Linux is better than Windows.
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.
LOL the suppliers I work with ONLY Support IE 6 to 9. If they could still get away with DOS and intranets they would.
Id run Linux if it could run the apps I need efficiently
use alternatives if possible
It’s not possible
What apps?
Ableton, FL Studio plus all the vsts I use. Plus all the adobe I use plus all the games I play that are windows only
All the games that I play are Windows-only too and they run just fine via Proton.
Yeah I don’t feel like running an emulation or a script to just play a game though. If I want to use Linux. I’ll use it on a laptop for web browsing. It’s a useless OS for me personally for every day life that has very little support from other companies.
Yeah I don’t feel like running an emulation or a script to just play a game though.
You open Steam, click Play, and the game launches.
The same as it does on Windows.
Linux has great DAWs, bridges for vsts, alternatives for Adobe software and tons of games. The issue is your unwillingness to try something new, which is fine, but that’s not a knock to Linux.
This is very realistic and fair, I don’t subscribe to the ideologist out of touch bs personally even though I first compiled Gentoo 20 years ago.
I run Mac as my daily driver for convenience and stability but use the terminal for a ton of things and SSH into various Linux servers for my work. I run a VM in Parallels for the handful of apps which only work on windows, and generally avoid them unless they’re the only option.
Basically, what I’m saying is even if you’re dependent on some Windows only apps, you might find you have a better quality of life by making those the exception (running them in a VM) but using a more stable OS as the underlying OS.
Rolling releases go brrrrrr.
Here’s a list of End-of-Life dates for CentOS Stream which is a rolling release.
So it’s a semi-rolling release then.
the penguin migration was going just fine, until nvidia 570.124.04 dropped, which is when the misery started. :|
Got to check if I can roll back to earlier version.
Linux is super reliable, and unless you use cutting edge distro, it’s pretty rare than anything breaks. Even Fedora is pretty stable from experience
The only true problems I ever had (and still has), were with Nvidia. And switching distros ain’t saving you. Linux mint? Breaks on suspend. Nobara? Memory leak. Trying newer versions to see if it fixes it? Where’s my bootloader…
I do understand that laptop RTX 3070 are not common, but still. I just want it to work, and have cuda on it. Is that too much to ask?
unless you use cutting edge distro
yea well, “arch btw”. Haven’t had issues really, been running it for years on other systems but my gaming pc with nvidia is the only one with issues… because of course it does. :D
Of course. Mileage may vary. On some systems it may always work, on others it’s “what’s broken this week”.
word. some devices just have angry machine spirits which just can’t be pleased.
Have you tried feeding them your youngest children?
Never had an issue with Nvidia. But then I’m using an Ubuntu distro because I just want my computer to work and I don’t care about bleeding edge / rolling distros.
And I will move to Wayland in a few years when all the issues are sorted out, which I suspect is part of people’s problems.
Linux is super reliable
It depends on what you want to do with it, which version of which component you run and a couple of other things. In my own experience, if you want a “super reliable” system, get OpenBSD. Linux has a severe lack of QA, mainly because of its decoupled nature.
I’m currently on that version. May I ask what happened or what should I expect?
rtx3090, 5800x3d, wayland, sddm, kde:
- whole system freezes on boot (with somewhat garbled display) when display manager starts (sddm) - IF >1 displays are plugged in/powered on.
- no issues if sddm starts with one display, and THEN powering up second. - But this has to be done while in sddm, before logging in.
- whole system can (with high chance) freeze again on desktop if at any point a screens are connected/disconnected
- krunner works exactly once, after that it logs errors in journal that some display reference is wrong (the exact wording escapes me atm)
all these things were fine with 570.86.something - the previous version, which apparently was beta.
Laughs in rolling release
laughs in kernel panics
I’m running nixos unstable. I did get some panics while hibernating with one kernel version, but otherwise it’s been super stable.
Enabling threadedirqs (real-time feature) on the kernel command line does make the kernel panic on boot though.
So glad I came back to Linux a couple years ago. I only use my windows partition to play a game that won’t work as well in Linux, and that list is pretty small for the games I play. Even BG3 worked great in Mint, using a 6 year old build.
I’d switch in a heartbeat if Linux can play all my games including non-steam ones
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.
Voice of reason right here
That’s probably true. Windows cannot run all Windows games either.
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
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?
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.
Kung fu only or see who clicks faster with 5-7?
Hahaha a person of culture.
I’m huge on the Contender. I’m terrible at naked kung fu.
I have the least experience amogus my friend group but sometimes I do a bit of blow while playing… Every time I do, I top the leaderboards. It’s wild. PED.
I played this a lot back in the day online, and it was the absolute jam at LAN parties. Happy to hear people still keep the magic going
Even with wine profile and setting Windows version to “emulate”?
Unfortunately yes D:
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.
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.
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.
What’s wrong with Windows?
The better question is why Linux over something you know how to use. Both systems have there own issues.
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 10. If it feels intimidating, the recommended approach is to try it out on another pc, dualboot, or use it in a virtual machine.
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 stopped using windows while using Win XP, maybe 16 or 17 years ago. When I try using current windows I become useless, I can barely figure out how to use it.
That’s how I feel when I use Linux or MacOS
I used windows for over 10 years, I just feel like its changed a lot since I last used it, to where I barely recognize it.
Opposite for me. Windows 8 was the big change for me haha.
I didn’t pay much attention to the changes after XP. Next thing I saw (years later) was the win version with flipping windows all over the place, that worked more like a cell phone. I was totally lost. Anytime I’ve used windows at a job, they were always using older versions that I could figure out.
Too bad, only 1 out of my approx. 150 customers have their IT dept. using Linux as server during my 6 years in - the rest of it is Windows… all the users have either Windows 10, 11 or they use Apple.
Halp.
Edit: not counting the educational users, as they come in hordes
At work we run some software that while you can get it to run under Linux it’s not worth the effort even for me to bother.
One supplier is slowly moving towards the runtime being available on BSD at least. They also somewhat decoupled from visual studio in the latest release, while still being mandatory still it’s a step in the right direction.
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.
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…
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
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
tip: Windows 10 21h2 IoT Enterprise LTSC is supported until 2032
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.
Sadly the vast majority of people (even most Linux users) dont understand the benefits of FOSS. Thats why I love organizations like the FSF, EFF, and OSI. However, the sad truth is most people simply do not care.
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.
Ubuntu supports AD authentication out of the box, so for users whose duties primarily occur in a web browser that rapidly becomes a vary viable option
The whole stack is the issue. E-mail, VM’s, office 365, cloud management, powerBI, copilot, it’s one beautiful ecosystem. There is simply no viable alternative at the moment. It will need to be created.
Of course one can always replace office 365 with libreoffice, but after that it gets more difficult.
I certainly agree, but you can’t replace your entire software, server and groupware stack in a day. Start by transitioning the easiest stuff off of Microsoft, tie it into your existing stack then slowly transition away. Shutting off the last domain controller is a lot easier when you only have a handful of Windows workstations that rely on it than when you have 5000 of them
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.
Personally I think the opposite is better, we need more people telling Windows users “hey if you’re going to Linux expecting Windows just use Windows”. The simple fact is Linux is not a Windows replacement because Linux is fundamentally not Windows. For Linux users like me thats absolutely incredible (we dont want Windows but OSS), but for people who love Windows less so. Linux desktops look different (especially Gnome), Linux software works differently, the terminal is completely different on Linux (its not needed to use Linux but its so powerful that learning it is reccomend), there are installation files (DEB and RPM) but on Linux most people use software repos, and fundamentally the mindset behind Linux is vastly different from Windows.
Downloading a package is not a “installation file.”
Other than that you are spot on
I tried to use language a Windows user might understand, obviously not since nobody packages installers for Linux like Windows (because installers suck)
It is very dangerous downloading and installing random packages. It introduces instability since the package manager maintains the entire system and untested packages can create all sorts of issues.
Best to use native packages that have been tested upstream. If that isn’t possible you want to use some sort of sandbox that can be easily blown away and created. (A container)
I get where you are coming from but it is best to encourage good practices.
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.
No, it’s not. And I say that as an almost-exclusively Linux users since at least 20 years.
What do you mean? My computer has never had Windows installed on it, so the end of Windows 10 support doesn’t affect me at all. I’m not sure what could be more simple than that.
Linux and Windows are different beasts entirely. Linux is perfect for some but needlessly complex and hard to support for others.
