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Gonna repeat something I said a little while ago.
If you're planning to try Linux but have no experience with it, the best piece of advice I was given is this. Learn how the filesystem is structured. It will make everything else you try to do easier.
You're also going to get a ton of conflicting advice on which distro to use. Pop OS or Mint are my suggestions. !linux_gaming@lemmy.world is a good resource to know about too
Honestly, even if I don't like Snaps that much, Ubuntu/Kubuntu ain't so bad after all. I've been running it as a daily for months now on my Linux-only gaming PC and it's working quite well. There's good support for proprietary drivers and media codecs out of the box.
And personally, I'd advise on using the Kubuntu version because KDE is so much closer in terms of desktop paradigm than Gnome.
And Fedora ain't bad either.
Ye, my dirty little secret is that I'm still running kubuntu on my main laptop (which I do a lot of gaming on as well fwiw.) It's what it shipped with, and it works just fine. I can't say I would have actively chosen it, but It's also not bad enough to make me want to go through the hassle of installing something else
It's like a Honda Civic. It's just reliable and easy to maintain with good performance and some good features and some you don't really want but are still practical. And there's a big community giving lots of support and documentation to tweak it if you want more out of it.
I like the optimism of Linux users thinking there will be a massive flood towards their favourite Linux distro.
When the obvious path the majority of gamers will take is just ... not upgrade anything and stay on an unsecure OS until their next major PC upgrade.
Most users don't care about security as long as it allows them to do with their computer what they want.
If Microsoft didn't push people to a new version, you know too many would still be rocking Windows 8.
You mean 7, right? Most people skipped 8, and that's why Microsoft made the update to 10 free.
Yeah, I stayed on xp until I got a new pc during 7, then I stayed on 7 until I got a new pc during 10. I'll probably stay on 10 until whatever is after 11 comes out, even though I know better, because I just don't care enough.
Just like skipping Vista was the way to go. We need to skip Win11.
Windows had to force updates because so many people just didn’t update
Anyone that is on 10 still isn’t going to go to Linux
I dual boot and still use Windows 10. And everything I've seen from Windows 11 just seems like trash to me. My mother got a new laptop about a year ago and I came along to help her set it up. With her previous laptop, I opted to not do the free update to Windows 10 because people were complaining about it at the time (and I was still on Windows 7), so she ended up stuck with Windows 8.1 for years. So this time I did opt for the free update to Windows 11 and it feels like a huge mistake so far.
Her machine is now slow and struggles to get things up and running. And every single fucking time she tries to use it, it decides to run virus scans and download and install updates all at the same time. And these updates often seem to take an entire day. The last update took two days where she could barely do anything on her laptop because it was slowing things up so much.
And that all makes the frustration add up when you come across the other fucking stupid things they've done. So now when you right click on the desktop there's a few seconds where Windows needs to get its shit together to show you the new useless menu that's been slapped on top of the old useful menu. Then you need to click 'show more options' for the actual useful menu. Then another few seconds for Windows to get its shit together to load that menu.
And I don't want to load a bunch of stuff like classic shell or winaero tweaker because she's old and just wants to play hidden object games and solitaire. So I'm going to have to come running every time something happens that she doesn't understand. So I prefer leaving it vanilla.
But fuck Windows 11. It's absolute fucking garbage based on my experience so far. I was going to hold out for the inevitable Windows 12 because Microsoft seem to love using their paying customers as beta testers with every second OS they release but now I'm not so sure. Hoping there will be some sort of hack to keep enterprise updates coming or something.
Thing is, there's people out there on windows 10 on a computer without the magic special chip windows 11 demands.
Lots of those people can't update and lots don't know about Linux or understand how to even use a USB drive to install it.
Yes it's easy for us semi tech people, but remember not everyone is into tech or understand how computers works.
People NEED computers to do stuff like applying for jobs, or searching online, or video games with friends.
Those people who don't have a tpm chip and can't upgrade will just not and continue using a insecure windows 10 because they don't know or understand what it is.
Remember Lemmy, just because you understand tech, doesn't mean everyone knows about it, or can grasp the concepts.
I went out of my way to get a TPM from my systems OEM. I'm a tech, I've built dozens of machines without issue. I personally use a Dell, because I can't be arsed to deal with it for my own kit.
Granted, the Dell I'm using can easily fit the HEDT description, but still.
I'm still using Windows 10 because fuck Windows 11. I am forced to use that shit for work and I hate it. I'm constantly in need of stuff from the settings/control panel to fix other people's shit, and every time I go to settings, shit is somewhere different, buttons are moved or entirely missing... It's a right fucking mess.
On any Windows 10 system, I go to control panel, find the appropriate item, such as programs and features, or network and sharing center, etc... And all the controls are there, working, and haven't changed in any meaningful way since XP.
The thing that Microsoft seems to have abandoned is sent semblance of consistency. They're so deep in the shit with their CD/CI with the settings panel that for every feature build of Windows 10/11, the settings menu will have options in dramatically different locations. The main difference between 10 and 11 here is that, in Windows 10, the control panel was still in one piece. In Windows 11, several control panel icons now take you to the settings menu "equivalents" to the cpl you're looking for.
This is particularly bad with printing. Omg. How tf do I check/change the fucking driver in use for a printer in the fucking Windows 11 settings menu? If I go through what's left of the control panel, and go to devices and printers, I get taken to the settings menu for devices which includes a section for printers, so I go into printers, and I have to hunt down a moving target for where tf they put the button to open the control panel printers and devices dialog, which seems to change weekly. Then I can open the printer settings dialog and see what driver is in use on the advanced tab, or what fucking port it's connected to.... Which, when you deal with network printers, is a pretty fucking important piece of information. Then, half the time the printer port is a fucking wsd, and I have to go spelunking into the registry to find it's fucking IP address.
Wsd ports are fine right up until they fuck up, which happens frequently, TCP/IP ports don't really have any problems at all. So why the fuck are we moving everyone to fucking wsd ports? Where is the benefit? Explain Microsoft! Explain!
It's so goddamned frustrating to use as a technician. A lot of this stuff doesn't really apply to steam users or home users in general, because these menus aren't really looked at a lot. So the TPM requirement is the usual suspect for people's frustrations with Windows 11.
I wouldn't give nearly as much of a shit if they would just leave things where they are. I would only need to learn where the buttons and knobs and dialogs are once, and that would be it. But they have a bug shoved so far up their ass about making "improvements" that I can't rely on anything staying where it is.
Yeah well Windows 11 fucking sucks. What do they expect? Maybe if you have to do all kinds of shady shit to get people to accept the newest version of your shitty product you should take a good look at yourself and evaluate why that is.
fuck Windows, I am done with M$
The only reason I'm still on windows 10 is because I'm dreading the weekend of head banging against table I'm going to have when I do the switch to Linux before October... Not looking forward to getting it all set up and working
Once you get it all setup and proud of your work, make a fucking backup image, because a single update that changes an obscure library in some forgettable package that was part of your install will break everything and you will be pulling your hair out kludging a CLI script to unfuck some other binary that was unimportant, but now has affected another thing that was crucial for a graphics card or network adapter to function.
This is why I really don't want to have to use Linux, but Microsuck just can't stop with the fucking greed and I'm absofucukinglutly not running anything with recall... :(
Steam runs pretty smooth on Linux. Am currently using OpenSuse. Steam runs smooth. Games run smooth with one or two exceptions. For those exceptions I have a dual boot Windows 10 that doesn't need Windows Update for anything I ask it to do.
Steam does, but that doesn't necessarily mean your games will. I spent like an entire day getting comfortable and customizing some distro to finally fit my liking, only to later on realize that proton just doesn't fucking work for shit on it.
If you have a spare drive on your PC I'd recommend trialling Linux on that. With that setup, you will have it dual booted with your existing Windows installation. It should help with the transition since you can just boot into Windows if you still need it for anything. That will give you time to get accustomed to Linux while still having that Windows safety net for a while.
Also if you later find that Linux isn't for you then it's easy to undo that, since all you will need to do is boot into your Windows drive instead.
I went with that strategy when I made the jump 4 years ago, and later dropped Windows entirely when I built my new PC a few months later since I realised I didn't need it at all.
If I modify my existing PC to dual boot from the same drive into Linux, can I easily and safely delete Windows once I have migrated my files into Linux?
Yep, you can delete your Windows partition once you no longer need it or any data within it. Then once you update your bootloader (usually GRUB, some distros do this automatically when updating the system), Windows will disappear from the boot options.
Then you can either create a new partition in its place to store data on, or extend an existing partition to fill the empty space.
I'd recommend also backing your data as a precaution in case something goes awry.
I was dreading trying Linux as well and it was nowhere near as bad as I anticipated. Did full transition (I got new SSD for dual booting to try the waters) to it much faster than I ever anticipated.
I mostly just use the PC for gaming though so mileage may vary.
Bazzite was a 15 minute experience for me, from first boot to playing X4 foundations and sea of thieves.
Take the leap.
MS can pry Windows 10 out of my cold, dead hands. I'll switch to Linux before Win11 and I don't particularly want to do that either.
Make the switch, even if it's on an old laptop first just to try it out. About 90% of my Steam library runs without any extra effort needed, a few games needed tweaks that I found in the steam message boards, and 5 or 10 just refused to work at all.
At this point I am not even sure Microsoft thinks it is better to run important windows software natively on windows rather than in a much more stable, reliable virtual environment inside of Linux or WINE.
Both are going to crash occasionally (we are talking about windows software after all) but when the part running Windows software in Linux crashes it isn't anywhere as likely to sink the whole boat and crash the rest of the operating system and potentially lose a bunch of stuff.
I think clearly what Microsoft is gunning for longterm is to eat their operating system with a bunch of cloud crap that doesn't even really run locally for the most part.
Which is why we need to burn this to the ground so there are consequences for Microsoft for betraying users this thoroughly and completely.
Do you part, give friendly helpful linux advice to newbies, share resources and have some fun with it!
For anything that HAS to work and only runs on Windows (eat a dick Siemens) I put it in a VM with no network connection. A physical machine that gets regular updates is too unstable to rely on.
When ever I'm teaching a new guy I try to get them on board with using VMs at at minimum for reliability and a VM under Linux if they are interested.
You are correct Microsoft is selling a branded Thin Client Mini PC, around $400. It doesn't store anything local it is all cloud app, onedrive access stuff. Their Azure is Linux so its just a "Windows" Box for gaining access to Linux in the cloud. Lol
Unfortunately all the games I play require anti cheat and they all have dont support linux because of that
That sucks. About 5 years ago I put ideology one peg above entertainment and just avoid games that use Windows only anti-cheat, I don't get to play the biggest releases but there are literally thousands of other games that work perfectly and are just as fun.
If I were you I would keep my Windows gaming machine as a single function device. Play games, get all the MS updates and 3rd party spyware, don't let it touch anything you want to keep private or safe.
M$ ended win7 support in January 14, 2020. Steam did not end win7 support until January 1 2024. M$ ending support for their OS does not mean Steam will do so anytime soon. Considering how small number of their users has updated, there's a good chance Steam will keep supporting win10 for many more years. By that time I know I will no longer be using Windows.
There's a decent chance M$ continues supporting Win10 after "End of Life," just like [ checks notes ] every single "mandatory" update they've ever attempted.
Maybe because Windows 11 sucks
Every single edition of Windows introduces new forms of bloat and new ways for MS to overreach and attempt to play corporate nanny over a user's system; why the fuck would anyone willingly upgrade Windows when they have the chance not to?
I'm surprised 0Patch hasn't been mentioned in this thread. There's really no reason to stop using Windows 10 after EOL if you can still get security updates.
I've been meaning to get a Linux VM spun up for testing games. I gather that I'll have some issues (i.e. blockers) with multi-player games and cheat-prevention, but I'd just as soon play single player games anyway.
I've been a Linux/Unix admin for 25+ years so I've no excuse other than convenience. But I'm done.
I'm sure you know this already, but for anyone who doesn't: If you want to know if a specific game will work under Linux, Proton DB is your friend!
I'd recommend the other way around; Windows in a VM for the vew games that don't work on Linux.
Let me introduce you to our lord and saviour, tux
And for those of us who heavily use VR applications, pirated 10 LTSC. Once that runs out though, I'm definitely gonna be switching to Linux.
Already begun the switch to linux on smaller pcs. Moving to some larger ones this summer to verify initial impressions... big gaming pcs going in fall.
Well... BYE Felicia
I stayed with XP until 7. I stayed with 7 until 10. I'll probably stay with 10 until the next Windows. Assuming it actually is decent again, and not just even shittier than 11.
Can anyone speak to the VR experience on Linux? I mainly use my desktop PC for VR nowadays, steam deck for everything else. From what I've heard, however, VR is still steaming garbage on Linux.
I got some good answers here
Sounds like it's not perfect, but may be workable depending on what you're trying to do
Steam should push po>!o!
If they want to buy me a new laptop, go for it.
With ~~end of life~~ the year of the Linux desktop fast approaching.
Gaymers raise up!