I can’t wait to spend weeks trying to get my 10yr old scanner, my 4 yr old stream deck, my specialized proprietary keyboard mapping software, my almost unheard of cad software to work. Don’t get me started on doing it on my laptop.
Don’t get me wrong. Windows is going nowhere, and Im sure I’ll throw in the towel eventually. I know it’s gotten a little better than when I last tried it a few years ago, but I know its going to be painful, involve compromises, and probably some cash on forced hardware changes. People pretending like the switch is easy for power users with specialized hardware are full of lies.
Hardware rarely seems to be the issue with major distros. I have had zero trouble with hardware for years now with a big distro like Ubuntu. Some of the smaller or lightweight distros? Absolutely, a mixed bag of hammers not knowing what will work. Usually wireless internet, but sometimes it’s something weird like an NVMe not working or some USB driver.
Software, OTOH is a really big problem, and software controlling hardware, for instance gaming gear like a joystick/throttle setup, RGB gear or pwm pumps for cooling, is nowhere near as comprehensive or user friendly, if it exists at all; and of course plenty of games and other windows/mac only software doesn’t exist for Linux or might work in something clunky like Wine.
Linux can’t do it all, but devs have little incentive to make things linux compatible. Why deal with the headache of trying to get their software to work on a bunch of different distros when Windoze and Mac are still working fine.
The steam deck is already a linux device so I’m not sure why you’re worried about it working with linux
A stream deck is not a steam deck
Test it by booting into a live image, no install required.
If it’s any consolation, my printer’s about as old and Linux Mint seemed to just recognise it the moment I turned the printer off and on again. Might be one thing to cross off the list quickly!!
I just have to do it. Im daunted by it because I literally have a barely functional grasp on software, but I know that Linux is the only real option at this point.
When the convenience of doing nothing no longer outweighs my apprehension I’ll switch
Edit: how nice you guys are about this isnt helping me be lazy god damnit
Gotta take it in stages my dude and it won’t even feel daunting once you finally do it. I procrastinated for months too lol.
Stage 1: Note down the software you need to bring with you Stage 2: Do the distro decidin’ (watch some videos, read some nerd posts, whatever) Stage 3: Check hardware support, starting with your most expensive components. Stage 4: Figure out where to look for help before you’re stuck. The hardest part is that most guides start from step 1 and you probably need step 0 so don’t be scared to ask an AI for help, they’re great for stuff like this. Stage 5: Backups! Stage 6: Set aside a whole day and do the dang thing!
Anything KDE plasma will feel familiar but kinda sci-fi fancy. Or at least it was doe me.
I got Linux Mint on my laptop a few months back. Was pretty damn simple to get set up.
Feels like Windows with a few minor inconveniences like having to learn to use pinta after using paint for like 39 years
Linux mint is always my rec for beginners. It is super simple to set up and feels familiar to them
Zorin OS is geared towards people coming frim Windows or Mac wanting to maintain UI similarity. They have a “paid” version where you just pay for tech support help installing + more desktop layouts, but the free version Zorin OS core is most popular and I’m sure the community here would be happy to help walk you through it.
If you have nvidia graphics card they have support for that during installation.
I’m pretty close to making the switch. I just have a little more experimenting to do on a spare laptop before I swap my main PC over.
This is the way. Take your time and experiment.
Motion to redo the peguin with 8 pack abs.
2 more packs but yah
We only had the budget for 6 u_u
Excellent meme, a welcome addition to the collection.
I’m Ryan Gosling in this image, looking at SteamOS and waiting for the modern version to come to desktops.
You can try Bazzite with Steam Gaming Mode. That is basically steam OS.
how does steamos help you? any user friendly linux distro does exactly the same stuff
Steam is a well-known and “trusted” name, we’re tribal critters and there are a lot of people waiting for an entity like that to spoonfeed them something certified
What a lot of people don’t understand is how little I want to spend time dicking around with my computer. I’d literally rather scrub my toilet than spend time trying to get a different OS to work.
And OS that is supported, and backed by a customer support helpline, and pretty much guaranteed to work, is something I’d happily pay for.
Installing linux is to dicking around with your computer as eating more fiber is to scrubbing your toilet
It’s specifically suited for gaming, which is all my desktop is used for. And since I have an nVidia GPU, they probably will have a better driver solution than trying to get that shit working elsewhere. That’s always been the thing keeping me from switching to Linux as my main OS. I only use it on my media server rn.
there are many different ones available right now specifically created for gaming. they come with some extra instructions for nvidia holders 😉
im just saying you don’t need to wait for steamos. the future you seek is now
i actually replaced mine on deck with bazzite cause you can’t set steamos to boot in desktop mode (or lets say installing bazzite instead of tinkering is much easier)
I use Windows 10, MacOS, and Linux. Use the right tool for the job is whatI always say. Linux is the right tool most of the time, just not all of the time.
I finally broke off my dependency from Windows last year. Still have the Mac for music, but not having to deal with a single Windows update or bug for six months has been such an improvement.
I’ve always said that with Linux, it’s a buggy, under-development experience, but the mistakes are honest. When one of the biggest companies in the world can’t stop from putting out one broken update after another, all for the sake of short-term profit, I had to just call it quits completely.
Yeah, I can handle incompetence. It’s the malicious exploitation that was getting to me. I don’t feel that any more with Linux. Give it time, I guess.
Same. And in most use case scenarios MacOS is practically Linux, but with commercial app support. And on AppleSilicon with insane performance/battery life.
There’s also a Linux distro for Apple silicon, m1-m3 chips for now.
Didn’t test it myself yet but is on the to do list.
Yes, Asahi Linux. I haven’t tried it either, but I saw a fresh video about it a week ago and it seems it’s approaching usable state. For now, some apps crash, GPU stuff has artifacts.
Yeah, I use my M3 Mac only for music production and when traveling. Music software/hardware support on Mac is a given, and the battery life is just insane.
Still using it because many apps I paid damn good money for a use daily have no Linux support and Linux as zero similar apps.
You can always run windows on a VM within linux. You can passthrough any required hardware. And windows actually runs better in a VM than on baremetal.
Or even easier would be something like https://winboat.app/
Whoa thanks for making me aware of this project, this looks great. I was running Linux on my laptop before, but had to go back to windows because of running into issues with figma. Excited to gtfo windows permanently.
figma
…what’s figma.
It’s a design software - mockups, prototyping etc… for sites and products
Isn’t figma mainly browser-based?
Fig ma newtons, lmao gottem
@Fredselfish @Morph9 for me at the momment the only app missing on linux is fusion360, found replacement for any orher and I dont see me going back to wibdows now… my newest setup dont even have dualboot
Well unfortunately they don’t have ones I need. 1 TuneFab an app that allows me to convert my Audible files into mp3s. Second Tune Amazon that allows me to convert my Amazon music files into mp3s. And lastly need a good dvd/bluray ripper software. Also what VPN software does Linux support?
Linux supports any VPN protocol pretty much. If your VPN vendor doesn’t want you to lock in their software - they probably allow you to download pure OpenVPN or WireGuard config file that can be easily inserted on any major distro.
And also as far as I knke, Proton VPN and Mulvad has their GUI clients for linux
Proton VPN and Mulvad has their GUI clients for linux
They do but don’t use Proton. They’re very lazy about their VPN implementations and the official clients are very leaky in general. Plus they neglect all their linux apps.
Proton feels like they really want to be Google, but don’t have enough market share yet to enter the “removing ‘Don’t Be Evil’ from the mission statement” stage.
I can’t speak to bluray/DVD ripping, but I don’t expect that to be an issue. What format are “audible files” and “Amazon music files”? I don’t think I’ve met a format ffmpeg couldn’t convert, but maybe not in a way you’d like or would feel as convenient.
It’s probably DRM related. I believe https://getlibation.com/ should do the same thing.
Yeah ffmpeg should do the trick. I don’t use Audible so no idea for sure, but ffmpeg is awesome.
All VPN work on Linux because the protocols are open and standardized.
I’ve used NordVPN and SurfShark on Linux distros. Audacity for music conversion, and MakeMKV for ripping DVD/Blu-ray.
TuneFab
Is this a feasible alternative? https://getlibation.com/
As for tunefab for amazon music, why not just use soulseek instead?
Yes thank you definitely what I am looking for.
Hey don’t come at me like this
I feel personally targeted
most of my friends are on 10 and lost at what to do. i’m sure they’ll just go 11 because anything else is scary. I sometimes offer to help but most don’t take me up on it.
it’s the opposite when I do VR
Me too. I’ve heard good things about Bazzite. I’m planning to install Bazzite when I “upgrade” my desktop to W11. Still building up the courage to do all that.
i just got a win 10 ltsc setup for vr and then linux for everything else
ltsc?
Its an enterprise version of windows where it basically has everything stripped from it like the annoying list of apps that come preinstalled and it still receives updates, also it lets you uninstall edge
There’s a few pieces of software I need working reliably (and a couple I WANT to have… but am assuming will just break) for me to make the jump… I’m just basically in a holding pattern until the day comes where I’m forced to.
I’ve already got a secondary desktop w/ Bazzite on it, and the Gigabyte motherboard’s on-board sound card doesn’t seem to work (got around it w/ a Scarlett IO USB box…), so I’m kinda worried about what all will break that I’m not planning for.
Try a Debian based distro. So Debian, mint, Ubuntu, kubuntu.
Ubuntu comes with gnome, looks and feels Mac os ish Kubuntu comes with KDE and looks like windows. Mint is kinda like kubuntu Debian comes with what ever DE you’ll install.
Debian (based) distros are usually the most stable ones with good (Driver) support all around. I’ve had to come across a device which had any issue after an install with those distros. All of them will game, if that’s something you worry about.
You could also try Fedora with KDE or Gnome.
So if I’ve got a fairly new Intel CPU, an ASUS ProArt motherboard with an onboard wifi chip, 1 x 10 gigabit ethernet port and 1 x 2.5 gigabit ethernet port, a 3090Ti, a scarlett 2i2 gen3 for audio input/output, an 8BitDo and an old Xbox 360 USB wired controller, 1 expansion card I used to expand the front IO of my desktop tower, and older esoteric software I refuse to update b/c of their switch to subscription - like for example - Propellerhead Reason 10 and an old M-Audio 49e USB MIDI keyboard I refuse to replace, I should be ok?
These are all the things I’m stupidly afraid to lose with a switch to Linux.
