A couple weeks ago I attempted to switch over to Linux. Tried installing both Cachyos and Nobara. It was kind of a shit show, nothing worked correctly, stuff was erroring out and crashing left and right, and after a couple days I gave up.
Today I went ahead and installed windows 11. There were some issues… It wouldn’t recognize my CD key, and I accidentally wiped a partition from the wrong drive. But as for the os itself, I spent a few hours getting things set up, and it’s not as horrible as I thought it would be. I was able to simply turn off most of the shit like copilot and recall, and all the advertisements, and I pretty much have it working as I want it to.
I’ve been using Linux for years and I’ve never heard of the distros you just named.
I’m not surprised at all that you had trouble using niche distros. Try something more popular with good documentation so you have a community supporting you with bug testing, guides, and Q+As when people run into issues you might run into later.
My priorities are being able to run Davinci resolve and Steam games. Nobara ticks those boxes while advertising itself as user friendly. I have heard too many stories of people having trouble getting this stuff running on something like Linux mint, so I didn’t go in that direction. I need to do more with my computer than just view web sites or write code.
maybe try bazzite? i’ve found it to be a better experience than nobara and steam games run fine for me, aside from the obvious big titles that have anticheat issues.
I don’t really feel like going down the rabbit hole of trying a hundred different distros to maybe find one that works. My experiences with those two were that things were completely broken, randomly. Like just trying to boot the USB installer would lock up half the time, the installer itself would fail partway through most of the time, when things got fully installed, trying to update or install new things would just fail randomly. The kde desktop would crash just from me changing settings in the kde menus.
I would try Ubuntu in your shoes, personally. It’s got downsides but it’s definitely plug and play. I don’t know what metrics distrowatch uses to rate distros but it’s widely known that Ubuntu is user friendly as hell.
If you ever give it a go again, I’d suggest trying to get used to software that you’d need to use on Linux (aka, alternatives that won’t work well outside of windows). I already used a lot of free openscource software that works on Linux like libre office, krita, kdenlive, obs, when i used windows. That made swapping a lot more comfortable. Next I really recomend something like Linux mint, or popos (look up screenshots and decide witch one looks cooler) then, if you are enjoying it after a few months, give arch or nixos a try, or don’t if the distro you use does what you want, and you found ways to make it work for you, then stick with it. I hope the next time you give it a try works out better for you.
Da Vinci Resolve has native Linux builds though and should work. And does on Ubuntu based, Rocky Linux, arch and NixOS. I’m not sure about Nobora (Fedora based).
Though it’s hard to know what went wrong with vague descriptions like “everything was crashing”…
No way I’m switching to Linux yet, multi monitors support with mixed resolutions and vrr on nvidia still kinda sucks. As soon as someone makes that work I’ll try it out on a separate partition. Buy last time I tried my other monitors had all kinds of issues when I had games open with gysnc
I’m using multi monitors with mixed resolutions and a very old nvidia card (gtx 670).
The only problem I have is that if I put them to sleep, while autorandr or whatever gets me the resolutions and layout back, the app windows move around like crazy because they all wake up at different times, likely due to a mix of HDMI + DVI + DisplayPort connections.
Edit: I see now, this is only an issue when we are talking about vrr simultaneously.
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!
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.
…all the IT savvy folks 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. No clue if he’s gonna have me or ask if Mr. IT can do it, though, if he follows through. 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.
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 common
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).
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.
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).
Again, infinite free troubleshooting if you run into any issues, feel free to message me! I’ve given a bunch of people bazzite at this point, and can run you through just about anything.
Make sure not to accidentally choose “steam gaming mode”, on the download since that’ll turn it into basically a steam-deck interface.
I literally just swapped my key for my win10 pc’s to win10 ltsc iot with mass and now dont have to worry for wayy longer. I suggest everyone without the option to switch to do the same.
I tried a few but couldn’t get them to work. I think the issue was my 1080ti GPU. I did get one of the other recommended Debian kde plasma builds installed and that one is looking nice. I was having issues with getting the same games to run that work on my steam deck. Probably just need to spend more time on it.
SteamOS-like distributions probably aren’t for you right now. nvidia has massively improved over the year but it’s still not on par with AMD.
Using an immutable distro (which Steam OS and its kind are) is just going to complicate things. Your easiest bet is using a distro that will install the correct drivers at install, like pop_os or mint.
100% worth it. I’ve had a few issues early on but I’m rocking oldish hardware (6700k, 2080 ti). It’s been rock solid for the last 6 months though. A lot of games that ran semi poorly in Windows run great now (Control and Arkham Knight def come to mind) and some cpu heavy bullet hell style games slow to a crawl now much earlier on (I can get sub 20 fps real quick in Rogue Genesia).
The basics (getting the OS installed, some initial settings to your liking etc) is quick. Managed to go from “completely untouched build” to “we gaming on Linux now boys” in a couple hours and most of that was waiting for BG3 to download on my 100Mbit connection. Pretty much everything I needed worked right on the first boot. Then again, I didn’t have much data to transfer over.
My old as hell PC died I’m getting a steam deck as a replacement with a dock and …so I’ll just be dual booting into windows 11 and obviously steam OS when I decide to play hand held.
I would love some advice, personally. How big of an issue is this really? Like…do I really have to care if there aren’t system updates anymore? How big of a security risk is it actually?
Well the thing is, we don’t know. Maybe 10 is patched so well that no one is hanging onto a major exploit just waiting for EOL. Or so well that no new major exploits are found (extremely unlikely). Then so long as you’re just gaming or watching YouTube it doesn’t really matter.
But someone could be holding onto one or someone could stumble into one. And all it takes is one. So it’s always just a gamble with unknowable odds.
I wonder if I could jail it from the rest of my network.
The problem I guess is if I dual boot, I wont feel like the data on linux is safe, and Id need to ensure I set up and take down the jail while booting windows…
I guess I should just fix the linux issues that make my gaming experience less fun. Maybe I need a fancier graphics card.
In the short-term (0-6mo, maybe less): probably nothing really changes. It’s not super likely that anyone would be holding on to a massive flaw, waiting for EOL. Nothing stops Microsoft from patching after EOL for something major, they’ve done it before.
Medium-term (maybe up to a year or two): you’re looking at real potential to get infected with --who-knows-what–. Hard to say how long it would take or how widespread it would be.
Longer term: massive, massive security hole. Microsoft has probably even patched a major thing or two by now (despite EOL), but there will always be more
Already done. I dual boot at work (translated: I have a dormant win10 partition just in case, but I’m more likely to use my win10 VM in Linux) and at home I’m Linux only, having wiped my windows partition to reclaim the space within weeks of installing Linux.
I use Mint Cinnamon in both places. It’s a very polished, all in one, install and go OS. But it’s still Linux so I have the terminal available and I can find out how to fiddle with and change whatever I want.
For all manner of 2D desktop use, I find it superior to windows. Even being a very full-featured distro, when the software is made to serve the user and not 50 competing corporate priorities, you can tell. It’s so much more responsive and nice to use. (It is not flawless of course)
For gaming, I don’t play the newest stuff or multiplayer games with crazy anti-cheat, but I have not had any regrets so far. Many games have native Linux versions, probably thanks to valve and the Steam deck, but windows games running in proton have been smooth sailing for me.
I think I’ve just dealt with enough computer crap in my life that I prefer using not just Linux apps but FOSS software for as much as I can. If some game or some photo editing suite will absolutely not work in Linux or work acceptably in a VM, I am fine with it not existing in my world. I used to not find that acceptable, but now I’m over it. In a chill way though, not an angry anti-Microsoft way.
Bought my wife a framework laptop, slapped fedora on it and have been helping her make the switch. So far so good other than Obsidian not working the same as OneNote.
How’ve you/her liked the Framework? Which one did you get? I’ve been considering one for months but I don’t have a huge need but it’d be nice to have a solid laptop rather than my Chromebook that I’m running Arch on when I’m on my couch.
Framework 13 DIY edition. I’ve been quite happy so far and so has she. Configuring it was trivial and the one issue I ran into (setting up backups) was due to my not being familiar with fedora and KDE. Build quality is good, the bezel was the only part that gave me pause. She doesn’t use it a ton so it’s likely any minor nagging quirks will take a while to tease out.
It was tricky to get it to snap into place cleanly and I had to jostle some of the monitor wires into place while installing. The instructions did note that this was a common challenge point and so I was prepared for moving the wires. Once installed it’s good quality.
I don’t think this is super uncommon but in harder difficulties of Terraria, I just play the game as a fishing game. I pretty much exclusively fish for the first few hours of the game and gear up solely through fishing. Then I repeat for the 2nd half of the game as well. I’m also setting up huts in every biome location to do fishing quests.
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