Gonna repeat something I said a little while ago.
If you’re planning to try Linux but have no experience with it, the best piece of advice I was given is this. Learn how the filesystem is structured. It will make everything else you try to do easier.
You’re also going to get a ton of conflicting advice on which distro to use. Pop OS or Mint are my suggestions. !linux_gaming@lemmy.world is a good resource to know about too
Honestly, even if I don’t like Snaps that much, Ubuntu/Kubuntu ain’t so bad after all. I’ve been running it as a daily for months now on my Linux-only gaming PC and it’s working quite well. There’s good support for proprietary drivers and media codecs out of the box.
And personally, I’d advise on using the Kubuntu version because KDE is so much closer in terms of desktop paradigm than Gnome.
And Fedora ain’t bad either.
Ye, my dirty little secret is that I’m still running kubuntu on my main laptop (which I do a lot of gaming on as well fwiw.) It’s what it shipped with, and it works just fine. I can’t say I would have actively chosen it, but It’s also not bad enough to make me want to go through the hassle of installing something else
It’s like a Honda Civic. It’s just reliable and easy to maintain with good performance and some good features and some you don’t really want but are still practical. And there’s a big community giving lots of support and documentation to tweak it if you want more out of it.
Canonical (Ubuntu) bastardized their own OS. I recommend Mint Debian for noobs; Mint is what Ubuntu used to be when it was good and going Debian gets away from Canonical entirely.
Wait what did they do?
Snaps, their own app-in-a-box format. Which would be fine, except they’re provided only by Ubuntu’s closed-source Snap Store, have larger size and inferior performance because dependencies are redundantly rolled into each one, and the worst part is that they started turning nearly every app in their OS into a Snap. If you
sudo apt install firefox, you get a Firefox Snap instead of a native package.
You’re clearly wrong. The answer is Arch
OK, but seriously. There are two main general use families:
Debian based and redhat based
Pick something that has a DE out of the box. Use it. The big ones used to be GNOME and KDE. I dont know which one is more recommended now.
Find equivalent programs (ie. Notepad -> gedit, adobe pdf reader -> evince).
Figure out the windows start menu equivalent: how do I access my programs?
Maybe six months to a year later, learn how to use a terminal emulator.
Maybe a year later, switch to arch and find out why it’s superior
I like the optimism of Linux users thinking there will be a massive flood towards their favourite Linux distro.
When the obvious path the majority of gamers will take is just … not upgrade anything and stay on an unsecure OS until their next major PC upgrade.
Most users don’t care about security as long as it allows them to do with their computer what they want.
If Microsoft didn’t push people to a new version, you know too many would still be rocking Windows 8.
You mean 7, right? Most people skipped 8, and that’s why Microsoft made the update to 10 free.
Yeah, I stayed on xp until I got a new pc during 7, then I stayed on 7 until I got a new pc during 10. I’ll probably stay on 10 until whatever is after 11 comes out, even though I know better, because I just don’t care enough.
Just like skipping Vista was the way to go. We need to skip Win11.
Microsoft making the upgrade free is them pushing people to a newer version.
They would also be on Windows 7, but too many would be on Windows 8 as well.
Windows had to force updates because so many people just didn’t update
Anyone that is on 10 still isn’t going to go to Linux
I dual boot and still use Windows 10. And everything I’ve seen from Windows 11 just seems like trash to me. My mother got a new laptop about a year ago and I came along to help her set it up. With her previous laptop, I opted to not do the free update to Windows 10 because people were complaining about it at the time (and I was still on Windows 7), so she ended up stuck with Windows 8.1 for years. So this time I did opt for the free update to Windows 11 and it feels like a huge mistake so far.
Her machine is now slow and struggles to get things up and running. And every single fucking time she tries to use it, it decides to run virus scans and download and install updates all at the same time. And these updates often seem to take an entire day. The last update took two days where she could barely do anything on her laptop because it was slowing things up so much.
And that all makes the frustration add up when you come across the other fucking stupid things they’ve done. So now when you right click on the desktop there’s a few seconds where Windows needs to get its shit together to show you the new useless menu that’s been slapped on top of the old useful menu. Then you need to click ‘show more options’ for the actual useful menu. Then another few seconds for Windows to get its shit together to load that menu.
And I don’t want to load a bunch of stuff like classic shell or winaero tweaker because she’s old and just wants to play hidden object games and solitaire. So I’m going to have to come running every time something happens that she doesn’t understand. So I prefer leaving it vanilla.
But fuck Windows 11. It’s absolute fucking garbage based on my experience so far. I was going to hold out for the inevitable Windows 12 because Microsoft seem to love using their paying customers as beta testers with every second OS they release but now I’m not so sure. Hoping there will be some sort of hack to keep enterprise updates coming or something.
Still on 10 here, turned off the TPM chip, got kubuntu on a second drive, just hoping proton can get the other 70% of my vr library to recognise before EoL
Anyone that is on 10 still isn’t going to go to Linux
Eh, there’s a few of us. I intend to at least give Linux a solid try before I swap to Win11.
My thoughts are that at that point I realistically have to swap anyways. It’s just a question of whether I’m going to Win11- which I’ll have to customize to my preferences and generally figure out, or Linux- which I’ll have to customize to my preferences and generally figure out.
I’m on the tech savvy side of things, and I still find Linux intimidating so I don’t think this will be a mass migration to Linux or anything.
I’ve considered Linux a couple times in the past, but generally stayed away because my PC is primarily used for gaming which didn’t have the best support then. Things are kinda different now- support is generally better.
I’m still on 10. I’m waffling between installing bazzite on my laptop, building a new computer and installing bazzite, or just using my steam deck as a daily driver. But none of the options include using windows.
If Microsoft didn’t push people to a new version, you know too many would still be rocking Windows 8.
You mean Windows 7
Yea, as someone who games on linux (ArchBTW), I don’t know if its really there yet for mass adoption, I was helping a younger sibling troubleshoot their dying PC and they even suggested I install Linux on it for them. With a fresh Linux Mint iso on my Ventoy USB, the voices raged at me to convert another penguin. But sadly I knew, deep down, they are not ready to deal with the issues if something goes wrong, a software has no Linux support, or if they ever want to mod their games.
Those kinds of people probably wouldn’t be able to deal with issues in Windows either. Just teach them how to install the OS and start firefox. If it completely breaks at some point tell them to install the OS again.
Thing is, there’s people out there on windows 10 on a computer without the magic special chip windows 11 demands.
Lots of those people can’t update and lots don’t know about Linux or understand how to even use a USB drive to install it.
Yes it’s easy for us semi tech people, but remember not everyone is into tech or understand how computers works.
People NEED computers to do stuff like applying for jobs, or searching online, or video games with friends.
Those people who don’t have a tpm chip and can’t upgrade will just not and continue using a insecure windows 10 because they don’t know or understand what it is.
Remember Lemmy, just because you understand tech, doesn’t mean everyone knows about it, or can grasp the concepts.
I went out of my way to get a TPM from my systems OEM. I’m a tech, I’ve built dozens of machines without issue. I personally use a Dell, because I can’t be arsed to deal with it for my own kit.
Granted, the Dell I’m using can easily fit the HEDT description, but still.
I’m still using Windows 10 because fuck Windows 11. I am forced to use that shit for work and I hate it. I’m constantly in need of stuff from the settings/control panel to fix other people’s shit, and every time I go to settings, shit is somewhere different, buttons are moved or entirely missing… It’s a right fucking mess.
On any Windows 10 system, I go to control panel, find the appropriate item, such as programs and features, or network and sharing center, etc… And all the controls are there, working, and haven’t changed in any meaningful way since XP.
The thing that Microsoft seems to have abandoned is sent semblance of consistency. They’re so deep in the shit with their CD/CI with the settings panel that for every feature build of Windows 10/11, the settings menu will have options in dramatically different locations. The main difference between 10 and 11 here is that, in Windows 10, the control panel was still in one piece. In Windows 11, several control panel icons now take you to the settings menu “equivalents” to the cpl you’re looking for.
This is particularly bad with printing. Omg. How tf do I check/change the fucking driver in use for a printer in the fucking Windows 11 settings menu? If I go through what’s left of the control panel, and go to devices and printers, I get taken to the settings menu for devices which includes a section for printers, so I go into printers, and I have to hunt down a moving target for where tf they put the button to open the control panel printers and devices dialog, which seems to change weekly. Then I can open the printer settings dialog and see what driver is in use on the advanced tab, or what fucking port it’s connected to… Which, when you deal with network printers, is a pretty fucking important piece of information. Then, half the time the printer port is a fucking wsd, and I have to go spelunking into the registry to find it’s fucking IP address.
Wsd ports are fine right up until they fuck up, which happens frequently, TCP/IP ports don’t really have any problems at all. So why the fuck are we moving everyone to fucking wsd ports? Where is the benefit? Explain Microsoft! Explain!
It’s so goddamned frustrating to use as a technician. A lot of this stuff doesn’t really apply to steam users or home users in general, because these menus aren’t really looked at a lot. So the TPM requirement is the usual suspect for people’s frustrations with Windows 11.
I wouldn’t give nearly as much of a shit if they would just leave things where they are. I would only need to learn where the buttons and knobs and dialogs are once, and that would be it. But they have a bug shoved so far up their ass about making “improvements” that I can’t rely on anything staying where it is.
Windows: Let me show you an Ad, endeuntured beta tester.
That too. FFS.
I just want the OS to run things, and get out of my way. Windows used to fit that description.
I’m a PC that’s not currently “compatible” with Windows 11, because I’m too lazy/refuse to enable TPM 2.0 in my BIOS.
Given how much of a pain in the ass my work machine is with Win 11 — I’d honestly rather switch to Linux than deal with it on my home system.
I’ve been tinkering with my Steam Deck for almost a year, and haven’t been able to accidentally brick it - it’s definitely come a long way from where it was back in my uni days (early 00s).
I wish it was more straightfoward to make vm, customize settings and then transfer that to an external ssd to dual boot, I want to ease into linux but I get confused seeing all the differetn ways to do things and no consensus.
Also people talking about changing Distris all the time, do they retain their data? Is that what a home drive is for? Just asking here since you seem to know lol. Like can you redload your apps, ui, retain your data “easily.” (once you do it once)
fuck Windows, I am done with M$
The only reason I’m still on windows 10 is because I’m dreading the weekend of head banging against table I’m going to have when I do the switch to Linux before October… Not looking forward to getting it all set up and working
Make a dual boot system. You can continue to use win10 while getting comfortable with linux. If something breaks just reboot.
Once you get it all setup and proud of your work, make a fucking backup image, because a single update that changes an obscure library in some forgettable package that was part of your install will break everything and you will be pulling your hair out kludging a CLI script to unfuck some other binary that was unimportant, but now has affected another thing that was crucial for a graphics card or network adapter to function.
This is why I really don’t want to have to use Linux, but Microsuck just can’t stop with the fucking greed and I’m absofucukinglutly not running anything with recall… :(
You’re either running Arch/some other bleeding-edge system without Linux experience (do not recommend) or you haven’t tried Linux in 10 years.
I promise you I’ve been using Linux likely for longer than you’ve been alive, and have used every permutation of Linux, from old school CLI-only shit, to fringe PowerPC YellowDog, to modern Ubuntu/Debian.
Sure thing, friend. I only started on Knoppix and Mandrake. Commodore 64 didn’t have it… I saw in the modern age C64 can run a Unix that takes weeks to boot. 😂 I haven’t managed to put a Debian in dependency hell in about 10 years. 😅
PowerPC YellowDog
Reminds me of swap-trick to install burned Linux for PlayStation 2. I see someone is still compiling kernels for PS2, up to 5.x 😆
Steam runs pretty smooth on Linux. Am currently using OpenSuse. Steam runs smooth. Games run smooth with one or two exceptions. For those exceptions I have a dual boot Windows 10 that doesn’t need Windows Update for anything I ask it to do.
Steam does, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your games will. I spent like an entire day getting comfortable and customizing some distro to finally fit my liking, only to later on realize that proton just doesn’t fucking work for shit on it.
Did you install Steam for Windows in Linux or Steam as a flatpak or something? My experience on many PCs is install Linux, install Steam from the distro’s repo, flip the compatibility switch in Steam settings, and only customize bits here and there because I’m busy gaming or doing work.
This has nothing to do with steam (as much as you can separate the two). Even through Lutris it Proton work. Even plain wine was janky but technically worked.
Huh. Yeah, proton is from Valve… it’s not difficult to get proton-ge from Glorious Eggroll in the mix for some finicky games. I don’t try to put non-Steam games in Steam because Lutris is good at getting everything the game might need. It’s not Valve’s or a Linux OS’s fault if Windows games can’t package everything the game actually needs to run with the damn game. Yeah, yeah, people just want the software to work… For Windows software, that means automatically downloading shit from all over the place and Wine/proton needs to have all that software set up in a workable fashion. It’s like having a bubble of chaos properly contained within the order of Linux but letting in what the bubble needs.
I saw antialiased text in Wine for the first time the other day, that was exciting. 😂
Do you have a separate computer that you can use to do a “test run” of using Linux? If not, I would at least play around with Linux in a virtual machine before committing to the bit (and I say this as someone who has been using Linux laptop / Windows desktop for 6-7 ish years now)
When you make an installer USB stick, it also doubles as a live preview (for most? all? distros).
So you just boot into it and you can play with it before running the installation.
If you have a spare drive on your PC I’d recommend trialling Linux on that. With that setup, you will have it dual booted with your existing Windows installation. It should help with the transition since you can just boot into Windows if you still need it for anything. That will give you time to get accustomed to Linux while still having that Windows safety net for a while.
Also if you later find that Linux isn’t for you then it’s easy to undo that, since all you will need to do is boot into your Windows drive instead.
I went with that strategy when I made the jump 4 years ago, and later dropped Windows entirely when I built my new PC a few months later since I realised I didn’t need it at all.
If I modify my existing PC to dual boot from the same drive into Linux, can I easily and safely delete Windows once I have migrated my files into Linux?
Yep, you can delete your Windows partition once you no longer need it or any data within it. Then once you update your bootloader (usually GRUB, some distros do this automatically when updating the system), Windows will disappear from the boot options.
Then you can either create a new partition in its place to store data on, or extend an existing partition to fill the empty space.
I’d recommend also backing your data as a precaution in case something goes awry.
Just one piece of warning for dual booting, if the EFI portion for Linux and Windows is on the same drive Windows could decide to nuke the Linux bootloader with any update…
It’s not too difficult to create a redirect to the windows bootloader in Grub or similar, which is the solution I went with in the end.
I was dreading trying Linux as well and it was nowhere near as bad as I anticipated. Did full transition (I got new SSD for dual booting to try the waters) to it much faster than I ever anticipated.
I mostly just use the PC for gaming though so mileage may vary.
Bazzite was a 15 minute experience for me, from first boot to playing X4 foundations and sea of thieves.
Take the leap.
If you’re switching over with gaming in mind, then using Bazzite or Nobara will make it so you have no head banging. Bazzite has everything you need for gaming all ready to go, and since it’s an immutable distro, it’ll be difficult for a newbie to fuck up on accident.
Honestly, just install Kubuntu 24.04. Install it and forget it. It’s super stable and has great support. Whatever people argue about the Snap packaging system, that will be almost invisible to you as the end user.
Snaps would be fine if they worked but I don’t know how that shit passed QA AND Ubuntus will install Snaps even when you apt install expecting the proper deb. I’ll keep repeating: Mint Debian for noobs. Mint is what Ubuntu was before this snap crap and Debian base gets away from Canonical entirely.
Windows 10 isn’t going to suddenly stop working the instant it’s “EOL”. If anything, I’m looking forward to no more random reboots at 3am following a mandatory update that didn’t do anything useful.
Yeah well Windows 11 fucking sucks. What do they expect? Maybe if you have to do all kinds of shady shit to get people to accept the newest version of your shitty product you should take a good look at yourself and evaluate why that is.
Maybe because Windows 11 sucks
MS can pry Windows 10 out of my cold, dead hands. I’ll switch to Linux before Win11 and I don’t particularly want to do that either.
Make the switch, even if it’s on an old laptop first just to try it out. About 90% of my Steam library runs without any extra effort needed, a few games needed tweaks that I found in the steam message boards, and 5 or 10 just refused to work at all.
At this point I am not even sure Microsoft thinks it is better to run important windows software natively on windows rather than in a much more stable, reliable virtual environment inside of Linux or WINE.
Both are going to crash occasionally (we are talking about windows software after all) but when the part running Windows software in Linux crashes it isn’t anywhere as likely to sink the whole boat and crash the rest of the operating system and potentially lose a bunch of stuff.
I think clearly what Microsoft is gunning for longterm is to eat their operating system with a bunch of cloud crap that doesn’t even really run locally for the most part.
Which is why we need to burn this to the ground so there are consequences for Microsoft for betraying users this thoroughly and completely.
Do you part, give friendly helpful linux advice to newbies, share resources and have some fun with it!
For anything that HAS to work and only runs on Windows (eat a dick Siemens) I put it in a VM with no network connection. A physical machine that gets regular updates is too unstable to rely on.
When ever I’m teaching a new guy I try to get them on board with using VMs at at minimum for reliability and a VM under Linux if they are interested.
I’m having a problem finding VM software I can use for free that isn’t a trial, or requires an account/login.
Proxmox
Virtual Box. It’s dead easy.
Here goes (installing now)
You are correct Microsoft is selling a branded Thin Client Mini PC, around $400. It doesn’t store anything local it is all cloud app, onedrive access stuff. Their Azure is Linux so its just a “Windows” Box for gaining access to Linux in the cloud. Lol
Pathetic, and the plan will backfire on even their contracts with corporations as any moment now all the data they are storing will be stolen in a truly massive data breach and Microsoft won’t even be able to do damage control effectively because they purposefully removed, broke and obsifucated local and secure workflows and focused everything on a subscription based model where everything including practically your social security number is entrusted to their shitty servers.
I think there is a good chance the EU could regulate on this.
What Microsoft thinks they can do in a situation like this is the same thing they have always done, hamfistedly and halfassedly walk back anti-consumer/anti-user practices until people calm down, rinse repeat.
Hilariously though this manuever relies on Microsoft not having any rivals in a seriously threatening position to flank when Microsoft begins to enter an enshittified vulnerability, which as much as they seem to be clueless about it (please keep being clueless M$), Linux is.
Unfortunately all the games I play require anti cheat and they all have dont support linux because of that
That sucks. About 5 years ago I put ideology one peg above entertainment and just avoid games that use Windows only anti-cheat, I don’t get to play the biggest releases but there are literally thousands of other games that work perfectly and are just as fun.
If I were you I would keep my Windows gaming machine as a single function device. Play games, get all the MS updates and 3rd party spyware, don’t let it touch anything you want to keep private or safe.
Yea once w10 reaches eol I’m gone. If my games decide to fix linux by then, then all is well. If not, oh well.
Most anticheats work on linux these days unless its a kernel level anticheat… and personally i wouldnt want that garbage on any OS.
To be honest when october comes and w10 is at eol I’ll probably just move to linux and stop playing those games altogether
I have a laptop that I dual boot on, I’ll have to try a few games on it. The biggest thing for me is if MusicBee will work, because I’ve been using it for almost ten years and want to keep using it.
I’m not familiar with it but you might get lucky and it will work with Wine. It took me years before I was comfortable dropping Windows but I am a lot less anxious now about having an update randomly brick my PC or wipe out my settings/tweaks.
Good luck!
It should work according to my research, though I do recommend trying Linux native alternatives as well. I personally went with Strawberry for now and it is similar enough for me.
I also dual boot on a laptop and a lot of games work well, especially via steam. I do have more problems with my GoG library and I had massive troubles to get Anno installed via Uplay. I’ve also noticed there are a lot of native native Linux ports coming out for some older games as well.
M$ ended win7 support in January 14, 2020. Steam did not end win7 support until January 1 2024. M$ ending support for their OS does not mean Steam will do so anytime soon. Considering how small number of their users has updated, there’s a good chance Steam will keep supporting win10 for many more years. By that time I know I will no longer be using Windows.
There’s a decent chance M$ continues supporting Win10 after “End of Life,” just like [ checks notes ] every single “mandatory” update they’ve ever attempted.
And even then, the only reason Steam ended support for Windows 7 was because it’s an Electron (Chromium) application. They decided to upgrade their version of Electron, probably to take advantage of newer security fixes in Chromium, which forced them to drop Win7 support because Chromium already had ended support for it.
Yep, that was the only reason I finally pulled the trigger. What makes me laugh is it wasn’t even about windows, it was because of fucking CHROME.
Every single edition of Windows introduces new forms of bloat and new ways for MS to overreach and attempt to play corporate nanny over a user’s system; why the fuck would anyone willingly upgrade Windows when they have the chance not to?
I’m surprised 0Patch hasn’t been mentioned in this thread. There’s really no reason to stop using Windows 10 after EOL if you can still get security updates.
I’ve been meaning to get a Linux VM spun up for testing games. I gather that I’ll have some issues (i.e. blockers) with multi-player games and cheat-prevention, but I’d just as soon play single player games anyway.
I’ve been a Linux/Unix admin for 25+ years so I’ve no excuse other than convenience. But I’m done.
I’m sure you know this already, but for anyone who doesn’t: If you want to know if a specific game will work under Linux, Proton DB is your friend!
I’d recommend the other way around; Windows in a VM for the vew games that don’t work on Linux.
Kernel anti-cheats won’t (shouldn’t) work in a a VM
Now no one should have those but if someone was smart enough to know that then they would be on Linux already
Wait, really? I only knew VM-detection from malw… oh.
Honestly I migrated to bazzite about a month ago and my entire library has just… worked. It was shockingly easy. I haven’t changed anything from defaults at all.
Let me introduce you to our lord and saviour, tux
And for those of us who heavily use VR applications, pirated 10 LTSC. Once that runs out though, I’m definitely gonna be switching to Linux.
I stayed with XP until 7. I stayed with 7 until 10. I’ll probably stay with 10 until the next Windows. Assuming it actually is decent again, and not just even shittier than 11.
