How much could a new PC be Michael, $10?
Just buy a new girlfriend!
Translation: “Install Linux.”
Kinda excited to go all the way and swap my last holdout. The last thing Windows forces me to do.
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/
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.
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.
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.
I got my meta quest 2 working on Linux, so you should definitely just try :)
I did read that there were some input issues with the d-pads not working, but that was also 2 years ago so it could’ve been fixed by now.
So you’re right, I should!
Pretty sure I’ve got an old drive around somewhere that I could toss it on.
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.
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
I’ve heard people like that one. I didn’t try it, but I love Nobara as my primary OS.
I’d just be scared of windows trying to clobber my nix partition.
Personally, I’ve never had trouble even with partitions, but Windows isn’t going to mess with drives that aren’t NTFS.
Use separate disks.
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.
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.
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.
And I now I use Linux. Will never go back to Windows after this nonsense.
I made the jump recently, too, after having to use W11 for my studies… Figured that the one multiplayer game I play that actually needs Windows to work (and that’s purely because the dev’s won’t enable anticheat on Linux) is not too much of a sacrifice when the alternative would be giving out the possibility to tune the OS to my liking.
Bye bye Windows, you were “great” during XP and W7 times!
Well, if I’m honest I tried to install Win11 before Linux but it was such a pain in the arse I gave up. The installer couldn’t pick up the SSD so I had to download drivers onto USB and install them half way through the wizard. THEN, it wouldn’t pick up the WiFi card so I bypassed that to get the installer to finish, and to top it off, even after I’d installed all the drivers, it still didn’t pick it up, not in the device manager, nowhere, as if it didn’t exist. So I gave up. Linux installed first time and although it’s not quite perfect yet it’s functional enough for me to actually use the flipping thing! Haha
I’ve installed every Windows since 95 on various machines and never had so much trouble. Win11 is complete crap. And Microsoft are a bunch of dickheads for forcing it when there was literally nothing wrong with Win10.
I also had problems installing Win10 years ago, the problem was I had more than one drive plugged in… Took me half a day to figure that out.
The only problem with installing Linux (pop_OS this time) was I didn’t flash my USB stick properly, so user error. Also, could be my old Kingston Datatraveler isn’t well suited for the job
Don’t even want to think how badly installing Win11 now would break my system…
This is the way. Linux gave my computer more freedom and lifespan. Never go back again.
Linux speed increase over Windows it’s like jumping 10 years into the future
I installed linux on my PC a couple months ago. The other day I wanted to log back into my windows partition for the first time in a while in order to clean up some of the files on that partition (even though the drive is mounted in linux, the windows “fast boot” option apparently leaves it in a state that linux considers read-only). Windows apparently wouldn’t let me log in without a microsoft account, instead of just using my regular windows username.
So yeah, that partition’s gone now. No going back!
Linux/BSD blah blah blah
So, uh… You gonna trade me a better machine for my current one, Microsoft?
M$: best I can do is Intel celery, but it’s new enough to run windows 11
sigh does it at least come with ranch or peanutbutter? Celery is better with one of those.
Comes with 64gb emmc & 4gb ram, soldered. Everything else is extra
TRIGGERED
No, but you can use it for your bloody mary.
No! CheezWiz with raisins or nothing! Just like my mother used to make.
I can’t recall ever trying it with peanut butter, that sounds interesting
deleted by creator
Celery and peanut butter together are the best if you like both of those things separately
Celery is excellent that way. A peanut butter lover’s dream
Celery stalks with peanut butter and raisins is the bomb!
Peanut butter and raisins, gotta get those ants on a log.
Childhood memories
Is that Sam Reich in a penguin suit!?
Seriously, use Linux. What is the problem?
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.
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.
My 72 year old, non techy father in law had a laptop that could not be updated to Windows 11 without modifying the installer to get around Microsoft limitations. I suggested Linux, He decided to just buy a new laptop with Windows 11 on it. About a week later he was complaining about the way Microsoft was forcing him to have an online account and how he wanted to get rid of onedrive. I suggested Linux again and he said why not?
I installed Linux Mint for him and gave him the password. I offered to show him around but he said he would take a look at it and let me know if he has trouble doing anything.
Its been a few months now, and he hasn’t had any problems or even questions. Everything is just working for him.
I also gave my 16 year old daughter a Linux Mint laptop and the password a couple of years ago. She uses it all the time and has never asked for help in figuring out how to do anything.
The distro doesn’t really matter too much, but if you are coming from Windows 7 or 10, Linux Mint will seem very familiar to you.
You should start with a friendly Linux version, Ubuntu flavor.
Install Linux Mint Cinnamon. You don’t need to be a coder and there is a discord for any tech support needs
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. Whether for Android phones or Linux distros tho, it’s normal for people to have their own preferences and recommendations based on their personal experience and needs since there are so many possibilities out there.
Eh, I gave them one. The others are also fine.
It’s just personal preference though. You could pick any of the popular modern ones and run everything just fine. It’s like buying an Android phone. Plenty of brands to choose from, but they can all get the job done, run whatever apps you want, etc.
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…
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.
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:
(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.
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 😊
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’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 :)
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.
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.
Ubuntu, PopOS, or Linux Mint. All different interface, but largely identical.
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.
Every container package delivery system will have issues with access - be it filesystem, other processes, whathaveyou.
Which is not an issue you want beginners to face.
Which is why I suggest Mint - which does not use snap by default at all. It just goes down much easier.
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 or need of it. 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.
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
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 choose the right one the first time. Get your mindset back to learning the whole system, keep an 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.
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.
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.
Use what works for you.
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.
Thank you for the useless opinion that adds nothing. Congrats
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.
Gaming. The only reason I went from Ubuntu to Windows.
steam and heroic launcher makes it very easy
Maybe buying a dedicated gaming device would be the option? Separation of concerns?
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.
If it’s anticheat, blame the devs, because they’re specifically blocking Linux. If it’s something else, maybe we can help.
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
People are too addicted to video games apparently
Can’t judge people. Everybody decides how to spend their time. I think the problem can be solved. It just needs a right decision.
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.
my main problems are the lack of support for Adobe programs and several online games
Edit: I guess a more accurate phrasing would have been “lack of support from…”
Fair, but that’s not a Linux problem. Publishers need to support the platform. Is windows bad for not “running” final cut?
Not the fault of Linux, but these are still the “problem” OP asked about regarding switching to Linux.
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.
pragmatist and whatever you call the other guy talking past each other
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.
It is a bit against the grain, but also very true
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.
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.
Go to https://www.goeuropean.org/#products-list and try to enter the Adobe search word. :) Could it be an alternative for you?
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 :/ )
It is how it is. :) Stay with what works for you.
Kinda funny the same statement to Tesla owners, where comments are telling that it’s easy…
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!
Sell it to the merpeople, they’ll be happy to have a proper house for once!
Hmm. I wonder if Aquaman is in the market for some old computers.
Users to microsoft: “You’re creating a huge pile of garbage out of perfectly fine devices because of unneeded hardware requirement”
microsoft: “It’s ok, just buy a new one”
Rarely have a message gone through so bad.
Funny because people still use Windows 7 in large quantities across the world.
Windows 7 is such a nice user experience today, if you use it in 2025 you really get an idea of how far windows has fallen off.
Can you believe this company has a Chief Sustainability Officer? What the fuck do they do all day?
Yell at the wind
It’s one new PC, Michael. How much could it cost? $10?
What’s 10 dollars? The people saying this are too rich to understand poor numbers. They probably think in terms of “a new pc costs less than an hour at my favorite spa, people are complaining too much”.
It’s a joke from a tv show. The rich out of touch lady thinks bananas “only cost” ten dollars.
Theres always money in the banana stand!
Ahead of its time, predicting the consequences of tariffs like that.
Arrested Development tv show. Pretty funny. The family fortune started with the dad opening a banana stand in his youth.
ALT: 2 panels. 1st panel- Rich mom from Arrested Development sitcom, holding a cup, opulent home, saying “I mean it’s one banana, Michael. How much could it cost? Ten dollars?”
2nd panel- Michael sitting back, head on hand saying “you’ve never actually stepped foot in a supermarket, have you?”
Oh damn! I watched the show many years ago, but the joke flew straight over my head.
based on the context of the show shed say like 10,000$ but I like yours better lol
Trade in their PCs to who? Fucking Aquaman?
The Linux guys obv
I love how memes (in the Dawkinsian sense) work. Lots of people have enjoyed this, but I can imagine this being quoted as the original is lost to the sands of time.
Young people everywhere thinking that Aquaman was someone who just bought failing assets from everyone.
That excellent gag is how I discovered hbomberguy some years ago
What’s especially funny is that he didn’t even script that, he just came up with it on the spot. And now it’s the joke he’s most known for.
Actually you can get the IoT Enterprise LTSC here and do your windows thing until 2032
