It’s insane how much extra time, effort and sanity you can retain simply by switching to Linux. I initially switched a few years ago, then fully shortly after. Using my PCs has never been better and I had no issues with gaming. The only games that don’t work are some of the live service ones I’ll never be interested in.
One of the best decisions in my life, right up there with deleting all social media. Life keeps getting better, relatively speaking, but of course rich pedophiles just can’t tolerate us having a good time.
Switched everything to Bazzite as a start. Easiest switch after figuring out Windows sabotages boot drives.
I may have pirated all my Windows but man it feels good to be off that ride. Spoofing corporate licenses for the authenticator was such a hassle.
They do what to boot drives?
If you’re dual booting, Windows may at any time eat the other partition or, more often just its GRUB, leaving you unable to boot into Linux.
Even if you’re using separate drives, the Windows bootloader may still affect your other drives. On one of my old laptops, I had Pop!_OS and Windows on two separate SSDs. After installing Windows on the second drive, it put itself as the first boot device and broke the option to change boot order inside the BIOS. It worked, but only sometimes, and Windows would keep setting itself to the top upon every boot. Might not have been intrinsically a Windows issue, but never happened with other configurations.
I’m trying to move to Linux so that’s terrifying.
I upgraded to Windows 11 last week after my laptop initially came with it 2 years ago, but was so bloated and slow I installed Windows 10 from USB.
With the EoL I reluctantly upgraded due to company policy, and it was running surprisingly smooth. Really thought they’d fixed it. Only that two days later when I booted the system, I had a blue screen - the first one I have seen since Windows XP.
Page fault in non-page area 0x50 - google suggests reboots, or if they don’t bring any progress, boot into safe mode and update all drivers. Only that I couldn’t boot into safe mode, the BSOD locked me out.
Second suggestion was faulty RAM. Did a memtest from boot stick, no fault.
Third suggestion was to run checkdisk and scm or whatever it was called (some system file integrity check). All good.
Fourth suggestion was to boot into recovery mode, roll back into the system image the Windows 11 installer created, and redo the upgrade. Only to find out that the system restore point had not been created, despite the info box during the installation that this was happening.
Last suggestion was to reinstall Windows 11 from the repair mode, and select the “keep files” option. The offline installer crashed at 25% repeatedly, the online installer moved to 92% and stopped there. Repeatedly, again (tried 3x, and it takes about 1h to get there).
After all that frustration I had enough of that shit and installed Windows 10 IoT LTSC with updates until 2032. When the time comes I’ll either have a new job where I can use Xubuntu, or Microsoft installed on a chip in my brain. Let’s see.
Not to speak for Windows or against Xubuntu, but didn’t Xubuntu just recently have some secrity exploit that was pushed as an update to devices?
Nah their website got hijacked and instead of an ISO they spread malware. The system itself was never at risk, if you ran it.
10% chance of BS when I plug in my docking station. Has been working for years before the upgrade.
VMware is straight up broken on some of our laptops. Hyper-V is noticeably slower, too. Why would I recommend Server 2025 to anyone?
New job provides hardware and allows me to install Linux. Hell yeah.
Can anyone give recommendations on what to do if you have to run Autodesk products (Revit. Autocad) for work? No, I can’t swap them for open source alternatives such as FreeCAD as Im working with large international projects. Should I dual boot? Virtual machine inside Linux?
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Shock! No, but seriously. This is not a surprise.
I am forced to use Windows on my work computer, but that is ONLY used for official work related functions. My personal PCs (I have several) all run various flavors of Linux. Monday through Friday I am reminded why I don’t have Windows on my personal machines.
I feel this. I recently switched jobs and have a work PC (Win11) and work phone (whatever Iphone model) and I feel so dumb using them and I’m really tech savvy
I was finally at a job where I could use Linux at work. Things were great for about a year and then BOOM we get acquired and the new company forces MacBooks on everyone.
I. Friggin. Hate. MacOS. The biggest pain point is the keyboard shortcuts, 15 years of Linux muscle memory…
My point is I can very much relate to having to use unproductive shit for work and the daily reminder of why it’s not on my personal devices
Windows is still a fixture in my life due to work, but I’ve ditched Windows at home for years and won’t ever go back.
I’m lucky enough that Linux is one of the half official OS which are allowed and half supported at work.
I’m even more lucky that IT isn’t tech savy enough to be able to do to the Linux installations what they do to Windows and Mac where they preinstalled some rootkits and don’t give you admin rights.
Therefore I’m a Linux enjoyer without involvement of IT. I need to fix all my problems myself and do security and backups myself, but that’s a price I’m more than willing to pay.
Yeah, same. I use a combination of Linux and macOS at home but have a work laptop running Windows. It’s dreadful and feels like it only exists to make my tasks harder. I never find myself saying “what a useful feature!” but I often say “Ugh, why are you like this?”.
Finally got my last PC switched off Windows. It feels good.
The malware has been dewormed.
I will continue to enjoy my incredibly straightforward and to the point Linux desktop that’s somehow gained a new AI-free feature by doing nothing.
Then you install Docker because may Linux apps come distributed only as Docker images and find out that Docker has its own AI built in called Gordon.
Then Lemmy dogpiles me for, “What do you expect for running corporate software.”
Only Docker Desktop has the AI feature. You can install the Docker engine and CLI tools without it on Linux. Or Podman, a similar alternative.
Nobody expects new Linux users to use the CLI though. For a normal user that just wants to run their software they will encounter this crap.
I use it and I have not encountered this. You’re referring to the desktop GUI maybe?
Yes, Docker Desktop which if you follow the guide for Network Proxy Manager and other docker apps you end up installing. You’d have to already know that Docker Desktop has AI to avoid it and find a work around install.
If the default is getting Docker AI when you install popular apps in Linux, at that point it’s not different from knowing that the default is getting Copilot in Windows and then following online guides to remove it.
I assume you mean Nginx Proxy Manager? I’m surprised that you would even run that on a desktop with a GUI, seems far more fit for a headless system. Of course, nothing stops you - it’s your system.
As a general note I’d recommend docker CLI / compose, most applications will assume you’re using that and have instructions tailored for it (which is helpful if you’re new to docker).
To be honest I didn’t even know docker had a desktop app for Linux, I’ve only seen folks use it on Windows and macOS.
I’m surprised that you would even run that on a desktop with a GUI,
???
The install guide says you need docker compose and links to the docker compose install guide. The link provided for docker compose installs docker desktop. Docker Desktop is a program that shows your running Dockers and allows you to start and stop them.
But fuck me for being a simple man that Read the Fucking Manual and followed the directions provided.
No need to be so hostile.
Installing docker desktop is fine but if you are on Linux and in any way comfortable using the command line I’d definitely run without the desktop part. Just docker and the composer addon is enough.
That nginx proxy manager recommends desktop for Linux environments which most of the time don’t even have a GUI is a bit bizar tbh.
No need to be so hostile.
It’s frustratingly hypocritical that Linux users rightfully dunk on Microsoft for it’s AI yet defend Linux platforms despite the AI.
When it’s the default in Windows, Microsoft is evil. When it’s the default in Docker, you should know better and figure out how to install it despite the official online documentation telling you to install Docker Desktop to get Docker compose installed.
Don’t you want a bunch of pop-ups nagging you to use their AI gimmicks, though?
Damn it! I’m in.
Would you be able to point me toward a good thread about “beginner-friendly” distros that works well with games?
I honestly have no idea what to trust when it comes to this
I haven’t done much gaming but Steam seems fine on my old laptop running Mint.
Pop!_os worked fine for me out of the box. The UI is a little mac-like (dock on bottom, spotlight like search when you hit the super key) by default.
Steam just works. Heroic launcher just works. It’s simple.
I’ve also used mint, but had slightly less luck with its install working out of the box. All issues fixed eventually but there was some head scratching.
Linux nerds tend to have opinions and it’s easy to lose sight of what it’s like as a beginner.
But ultimately it’s pretty easy to switch distributions. They’re all free.
Don’t go onto specialized distro. Just use the main ones like Mint (which is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian). I would say that Debian is the best one, but it needs to read some docs if you have a Nvidia Graphic card (but if not, it should be easy and super stable). Bazzite, Nobara, etc, are based on distro that are quickly changing (Fedora or Arch), which are really nice in their own way, but as a beginner, you need stability first!
Try this : https://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=325 It is Linux Mint, but directly based on Debian instead of Ubuntu!
I’d say especially for beginners it’s important that Nvidia GPUs work out of the box. Someone coming from Windows would likely not think highly of an OS that needs extra steps for something that just works on Windows, and there are enough Linux distros offering just that.
I don’t agree that Debian is a good choice for a gamer - it sacrifices performance and features for stability, which is not ideal for gamers, who probably want to run the newest drivers and featuresets. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Debian, but as an server os, not for a gaming machine. Something based on Arch or Fedora is a lot better for the rapidly changing environment we are talking about, they can adapt much quicker than Debian.
Bazzite is specifically for PC gaming and is a very friendly starter distro.
Like others said, bazzite and pop os, though I’ve never used either. I use mint and never had a problem.
Though it should be pointed out that some MP games that use a kernel level anti cheat can’t be played (battlefield 6 for instance).
But I also wanted to mention, you can run Linux from a USB flash drive. So of you want to try out one of them without actually installing it, you easily can. If you don’t like it you don’t install. If you do, then you go for the full install. Easy non committal trial so to speak.
I Will get down votes but none works well, most work fine given you spend enough time tinkering. Pirated games are a waste of time to get running and there will be some distros that already come with stuff set up to be " plug and play ", but it never is.
Would you recommend an alternative?
Dual boot windows unfortunately it’s the best option for games until things change.
That said my daily driver at work is Arch at home is Ubuntu and I have a Ubuntu server for my NAS.
I installed Mint a week ago and it has played all of the 13 games I tried without any effort from me, except one which ProtonDB told me to change the compatibility mode in the steam properties then it worked great.
I would say see the ProtonDB entries for some games you like to set your expectations.
If you have an Nvidia GPU, i can warmly recommend Nobara (a Fedora spinoff) to you. https://nobaraproject.org/download-nobara/
Linux Mint has been able to run games for me. Look up the steam proton virtual windows tool
Bazzite, definitely.
Pop_OS! and Bazzite were the first two I tried when I made the switch. They were advertised as working right out of the box, which they did not for me.
When I was trying Nobara, I learned I had to run something in the command line to get gamemode to work properly with Steam. Ever since then, Nobara has worked for my gaming needs.
A few tweaks are needed here and there, but it’s literally copy and paste from protondb.
Literally no one is throwing away a working machine just because some deadline passes. If the people who are still on Windows 10 even know what an end of life date is. Every headline about this Windows AI is dumb FUD because turning it all off is trivial. I don’t know if writing this outrage shit or believing it is the dumber part.
Every headline about this Windows AI is dumb FUD because turning it all off is trivial
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Is it actually trivial, though? Does that trivial change turn off all of the various instances of AI scattered throughout the OS?
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Do you actually believe they won’t release new things under different flags, and that you won’t have to play AI whack-a-mole every update?
Nope. It’s not. I had to follow multiple guides and use three different utilities including power shell, group policy editor, and regedit, and even then I didn’t get rid of everything until I got tired of them fucking with shit and used shutup10++ to just toggle everything off. And I’m lucky enough to only have windows on my work computer at this point and to have admin rights to that computer. This shit is exhausting. Every update breaks something new and brings back shit I have been trying to nuke from orbit.
I’m already playing security and AI whack-a-mole. I think you’re right.
Hi. I’m not the person you responded to, but up until about 8 months ago I was on Windows 7. You know how I didn’t deal with new updates and various things? By not having updated anything since about 2012. Maybe 2013? I legitimately have zero clue if I had firewall on or off for 10 years. I remember I had some issue in 2014. I remember turning it off, and that solved the issue. But I don’t remember, and also never cared, if I turned it back on.
You guys are SO worried you’ll get a virus. And update everything. Meanwhile the ONLY reason I started using linux is because I don’t like Windows 10. And firefox on Windows 7 finally got so out of date that websites refused to display things. Otherwise, I’d still be on Windows 7.
Point is, updates don’t matter. Security doesn’t matter. You can just tell your computer to never update anything, and it’ll be the same for a decade. You can live in your little bubble.
There’s always one…
No, not downloading security updates doesn’t make you a badass.
Virgin security nerd vs chad botnet enjoyer
I’ve found that not playing stupid games earns you no stupid prizes. Everyone out here acting like goblins will materialize and ass rape your machine 2-seconds after updates end. (And yes, I know what zero-days are, been in IT for 25-years, Windows for 30.)
On a personal level, skipping updates is fine. As a sysadmin, I’m updating the fleet a week after I scan the news for unintended fuck ups.
updates don’t matter. Security doesn’t matter. You can just tell your computer to never update anything, and it’ll be the same for a decade. You can live in your little bubble.
You are free to do what you want, but do not give out advice like this to others. Security issues pop up constantly and not updating leaves you vulnerable to them.
For the room: If you want to stay on your unpatched machine, don’t plug it into the internet. Otherwise, use an OS that is currently receiving security updates.
I mean driving without your safety belt works great until something happens. Doesn’t make it a good idea.
i’ve got one user who has refused to update their win7 system for a full decade–literally the entire lifecycle of win10. offered to set up a dual boot for her and she seemed to be receptive of that–even bought a nice big ssd drive for it, but she never used it and never upgraded. husband says that ssd is still in the damn box sitting on a shelf. i expect to hear from her when that now tired old hdd in her (i think) wolfdale-era win7 finally craps out.
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By saying things in public like “let’s rewrite the entire operating system,” Microsoft are not giving off reassuring vibes. Rewriting the entire anything never goes smoothly, and Windows has a track record of ambitious failures followed by more conservative releases that are more successful. They’re bringing these anxious responses upon themselves.
Li. Nux.
For me, anyway
You are assuming their ai hallucinating or maliscous devs won’t push updates that break user choice.
They’ve been doing that for years already!
Lots of people will, I’ve had the discussion with multiple people bemoaning that that will have to upgrade because their computer isn’t compatible who. Have zero interest in learning a new OS. Heck my father has a laptop good enough for everything he does already and was talking about upgrading his desktop because it isn’t compatible.
Literally no one is throwing away a working machine just because some deadline passes.
yes. yes they are. we’ve taken in a lot more ‘junk’ systems over the last six months than we ever have.
many of those who aren’t tossing their pc on the heap are paying for the updates or jumping through the link-and-sync bullshit for them.
microsoft’s scare tactics work, and work very well.
Literally no one is throwing away a working machine just because some deadline passes.
You need to speak to every IT department worth a pinch of salt then; as no longer receiving security updates is a critical problem. That critical problem is solved by most IT departments by disposing of perfectly good computers, paying to have their SSDs shredded, and buying new computers.
Business IT is not personal IT. OP’s right. Joe User isn’t going to know or give a shit as long as his PC boots and he can get to FaceBook.
Have Win 10 and was a Windows die hard since I was a kid.
Been running Linux on another drive as my default boot for a year and a half in anticipation of this horseshit and was only hesitant to delete Win because my Fanatec sim racing hardware wasn’t supported on Linux.
Welp, turns out hid-fanatecff is a thing. Installed the kernel driver and boom, working Fanatec peripherals. Even my Moza shifter is plug-and-play.
Bye bye Microsoft.
Yeah, peripherals lol. All my sim stuff is working brilliantly in Linux, however I still have some audio production stuff I need Windows for. Unfortunately, due to the need for minimal hardware latency and all that, Wine and VMs aren’t an option. Also a lack of drivers for some midi devices sucks.
Really? I run my home studio in Nobara Linux without any latency issues. I use Reaper as my DAW. Are you using
yabridge?Yeah I have tried it, but didn’t have luck unless I was driverless and that meant losing velocity. Maybe I configured wrong, it was kind of confusing but the internet said it was facing the same issues as me. Mainly this was for Roland stuff.
I was going to just get a laptop for Windows to record onto next to instruments and then transfer, but I’d rather just be able to plug into the DAW.
That’s really strange. I have an M-Audio 60ish key and a smaller Novation Nocturn MIDI keyboard as well as a Roland electric drum kit and have no issues doing anything over MIDI with them on Linux.
Maybe its worth another try? I don’t need drivers for any of that stuff.
Huh, weird.
Okay, I’m definitely trying again.
Some of my older gear is fine, but an example of something that wasn’t working was my TD-27 V2 on a kit. What module is on yours?
Wine can actually beat native in latency, since it’s a pretty thin translation layer and windows is … windows.
I’d give it a shot just in case.
Is there any use for a HP Reverb G2 on linux?
Fully supported by Monado looks like.
Idk how recent that Monado support is, but I couldn’t get the reverb G2 to work on Linux at all a couple years ago.
A couple years IRL is like 100 years in Linux time
For the gamers here using Linux: what about Discord? One of my only social outlets currently is unfortunately through Discord with some friends. There any issues with drivers for headsets and/or Discord having issues?
Only if you have hardware that can handle it.
Don’t run Windows 11 on ARM.
But Zorin OS too hard! I was told.
I’ve been using ZorinOS for about 8-9 months now.
Yeah. It is. If something isn’t a flatpak (so like 80% of programs), then I have no idea how to install it.
Run Linux on my main PC.
Time to switch my old laptop over too, or maybe I could configure a new linux PC as my “laptop” if I could get a good touch screen interface (for relaxing on the couch)?
I think Ubuntu Touch gets decent reviews
