I made my move just recently. It was rocky, I ran into some issues and some of them were my fault.
I’m willing to put up with it currently not because Linux has gotten markedly better, but Windows has decided (yes, decided) to become significantly worse. Microsoft could have done nothing and I would have stayed a loyal, koolaid-drinking consumer of theirs.
I’m just starting out with Bazzite right now. Still awkward, but pretty painless, and all the gaming stuff like proton is already configured and baked in. I still need to figure out how to get stuff done though.
I’m not quite sure why there is so much hate for Windows 11. It’s a slightly improved version of Windows 10.
My main stuff is the forced-AI. I’ve watched the Start menu, the core of the computer, get slower and slower and just stop working because of infinite efforts to over-complicate it. Then there was that guy who tries to put out a simplified version of Windows, who found that removing the new Recall feature caused Explorer to crash - indicating the core of the operating system UI is now baked around that existing.
From personal experience, 11 can’t do vertical taskbars and the hack that restores 10’s taskbar isn’t entirely bug-free and can be shut down on a whim by MS with an update removing the functionality.
From what I’ve read, 11 is a privacy nightmare with Recall and the ever-worsening insistence on having a fucking MS account to log in to your PC locally. Sorry I meant your self-serve surveilance and ad-targeting appliance.
Having to fight the anti-features and dumbing down of a piece of hardware you supposedly own to keep it usable and useful to you, not the mothership, with hacks of varying reliability… What part of that sounds like something you would want to spend any of your money or time on?
Removed basic fonctions access, forced unwanted functions installs and doesn’t work on my pc.
I keep seeing these " time to move to Linux" threads. For my work I have to use super proprietary software which I know for a fact is Windows only. Not only that it’s GPU intensive CPU intensive and niche. I’m sure there’s a way to run Windows within Linux but I can only imagine the pain in trying to get proprietary shite to work.
On top of that I need specific CAD software, Photoshop and Illustrator. I don’t think any of these daily used programs support Linux.
From the outside, Linux just seems like an absolute ball ache to get working with all of the things I currently do without even thinking about it.
I’d love to do it. Not sure it’s going to work. Am I wrong?
Different OSes for different use cases. You have a job to do. Just use Windows.
If you want to use Linux, use it on your own machines on your own time.
That said, there are a few things you can do if you really want to use Linux:
- Test if the app works on Wine, Proton, etc. Even GPU accelerated apps can work, depending on the software/driver stack.
- Run a Windows VM and pass-through a GPU. That way you’ll get native performance on the app that’s GPU intensive. Use KVM and the CPU overhead will be negligible.
- If you’re doing 3D modeling/rendering, SFX, video editing or ML/AI, there are a lot of options on Linux. Some options that exist in Windows also have Linux versions.
For the life of me I cannot figure out how to run KVM locally. Every tutorial I’ve found is targeted at people doing servers.
All you need to do is insert the
kvmmodule and use something like QEMU to take advantage of it. I’d assume if you’re using QEMU then you’re using KVM by default.
I would like to try #2 but for some reason my 5900x doesn’t have graphics so I literally need to buy a whole other GPU for this
Yeah, you either need a separate GPU or a iGPU/dGPU that supports SR-IOV. Some Intel iGPUs support it, and allow you to make virtual GPUs that can be pass-through`ed to VMs.
As a gamer, I’m always going to have at least one Windows PC.
But I’m planning to upgrade next month, and turn my old PC into a non-gaming Linux rig for all non-gaming purposes.
I don’t play every game out there, but in the last couple of years, I’ve not had a reason to switch to Windows to play a game.
Most games these days seem to work fine on Linux, especially with all the work Valve has put in.
When I ran a dual-boot over June and July last summer only about 60% of my library functioned, so for me, it’s just not feasible to go entirely without Windows.
Same here. Its just a much better experience through windows. I made a new system for my daily driver which runs linux and I only turn on my gaming desktop when i want to game. I stream it through steam remote play and it works great
Basically every game without anticheat runs on Linux now
That wasn’t my experience, even with the various compatibility tools.
A lot do though.
Me too, i even asked Autodesk about linux support and they pretty much said use IOS instead or come back when Linux has >5% market share.
Uh, yeah thanks for giving me an option just as shitty as the current system and practically saying “we charge you THOUSANDS per year for our product but we would rather do incremental updates on useless features because the core product is practically perfect instead of allowing competition to the MS/Apple monopoly”
If your work requires Windows, then use Windows. Switch to Linux when everything you need is available on it. If alternatives don’t exist, then that’s it.
No, you are right. In your situation, Linux is just not an option - yet.
I think these posts are meant for the 95% of people that use a browser, and maaaaybe a mail client on their PC.
Photoshop/Illustrator will only ever get ported if enough people have already made the move that Adobe can’t afford to ignore Linux any longer.
That being said, if those requirements are just for work, what’s keeping you on Windows on your private devices?
That’s a fair point, other than I do need to work at home on occasion!
I’ll have a good think about it.
You could switch to Linux at home and just have a windows VM in case you need to do something for work urgently.
Photoshop/Illustrator will only ever get ported if enough people have already made the move that Adobe can’t afford to ignore Linux any longer.
I disagree. They have a strong enough hold on the industry they can resist moving to Linux and it will have the affect of choking Linux’s growth.
Moreover, there’s no way in hell Adobe ever allows their subscription bullshit on a platform that gives the user as much control as Linux. They won’t touch Linux until they can be guaranteed no one will be able to alter or interfere with how their software operates (oppressively).
The issue with Linux going forward is software in general is all moving towards a more locked down, gatekeeping model. The iOS philosophy is infecting every space, from Android to Windows. Linux stands in opposition to that type of control over the user’s system, and therefore tech companies won’t develop for it if the trend continues.
Maybe. But there are third options as well - maybe if Adobe acts like you describe, and there is sufficient Linux adoption, that opens the door for an actual crossplatform competitor.
Or maybe they change their mind when not doing so costs them money.
For people just using a browser and mail, they could just use Android. Samsung Dex is pretty great as a laptop replacement.
The point is to ditch the dependency on a corporate Overlord, not to find a different daddy
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FWIW, Photoshop and Illustrator generally work very well through Wine, not sure about CAD so I can’t comment on that.
In general though, yeah, if you have to use some super proprietary Windows-only software, you very well may be out of luck for Linux. In which case, yeah, you have to put up with Windows and jump through whatever hoops Microsoft wants you to jump through.
No gaming support, steam deck it is…
There’s proton … Which steam deck uses as well for compatibility.
Steam Deck runs on Arch Linux (btw)
And since Proton is built-in to Steam for Linux, there’s honestly no extra effort to get games to run. In 99% of cases, you click “play” and Steam downloads whatever compatibility layer it needs to run the game on Linux (same thing that Steam Deck uses).
Some games don’t work (almost anything with anticheat), but anything that works on Steam Deck works on Linux, because they’re the same thing from a software perspective.
Should we tell them? ;)
can’t wait for steam os to come to desktops, hopefully will happen before the end of windows 10 support
From what I’ve seen, the closest thing is Bazzite. Steam OS, at least its current iteration, is really made for the Steam Deck, and I think Valve lost interest in keeping its own distribution.
I’ll have to check bazzite out. thanks for lmk
Prays that 2025 is the year for solid NVIDIA support for Linux
I actually no longer have any Nvidia related issues, I think it is already here
With nouveau open source driver?
Nah proprietary, unfortunately last I checked nouveau still kinda sucks performance wise
I’m not entirely sold - a lot of the time when troubleshooting games for my Ubuntu lappy I stumble across Nvidia issue threads.
They’ve definitely been a big problem in the past
As of 550 they seem to have worked out the glaring issues at least in my experience
Might be worth spinning up an external 1080ti on the lappy and see if the magic is finally there!
here we go again…
I just want a OS, that just install and work for all the things I want to do, without installing other stuff, because I need it to play some game or whatever.
Sounds like nobara or bazzite to me
Or basically any distro and steam tbh
Thanks for this unqualified headline.
I only use the computer for word processing, internet, and playing roguelikes.
Fine. I guess I’ll learn Linux 😒
As someone who understands windows fairly well, but until recently couldn’t use the command line to save my life, I started dual booting Ubuntu and it’s pretty easy to figure out once you understand what you’re looking for. Only things I’m still trying to get running are alternatives for the stream deck software, iCUE, and voicemeeter, but I havem’t really invested much time into them yet.
I don’t like change! 😣
Sometimes people get caught up trying to find exact matches for software, when instead it’s a combination of tools that gets the job done on another OS. The annoying thing is learning new toolsets – but it’s only annoying until you know them.
Yeah I don’t expect to get all the functionality in one piece of software, so I’ll have to cobble it together. Of course, icue depends on the .net framework so it’s not getting ported, and the other 2 just don’t have an official native linux app. Jack mixer is my current target for voicemeeter, but I have to start researching the others at some point.
Pipewire has some mixing functionality through tools like pwvucontrol, and graph connections through Helvum.
I’ll have to look into that. Thanks for the info!
ICUE has a full replacement, I think it’s called CKB next, I can double check that once I’m home if I remember
I use it to manage my Corsair 12-button mouse and it actually has MORE features and is MORE usable than ICUE ever was
I had heard of CKB next, but I thought it was a general purpose RGB software. Good to know!
It is, I think?
It also does button mapping and supports Corsair shit out of the box, so it’s what I use it for. I planned to use it for the RGB portion as well but it didn’t support other devices and OPEN RGB is right there so I use that for lighting and CKB for mouse buttons and DPI config, smooth as butter experience compared to ICUE never fucking saving anything to memory no matter HOW HARD I TRY WHY ICUE WHY
I feel that pain in my soul! Sometimes my settings get applied, sometimes not, sometimes integrations work, sometimes not, sometimes the app updates properly, sometimes it breaks itself so windows doesn’t know it’s installed and won’t run it, but the installer thinks it’s installed, so it won’t repair it so I have to delete fucking anything I can find from icue, reinstall it, uninstall with revo, and then reinstall fresh and import all my saved profiles, which only sometimes work. Why the fuck is iCUE so goddamn shitty?!
Weirdly enough, .Net works relatively well on Linux (at least the core components). Parts of the framework are even various degrees of open sourced.
I do a lot of .NET development at work (back end web APIs). It’s all done in Linux via WSL2. All my code runs in Linux containers on Azure.
For those use cases, there’s very little actual learning to be done.
When did PC Gamer start hijacking the back button to show more ads? Infuriating.
I just open things in new tabs with the mouse wheel click, then press ctrl-w to close the tab.
I don’t play their games
Yep good call. I’m usually on my phone where tapping the link and swiping to go back is the natural behavior. I can scroll up and close the browser instead but habits are hard to break.
You can also mouse wheel click to close the tab.
Yeah but I’m already on the keyboard at that point. Easier for me to ctrl w to close the current tab then it is to move my hand and move the cursor to the tab then middle mouse again.
Very recently have I started in the habit of ctrl tab and ctrl shift tab to change tabs instead of even clicking them.
I’d love to throw the mouse in the garbage for day to day tasks tbh.
Yup, same, my workflow is very keyboard centric. But sometimes I’m just reading a bunch of stuff and scrolling (scrolling on anything other than my ThinkPad w/ trackpoint sucks IMO), so I already have my mouse in hand.
It’s good to have options. I figured someone may be unaware that you can middle-click to close tabs.
You mean keep spyware off your pc
There’s Windows 10 LTSC, which gets security updates til 2027. And IoT Enterprise LTSC, which gets security updates until 2032.
“But should you even use those versions?!? They are not meant to be installed on a desktop PC/laptop” - idk, it’s either this or Win11.
For more info on how to install, check https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
Guys there’s countless tools out there for removing bloat and telemetry and tweaking the UI. it takes like fifteen minutes to make windows 11 completely acceptable for daily usage
The problem is there are many things you can’t disable, remove, or alter, and that will continue to get worse over time.
Just because some bullshit is listed in Winaero Tweaker or whatever as an option to disable doesn’t mean all the bullshit in the system is listed there.
but don’t you lose gaming performance if you’re running newer hardware (I guess this might not matter to you)
What do you mean by that? You don’t lose gaming performance when you use win10 over win11. Why would you?
Man I could swear there was something. I thought it was DirectX12 that was exclusive to 11 but googling tells me im wrong. Maybe I’ve been on win 11 for no reason this whole time haha
For what its worth: I’ve been running enterprise since 2015 (when it was called LTSB) then switched to LTSC IoT around 2021. Its fantastic and doesn’t have all the Candy Crush and other bullshit. I highly recommend.
That plus open shell is what windows 10 should have been.
My biggest concern for using the LTSB IoT is how long third-party application support will remain if Microsoft goes through with dropping support next year. I guess a lot of stuff still works under Windows 7 so maybe it will be fine?
I don’t expect but also won’t be surprised if it ends up being a Windows XP situation where they extend support for Windows 10 several times.
I don’t expect but also won’t be surprised if it ends up being a Windows XP situation where they extend support for Windows 10 several times.
They absolutely will, and they’re planning on this, they’re just not going to announce the true EOL date. The deadline will scare people into upgrading, then they’ll start extending it.
I’m a government contractor, so I’m stuck on Windows and Microsoft products for work. It really sucks, but the government ain’t switching to Linux anytime soon… if ever. At least Windows 11 Enterprise (or Government, whatever) should have a lot of this shit stripped out. I hope.
Usually at that scale you create images with all this crap removed. When deployment time comes, the machines are reimaged from local/state IT.
I feel bad for the average home user that, at this point views more ads than content, and all this telemetry collection to boot.
I use 11 and don’t see any ads and have telemetry turned off. I’m not sure where this is coming from, but I keep hearing it, and it doesn’t mesh with my experience.
I’ve personally thought about going back to Linux, and I still might next time I upgrade my MOBO, but the thought of all the effort it will take to get all of my hardware working again is exhausting. That was the greatest struggle before I even approached software issues. I’ve heard it is better these days, but I’m not an expert or a programmer, so I’m essentially relying that someone else has had my use case, solved it, and made it publicly available which is not always the case.
If it’s any consolation, and maybe just luck, but I almost have better luck with hardware not with windows.
That could very well be the case. I was on a beater laptop previously that was no longer functioning with windows and I needed something for school. I remember I that I wasn’t able to get the wifi card to work with Linux so I ended up getting an external card. It likely is different now and I have a proper desktop, but the experience was rough and I’m not eager to repeat it, lol.
Oh I remember those days. Having to find an extracted windows driver and using ndiswrapper to patch it in.
That, and I’m just proficient enough with computers to fuck shit up.
