Switching to Linux?

[Archaic]

As a bit of a follow up to my thread on Chrome yesterday...

I think we all know by now how problematic Microsoft has become. There's a whole host of issues with them, from privacy concerns relating to their hoovering up of data, the insertion of ads and Copilot into everything, and ethical issues with how the company is being run. For a long time though, switching away from Microsoft has been incredibly difficult. Switching to Mac would still involve high costs, and you'd likely end up using a lot of Microsoft software there anyway. And Linux, well, that was just a non-starter for anyone interested in gaming.

Over the past few years however, that's all changed. Today, between so much stuff being done in the browser and all the work Valve has put into making games work on Linux, it's easier than ever to get set up in Linux, and the number of gotchas that might force you to keep Windows around only continues to dwindle. While it can still be a scary process for many, given that installing an OS isn't something most people have experience with these days (seriously, for people not old enough to remember installing Windows 95/98/XP, there's a good chance they've never actually installed an OS themselves), it's a lot easier with a bit of assistance. So hopefully this thread can serve as a bit of a hub for those of us here who've already made the switch to answer any questions you might have, and make things a little less intimidating.

So, how many of you have already switched to Linux, or are looking to take the plunge? I had been considering a move to Linux for a long time, and had Kubuntu (Ubuntu with a KDE desktop) as a dual boot going back more than a decade, but my work circumstances meant I couldn't use it every day, and many of my PC games simply didn't work on it. As of July 2024, when those circumstances had changed and I actually had some free time to devote to non-works tasks, I finally went and switched cold turkey to Linux. I've not looked back since. I currently run Bazzite, which is a gamer-focused distribution that nevertheless is more than capable as serving as a daily driver for whatever other tasks you might need to do. It's what's known as an immutable distro, which essentially means just that you can't screw it up easily, making it extremely friendly for Linux newbies who aren't interested in tinkering and who just want something that works.

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

I've been on pop for a couple of years, completely threw out windows out of my window. Metaphorically.
but I will probably have to change distros soon, unless they add graphic tablets support on the COSMIC DE

 

[Archaic]

POP really seems to have done poorly by their users lately. The whole mess with them releasing what should've been a beta at best as an LTS, right before it ended up being featured in the LTT Linux challenge video, has made them a bit of a laughingstock.

 

[Greninjaman]

I have a Dell computer and never really had a problem. Might be more so because I don't bother signing up for stuff and subscriptions. I do also have adblockers, and other privacy related things on Mozilla Firefox.

 

[Mialentia]

I've been using Windows my entire life. My dad used to use Ubuntu, and I found the UI and installing programs so unintuitive and cumbersome that it's scared me off anything Linux for nearly 15 years now. I genuinely despise Ubuntu.

That being said, my girlfriend's been using... I believe Debian? Or something Debian-adjacent? And she's had nothing but praise for it. I'm kind of neutral on Linux these days? Like yeah, sure, it's probably very good, but I'm also really enjoying Windows 11 (I think all the shitty AI slop and other bad decisions are only present in the US, given I've never had any of it shoved in my face?). So, it doesn't make me want to risk switching and breaking all the stuff I'm used to using. Maybe whenever Win11 starts running worse, as Windows installs tend to do, but I've had this laptop for three years and it still works nearly good as new.

 

[Ryoma Maser]

I converted to Linux back in November thanks to some influence from an online friend in a different community. I simply use Linux Cinnamon Mint right now, don't know if I'll convert to another Distro at some point. It was pretty easy to set up but the actual conversion process was a bit crazy for me since I had to restart so many damn times to activate the conversion process.

But been using it for months and while I partitioned Windows, may just delete Windows altogether unless there is something else I need on there (I did have to go in there about a month ago to grab something). Still trying to figure some customizing stuff out, but liked it more than I thought. I still use Windows on my work computer but that's due to work regulations and security, someday when I am in a non-community college based library I can somehow use Linux, but if I need Windows stuff at home to do work shit, I just use the browser versions.

 

[recommendation_fluid]

Been a Linux user for years now since 2020 but did come back to Windows a few times during then to check out what's going up there only to come back to Linux everytime lol

I distro-hopped a lot during the pandemic era (basically installing a new Linux distro every 2-4 weeks), but I finally settled between either Fedora or Mint every half-year or so for the past 2 years until now that I'm staying on Linux Mint 22.3 Cinnamon and don't have plans to change it all up again

I actually went back to Windows for a few weeks this last March because I got a little tired of troubleshooting when I was trying out new apps and stuff after some new hardware upgrades (like trying out a video editor that would utilize the GPU but isn't crazy high end-needing like DaVinci Resolve, that was a pain on linux )

crazy to see linux desktop use isn't just a only-me type of thing here...

 

[Archaic]

crazy to see linux desktop use isn't just a only-me type of thing here...

There’s a small but growing number of our staff who’ve made the switch to Linux. I’ve probably been evangelising it to the point of becoming a stereotypical Linux user. ^^;;

 

[Princess Viola]

Been using Linux Mint since early 2024, a few weeks after I got my current laptop. Actually specifically chose the laptop I got because it has space for three drives (two NVME slots and one SATA slot), so I was originally dual booting with Windows 11 on one NVME drive and Mint on the other (the SATA SSD was used for shared storage of things like pictures and videos between the two OSes).

Actually did a completely clean install of Windows 11 as well to clean W11 out of any preinstalled bloatware and hoo boy the differences between installing Windows 11 and Linux Mint was wild.

Seriously, my experience doing a completely clean install of Windows 11 was:

• To be 100% sure I was installing it to the right drive, I only had the SSD I was going to install Windows onto in my laptop, the other two drives were not connected
• Windows installer starts up and I go to the part where I select the drive I want to install Windows...and no drives show up. ????????? Huh???????
• Turn laptop off and double check and make sure I actually have the SSD properly installed. Yup, it's installed just fine and it even shows up in the BIOS as a drive.
• Windows installer again...drive still doesn't show up. what_the_hell.avif
• Turn off laptop again, and reconnect my second NVME drive (because it had the Windows install my laptop came with) and boot into Windows 11 and confirm that...yeah that other drive shows up fine in Windows and I search up 'why the heck Windows 11 installer not showing drive?' and it turns out there's some shit I gotta download with Intel SSD drivers or whatever and put on a thumb drive and install during the install process on the 'select a drive to install Windows' step so I download those drivers to a thumb drive (thankfully I had three) and open up that page on my phone so I can follow the directions
• Turn off laptop, remove the SSD, turn it on and enter the Windows installer, get to the select a drive page, do what the page said and install those drivers and refresh and Yay the SSD shows up and I can finally get past that part of the W11 install
• Then I get to the part where I have to connect to the Internet, either wired or wireless and I have no option to say 'I don't have an Internet connection'. Okay well I don't have an ethernet cable so let's do wireless...only uhh nothing wa showing up, no wireless networks at all. In fact it was like I didn't have wireness networking at all on my laptop
• Search this shit on my phone and Microsoft actually have a help page on how to fix this issue and it (once again) requires you to have some driver on a thumb drive and they tell you what you gotta do to install. It was some shit with opening Command Prompt and entering some commands.
• OK, so let's open up Command Prompt and I open it up and...nothing happens. It opens up but I can't type anything. At all. I can open up more Command Prompts but no matter what keys I press, nothing gets typed.
• Do some searching and the solution is alt-tab out of cmd and alt-tab back into it and that fixes it. Okay, so I do all the stuff MS says I gotta do and I get all the confirmations and everything that MS says I should be getting and...still nothing. Still have no wireless networking.
• So I do some more searching and find some random video of someone showing how to fix this damn problem and what was the solution in this video? Opening Command Promp, opening Task Manager, just right-clicking whatever process in Task Manager and clicking 'Open file location' to open up File Explorer, then navigating to your thumb drive and clicking the drivers to install them.
• I start doing that and...oh yeah did I mention my trackpad didn't work? Look I wasn't dealing with figuring out what damn drivers I needed to install to get that working so I just plugged in my gaming mouse and that worked a treat (and yes I know I could also have just used the keyboard to navigate but plugging in a mouse was easier) and I finally got wireless networking working and was able to continue and finish installing Windows 11.

Then meanwhile with Linux Mint it was like:

• Alright cool, here's the live environment. Got your WiFi working, trackpad, keyboard, everything
• Installing? Alright cool, well here's the only drive we see (and I only had the drive I was gonna install Mint onto in my laptop) so you wanna go ahead and install? Alright cool, just be a few minutes. Alright, done. You can feel free to keep messing around in this live environment or turn off your laptop, remove your thumb drive, and then turn it on and get right into Linux Minting.

And then some months later in May, my Windows install completely broke itself somehow. Just stopped working entirely, no matter what I did it just wouldn't boot into it anymore. And quite frankly, I didn't care enough to fix it because it was like: 'Okay well I've just been using Mint for the past three weeks without even feeling the need to boot into Windows and I was really only going to boot into Windows to make sure everything was up to date. So I guess I'll try and fix it later' and, well, I never did and eventually I figured 'Well, I'm never going back to Windows' so I just backed up the important files from that drive and then formated it to ext4 and now it exists and automounts as my 1 TB games drive.

Since I have a gaming laptop, I have been considering distro-hopping to CachyOS because while Linux Mint works totally fine, it's not exactly a gaming-focused distro.

Also have an Arch btw VM I like to experiment in,

 

[escolopendror]

(I am the type of Linux user that was persuaded by a friend and now tries to convince everyone in their life to switch to Linux, seeing people here that also got convinced by friends makes me realise I'm not alone lol)
A year or so ago, a friend convinced me to switch to Linux, specifically Debian. Our teachers really encourage us to switch to free and open source software and I already had encountered problems installing developer dependencies in Windows, so I gave it a try! I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, my first experience was awful. Not because of the Debian installation, but because Bitlocker (Windows' native disk encryption malwar- I mean... service) flagged me changing the boot order in the BIOS as malicious external interference. It locked my laptop for three days while I tried to contact Microslop so they could give me the keys (ಥ﹏ಥ) I wasn't scared for my files since I did backups (always do a backup when you switch OS!!) but I just couldn't do anything with my laptop that entire weekend, which is awful when you're a CS student. I mainly shared this story to warn anyone who wants to switch to a different OS: deactivate Bitlocker, it's enabled by default on all Windows 11 installations >:/

When I eventually regained access to my computer, everything just worked well. Even my drawing tablet, which always had some battles with Windows Ink colliding with the tablet's own driver :P I can also play my entire Steam library, which I couldn't even do on Windows with all the bloat making my laptop sluggish and prone to crashing and overheating. (Btw, you can connect Switch Pro controllers to a computer running Linux with Bluetooth, it just works! Joycons too!!) Switching to Linux also helped me embrace open source software even more than before, it's an amazing movement. One of the obstacles I had with switching was Clip Studio Paint, since it still doesn't have a Linux version. I've learnt to run CSP with Wine but I can't bring myself to use it when I have Krita, it's become my one and only drawing program :3

After a whole year and a couple of months of daily driving Debian (and Cachy since earlier this year), I don't regret getting rid of my Windows partition and fully commiting to the penguin. Linux made me love computers again, I love learning about how Linux works, truly customising my laptop and gaining system administration knowledge along the way hehe I'd like to learn how to rice (which basically means customising the entire visual look of your desktop) this summer whenever I have more time And try more distros, try window tilling DEs, write bash scripts outside of homework, actually use Neovim instead of redoing the tutorial a million times... I think it's fun, on top of all the benefits Linux and FOSS already have.

(Also, sorry for the unsolicited advice, I just want to put my two cents in)

But been using it for months and while I partitioned Windows, may just delete Windows altogether unless there is something else I need on there (I did have to go in there about a month ago to grab something).

There might be an easier way to do this but whenever you plan to delete Windows, I recommend simply reinstalling Debian using all the disk space. Maybe it's a bit more bruttish but if you don't mind reinstalling the OS, it's probably more comfortable than deleting Windows and merging that free space with the Mint partition If you need any Windows apps, check if you can run them through Wine or Proton

Since I have a gaming laptop, I have been considering distro-hopping to CachyOS because while Linux Mint works totally fine, it's not exactly a gaming-focused distro.

I really recommend Cachy!! Since you've got some Arch experience, it's going to be even more comfortable for you (I'm saying this as someone who has zero vanilla Arch experience and games in Cachy lol) It has a LTS kernel as one of its many kernel options if you'd like some stability and the package manager is so easy to use Archaic mentioned Bazzite and it's also a great pick for a gaming OS (I tried it for a month or two myself) but its immutable nature makes it very hard to install libraries, dependencies and software that isn't through Flatpak (＃＞＜)

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

really recommend Cachy!!

Tablets work well for you on it as well? Do you perhaps know if Huion tablets will work well with it? What DE are you on currently? I am actively looking for a new distro but I can't decide...I physically and mentally dont have the energy to do hopping around, I need something that will just work and have the accessibility settings I need, and that will work with my scarlett audio interface, midi keyboard, and graphic tablet. I don't even care about gaming anymore nowadays lol

 

[Archaic]

Archaic mentioned Bazzite and it's also a great pick for a gaming OS (I tried it for a month or two myself) but its immutable nature makes it very hard to install libraries, dependencies and software that isn't through Flatpak (＃＞＜)

Honestly, that's exactly why I love it. I don't want to tinker in the depths of my computer, I just want things to work. The most customization I need is changing the setup of my KDE panels, and setting my desktop wallpaper to rotate among an utterly massive collection of images. Having to manage libraries and dependencies just sounds like a great way to bork your own system.

The only times I've had to delve into rpm-ostree stuff on Bazzite were getting my VPN and Proton Authenticator software working. The first being something you simply couldn't run containerized to begin with, and the latter only because Proton haven't released it in Flatpak yet.

 

[Oga-ponn]

I use a laptop with Windows as of now but I'm still thinking about switching to Linux and definitely feeling the pressure. It just that I've been hesitant about going through with it because I'm pretty worried about screwing something up and ruining my computer. Also, a bunch of other crap that would be too difficult for me to put into text. I don't even know if it's worth the hype lol, but I'm open to hearing people's thoughts.

 

[escolopendror]

Tablets work well for you on it as well? Do you perhaps know if Huion tablets will work well with it? What DE are you on currently? I am actively looking for a new distro but I can't decide...I physically and mentally dont have the energy to do hopping around, I need something that will just work and have the accessibility settings I need, and that will work with my scarlett audio interface, midi keyboard, and graphic tablet. I don't even care about gaming anymore nowadays lol

Yeah, everything minus the wireless connectivity (which tbf also didn't work in Windows so maybe it's a problem with the model itself) works with the official driver. But mine is an XP-Pen, a Star-06 to be precise, so idk if Huion models will have an easy time. If your tablet has an official Linux driver, try it first and if it doesn't work, try using OpenTabletDriver, it supports (to varying degrees of success) most models from any brand you can think of
I use KDE Plasma on both distros, it's very intuitive when you come from Windows. I don't know how well it compares with other DEs as of accessibility, here's an article with the features it does have if you'd like to check it out. It's pretty easy to install and change system fonts on Plasma too, it doesn't mention that in the article.
As for other hardware peripherals that aren't tablets, apparently Linux Mint deals with that stuff fairly well? I haven't tried Mint very extensively but a friend of mine daily drives it and it seems very friendly to both beginners and experienced users, and detects most hardware even if the drivers are hard to come by (like NVIDIA cards and RGB peripherals), maybe it does the same for audio.

Honestly, that's exactly why I love it. I don't want to tinker in the depths of my computer, I just want things to work. The most customization I need is changing the setup of my KDE panels, and setting my desktop wallpaper to rotate among an utterly massive collection of images. Having to manage libraries and dependencies just sounds like a great way to bork your own system.

The only times I've had to delve into rpm-ostree stuff on Bazzite were getting my VPN and Proton Authenticator software working. The first being something you simply couldn't run containerized to begin with, and the latter only because Proton haven't released it in Flatpak yet.

That's an amazing thing about Linux, there are distros for most use cases. Ngl, managing dependencies without restrictions is a headache that only people that work with computers need to have. Borking your system is harder with package managers like apt which deal with dependencies in a very user friendly way, but it's still a possibility (heads-up for other Debian users: cryptsetup isn't enough, it needs like two other dependencies to work... learnt it the hard way) Bazzite also worked out of the box for me, I'm working on convincing a gamer friend to switch to it

Was ostree hard to setup? I only tinkered with it once and it was kinda confusing It's probably of no use with something like a VPN but you can give permissions to Flatpak containers using Flatseal, it comes pre-installed with Bazzite afaik.

I use a laptop with Windows as of now but I'm still thinking about switching to Linux and definitely feeling the pressure. It just that I've been hesitant about going through with it because I'm pretty worried about screwing something up and ruining my computer. Also, a bunch of other crap that would be too difficult for me to put into text. I don't even know if it's worth the hype lol, but I'm open to hearing people's thoughts.

Switching to Linux is ultimately an option and your decision, there's no need if you don't want to! It's pretty hard to screw something up as long as you make backups of your important stuff, there's always a way to go back to a working state. If you ever feel like you're ready, you could always try to find someone tech-savvy that could do it for you; maybe a local repair shop has people that can help you with a Linux install. End of 10 has both a guide for installing Linux and a list of organizations that can help people install a new OS, feel free to check it out!

 

[Dorothy LaRouge]

I obviously recognize the advantage of Linux over Windows but my father is an IT professional of around 40 years so I'm always just a little inclined to think of it as "that weird thing dad is always yapping about." One day, though. One day.

 

[recommendation_fluid]

I mainly shared this story to warn anyone who wants to switch to a different OS: deactivate Bitlocker, it's enabled by default on all Windows 11 installations >:/

What? Windows 11 does that now? hopefully win-lin dualboot tutorials mention that because that would suuuck for the average user

Tablets work well for you on it as well? Do you perhaps know if Huion tablets will work well with it? What DE are you on currently? I am actively looking for a new distro but I can't decide...I physically and mentally dont have the energy to do hopping around, I need something that will just work and have the accessibility settings I need, and that will work with my scarlett audio interface, midi keyboard, and graphic tablet. I don't even care about gaming anymore nowadays lol

wonder if you could use a live USB install or a KVM hardware passthrough to test out if the hardware works first

(i don't know if cachy has live USB, cuz i never tried that distro yet)

 

[NumberOneSpinelApologist]

live USB install

Yeah I was planning in trying to try to test out stuff that way. I have my trusty ventoy thumbdrive ready for action haha. But I'd rather narrow down what to put on it first.

try using OpenTabletDriver,

Thanks for the links and recommendations! Until now I was using the official driver, but it seems my tablet is on the list of the open driver too, good to know i have more options.
Once I make the switch I will probably have to make a post about it, when looking around I've seen that many other artists had trouble choosing. Someone sent me this link,
Maybe it will be helpful to someone here too:

Debian 12 KDE Plasma: The right GNU/Linux distribution for professional digital painting in 2024. Reasons and complete installation guide.

www.davidrevoy.com

 

[recommendation_fluid]

I have my trusty ventoy thumbdrive ready for action haha.

oh lol I also use my trusty ventoy thumbdrive for distro testing

 

[Princess Viola]

I really recommend Cachy!! Since you've got some Arch experience, it's going to be even more comfortable for you (I'm saying this as someone who has zero vanilla Arch experience and games in Cachy lol) It has a LTS kernel as one of its many kernel options if you'd like some stability and the package manager is so easy to use Archaic mentioned Bazzite and it's also a great pick for a gaming OS (I tried it for a month or two myself) but its immutable nature makes it very hard to install libraries, dependencies and software that isn't through Flatpak (＃＞＜)

my only problem is i didn't create a separate partition for root vs home so yeah that makes shit a bit annoying if I do decide to distrohop.

and even though i do want to distrohop to cachy for a more gaming focused OS it's like damn then i'd have to fuckin spend time setting up my machine the way i want it again cause look i don't care what distro i'm using, i'm making it look like windows 95.

 

[colours]

i'm not looking forward to switching to linux, and this thread is precisely why (i mean, i've been hesitant for a long while, but reading this thread is like how most senior citizens would look at a smartphone)

i suppose i'm probably average-to-above-average in terms of technical competence. it's not like i've never used linux before; i've used zorin, elementaryOS, and linux mint as well as ubuntu, so i've had the experience. my problem is that i don't use linux for anything i don't use windows already for. i internet browse and game and that's the extent of my computer usage, so at some point i asked myself why i was continuing using linux. as the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

the moment someone brings up shell commands and KDEs and all that, my brain shuts off. it's a whole new technical world with whole new technical jargon to learn and memorise, and for what? to do the same thing i'm already doing in windows? i have this thing where i really, really hate feeling like an idiot (i go through this enough at work), and this gets exacerbated quite a bit when working with linux. it makes me feel like it's designed for people with way more technical knowledge and know-how than me. windows, in my experience, has Just Worked. if i want to install a program, i just download it off their website and it works because it was designed for windows. maybe linux has this too, i don't know, but i don't want to get into that feeling of incompetence and give up using it.

i realise this post makes me kind of sound like a windows fan, and i want to make it clear that i'm not. i use this OS because it's convenient and it works. i'm not looking forward to when i have to buy a new desktop pc and use windows 11, but that may have to be what i have to reluctantly do.