC is LITERALLY just for gaming, so that “could” work nicely.
SteamOS is just a modern Linux distro with Steam pre-installed and in autostart. If stuff works there, it works on regular Linux just as well.
Bazzite achieves the same thing right now: https://bazzite.gg/
Excellent breakdown. Well done!
And on top of all that, the article is specifically about Microsoft urging people to get rid of old hardware, which I take to mean NOT current-gen, bleeding-edge gaming hardware. So my suggestion was about not being forced to upgrade your hardware to keep having a usable computer.
The pump works without software obviously, but iCue let’s you change the speed of the pump.
Sound levels of the headset refers to the equalizer profiles.
FSR Frame gen ISN’T AFMF, which is great on older games capped at 60fps where you can easily get 120fps and it honestly feels fine.
and of course I know steamOS is just a distro, but they actually fine tuned stuff for gaming, and like I said, if you’re only gaming, sure SteamOS/Bazzite or whatever might just work. But if you use your computer for basically anything else, most people will still have issues.
All of what you described is just EXTRA work people need to know just to play games. The reality is that most “solutions” are always workarounds or alternatives. Most people prefer NATIVE first party support.
I really want to put Linux on my gaming PC, but I’m doubtful I can get my Rift S working on there. :/
Apparently there is an openxr driver for it, though, so I suppose I should at least give it a shot.
There’s absolutely no way I’m going to win11, though.
As someone who routinely used to sink thousands of hours into games, and by that I mean 3000 hrs. on R6-3, 2500 hrs. on Squad and so on, the predatory practices of Microsoft, Steam and game developers have just turned me off gaming completely.
There are still good game publishers like CD Projekt Red and Warhorse Studios. Plus lots of open source and indie gems. Gaming is a lot more than AAA and MOBAs.
Nobara or Pop! OS would be good choices.
Yeah, VR is still catching up, but I feel like (dual) booting to Win 10 just for specific purposes would greatly reduce the risk.
I’d just be scared of windows trying to clobber my nix partition.
Use separate disks.
Just installed ZorinOS on my PC (dual boot with Windows 11) and I’m playing Diablo 4 on Linux. How cool is this?
It’s so cool. We’ve been waiting for Linux to cover gaming and it really has with the push from Steam.
Bazzite is better imo
Yeah, this is why I never got into VR, the Linux support blows even if you get a supported headset because the games aren’t made for Linux. There are some games, sure, but it’s not worth spending $1k+ on an Index.
I’ll use it once the barrier to entry drops or Linux support improves.
I got my meta quest 2 working on Linux, so you should definitely just try :)
Your best shot is with Monado, which supports the Rift S: https://monado.freedesktop.org/
I only have an Index, so I can’t speak for how well it works or how easy it is to setup.
Is that Sam Reich in a penguin suit!?
October is going to be a great month to get a cheap second hand computer.
ooo and I bet they won’t be that bad all things considered with how wild some of the non supported hardware is.
It’s online corps offload computers but there will be a delay and many will just have the extended windows 10 supports. So I’d give it another year.
Good time to start looking for a good deal on cheap home lab crap though.
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People are too addicted to video games apparently
Gaming on Linux is better than it’s ever been. But yeah still a few Windows only releases, but that time is coming to an end I think.
Adobe and ease of use
I need Adobe, specifically Lightroom, because there’s no alternative. I can’t just stop using it as a semi-professional photographer (I make money from it, just not a ton).
Darktable doesn’t handle large libraries well and also is missing features such as AI remove and integration with photoshop for splitting photos up for social media posts.
Then Apple. Their M-series are fantastic, and their support cycles are great. Also, taking marketshare from Microsoft is generally a good thing because it’ll force them to make a better product.
And I can’t game on Apple. A mac is a useless brick for the remaining 50% of what I do on a computer.
I highly recommend separate machines for work and personal/play.
If you need Adobe stuff for play, then a separate drive for Windows makes a ton of sense.
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If it came down to ditching adobe or quitting photography I would quit photography and I love taking photos lol.
Adobe is a threat to the photography industry for many reasons (especially to future photographers who want to follow in your footsteps) you should reconsider your options.
Sorry but then you will have to continue living on your knees, drinking verification cans at their mercy and pray they don’t alter the deal again (they will).
OK but people who need Adobe are a really small minority.
my main problems are the lack of support for Adobe programs and several online games
Fair, but that’s not a Linux problem. Publishers need to support the platform. Is windows bad for not “running” final cut?
I’m going to go against the grain here a bit and say that people considering a switch to Linux need to have certain expectations going into it. There are zero guarantees that anything Linux will be a “just works” operation. Especially when you get into the laptop scene and proprietary hardware.
Like sometimes an update will break things. Sometimes you will break things and spend time fixing it. Sometimes a piece of software and/or hardware will just not work at all and you’ll try convoluted workarounds that may or may not work. Linux support is often an afterthought considering <5% of desktop users use it. Popular programs and software are often just not available at all and the FOSS alternatives lack features you may need.
I truly feel that Linux is like the “I own an old hotrod in my garage and work on it as a hobby” compared to “I drive a cheap commuter car and just want it to work”. Yes windows breaks sometimes too, and I hate using their current operating system at work with telemetry and ads and knee-crippling limitations or random ass crashes, etc.
But I’ve also been in the position that I woke up one day and updated Garuda Linux and spent the entire day trying to not boot into a plain black screen when I had my KVM connected. I finally got my fstab working to mount my NFS share of my NAS after months of fucking with it when I feel like this is an incredibly easy “problem” that’s solution should have been apparent for the last 30 years or so and in my eyes should be something the OS should just “do on its own” automatically.
All that being said, I still love Linux and will never use anything else on my systems. I enjoy the tweaking of things, experimenting, having all the control I could ever want.
Linux is like the “I own an old hotrod in my garage and work on it as a hobby” compared to “I drive a cheap commuter car and just want it to work”
Really?
Linux gives you choice, sure, but it doesn’t just randomly break unless you’re doing something exotic.
Garuda Linux
There’s your problem, you’re using a bleeding edge distro, which is like having a hotrod.
If you want a boring commuter, install a boring commuter distro, like Debian. If you want something fresher, there are a lot of options before you get to Arch-based distros, like Fedora. Stick to the most popular distros and you probably won’t have problems.
Don’t get me wrong, Arch can be fantastic, I ran it for several years with minimal problems, but you really do need to be ready to step in and get your hands dirty.
My main advice is to go in expecting to need to replace software. A lot of stuff works (e.g. discord, Steam, etc), but a lot of stuff doesn’t. If you’re flexible, use a mainstream distro, and stick to what’s available in the repo or on flathub, it’ll probably be more stable than Windows. Just don’t expect your random RGB app or whatever to work, and be ready to swap some POS hardware if the manufacturer doesn’t support Linux (e.g. certain WiFi vendors that aren’t Intel).
Also, don’t expect Linux to make things faster, you’re still limited by your hardware. But do expect common tasks to work well.
Linux is like the “I own an old hotrod in my garage and work on it as a hobby” compared to “I drive a cheap commuter car and just want it to work”
Really?
Linux gives you choice, sure, but it doesn’t just randomly break unless you’re doing something exotic.
I see it more as a pre-built kit RC car (like Traxxas or Arrma stuff) that in stock form (like a Debian or Fedora distro) is acceptable for 99% of the things we want to do with it, but also allows you to get under the hood and tweak/upgrade/change the inner workings to your liking with support from the manufacturer. Unlike other prebuilt cars from the toy store that have no real upgrade opportunities and don’t want you under the hood, they are as-delivered with no other options…
Anyway…
Also, don’t expect Linux to make things faster, you’re still limited by your hardware. But do expect common tasks to work well.
Very well put.
Especially when you get into the laptop scene and proprietary hardware.
Pro-tip for those who go this route: get a Thinkpad T or P series. Both are highly-supported by Linux, come in Intel and AMD flavors, and even have extra power-management features and utilities no other laptops have.
The Linux experience is a spectrum. Just like owning a car, sure there are people who own custom hotrods. But there are also enterprise level work trucks that can carry thousands of tons. There’s all sorts if in between, including small town cars, hatchbacks and buses. Just like they’re all vehicles of all different sorts, there’s also all sorts of Linux.
Buy System76 or Framework laptops and you’ll never have a driver problem. Use a stable user friendly distro like Mint and your experience will be smooth sailing. Use an immutable distro and you cannot wreak your system. Hire a pro data center and they’ll set you up with enterprise level servers. TrueNAS sells hardware and also distributes a high compatibility community Linux distro for NAS.
Now, use a niche experimental distro packaged by a single developer on their free time. Well, don’t act surprised if it breaks.
It is a bit against the grain, but also very true
The question was why it’s hard for people to switch to Linux. They answered the question. It doesn’t matter if it’s Linux’s “fault” or not.
Not the fault of Linux, but these are still the “problem” OP asked about regarding switching to Linux.
pragmatist and whatever you call the other guy talking past each other
It is, but i wanted to contextualize it for them and others reading. People sometimes have some idea that it would be impossible to port due to some inhernat aspect to linux. Might be true for something that makes heavy windows API use, but for many others its just a business case. And I wanted emphasis that a bit
I have never run into anyone who thinks it would be impossible to port Photoshop to Linux.
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Sadly nothing for Adobe InDesign, which is like 2/3 of my workflow :( (Also I don’t see an option to filter to Linux programs on that site.)
I spent half hour searching on alternativeto.net just now, but for the 3 Adobe programs I use (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop) all FLOSS Linux options seem to be lacking essential features. Based on comments, even in more popular alternatives, features like PDF exporting or CMYK colour handling require workarounds or additional external programs.
(Re. searching only for FLOSS: I’m not opposed to paying for software, but when I enabled that option on alternativeto.net, a lot of results were subscription-based, which I do strongly oppose :/ )
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The problem is there are a billion versions of linux, idk what one to choosex idk if i can play my steam games on linux, everyone who talks about linux seems to be a programmer /coder, and uses jargon that i don’t even understand, so idk if I’ll even be able to USE linux. And if I ask any questions I feel like it’s all gonna end up sounsing like another language to me.
The whole idea of moving to linux is overwhelming.
But I’m starting to hate windows 11. And fuck Apple all together.
At some point you were foreign to windows also. Everything must have also felt new and weird. The only way to make it feel not new is experience. One way to do that is to stop thinking if you choice the right one the first time. Get your mindset back to learning the whole system, keep and open mind. Go Linux Mint feel it out. Another is stay on Windows 10 and wait it out perhaps Microsoft will budge and allow outdated systems to install Windows 11 with support.
Just use Ubuntu. It’s super easy and built for folks new to Linux. Plus steam plays all games on Linux, so no worries there.
You can duck duck go any question and then add “ubuntu” to the end and get help. No reason not to at this point.
Try them here: https://distrosea.com/
I suggest Cinnamon Ubuntu for a combination of Mint and Ubuntu and the best of both worlds. It’s got the Mint Windows like front end, with Ubuntu in the back. Most help online is for Ubuntu anyway and it’s better with games imo.
https://distrosea.com/select/ubuntucinnamon/
My partner is a gamer and this is what I’m bringing him in on this summer.
Mint is Ubuntu with cinnamon minus snap +user friendliness
This is already too jargon filled for a new user and overwhelming. I already went through this with my partner who told me off for it lol.
Two things.
One: You could literally say use Linux Mint in 2010 and in 2025 and be ok. You don’t need to know about the totality of the ecosystem in order to use Linux any more than you must understand the totality automotive tech and every car to pick one and drive. If you pick the something different its also probably good enough.
Two: If they really are too stupid at some degree of ineptitude they are just going to need to pay someone smarter their money whether that is Apple, another Windows machine, or even a Linux OEM. Installing your own OS on an infinite range of hardware with a range of support is never going to be so easy someone who is entirely tech illiterate can do it and that is ok.
It’s not wise to assume someone is stupid based on ability with technology. This is why Linux fans drive people away and harm adoption.
In my experience on average the incompetent are also kind of stupid. Is your experience different?
Sounds like Mint but worse.
I’m not a programmer or coder and I’ve been using Linux for about a year. It’s been really user friendly after I figured out what distros are and which one to choose. I highly recommend Linux Mint Debian Edition. It’s worked quite well for me and was not a huge jump from windows because the user interface is similar. All you need to install it is a thumb drive.
I like playing games on steam and haven’t had any issues. There’s this really cool website called protondb where you can search steam game compatibility with Linux. For the few that aren’t compatible, oftentimes people share fixes which usually consists of copy pasting stuff on there.
Okay yeah, 2 other comments suggested Mint, I’ll look into it
And thanks for letting me know about protondb, sounds promising!
I can’t really think of a better example of what you’re talking about than that there’s three other people replying to this, each recommending you use a different flavor of linux…
Lmfao yes, case in point.
But I’m going ahead and trying to sift through all the info I’m getting here, and so far I’m getting the idea that what ever I start with should at least have the word Mint
Yeah, Mint is fine and has enough users to have decent guides out there, a broad support system and great comparability. Think of it like a phone: you can pick a Samsung phone of a specific model, or a Motorola, or a Google Pixel or whatever and they can all run the same apps. The brand and model are mostly a preference thing, and while they do have their differences, once you have an Android phone you can see what those differences are firsthand and change later down the road. The biggest shift would be going from an iPhone to any Android phone. Later on you can worry about which Android brand you like best, what you like about specific interfaces or whatever. Some are nicer to use than others for sure, but it’s not as big of a deal as some people make it out to be as long as you get something generally popular, modern and with enough support/backing/users.
Eh, I gave them one. The others are also fine.
Just use Ubuntu. (Surely I’ll get hate for this.)
It’s based on Debian, a major branch off the tree. It just fucking works. Millions of tutorials, groups, etc. to find troubleshooting info. Probably won’t have to do anything to get a machine running that does everything you’re doing now.
Get the swing of that and go from there, if you want to try other branches.
This realization helped me quite a bit: Windows does all sorts of arcane voodoo with the registry and DLLs and such. Weirdness Linux appeals to many because all the configuration is contained in simple text files. Got a program that reads and writes plain old text? Aight. You can configure Linux. In a way, it’s so simple it’s hard to get your head around coming from Windows.
tl;dr: Just download and install Ubuntu. Go from there with your nicely working machine.
Yes, I hate it.
Use Mint - it works better than Ubuntu, Canonical has made enough ‘mistakes’ to get on the blacklist.
So basically, Ubuntu just with a different name and paint job. (I’ve used them both)
We are all at the most basic level, running pretty much the same kernel, one of the same small handful of desktop environments, and we choose from the same pool of software, (unless you need to get out into the weeds for a program on git hub). Everything else is either window dressing, (package mangers are window dressing-- they all do the same basic thing), or a choice on just how close to the bleeding edge we want to be, (rolling releases or immutable).
No snap by default is on its own a huge difference. Far from window dressing.
If you give a new user snaps, many things will not work as they expect, and that is not a hurdle beginners should have to pass.
Nobody cares about kernel, I don’t even know anyone who builds their own (I use Gentoo btw), they either go bleed, or stable, nothing in between.
But package delivery matters a lot.
It’s still the same function at the base level-- to deliver and install/remove, in an easy manor, whatever software package the user wants to use/remove. Whether it’s a good system or not, is a separate issue.
Every Ubuntu based distro I’ve tested allows snaps. The highly touted beginner’s distro Linux Mint sure does. Even Fedora can use snaps and Ubuntu can use flatpaks if you want to be that silly. I have tested that both ways and it worked. But it was merely OKish. It’s just Ubuntu pushes snaps and Fedora pushes flatpaks. So snaps aren’t as insular as you seem to think.
For the user, there isn’t much difference between a snap, flatpak, deb, or rpm in use. The basic install or remove experience is meant to be the same, it’s supposed to be a carefully curated point and click. Even Gentoo’s portage is supposed to be simple for the user. The one other not quite as common, but a bit more universal installation method for users is the appImage package. I use several appImages because that’s the only way they are available. And personally, over the nearly 3 decades of fooling with Linux, I’ve had issues with all of the package management methods. I still have PTSD from being repeatedly caught in rpm hell back in the day or needing to compile from source. (Damn, I’m old)
The longer I use Linux, the more I think that whatever distro you choose, it’s more a matter of how you personally vibe with that distro than anything intrinsically better than the rest of them. Just about everything else is window dressing.
Just get Mint, you’ll be fine.
I’m a noob, and Mint fully works. I had only the smallest of learning humps before I was set. Mint reminds me of Window’s glory days, and it makes me happy 😊
Ubuntu, PopOS, or Linux Mint. All different interface, but largely identical.
(Taking your questions seriously and attempting to offer genuine and practical advice with some of my usual psychotic sense of humor)
There aren’t billions of versions of Linux, only tens of thousands. Of those, some are meant for servers, some are meant for embedded devices, some are meant for supercomputers, some haven’t been updated in a decade and some are for specific weird niches. Filter out the joke ones like Hannah Montana Linux and what you’ll have left are five major distros called Red Hat, Debian, Slackware, Arch and SuSe. These five are quite different from each other, they do things like develop their own package managers and such. Most other distros are minor modifications of these, most of the time just including a different desktop environment or included software. Debian’s forks include Ubuntu, Linux Mint, ElementaryOS and Neon. Fedora is a fork of Red Hat, Manjaro, EndeavourOS and SteamOS are forks of Arch, and I’m sure Slackware and SuSe have been forked too. The majority of forks are “What if this distro, but this desktop instead of that one?” This is why there are three different versions of Linux Mint, your choice of Cinnamon, xfce and MATE desktops. How do you choose? Try a few and see which one you like best. They’re all free.
You can play Steam games on Linux. Valve has gone BIG into Linux compatibility, their Steam Deck handheld gaming PC ships with a Linux operating system called SteamOS which as previously mentioned is a fork of Arch Linux that comes with the KDE desktop. They have a compatibility layer called Proton which, if I understand the tech correctly, translates DirectX API calls into Vulkan API calls which Linux can understand. At this point, the vast, vast majority of Windows games just work on Linux. The one big sticking point at the moment are kernel-level anticheat systems often used in competitive multiplayer games. The developer has to specifically choose to release a Linux version that enables this, and most don’t. So there are some games to include Fortnite that the developers have specifically chosen to not run on Linux. I’ve been PC gaming exclusively on Linux for over a decade now.
A lot of Linux users are indeed programmers, developers or sysadmins. I’ll remind you that Android and ChromeOS are also both Linux operating systems. Many distros these days have complete and polished graphical desktop environments that make the OS similar to use to Windows or MacOS. Take a look at Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition, I bet you’ll find your way around.
Linux community doesn’t help the user friendly nature of the OS, that’s true. Steam deck runs Linux so if it works on steam deck it will likely work on Linux mint or Ubuntu.
Lots of terminal help and outdated forum posts make it feel difficult to manage Linux, you’re right it is overwhelming and it’s not going to have full software compatibility, but if you spend lots of time in the browser and rely on web services it works fairly well over all and is generally low maintenance if you stick to the App Store and use graphic user interfaces.
Set a usage scenario (Desktop, Gaming), decide if you want rock-solid or fancy new features, then google it. And add the word “beginner” if you’re new to linux.
good simple advice, I like it
I’m coming from a non programmer perspective who has been on linux just short of a year. I work in finance but use CachyOS on my personal computer and laptop. I started with PopOs because I had heard that it was “out of the box for nvidia gaming” but soon after learned that most gaming distros are just advertised as such because of pre installed ease of use programs. Proton, wine, etc will run on most forks of linux and the distro you choose matters less and less the more familiar you get with using linux. I recommend CachyOS as a first distro because the installer allows you to choose your desktop environment / window manager. Allows for more options for a beginner so you don’t feel limited to what is packaged in other “beginner friendly” distros.
Note that anticheat is still the biggest pain point for linux compatibility layers so I just go on ProtonDB, check to see if the anticheat allows for linux, and if not I have a dual boot of debloated/removed telemetry windows that can run those games. Within my time using it, only rainbow 6 has required me to launch the windows instance. Aside from that all my singleplayer and multiplayer games run, albeit some with a 5% performance decrease (but that’s more of an Nvidia issue than an inherent linux issue).
My advice is to just try it. Doesn’t take much time or effort to back up your necessary files and just switch even if temporarily just to see if it’s for you :)
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everyone who talks about linux seems to be a programmer /coder, and uses jargon that i don’t even understand
I’ve been pointing that out for a while, but unfortunately there is a vocal subset of the community that thinks referring people to just read technical manuals is fine (if you can’t, just learn to read it, duh).
Some things are concepts you’ll learn easily, don’t worry, and for the rest, you’ll always find someone willing to break it down if you manage to look past the snobs. If you want, shoot me a DM if you just want to understand a specific term without someone making you feel like an idiot.
The problem is there are a billion versions of linux, idk what one to choose
There are plenty of suggestions here. Ubuntu is what got me started and I still think it’s a good start*. Mint is from the same family, “Pop! OS” too (the name sounds silly to me, but it’s legit and popular for a reason). Just look at pictures and see what seems prettiest to you, then go with that. The usage won’t be too different.
The grandpa of that family is Debian, but I’m not sure it’s quite as user-friendly out of the box. I’m mentioning it in case you come across the term.The other big families are Fedora and Arch. I personally use a Fedora-Child, but to keep things narrow, I recommend the three mentioned above as starters.
* If you come across people hating Ubuntu - including myself - it’s usually for ideological reasons rather than usability ones. Don’t worry about that for now. Getting into the weeds of things is a skill you don’t have yet and that’s perfectly fine.
if i can play my steam games on linux
Steam, fortunately, is the one platform that works best with Linux. For their handheld, they decided to flip off MS and made their own Linux, along with a wrapper tool to make all the games run on it anyway.
You may hear the terms “compatibility layer”, “Proton” and “wine”, which is exactly that: A tool to make Windows stuff run on Linux. Again, don’t worry about the specifics, just believe me: I’m playing almost all of my steam games just as I used to.
If there is a specific game you care about, https://www.protondb.com/ has a large store of knowledge. Some things run out of the box, some may require a few extra settings that are usually easy to add, and if there ever is a thing you don’t understand, my offer stands.
The whole idea of moving to linux is overwhelming.
It’s a scary plunge, a leap of faith, but I assure you: There are people ready to catch you at the bottom. The reception wasn’t as warm when I jumped off of Win7, and the snobs are still around, but things have improved a lot over the past few years. Trust me, trust us: You won’t be left alone.
The fact that people HAD to learn to use Windows, too. It’s just in the past and appears easy because they already can. If a person used computers with Linux from the start, it would be as easy for them as for Windows users.
That, and that practically all courses that taught (teach?) how to use a computer, use Windows, MS Office, and other Windows-based software.
There was some nonprofit (I think it was One Laptop Per Child) that gave laptops with Linux preinstalled, Sugar for elementary school students and I think Ubuntu for highschool students.
My youngest niece at least knows her way around Ubuntu.
there is a vocal subset of the community that thinks referring people to just read technical manuals is fine
I mean, I agree, it’s not ideal. Just to point out though… Windows is also not really well documented, and if you have an issue that’s a bit on the unusual side? You can find yourself skimming forums for days, or just saying fuck it and reinstalling. There’s definitely more information out there on Windows troubleshooting, but it has market dominance and it would be insane if there wasn’t loads out there.
If you come across people hating Ubuntu - including myself - it’s usually for ideological reasons rather than usability ones.
Yeah, fuck canonical! Shame they make a fairly decent and stable distro…
I got pushed away from arch because of the constant RTFM answer to questions when trying to google solutions to problems. Half the time they wouldn’t even link the actual part of the manual they were talking about and just linked the whole thing to the person in question.
Running gentoo now and couldn’t be happier with the community and how helpful people are.
Yeah, I’m not on base Arch. I run Garuda Arch, it’s a quite polished derivative.
Things that drew me to, and kept me on Garuda:- Flavours in:
-KDE(lite & several other KDE based including a gaming flavour with options for a bunch of preconfigured programs)
-GNOME
-Cinnamon
-XFCE
-SWAY
-i3
-Hyprland
-A NixOS subsystem
-COSMIC - The forums are highly active, any issues that aren’t already covered in the forum the Devs are really quick to respond to. Think the longest I waited for a Dev or mod/admin to hop into a question I posted was 45mins.
- The gaming flavour’s preconfigured bits work exceedingly well OOTB
If you’re feeling a hankering to distro-hop, I would highly recommend Garuda.
I’ll check it out. Ive been running a single distro for almost a month which is far too long.
Yeesh! Well…now you can install every flavour of Garuda! 🤣 12 flavours should keep you busy for at least an afternoon!
- Flavours in:
A lot of Windows troubleshooting info, even on Microsoft forums, is frankly garbage responses to reboot this, regedit that without any real fixing involved. The Linux stuff I find much better, especially when one of the actual developers gets involved which isn’t that uncommon.
If you don’t know what to choose, just pick Mint and give it a try. It’s not that difficult. Don’t go for those things, which need more knowledge, start with the easiest one and if your knowledge is growing and you are willing to do distro hopping, you can try more complex stuff.
Install Linux Mint Cinnamon. You don’t need to be a coder and there is a discord for any tech support needs
Gaming. The only reason I went from Ubuntu to Windows.
steam and heroic launcher makes it very easy
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From games with anti cheats exclusively functional on windows I’m assuming. Otherwise gaming is on par
Gaming is 100 percent not ‘on par’ I’ve exclusively used Linux for years now, and consistently run into issues not present on windows.
Is it good enough? Almost, but there are hugely critical aspects missing.
Lots of simulators (I racing, fanatec) lack support Anti cheats as mentioned. Plain old poor performance.
Protondb only lists 20 percent of titles as ‘platinum’ rated, with most gold games needing tweaks.
30 percent of titles are silver or lower.
I still to this day get hitching and stuttering as data is streamed into memory in many games, sekiro recently comes to mind, making any level transition exceedingly annoying.
Gaming is 100 percent not ‘on par’ I’ve exclusively used Linux for years now, and consistently run into issues not present on windows.
I have a LARGE diverse library of games I bought when I was gaming on windows.
Literally all of them work fine on my steam deck except a handful of AAA games from companies hostile to linux (“anticheat” bs, they don’t want linux gaming to suceed for business reasons), some really ancient DOS games actually work better like Steel Panthers/winspmbt.
I am sorry but especially if you are into indie games even a little, your perspective is no longer indicative for the experience of gaming on linux in general.
Don’t gaslight me. The games you play may work fine, but the games I play don’t always. And the games I play are almost exclusively single player small scale indie games. I play games on Linux just about every day, exclusively. My experience is that, while serviceable it’s just strictly not on par, as you claim. Though you contradict yourself anyway by hand waving games that don’t work.
I don’t understand the need that people have to pretend like it’s all perfect. Attitude like yours is toxic, diminishing the experience of others in order to pretend like there are not any issues, trying to put the onus on the user for playing the wrong games or not conforming to the idea that proton is a perfect solution.
I don’t understand the need that people have to pretend like it’s all perfect.
I am not claiming it is perfect, I am saying the experience is already much less of a headache than windows is at this point with all of microsoft’s bs.
Not sure what made them not work, but this makes sense.
The anticheats harvest data that has value, it’s a business decision rather than a technical problem.
For your particular situation, checkout the site protondb. It’s a user contributed site on how to get all games to work
If it’s anticheat, blame the devs, because they’re specifically blocking Linux. If it’s something else, maybe we can help.
Just in case anyone reading doenst know - the free tool Rufus can write a Win 11 ISO to your usb drive md remove all the silly soft requirements.
Yeah, but will updates work? And even if they do, what’s stopping Microsoft in disabling them somehow?
Nowadays if you want to have usable Windows installation you need to use a bunch of 3rd party scripts that might break on next update. Learning Linux is easier than this shit.
I can’t wait for someone to ask me how to solve some shit in Windows, and me saying that I don’t have patience for this crap.
updates work.
MS won’t disable them - they want people to move to Windows 11.
Congrats on migrating to Linux! it’s what i’ve been pushing friends and family towards for decades, and thankfully Ubuntu is in a position right now to be a fine desktop OS, esp for the average user who lives in a web browser.
I am using Debian stable, since I no longer care about having latest stuff and the whole Debian-like ecosystem is what I am the most familiar with. As for Ubuntu I never had good experience with it, with random crashes all the time last time I used it (about 10-12 years ago), and when I tried it last year, I encountered random crashes in GNOME apps just after finishing setup.
Linux Mint (regular or LMDE) is what I’d probably install on other people computers though. Literally never had problems with it (used it about 10 years ago on a netbook).
sure sounds like you have some funny hardware configurations with all these issues you have across OSes.
👍
Or better yet, windows 10 LTSC. Which will be supported for another 2 years. 4 if you subsequently switch the product key to the IOT LTSC version.
IOT version is supported until 2032
The hurdles windows users are willing to put up with is nothing less than amazing. That’s not a good thing.
Oh, I already have Linux on my laptop. It’s my desktop that still has some blockers preventing a full Linux transition.
Primarily the Pimax headset. Once I get a suitable replacement, I’ll actually be able to start testing and transferring stuff.Or look at it the other way: they hate Linux so much they’d rather deal with that than deal with Linux.
I would love to learn and deal with Linux, unfortunately the software I need for work only supports Mac or Win
It’s possible you can run it through wine, might be worth a try
Much business oriented software just hasn’t had the work done on it to work on Wine. Really the only reason I have to run Windows now is the 3D CAD software I use and my best option at this point is running it in a Windows VM on my server. And no Freecad and Fusion360 aren’t suitable options, they both suck.
The free OS Linux also doesn’t pull this crap, and Rufus can write a Linux ISO to your USB drive and remove Microsoft’s gaslighting from your life.
gaslighting
Bro, i cut my teeth on FreeBSD 2.2.x and served in the Great Linux / Windows wars of 95 and 98…
but im not so sure MS ever gaslit anyone. everyone seemed to have a pretty solid perception of reality.
Maybe the term gaslighting means something new to you 🤷
I use it in the sense that Microsoft is changing what you perceive to be ownership. They’re essentially gaslighting you into believing that they actually own your PC, and that you need to upgrade to be compatible with Windows, instead of Windows being compatible with your hardware.
I use it in the sense
right, like i figured, you’ve got your own definition 👍
They’re essentially gaslighting you into believing that they actually own your PC
can you share some examples of this behavior?
Here’s the definition I see:
psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator
My use is a bit hyperbolic, sure, but it’s in the same vein.
Microsoft has slowly been taking more control:
- Microsoft Store w/ UWP apps - attempt at lock-in
- secure boot - makes some sense kn corporate devices, little sense on consumer devices and just forced Linux distros to scramble to support it
- Windows login - first optional, then default, then you need a workaround to avoid it
- Windows 11 essentially forcing a hardware upgrade, not for performance reasons, but “lock-in” reasons (need TPM because… security?)
They’re really trying to take the “personal” out of “personal computer,” all in the name of “security,” implying that other approaches are “insecure.”
In other words, they’re trying to alter what we see as “reality” when it comes to control over our own devices.
My use is a bit hyperbolic
it really is, across the board.
It’s not 1998 anymore. No one cares about the desktop anymore as long as you can run Firefox.
I absolutely care, but maybe that’s because I’m a developer by trade.
Windows updates don’t work correctly a lot of the time if you’ve bypassed the requirements. My predecessor at work installed 11 on some ancient systems and it’s been a hassle.
I’ve had no issues on the machines i’ve done this with, aside from having to do an upgrade in place with a major update (used rufus, write the latest iso, did the upgrade from the bootable usb.
regular windows updates work without hassle. perhaps your predecessor didn’t use a complete solution 🤷
Yes. The totaly real PC trade-in market…
At best, I’ve seen a small discount and whatever is traded in is junked to keep it off the second-hand market.
You could probably trade it in a pawn shop, now that I think agian about it.
jokes on them i just erased my windows and put mint on it
My Acer Nitro with OpenSUSE says hi 👋
I use Arch btw.
Hi from a Thinkpad running Debian (Mint), as God intended
Arch heretic here (long time Mint user).
“In the name of our Lord I implore thee to embrace Linux Mint. For it is a software that shall free thy computer from its earthly shackles and grant thee access to infinite knowledge of the cosmos.”
Matthew 23:23
No offense to Matthew, but I never got the Mint installer to boot, so I installed a different distro.
Im going to get so many pc upgrades. woohoo.
Ah, the old Ben Shapiro logic. If you don’t want your house that’s at risk of flooding, don’t worry, simply sell it! Someone’s bound to give you a good price for it!
Hmm. I wonder if Aquaman is in the market for some old computers.
Sell it to the merpeople, they’ll be happy to have a proper house for once!
Trade in to whom, to Linux users?.. Actually a good idea, not sure MS understood which almost logically complete advice they gave.
Hot take from an IT guy: save your important data, make a plain vanilla W11 boot USB (nothing fancy, no Rufus tricks), wipe your hard drive to zeroes, and install W11 like normal. I’ve reimaged a ton of older PCs and literally never seen it not work. My 10 year old Optiplex, supposedly ineligible for W11, runs W11 just fine.
Microsoft might someday break it, sure. That’s not new. Microsoft products were always, in practice, available to us at Microsoft’s pleasure. This is the same company that allows massgrave to exist on github because they’d rather we pirate MS Office than allow LibreOffice any oxygen. We’ll probably be fine.
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I will almost guarantee some update will break shit at the most inconvenient time humanly possible and the people you’ve done this for will need your help, all at the same time.
Well, yeah. That’s life as an admin under the best circumstances. There’s a running list of Windows ticking time bombs over on r/sysadmin. There are lots of good reasons to ditch Windows, but I wouldn’t say the risk of MS shutting down technically unsupported hardware is one of them (because I don’t agree it’s a substantial risk).
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I’m imagining me doing this to my building of elderly, it dies and then opening my eyes to 40 work orders. Lmao
Why not install Linux for them once Windows 10 is dead?
They are a prime candidate for a dead simple Linux distro with the “Web”, “Mail” and “Documents” shortcuts on the desktop and nothing else. Can’t get a virus, can’t get scammed by fake Microsoft support and most won’t even notice.
I have installed Fedora Kinoite for my mom and have had zero complaints.
It’s on the to do list for sure. Currently getting them off their external antivirus’ is a challenge.
Most are in their 80s. Think it’ll be next generation honestly. Some dont even have phones or email addresses.
Had one who got a Chromebook and was just at a loss. Tbf that was an ass Chromebook but that was still too much for her.
Most have ollllld computers that are hitting the hardware failure stage. I’ve seen a god damn Vista machine at work.
I’m gonna convert someone. Just finding someone who is aware of what a tab in a browser is a rare occurrence currently lol
