More people are moving to Linux and are never using Windows in future.
Kind of expected this.
Changed computer for others reason ( needed more power for some games) . I don’t hate win 11, it does the job.
But, expecting people to throw away computers that matched their need just to upgrade an OS? Nah!
They gatekeep windows 11 from older devices, what did they think would happen? I tried Linux on my thinkpad yoga, and the drivers are so shit i had to switch back to windows on it, and no, I’m not throwing away a perfectly good laptop!
My Yoga 370 runs great with Fedora KDE
Out of curiosity, what Linux did you try on it? Relatively new and you tried Mint maybe?
Fedora
And is the laptop quite new I wonder?
If hardware were cheap it might have gone a little better. Like I would love to build a new beast gaming rig (dual boot Linux and W11) but component prices are stupid and my W10 rig is perfectly fine.
I seem to recall two years was the plan all along. I don’t seem to recall the second year being free, though, which it was for me.
Jokes on them, if you have a shitty enough computer that’s doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, you get to stay on Windows 10 forever!
Too late. I’ve already switched to Linux Mint and am never going back.
Same, almost a year and couldn’t be happier.
Free ESU with Microsoft account has been around for a while hasn’t it?
Maybe if they had done that to begin with I wouldn’t have nuked the SSD and dropped Linux on it?
After the 3rd or so warning about EoL and not being “allowed” to install windows 11, I went back to Debian. I’m not going through the trouble of switching again any time soon.
I am a convenience oriented PC gamer who doesn’t enjoy fiddling with the command line. What’s the Linux distro for me?
I’ve been using Bazzite on an HTPC that also does some light gaming for a couple of months, and I like it. I’m still on W10 on my main gaming rig, though. (not because of any specific deficiency with Bazzite, just have a couple of games I play that have anticheat issues under Linux)
Competitive shooters from mega-corporate publishers are generally the only ones who have a cow if they can’t rootkit anti-cheat your rig.
So whether you’re against oligarchs or against setting up a backdoor into your PC, you shouldn’t be playing those titles anyway.
I would only recommend not starting with Ubuntu, there is a cultural idea that it’s the easiest, but it really isn’t, and has some very unique “features” that aren’t for everyone.
The bigger question is not what distro to get, but what desktop environment to chose, because that will be your interface and that’s where the first point of tension will come from. I highly recommend KDE.
Other than that, every modern distro will be basically the same, you install steam and it just works.There is probably loads, I use mint. Installing stuff can be a lot becuase there are different methods and results. There might be a bit of terminal work there but when you look for software look for ones with a gui so you can skip the terminal when using them.
Onve you get your head around installing, you will be absolutely fine, it is just that hurdle for me on mint. After that, like a less shit windows.
Others have mentioned Bazzite and Mint. I have used both. Bazzite is gaming focused, but, in my opinion, slightly harder to administrate due to the whole immutable/atomic thing. I went over to a buddy’s recently who is running Mint. It’s been a few years since I used Mint, but it was a great all around Linux system, doesn’t have any of the Bazzite weirdness, and it was exciting to see it used by someone out in the wild (not in my own home).
If you weren’t a gamer, I would almost certainly recommend Mint. In your case, I would say try them both out, break them, push them to the limit and throw weird scenarios at them, maybe shut the computer down incorrectly a few times. See if you feel more comfortable with one or the other, then do a reinstall of the one you liked best after breaking them both. It is more work up front, but it’s worth knowing you can maintain your system when it very occasionally breaks or has an issue. Above all, make sure you take regular backups. That way you can mess with stuff and not worry about whether or not you’ll break something.
As a non-expert, I switched to Linux Mint and have had zero issues. If you have any questions let me know.
Bazzite. Game ready right after OS installs.
As another commentor said, Bazzite is a good bet. It’s an atomic OS based on fedora silverblue, so it’s very difficult to accidentally fuck up your system, and if anything does go wrong you are able to revert to the previous bootable state.
It also supports the popular patent-encumbered video codecs, as well as Nvidia drivers (with the Nvidia edition), out of the box.
You shouldn’t need to mess with the command line at all. It’s set up for (non-game) software distribution via Flathub, so you are unlikely to run into software compatibility issues and you don’t need to use a command line software package manager.
It does come with basically all the popular Linux gaming software already installed, which is a pro or con depending on your preference.
I reccommend the GNOME version, not KDE, for the smoothest and most straightforward/convenient user experience. (don’t come for me)
I personally recommend Fedora KDE. It’s polished and set up reasonably for the average person so you should never need to even open the terminal (you might need to fiddle with some stuff like enabling flatpacks but thats all sone in a GUI application), and it’s reasonably up to date withour shipping broken packages.
Vista 2: Electric Boogaloo
ME 3: The Crappening
LOL!! I like it.
Too late, already on Mint.
My desktop has been running Linux for a while now, but I finally got tired enough with the repeated flops from Microslop™ that I switched my 6 year old Surface I use for surfing from the couch over to Mint.
Not looking back at this point.
I’m close to a similar point, my PC has been Linux for a couple of years but my old surface book has been on windows 10 (with some 6 year security update thing that was mentioned during the time Win 10 was dropped).
The main reason I haven’t dropped it is that I sometimes use it for work or uni, so compatibility and other people being familiar has been a priority but I’ve graduated and got a work laptop so it’s probably time to drop Windows outright.
You can also dual boot in a pinch, it’s not too bad to setup
If you ever distro hop on that, let me know how a touch centric distros works on it like Ubuntu touch. Was thinking of picking one up for couch browsing. RIP in peace my hackintosh Dell mini 9.
I’ll let you know!
FWIW, touch works fine on Mint, and you can scale the UI up a bit to make it a little more touch friendly
After switching to Linux (CachyOS) over a year ago now, I think I’ve booted my still existing windows installation twice. Both times was at the very start to get some settings from installed software to migrate and to sync some data or something, I barely even remember. That has also been over a year ago.
Ever since I’ve switched, I stopped noticing I even have an operating system. I just use my PC. Unbothered by popups, updates and bloat are (re)appearing pinned in my start menu (no I didn’t want to have candy crush installed). Literally everything just works, and I’m mostly using my PC for gaming.
I regret not switching much sooner.
I switched whenever it was that I woke up and Copilot was installed on my computer without my consent. 2 years ago? More? Idk. I bought new drives because I didn’t want to dual boot, but also wanted to keep Windows “just in case.” Well, I haven’t booted from those drives once in that time. I did plug them in to get some files off them a few months ago, but they are back to collecting dust again. I think it’s about time to finally wipe them and put them back to work.
I actually got rid of windows instance entirely, I just realized one day that I hadn’t booted it up in 6 months, thanks Linux.
I have a Windows drive on my current machine. I boot it every six to eight months just to see what people are talking about in forums. So I shake my head and boot back into fedora.
In theory, I’m keeping it in case I bring my oculus cv1 out of storage. In practice, I’m pretty sure I’ll have bought a steam whateveritscalled long before that happens.
It’s been literally years (possibly more than ten by now) since I’ve had to use it to run a game.
CachyOS is arch right, is that regular work to keep it running or gaming?
It is absolutely no effort at all. When there are updates, you’re told in a notification. Click on it or don’t, up to you. You can of course also disable the notification and just manually update whenever you want (or not). Updating can generally be done through that tool, or through a normal GUI application that exists (where you can also install new software), or of course in the terminal if you prefer.
There will be updates basically daily, that’s the nature of the rolling distro model. If there’s like 5-10, they install in literally 5-10 seconds. If you’ve gone a month it’ll probably take 1-2 minutes. Also just cause there are updates doesn’t mean you need to care about it. You should of course update frequently enough that security fixes get applies, but many people just update once a week or once a month or something.
Appreciate the response. Interesting vs my experience with Bazzite. Have the rolling, frequent updates broken anything?
In just over a year the only thing that ever broke was a minor thing (probably a bug in KDE that slipped through) with no practical impact and an easy workaround, which then got fixed in like 3 days or something without any intervention from me. I’ve had more (in numbers) and more severe breaks in the same time frame on a server at work that’s running debian, one of which was related to actually booting the server.
The whole “rolling releases are so unstable” mantra gets thrown around a lot, and it almost stopped me from trying CachyOS/Arch when I switched. My personal experience has been the complete opposite. I honestly can’t tell if people who never tried these distros just keep repeating what they heard or read somewhere, or if I really am just pretty lucky.
I love that I don’t have to worry about getting some semi-modern software to run, like I’m often worried when on a debian based server and have to manually install so much shit by hand that I’m losing track, which I then manually have to update in the future. On CachyOS, I just assume whatever I can install is the latest version (it usually is, only once was it not I did took a minute to figure that out as I just dind’t expect it anymore). And usually I can just install whatever I’m looking for.
Another note: I’m running CachyOS on both my desktop and my laptop. My desktop I use daily, and I usually even update daily (it’s just the way I’m wired, and I don’t mind). My laptop I use rarely and consequently I only update it every few months or at least weeks. Neither approach has caused any issues. But do not assume that your install can’t break either, things can go wrong (as they can on Windows). But support for even relatively specific problems is reasonably easy to come by, and people are generally helpful (discord, forum, …).
Awesome recount, cheers.
I’m definitely giving catchyOS a go then, Bazzite proved games can (on a N 4070s) run in a fun way, so now I’ll get CatchyOS to replace windows (gaming/light work).
I’ve never had windows break on me, but I’m just so sick of the slop. I just want some peace when I switch on my desktop.
I run CachyOS on my gaming PC. I installed the OS, installed Steam, and the only regular work I’ve had to do since then is clicking the “upgrade now” button every couple weeks.
Anything break along the way?
Once the bluetooth stack updated and both steam and the OS were fighting for which one was doing the controller emulation for the nintendo switch pro controllers. I just went in and turned off the OS controller support in the bluetooth settings.
That’s literally the only problem I’ve had in… 9 months of this setup?
Interesting, quick solve too.
This has convinced me to try it out. Pretty impressive. Now i’ll try CatchyOS to replace windows.
Bazzite has been awesome while I only wanted to game.
Yeah, it was kinda frustrating cause I was trying to start a group game. BUT, I just clicked around a bit and figured it out, took maybe 5 minutes (of people watching me).
Before that I used Windows for my console PC, and I can honestly say that CachyOS is easier to use than Windows, and less likely for an update to break something.
Troubleshooting with an audience is never fun haha.
My only disadvantage seems to be my nvidia 4070 super…. But i haven’t seen a big issue with it in Bazzite. All im seeing and hearing are wins
When you say gaming, mostly indie titles and singleplayer?
I’d love to switch over, but a lot of games don’t run on Linux (especially multiplayer games with anti-cheat). Yes, it’s mostly on the developers, but it’s annoying as hell.
I made the deliberate decision years ago not to play multiplayer games even though having almost exclusively played those. It was just to get away from all the toxicity and competetiveness.
So from then on I have only played singleplayer games, and it have been such a positive change for me. Much more entertaining and no stress at all. And the bonus was of course that it made switching to Linux gaming so much easier, since I didn’t miss out on anything I wanted to play.
You say “especially” when it’s more like “almost exclusively”. Almost all games not bundled with malware (kernel-level anti-cheat) work with zero or minimal tweaking. It gets a little harder if you like to play with mods, though.
Linux gaming has come a long way. Back when The Witcher 3 came out, there was no Proton and running a game with Wine involved a lot of tweaking. Even then, I got better FPS than in Windows but it was hard. Now, I don’t even think about it. I just assume it’ll work.
That’s changing ATM as well, but i wouldn’t say a lot.
It’s like about ~10 of the biggest multiplayer games that’s unsupported because of kernel level anti cheats. P much every other games work.
If you’re in doubt about the compats of a specific title, check protondb :)
Everyone should be able to enjoy their life without the curse of microslop and the hauntings of it’s pharaoh Gill Bates
Not who you asked but I’ve played Sims 2 and 4, stardew valley, Minecraft, grounded, Ark, Alice Madness returns, and something I’m blanking on right now. I’ve only had linux mint installed for 3 months now so I’m sure I’ll try more games. I’ve had no issues. Well, I used issues with extras for as 2 but that was a simple, I didn’t read directions lol.
For me it wasn’t alot, pubg would be fun to play every once but the developers basically killed it with the bots update anyway. Rust has a nice but sadly small linux community and alot of other shooters like squad and the finals should just work. Rocket league just needed a line in the start options to work after the anti cheat update. Overall i was positively suprised how many games still run.
Huh, cool that The Finals work, seems like developers can enable EAC for Linux. Bit dumb that not more do it.
I’m hoping with the Steam Machine getting more popular that we get even more of a shift in the future.
I play almost no single player games, and I switched to Linux (Cachy) earlier this year. It’s been a blast.
Yes and no. I play singleplayer and indie games, but I also play competetive online multiplayer, but that’s mostly one game: Predecessor. It uses EasyAntiCheat and also just works. The games you play you can just look up if they work, usually it’ll be a yes/no and not more complicated and that mostly depends on the dev. Like Predecessor, where they ticked the box in EAC so it’s just fine. The number of games that do not work (specifically due to anti-cheat) isn’t huge, and well-known to check. You can just look up if it’s just a game or two you occasionally play, or if all you play is on that list (for a quick glance, check ProtonDB).
You can also just try to switch, if you actually want to, and only go back to Windows for the few games that need it. Maybe you’ll switch back and forth for a long time. Maybe you’ll find it’s too much effort to switch back to Windows and you play something that “just works” on Linux. Or you’ll find the switching annoying and you’ll keep booting mostly to windows “just in case” you wanna play one of the games that need it. Trying it out is very little effort and time these days.
Oh, I already did that in the past. But with dual booting you first start to set everything up twice (I want to check my email at any time for example).
Then you have a game or two that only work in Windows (Apex Legends). And over time you start to mainly boot into Windows just on the off-chance you want to play a quick round.
I still use Linux on my server of course. Recently I also got a MacBook Air for portability. But Windows really is just my “everything works” box.
Hell, even Nvidia GPU features I use on the daily (Like Broadcast) have no Linux support. So the switch isn’t worth it for me while Linux support is still seen as an afterthought.
I left windows years ago and have been splitting the difference between Mac and Linux since.
I’ve been working on moving off Mac too. The current beta is a speed demon (seriously impressive compared to Tahoe) but it’s still just a faster set of things I’ve come to hate. They are not even trying to solve a problem with their changes anymore. They are just selling things they have decided I must have.
Remember when Siri just used wolfram alpha for everything and was loaded with Easter eggs? Now we have an invasive AI nobody asked for and all efficiency gains get wasted on horseshit.
I’ve also only booted mine twice. Both times because apparently you can’t update an Xbox controller from anywhere but windows or an Xbox and all I wanted was to Bluetooth connect my controller to linux so I could get an extra cabin in stardew valley 🤣
The current Xbox is still a decent emulation machine if you want to play old 360 and some OG Xbox games plus it does have access to retro arch so you can even play everything below 7th gen consoles. Not a bad system if you can find one used.
Oh that’s great to know. I have hardly used mine.
It will play a good amount of 360 and a few original Xbox games even with just the disc which is nice! It does need internet to work though since it’s a download.
In my experience, I use Windows 11 pro and don’t get any stupid pop ups like that besides when I need to update the OS or update other programs I installed myself. Maybe it’s different on the other versions? I dunno… but it’s never been that big of a deal for me. I disable a lot of shit on it so it doesn’t do that to be fair.
People usually have different tolerance level for pop-ups and distractions based on their neurobiology.
I have heard autistic people say pop-ups hurt and overstimulate them, ADHD people say they can’t ignore pop-ups, while neurotypocal people say they don’t even notice the pop-ups.
So both experiences can be true at once. You have no issues with pop-ups, while for someone else physically can’t tolerate a single distraction without stressing them out.
Never used a windows version that wasn’t “pro”. It was even win10, not 11 as I refused to upgrade (and the reason for this post/thread). It wasn’t that constant, but annoying enough (despite numerous debloat sessions) that staying on Windows stopped beeing an option. I’m on Win11 pro at work, and it’s still a frequent enough fight to get rid of all the shit.
Just spent the weekend moving to Kubuntu. It only took about 5 hours and my computer is snappier than it’s ever been. I have been on Windows for 30 years. Microsoft, you should be scared. You can’t compete with free competition.
The only way to meaningfully compete with freeware is a feature advantage: if your revenue can sponsor developers to focus on polishing and improving your system beyond the free alternatives, there will be a market of people willing to pay for (immediately*) better products.
It’s what keeps Excel a step ahead of Calc: between a rather clunky UX and frankly awful documentation for some features and functions, Libre just doesn’t quite have the same maturity. It’s good enough for the majority of use cases, okay for some more and I’m really only aware of one feature I miss (Power Query or equivalent) or haven’t found. But it’s not as polished, and for some, that alone is reason enough to stick with paid products.
Conversely, it’s why more people are starting to move off of Windows: between user experience improvements, smoother installation, the spreading realisation that most stuff happens in browsers anyways and Proton making a lot of gaming a lot more accessible, Windows is losing that edge in features. If the list of anti-features and drawbacks grows large enough, the familiarity alone just doesn’t hold people any more.
You can compete with free competition, but that requires an eye on the market. And performance-impeding spyware just isn’t must-have for everyone.
*as opposed to supporting open source devs to the point where they could focus on their software, hopefully leading to better products some time later, which is less gratifying and less reliable than paying for a project you get right now
Yeah, the real “Year of the Linux Desktop” only occurs when devs actually get input from UX designers and stop designing clunky as fuck UIs.
Every year has been the year of the Linux desktop that wasn’t the year of the linux desktop
I strongly feel the only reasons Linux is actually gaining traction right now are
A) proton/wine getting good enough interfaces for regular people to start using them (steam, heroic, hopefully bottles someday gets easier to use)
B) KDE making strides with their desktop envoronment.
C) flatpaks being easy to use and fairly reliable once someone learns to prioritize them
All still have a LOT of work to do with UX, but they are close enough to good that its less of a hurdle for new people to pick them up.
Honestly there are some things I feel Microsoft and Apple do still do better and since they are UI-first considerations, Linux will likely never keep up.
For example: Apple has app packages. Imagine a flat pack to install by just dragging into a folder. Thats it all dependencies are there in the package. When you double click, the default action is to run a predefined binary within the package. It’s basically a folder whose default action is launch a binary within rather than open and browse. If you want to uninstall, just drag to trash. The OS keeps receipts and when I sees a package is sent to the trash, it handles the cleanup for you.
Flatpaks kind of do this but not really. It’s really clever and there’s no reason Linux can’t do this other than it just doesn’t face the same design pressures Apple did when they made it. Apple was GUI first, Linux had a GUI as an afterthought.
Microsoft has the plus of turn it on and it’s already there. Anymore, that’s pretty much all it has. Linux is getting much better with easier to use graphical installers and pushing themselves into a system much faster than windows does. But if a user doesn’t understand how a computer boots, that they can tell the computer to just boot something else, it’s overwhelming to get to the Linux-is-easy part. I feel like there should be a single click installer that creates a recovery partition, tells the uEFI to boot into it, wipes the original windows partitions out and installs to the computer, then removes itself, lets Linux reboot and reclaim the entire drive with a partition resize.
I feel like there should be a single click installer that creates a recovery partition, tells the uEFI to boot into it, wipes the original windows partitions out and installs to the computer, then removes itself, lets Linux reboot and reclaim the entire drive with a partition resize
Most linux installs are easier than Windows. It’s not a Linux issue, it’s an “already installed” issue. I wouldn’t want installations to be any easier than they are because the steps you’re involved with are steps that someone needs to give input or you risk destroying everything you had. Any OS installation that isn’t OEM, linux or Windows, starts with the assumption that there might be something important that it shouldn’t touch. Linux has OEM installations that from the perspective of the user receiving the computer, are identical to starting Windows for the first time.
The UX designers I knew had a bit of a circular problem: the poor UX put them off too much to develop that passion for FOSS that drives devs to work on it for free. They’d first have to puzzle out what things are supposed to do and how they’re supposed to go about achieving whatever they’re looking to do, basically reverse-engineering user flows that were never properly engineered.
I don’t have a solution for this and I don’t know if they’re representative, but acknowledging the importance of UX is a start for sure.
How the hell do UX designers contribute?!
Every year I look how I could give a few hours a week, but I leave bewildered (seems like every projects wants you to fork ans submit changes). Do you or anyone know of arrangement more like “here’s a ticket, punch in, do it, punch out”.
seems like every projects wants you to fork ans submit changes
I think that’s just how software devs tend to work: a main “trunk” of code, from which they branch off for a feature or change, then when they’re done writing the new code, merge it back into the trunk. That’s the mode we’re used to, the only tool we know for managing parallel code development.
How else would we do things? Or rather: how would you do things? This isn’t a rhetorical question: I genuinely admit I don’t know how you’d prefer to operate, or what you mean by punching in and out.
If you’re asking for specific tasks, projects may have an issue tracker of some form where you can find stuff other people found, but other than that, FOSS often is a “see something that needs fixing, go and fix it” thing. Particularly if the devs themselves don’t notice a problem, because they know what that confusing icon means or how that tool works, they won’t create a task they don’t even know needs doing. Even if they know something is bad, they might not know how to make it better.
If you’re using or trying to use a program and notice something has been done poorly, is too complex for an entry-level user, whatever it is you think could or should be improved, talk to the people making it, or look for a contribution guide.
Even if you can’t contribute code, it might be helpful to share your skills and knowledge by opening issues, explaining specific problems and offering ways to solve them.
Great points.
The way I’ve worked is usually: onboarding, identify work to be done, tickets (part of that forking), review/done.
So if the onboarding, identifying wtbd and then the work is done by me independently… that seems like weeks of work to submit a suggestion… you know?
UX design work needs a lot of research, understanding and alignment to stick.
Am I missing something?
No, I don’t think you’re missing anything. That’s the issue at hand here: creating proper, usable software takes time and effort. FOSS-developers tend to prefer pouring their time and effort into functional code, with the UI primarily shaped by their own needs rather than a thorough analysis of what other users could want. Often, tools are the result of someone building something for themselves and figuring they’d share it with others.
To properly design for a broad audience is an extremely selfless ask, and for all that these devs donate their time to the public, they only have so much to give. I think it’s fair that they’d prefer working on things they benefit from too, but that means sacrificing general usability for personal expediency.
And that’s why so many tools are clunky: they’re “good enough” for the developer, and nobody cares to also make them good enough for the rest of the user group.
Confirms what i thought, thanks. Maybe we need to make a better process for this, or champion it if there is always one.
Becsuse you get someone in on the creation thst can say things like.
“99% of all software uses Control+s to save, yes W stands for Write Out, but literally no one thinks that way and Control W is unintuitive.”
“People prefer larger icons with meaningful symbols.”
“This setting is only accessible by using a CLI to edit a .conf file in /etc/software/config/current and thats a terrible design.”
“Your pop up dialogs should all be consistently sized with Yes/Cancel buttons in the same space so users can more instinctively know where to click.”
“The window design looks like Windows 95 and makes people think they are in prison and has driven at least one user to depression and suicide, maybe consider modernizing the look with some color and roundness.”
Windows has different design pressures. They have painted themselves into a corner and can no longer afford to manage it. If they make sweeping changes they break the number 1 rule of windows, maintain legacy compatibility wherever possible. If companies have to buy new, it’s a harder sell for Microsoft because there are better, cheaper options out there they can’t compete with. Their own ecosystem is holding them back and they cannot do anything about it.
Windows 11 literally broke legacy compatibility deliberately, it refused to install on older hardware. So probably not rule #1 any more.
It broke legacy hardware compatibility. Sorry I should have been more specific. They need to maintain software compatibility.
I’m just sitting here patiently waiting for the end of the world staring at these corporations, Microsoft and Meta especially, just make company ending mistake after company ending mistake, for over a decade now. I really don’t believe companies able to absorb that kind of incompetence should exist.
Unfortunately until they are no longer “vital infrastructure” to governments, they will just get bailed out. I guess the best we can hope for is they disappear into obscurity as just another corporate software package that could easily be replaced by a spreadsheet.
