17 ms·

As someone that ditched Windows for Linux over a year ago, I have to say I haven't really looked back. I can do anything I need to, and I don't need to worry ab

by tgmatt 1y ago

As someone that ditched Windows for Linux over a year ago, I have to say I haven't really looked back. I can do anything I need to, and I don't need to worry about all this garbage. I can play all the games I want to play, even brand new releases, usually with little to no tinkering. If you're technically minded, and are at least somewhat familiar with Linux, I can't recommend it enough. I wouldn't recommend it for a layman though; I did have to do some initial tinkering to get it spot on.

xethos 1y ago
> I wouldn't recommend it for a layman though; I did have to do some initial tinkering to get it spot on. The flip side of this is that regular computer users don't actually have preferences nearly as strong as anyone browsing this site. If one is technical enough to have an operating system preference, they're technical enough to manage Linux Mint. It may not be their preference, but they'll be able to manage As always, the only groups that're really in trouble are "Knows just enough to be a danger to themselves and is entirely unwilling to learn something new", and those that depend on poorly supported, or unsupported, specialty hardware or software
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  I would second the recommendation for Mint, or really any distribution that includes Cinnamon as its default DE (as long as it’s not a bleeding edge distro like Arch). Cinnamon is probably the closest out of the box approximation to a traditional Windows desktop out there, leaning more towards Windows 7 than 8 and beyond. I’m sure there’s a KDE fan writing up a reply right now, and while it’s also Windows-like, it’s considerably more indiosyncratic than Cinnamon is and has a bunch of bells and whistles that while great for power users have a decent chance of tripping up novices. Cinnamon doesn’t rock the boat at all which is exactly what makes it appealing here.
  - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
    Agreed, the Cinnamon desktop is the most unsurprising interface. The dual ssd boot option for OS is also nice, as some games/applications in Win11 are inescapable. However, for 99.8% of most day to day OS needs the Ubuntu repo desktop works fine (if you purchased a printer/webcam knowing it is fully supported etc.) =3
    - neilv 1y ago
      Yeah, I was recently deciding which desktop option to use for a Debian Live variant that needs to be straightforward for anyone who boots it. I tried each option (in VMs), and decided to go with Cinnamon. So, if someone wants a Linux to start with, installing Debian Stable, and selecting the Cinnamon desktop in the installer, is one great first option. (The Debian default desktop is based on Gnome3, which does a few weird and annoying things. Fortunately, Gnome3 inspired alternatives, like Cinnamon.)
    - Terr_ 1y ago
      > The dual ssd boot option for OS is also nice, as some games/applications in Win11 are inescapable. Similar situation, I'm thinking I'll have a two bootable drives and then a third data-only drive so that I can share some stuff between them. (Hey, I got a desktop for a reason, let's use that space!) AFAICT this should be safe-enough provided I avoid a special case where Windows has hibernated without unmounting an NTFS drive cleanly and I try to mount it on the Linux side. Not sure how much work I want to put into the different flavors of TPM/secure-boot-y things. Less worried about evil-maid attacks as opposed to preventing a burglar rifle through my digital life.
      - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
        sshfs works on both windows (winfsp, sshfs-win, sshfs-win-manager) and linux... Or in Win shell try: winget install -h -e --id "WinFsp.WinFsp" && winget install -h -e --id "SSHFS-Win.SSHFS-Win" A backup ssh server running F2FS on disk-encrypt for /home is good practice. =3
        Terr_ 1y ago
danparsonson 1y ago
This has likewise been my experience; it's exactly the OS that I want, but it's definitely better suited to programmers and other techies unless you have such a friend you can call on when you need to do something non-trivial. If you're up for getting your hands dirty though, it's a gift that keeps giving.
- Joel_Mckay 1y ago
  That is true up to a point, but getting it to do actual work gets easier with experience. Most power users just jump to MacOS, or adapt to a Linux flavor. Windows can't help screwing with users, and has been an IT security liability for years. When Microsoft abandoned backward compatibility for much of their installed base in Win11... they also removed 99.9% of the reason IT puts up with their BS. =3
SirMaster 1y ago
All the games I play have anti-cheat and it seems most of them don't work on Linux which is too bad.
- Joel_Mckay 1y ago
  Steam supports a lot more titles on Linux, but some will never work right (Cuphead takes some effort to get working etc.) Best to check your favorites are functional before nuking Windows, or do the dual ssd OS boot option. =)
  - whatevaa 1y ago
    Cuphead works fine on Steam Deck. Valve did that effort.
    - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
      Steam did a lot for playable titles with Proton. It is a lot less of a pain for Linux users these days, but still YMMV =3
- tgmatt 1y ago
  This is true, there are a select few that use a particular anti-cheat that doesn't work on Linux and that's unfortunately unavoidable. That said, as others have stated, several of them do work like Easy Anti-Cheat, which means I can happily play those online without getting kicked.
  - SirMaster 1y ago
    I play Battlefield 2042, Call of Duty Warzone, Apex Legends, PUBG, Rainbow 6 Siege, and Fortnite all somewhat regularly and none of these as far as I know work. The only games that I do play regularly that work are Counter Strike 2 and DotA. Though I can't use Faceit for CS2 which would be ideal.
backslash_16 1y ago
In case anyone wants to point me in the right direction or give me some pointers, I’m a lifelong windows developer who switched to Linux (Ubuntu 24.04 lts) on my personal desktop and a laptop (I’m fully in on the switch) and it’s not great. I think we need to accurately represent the shortcomings so people who switch aren’t surprised. So far those are: 1. Laptop - Battery life is bad compared to windows. It’s about half. 2. Laptop - sleep doesn’t work. 3. All - multi-monitor setup with different pixel scaling doesn’t work for many applications.. unless you dig into all the Wayland options and issues and figure out how to launch all these apps under Wayland. 4. All - In general Wayland vs X issues. I can’t screen share with zoom. 5. All - Bluetooth driver issues - my Bluetooth headset won’t connect as an audio input and output device at the same time. Now to be fair, I think all these are okay trade offs but they are a conscious choice. If you have anything outside a standard one monitor, wired peripherals setup you will probably hit issues you need to debug. I started paying for Ubuntu pro to put my money into it, so I’m hopeful for these kinds of things in the long term.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- worthless-trash 1y ago
  I wont pretend to downplay these issues, I do however absolutely share screenshare in the zoom web page thing.
  - Brian_K_White 1y ago
    This inconsistency, where something works for one and not for another, is yet another problem. The fact it works for you while not working for someone else is actually worse than if it didn't work for anyone.
- OrderlyTiamat 1y ago
  This is why I chose a thinkpad for my laptop: I knew I wanted to switch to linux eventuality, and lenovo is very linux friendly. Many of these issues exist (or are exacerbated) because the hardware drivers don't support linux the way they support windows. I absolutely agree, linux advocates must be honest about the shortcomings. In my case even on the thinkpad I experience the multi display scaling issue you mentioned, and bluetooth can be a little finnicky for my headphone (though this is much better than a couple years back! Usually simoly restarting the headphone solves everything). I think it's very much worth it, and other than some of those minor issues I think current linux distributions are good enough to wholeheartedly recommend them over windows. That is if you're not held hostage by some windows only software. E: about screensharing, I can't screenshare from teams on firefox, but from chrome it works fine, maybe that's the same for zoom?
pabs3 1y ago
Linux has privacy issues too, although not as bad of course. https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues
- beeflet 1y ago
  these are privacy issues of application programs, not the OS.
  - pabs3 1y ago
    Both application programs and libraries, all distributed by the OS vendor.

by tgmatt 1y ago

xethos 1y ago

> I wouldn't recommend it for a layman though; I did have to do some initial tinkering to get it spot on. The flip side of this is that regular computer users don't actually have preferences nearly as strong as anyone browsing this site. If one is technical enough to have an operating system preference, they're technical enough to manage Linux Mint. It may not be their preference, but they'll be able to manage As always, the only groups that're really in trouble are "Knows just enough to be a danger to themselves and is entirely unwilling to learn something new", and those that depend on poorly supported, or unsupported, specialty hardware or software

cosmic_cheese 1y ago
I would second the recommendation for Mint, or really any distribution that includes Cinnamon as its default DE (as long as it’s not a bleeding edge distro like Arch). Cinnamon is probably the closest out of the box approximation to a traditional Windows desktop out there, leaning more towards Windows 7 than 8 and beyond. I’m sure there’s a KDE fan writing up a reply right now, and while it’s also Windows-like, it’s considerably more indiosyncratic than Cinnamon is and has a bunch of bells and whistles that while great for power users have a decent chance of tripping up novices. Cinnamon doesn’t rock the boat at all which is exactly what makes it appealing here.
- Joel_Mckay 1y ago
  Agreed, the Cinnamon desktop is the most unsurprising interface. The dual ssd boot option for OS is also nice, as some games/applications in Win11 are inescapable. However, for 99.8% of most day to day OS needs the Ubuntu repo desktop works fine (if you purchased a printer/webcam knowing it is fully supported etc.) =3
  - neilv 1y ago
    Yeah, I was recently deciding which desktop option to use for a Debian Live variant that needs to be straightforward for anyone who boots it. I tried each option (in VMs), and decided to go with Cinnamon. So, if someone wants a Linux to start with, installing Debian Stable, and selecting the Cinnamon desktop in the installer, is one great first option. (The Debian default desktop is based on Gnome3, which does a few weird and annoying things. Fortunately, Gnome3 inspired alternatives, like Cinnamon.)
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    > The dual ssd boot option for OS is also nice, as some games/applications in Win11 are inescapable. Similar situation, I'm thinking I'll have a two bootable drives and then a third data-only drive so that I can share some stuff between them. (Hey, I got a desktop for a reason, let's use that space!) AFAICT this should be safe-enough provided I avoid a special case where Windows has hibernated without unmounting an NTFS drive cleanly and I try to mount it on the Linux side. Not sure how much work I want to put into the different flavors of TPM/secure-boot-y things. Less worried about evil-maid attacks as opposed to preventing a burglar rifle through my digital life.
    - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
      sshfs works on both windows (winfsp, sshfs-win, sshfs-win-manager) and linux... Or in Win shell try: winget install -h -e --id "WinFsp.WinFsp" && winget install -h -e --id "SSHFS-Win.SSHFS-Win" A backup ssh server running F2FS on disk-encrypt for /home is good practice. =3
      - Terr_ 1y ago

danparsonson 1y ago

This has likewise been my experience; it's exactly the OS that I want, but it's definitely better suited to programmers and other techies unless you have such a friend you can call on when you need to do something non-trivial. If you're up for getting your hands dirty though, it's a gift that keeps giving.

Joel_Mckay 1y ago
That is true up to a point, but getting it to do actual work gets easier with experience. Most power users just jump to MacOS, or adapt to a Linux flavor. Windows can't help screwing with users, and has been an IT security liability for years. When Microsoft abandoned backward compatibility for much of their installed base in Win11... they also removed 99.9% of the reason IT puts up with their BS. =3

SirMaster 1y ago

All the games I play have anti-cheat and it seems most of them don't work on Linux which is too bad.

Joel_Mckay 1y ago
Steam supports a lot more titles on Linux, but some will never work right (Cuphead takes some effort to get working etc.) Best to check your favorites are functional before nuking Windows, or do the dual ssd OS boot option. =)
- whatevaa 1y ago
  Cuphead works fine on Steam Deck. Valve did that effort.
  - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
    Steam did a lot for playable titles with Proton. It is a lot less of a pain for Linux users these days, but still YMMV =3
tgmatt 1y ago
This is true, there are a select few that use a particular anti-cheat that doesn't work on Linux and that's unfortunately unavoidable. That said, as others have stated, several of them do work like Easy Anti-Cheat, which means I can happily play those online without getting kicked.
- SirMaster 1y ago
  I play Battlefield 2042, Call of Duty Warzone, Apex Legends, PUBG, Rainbow 6 Siege, and Fortnite all somewhat regularly and none of these as far as I know work. The only games that I do play regularly that work are Counter Strike 2 and DotA. Though I can't use Faceit for CS2 which would be ideal.

backslash_16 1y ago

In case anyone wants to point me in the right direction or give me some pointers, I’m a lifelong windows developer who switched to Linux (Ubuntu 24.04 lts) on my personal desktop and a laptop (I’m fully in on the switch) and it’s not great. I think we need to accurately represent the shortcomings so people who switch aren’t surprised. So far those are: 1. Laptop - Battery life is bad compared to windows. It’s about half. 2. Laptop - sleep doesn’t work. 3. All - multi-monitor setup with different pixel scaling doesn’t work for many applications.. unless you dig into all the Wayland options and issues and figure out how to launch all these apps under Wayland. 4. All - In general Wayland vs X issues. I can’t screen share with zoom. 5. All - Bluetooth driver issues - my Bluetooth headset won’t connect as an audio input and output device at the same time. Now to be fair, I think all these are okay trade offs but they are a conscious choice. If you have anything outside a standard one monitor, wired peripherals setup you will probably hit issues you need to debug. I started paying for Ubuntu pro to put my money into it, so I’m hopeful for these kinds of things in the long term.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
worthless-trash 1y ago
I wont pretend to downplay these issues, I do however absolutely share screenshare in the zoom web page thing.
- Brian_K_White 1y ago
  This inconsistency, where something works for one and not for another, is yet another problem. The fact it works for you while not working for someone else is actually worse than if it didn't work for anyone.
OrderlyTiamat 1y ago
This is why I chose a thinkpad for my laptop: I knew I wanted to switch to linux eventuality, and lenovo is very linux friendly. Many of these issues exist (or are exacerbated) because the hardware drivers don't support linux the way they support windows. I absolutely agree, linux advocates must be honest about the shortcomings. In my case even on the thinkpad I experience the multi display scaling issue you mentioned, and bluetooth can be a little finnicky for my headphone (though this is much better than a couple years back! Usually simoly restarting the headphone solves everything). I think it's very much worth it, and other than some of those minor issues I think current linux distributions are good enough to wholeheartedly recommend them over windows. That is if you're not held hostage by some windows only software. E: about screensharing, I can't screenshare from teams on firefox, but from chrome it works fine, maybe that's the same for zoom?

pabs3 1y ago

Linux has privacy issues too, although not as bad of course. https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues

beeflet 1y ago
these are privacy issues of application programs, not the OS.
- pabs3 1y ago
  Both application programs and libraries, all distributed by the OS vendor.