I’m a new Linux user since the start of the year. Windows has become so stressful to use for a pc I just want to game on. Before I was stuck using windows, but proton has changed the game so much I don’t feel like I’m missing anything now using Linux.
ChatGPT has also helped a lot by giving me all the technical support for Linux I could ever need. It’s taught me a ton while also helping me with all my problems.
ChatGPT is a fantastic tutor. Even if it doesn’t know already, you can copy a dense technical document and paste it into the chat, then ask it questions in plain english in subsequent messages
Me too. It sometimes saves me hours and writes code that is better than I would write. Other times it recommends code that doesn’t actually compile, but insists that it should. Often it provides working code that is about 3 times more complicated than it needs to be. But overall it is an amazing tool that massively improves productivity. If you use it for help with complex subjects that you already understand well, then it is a bad-ass advisor.
They’ve gone overboard in preventing troll behavior in this version. It constantly apologizes and refuses to say anything that could be considered even slightly controversial. It also spews morality lessons. But most importantly is that it understands the context of what it suggests, so it wouldn’t recommend that unless you’re trying to nuke your system. It probably wouldn’t recommend that even if you’re trying to nuke your system and would instead give you a lesson on why what you’re doing is destructive.
The weird thing about it is it often gives incorrect results for stuff like programming, but when you say that is wrong, it comes up with a correction. LOL Like, just tell me the correct thing from the start .
Do you feel performance is good while using Linux to game? How is it compared to windows?
I would love to switch, the only two things keeping me away is potential performance decrease and the fact that my GoXLR doesn’t work with Linux and it was way too expensive for that.
I’m using a 4070 (which has very new and slow release Linux drivers) and I don’t see any worse performance. But I barely used my 4070 with windows before switching over to Linux. However I seem to get similar results to other people on windows with the same hardware.
I haven’t personally benchmarked but so far everything I’ve tried in Steam has worked and performed at a level where I don’t even think about it. If you’re chasing the top possible FPS then it’s not a good option, but performance is way better than I ever expected and definitely good enough for me.
I have found that some games that are problematic on Windows actually run better on Linux through Proton. Performance in general can be slightly worse or slightly better depending on the game, but these days it definitely rivals Windows. That said, if you like multiplayer games; those usually do not work well on Linux, especially when they have anticheat. Also, native Linux versions are often broken, the Windows version through Proton usually works better.
Can’t speak to the GoXLR, you might be able to find some info on linuxmusicians.com. I got my Tascam audio interface and my Mooer GE200 working out of the box though (with less latency than on Windows).
There are some Linux-tools to get the GoXLR working on Linux, but last time I tried I had… “mixed” results. It has been a while, though and there seems to be active development for a Linux solution.
For the most part it works really well! 90% of games on steam work without any hassle and the 10% with errors have workarounds. It’s not perfect but it’s definitely getting better as time goes on, especially with more anticheats having compatibility with linux than 5 years ago. When it comes to standalone games, it can be a mixed bag because sometimes it works perfectly and other times it doesn’t, but launchers like lutris help get the games that don’t work run decently. When it comes to emulators, they work really well, sometimes better than running them on windows, but keep in mind where you’re getting them. I have less issues overall with the flatpack variants of emulators.
I don’t have a gaming PC or anything, I just have a laptop, so ymmv, but performance in Linux, even of Proton games, is noticeably far better for me. Things are faster, I can crank the graphics settings up higher without lag, and my fan spins less angrily. Linux is just generally less resource-intensive than Windows by a very wide margin, so I think it leaves more for the game? Idk. All I know is it works better.
Agreed in part. There are reasons there are distros, but I don’t think Op is suggesting to run LFS as a daily driver. More that they want to install it to show they can. And on that front, I’d disagree. Go for it! The book is fairly self explanatory. It does call out some choices early on with respect to package management. Stop and think at that point. Make a choice, then move forward.
Then I have misunderstood this question. You are right, if you install LFS you get to better know your system and how it works. But as a daily driver, it is really a no-go.
Being lightweight or not doesn’t depend on the distro but the desktop manager (the graphic interface). Unlike Windows, the graphic in Linux is separated from the system so you can use different desktop managers on the same distros.
The lightest DE is LXQT but it’s pretty barebone, XFCE has more features while still being very light, avoid GNOME and KDE.
That being said, I suggest you try Linux MX XFCE or Mint XFCE first, if that’s not light enough for your liking, try Lubuntu, that’s Ubuntu with LXQT as default DE.
When the Steam Deck was first announced, I was so excited for it that I figured it was as good a time as any to switch to linux on my desktop, to get familiar with in in advance of the Steam Deck release. I wanted more control over my PC, and I’ve been wanting to switch to linux for ages, but it was something I kept putting off just because I knew it would be quite a time sink to learn to use it.
I was surprised with how simple linux really was. I started with Kubuntu and hopped to Garuda, to be able to use the AUR, and I’ve been in love with linux to the point where I never even boot into windows despite still having it installed. I just have never felt the need, and windows now feels so clunky and not very personalized to my preferences.
For me, it was much like iPhone vs Android. I’ve twice been back to owning an iPhone and have kept leaving because of the more closed ecosystem. The freedom to explore, take apart, modify, hack, learn, etc. I don’t do a lot of that, but it is nice to try things out. So in summary for me its the philosophy behind it.
I’d been tinkering with Linux for years and never using it properly when I saw how Windows Vista performed on my new fairly high end PC and formatted and installed Ubuntu and never looked back. Of course it wasn’t an entirely smooth experience, setting up X properly was fun in those days but the performance was so much better.
You can make your computer your own. You bought it, you deserve control for it, you do not need a corporation to decide things for you.
The benefits of Linux is that you can simply multitask much better, and do things more efficiently. It’s honestly not the same and the two are just not comparable, but not everyone can appreciate or take advantage of that.
For an inexperienced person to set it up, of course it’s not that simple. Those that are comfortable with Windows find all of these benefits trivial over the perceived amount of effort to transition.
For an experienced person like me, Windows is much more of a nuisance to set up. I really like my setups clean, I just can’t stand how dirty Windows gets. To clean your system effectively, you’d have to reformat it. There are things like Scoop, MSYS, Docker, etc. I had to use Windows on my laptop for school. The way I use Windows is like how I use Linux, except Powershell commands are just non-intuitive. It just feels really awkward over Bash.
The things I was using my computer to do were becoming increasingly technical - I work in science, and I’m also a massive nerd outside of that. Many of the programs I was using were on both Windows and Linux, but often I was unable to find troubleshooting help for the Windows versions. I knew enough of Linux that I could jiggle things around and make the Linux advice fit into my Windows situation, but it was awkward and added another layer of uncertainty to the stressful troubleshooting.
At a certain point, it felt like a case of “you can’t find Windows specific advice because who in their right mind would actually be using Windows to do this stuff?”
Who indeed
(That last part is hyperbolic, but it sort of does feel like I was trying to hammer in a nail with a screwdriver sometimes. Combine that with Windows being annoying and stressful in the personal use context too and I wasn’t having a good time. Things got very messy.
The way NixOS is, the initial setup of all the different things you would want is incredibly time consuming and it has a very very steep learning curve. It was incredibly difficult for me to set everything up. I tried to make it work and then ran away 4 times now, each time starting from the configuration I’ve had so far, and building up on it. I still haven’t been able to perfect my configuration, and I’ve been on NixOS (this time) since mid-June. I haven’t been working on it actively, but I have done some work on it. NixOS is just too complex and too much for me to wrap my head around. Personally, I’m leaving it for something else, I’m thinking of Void, and I might go back to Arch for a while, I don’t know. Fedora seemed promising, but after the recent telemetry stuff, I crossed it off my list. Tumbleweed seems alright? I’ll see. But I totally get it.
I too think that NixOS is amazing. It is really unique (Guix is similar but not quite) yet it is very difficult to learn and maintain properly.
The main problem with NixOS right now is, in my opinion, the scattered documentation. You often can’t understand a topic without cross-referencing the manual, nixos wiki, nixos search (and nixpkgs and some scattered personal blogs if you’re really unlucky). But if you stick around and adapt to this it’s very easy to do stuff that takes a lot of effort on other distros with a few lines in your config.
While we’re on the topic: What’s a great resource to learn about flakes? I can’t seem to find a great answer that also shows why they are better and when.
They’re still unstable and fully optional. When you’re at the point where you could benefit from flakes, you’ll know it. Ignore them for now.
The most tangible difference to a NixOS user would be that they replace channels. If you’re contempt with channels, no need to rush to flakes.
Hey, sorry for the late reply. I found the blog by xiaoso quite good, and this one also isn’t too bad. But I never found one true source which explained it satisfactorily to me. It’s probably best if you just browse through other people’s configuration and piece it all together from that. From what I understood, flakes have 3 main uses:
They replace nix channels. If you want to switch between stable and unstable it’s pretty easy to do through flakes. Also, if you need any modules (like home manager or agenix, for encrypting secrets) you can simply import it as an import for your flake.
You can “modularize” your configuration. You can describe multiple systems in a single flake so you can have your desktop and laptop be built from the same flake, but with different packages installed. This is the part that I use most and honestly find most useful.
You can quickly have a development environemnt through flakes. You could use a flake per project, have all your dependencies as inputs in your dev flakes and never clutter your system with various dev tools
Nixos is riddled with stuff that you just “have to know” which can be quite frustrating. The lon ger you stick with it, the easier it gets though.
I’m personally very happy with tumbleweed. It’s been very stable, and has the built in rollback feature on the off chance an update played bad with your system (I’ve only needed to use it two or three times over the last few years across three different computers). Tumbleweed also integrates super well with plasma.
Ooh if you’re thinking of trying something new I recommend Alpine. An extremely underrated distro for a DIYer. It’s really lightweight and simple and its packaging system is a breeze to write packages for (for things you’d usually use the AUR for, since there isn’t an equivalant for Alpine AFAIK). Void is also fun I ran that for a year. Keep in mind, I’m only talking fun. For a good distro that will Just Work™, Alpine is fine, but I think Arch wins on that front.
NixOS is a journey and I have the privelage of having two systems, one “Home” system running Arch that I use usually and my “Roaming” system which I run whatever and is what I take to class and stuff because usually I only use it to take notes meaning minimum requirement is “Be able to log into a tty so I can write a text file”. So being able to use that for NixOS has helped a lot, since if something goes wrong, I can just ssh into my “Home” machine to get work done.
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