For what would make me completely move, I just want my games to work, I know a ton of effort has been made on that front, but Nvidia drivers kinda stink so performance is a bit worse or completely unusable in certain programs on wayland at least.
Stuff like Wabbajack Skyrim/FO mod organizer modlist support for Linux too, along with modding other games in general usually requires windows because of dll hooking being very common.
I’d been using linux for work for a couple years and it was going fine. I had a pretty crappy laptop at home with limited storage and I was constantly wrestling with Windows storing update stuff, installing adware during updates, etc.
I’d heard of proton and about how well it was going with it, so I had an idea linux gaming was possible.
Eventually something happened during a windows update that required I reinstall the OS and I just pulled out the flash drive I used to install linux on my work machine and tried it out. Eventually I did have to dual boot (on a bigger drive) for some games, but nowadays I’m all linux everywhere.
I suggest reading through multiple answers despite everyone answering all your questions, this way you get the most complete answers. As such, here’s my two cents:
Yes, search for “Widgets” at Gnome’s official website to see: extensions.gnome.org
Depends on what you mean by “problematic”? My laptop refused to go to sleep because of a setting in the wifi card, but once I changed it I haven’t had any issues. You may also find that some of your hardware is nonstandard, and therefore requires extra steps during installation.
What do you mean “minimum”? Because I installed Debian headless, and starting with nothing but a command-line and the system utilities and nothing else installed is what I heard, but maybe in your mind it just means a graphical desktop and nothing more. If you did mean that, you could try something like MATE for your desktop environment, or XFCE if you want to learn by customizing. If you’re feeling really adventurous, use SwayWM
Depends on how it came installed, but generally it’s easy. Most of the time, starting out it will be as easy as running the uninstall command for whatever package management software installed it.
“Rooting” a device refers to installing untrusted firmware on SoC devices. Unless your laptop is a chromebook, you probably don’t need to worry about that. Dual-booting Windows and Linux won’t stop Windows from updating, nor stop whatever application manages your firmware from working in Windows, if that’s what you’re worried about.
It depends on your distro and its package manager(s). In Debian it’s as easy as sudo apt install <Desktop Environment> and then logging out, changing which DE you’re logging into, and then logging back in. Most are going to be that way
Lazy answer: don’t worry about it, and don’t worry about it. If you’re the type who wants their PC to “just work,” it’s behind-the-scenes stuff that will never apply to you. If you’re prepared to get down in the weeds, occasionally break things, and customize every aspect of your OS, then you’ll learn when it’s relevant. If you’re saying “Lazy question” and not showing that you already did some research on the topics, you’re most likely in the former camp; this isn’t a value judgment, just an observation.
But, since we’re all still nerds here regardless of what we’re nerdy about, and since learning almost never hurts, I’ll throw some vocab at you to get you started:
Wayland is a specification of how software should display things on the screen, it’s the generic blueprints of how Display Servers and their Clients should behave; Wayland is seeking to replace the X Window System specification, and specifically the popular Xorg Server implementation.
Docker is a containerization platform (software ecosystem). Containers are essentially a small subset of Virtual Machines (or VMs) which are Guest operating systems that run within a separated off environment from your Host operating system. On Linux, features like namespaces, cgroups, and chroots are used to achieve this effect. Containers tend to use less hardware than Hypervisor-hosted VMs, but also tend to be single-purpose systems.
I’m glad to see other people go into Linux for positive reasons instead of just hating Windows. What really got me was Compiz. Initially, it was all the crazy effects like wobbly windows, but soon I realized how much I liked the “Workspace” paradigm and then being able to customize things as much as I wanted. Then, the whole free software thing, distro-hopping, the great communities, etc.
When I was a CS student in the early-mid 90s, my college had Unix only and we had to fight to get a free terminal to complete our assignments.I had a good 486DX with Windows 3.11 and I had heard of Minix, so I could do my assignments in the comfort (?) of my dorm room.
I went to my local technical library to see if they had a box (that sort of places used to carry boxed OSes and specialized software back then). They didn’t, but they had this CD with Slackware written on it and the store owner said it was better. So I bought it on a whim.
After many hours and a lot of recompiling the kernel and libraries right and left, the thing finally booted and ran surprisingly stable. My roommate saw it and immediately installed it on his machine. The next days we went buy a couple of 10base2 NICs, some coax and a pair of terminator, and before you know it, we had NFS going.
It was our own Unix network and it was way better than college’s :) I never looked back.
I did work with DRDOS as a kernel dev a few years later, which involved reverse-engineering bits of MSDOS 7 (yes, that’s the version of MSDOS Windows 95 ran on top of). That’s as close to working professionally with MS stuff as I ever got. Other than than, I’m a pure product of the Linux generation baby!
I’ve been keeping an eye on Linux since the late 90s. It took me not having to use any non-Linux software or hardware on the computer in question. Currently I have two laptops running Linux, one has Windows in case I need it (which so far has turned out to be never), and I have a workstation that has Linux as a secondary OS but I’m always in Windows on that one because of software and hardware.
Windows 10 update. They nagged about it, and for security I relented. It did a few things: made our proprietary CAD slow (not just one machine or one company, but every customer running it complaining), made home machine slow for everything. Made my wife’s older laptop a useless brick. The UI was so slow it seemed frozen. So I searched what Linux Distro supported the Proprietary CAD. Which was SUSE and RHEL. Since OpenSUSE was close enough and free I installed it. CAD was back to normal W7 speed, and my wife’s laptop was faster than on W7. Currently I moved her laptop to NiXOS, it is snappy and runs apps & zoom calls as well as my newer Workstation
My first encounter with Linux was in 2007, I installed Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon on my dad’s computer out of curiosity - I was intrigued by a notion of free OS you can deeply customize.
I have spent countless hours fiddling with the system, mostly ricing (Compiz Fusion totally blew my mind) and checking out FOSS games.
Decades later I switched to Linux full-time. After 12 years of daily driving OS X and working as a developer, I wanted a customizable and lean OS that is easy to maintain and control. Chose Arch, then Nix, havent looked back ever since.
I replaced windows on my laptop with Ubuntu and stopped using it after realizing how unimpressed I was with the difference. Years later I took the OSCP course, and they required using Kali.
From there I fell in love. Things that would have taken hours and weird 3rd party installers to do in Windows came with the OS or were in the official repos. The CLI showed me unimaginable power over every bit of the computer, and in windows the Conmand Prompt CLI is pretty mediocre; Powershell is better, but is more about data processing than running software. Linux has SSH and Python installed with one sentence, windows graphical installers are a bloated nightmare. There wasn’t random shitty third party software installed by the OEM who struck a deal with the OS maintainers.
After that, it was a cascade of disillusionment. Those nasty 3rd party apps I didn’t install showing up in my start menu? Actually ads, I was just using cognitive dissonance to avoid admitting that. And the proprietary programs aren’t better, they update more frequently just to introduce ads, harvest more data, and change their layout to make it seem like they did anything to help the end users.
Why does changing any meaningful settings require tampering in the registry? Why is this low level stuff documented so poorly? Why can’t I turn off telemetry completely? Why can’t I check what code is running in the kernel that I purchased and am running ON MY COMPUTER??? IT’S MY COMPUTER, NOT MICROSOFT’S. Why the FUCK should I let them run code that I can’t legally review, much less change, on it?
If someone offered you a meal but refused to tell you about any of the ingredients, you just wouldn’t eat it. Not “you’d be suspicious,” it goes beyond that: you’d be too suspicious to eat it. If someone offered you a home security system that you could have “spy on you minimally” you’d tell them where they could stick it. If it came with your house, you’d remove it immediately. If either of those people tried to charge you for it, you’d laugh in their face.
Yet for some reason, when it’s our computers doing the spying and whatever else we can’t verify, we’ve learned to just put up with it? This is BULLSHIT.
And I have too much pride to be treated like a mark, I won’t take being scammed lying down anymore. I’m not a hapless dipshit who just lets people have their way with her because it’s “too hard to learn new things.” I’ve always said I have some integrity to protect, so I better prove it or forever be a hypocrite.
I already use only Linux at home, I’d have to get my company to switch to let me run it at work.
Videos of the Steamdeck showed me how good gaming on Linux had gotten and that’s when I started looking into switching.
I already hated using Windows 10 so didn’t take me much convincing to look at alternatives.
I’m not a programmer or work in the I.T. field in anyway. But I have been messing around with computers since I could remember so I’m no stranger to tweaking, breaking and trying to repair things.
I have a friend who’s never gotten a cell phone. Computer science PhD candidate. At this point I think he’s avoided it as we seem to be coming out the other side. He rocks a MacBook pro and uses Google voice. It’s possible…
My final straw was getting a new MacBook Air (I was at that point fine with how UNIX-y macOS was) and realizing I couldn’t dock the laptop to more than one external monitor without some weird hacky third-party software fix. Why, you ask? Well not at all because the laptop technically couldn’t do it, but because Apple said it can’t, because they want to overcharge you on a Pro.
I promptly returned the MacBook, bought a Framework on eBay, and learned NixOS.
I bought my mother a laptop and it came preinstalled with a bunch of games and software that it threw me off, like wtf I dont want or need this what happened, I had a mac at the time and felt limited to what it can or cant do. So last year I built myself a pc and before installing windows I was already looking at steam decks and noted that it seems games runs quite well, so I went with Mint, and there where some features that lacked but discovered I could modify on my on and it just works! I do have to admin that it was a bit different in my work life, since do graphic design, but its been interesting switching over to inkscape and gimp.
Been 100% Linux on all my personal devices for about 4 years.
I just got tired of being treated like I was either an idiot or a criminal by Microsoft. Plus the way they kept forcing their bloatware and trash ads on the OS that I already paid for!
I decided I didn’t care what I had to give up, it was worth it to be rid of Microsoft’s clutches forever. Switched to Linux and I’ve never looked back.
Turns out, I actually didn’t have to sacrifice much at all, and the few things I don’t have anymore are nothing compared to the benefits of using Linux and FOSS software.
Everything works better for me too, more stable, updates are rarer and wayyyyy faster when I push them. No more fighting with AMD driver hell in Windows, no more weird lockups or crashes, a million times more customization options, and zero bloat or spyware installed by default on my system.
Yes, so many years squandered babysitting Windows PC's sheesh /0\ and dicking around with dopey serial numbers, gauntlet of security patches & multiple reboots LOL
I am exclusively Linux-based for Eighteen Years now wahooOOOoooo \0/
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