3 ms·
I moved a few years ago. I toyed around with Linux before, but what pushed me over the edge is losing a bunch of work one day after Windows decided to reboot be
by shrimp_emoji 6y ago
I moved a few years ago. I toyed around with Linux before, but what pushed me over the edge is losing a bunch of work one day after Windows decided to reboot behind my back, when I locked the PC and walked away. I was like, "Lol, I don't control this computer, huh?"
To my surprise (still), I've lived in Linux comfortably for years now. It's, hands down, a superior OS for programming (unless you're married to Visual Studio [the IDE, not Code]), but being able to live in it otherwise so well is still surprising, from gaming to interpolation on videos with mpv + SVP (which, pretty strangely, is free for Linux but costed me a subscription on Windows! https://www.svp-team.com/get/ https://www.svp-team.com/get/). FreeOffice (https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ https://www.freeoffice.com/en/) has a clone suite of Microsoft Office that works with all the formats (plus, Microsoft Office is on the web now, anyway, right?), and preferring roguelike and indie games (which are reliably native) over AAA games enough to make do with running the odd AAA on Proton when available has been key for me. If I was really into AAA games or doing audio editing or something, I'd probably've gone back and made do with WSL2.
To save you time if you try switching, the best distro for a Windows refugee (or non-server, end user generally, in my strong opinion) is Manjaro with KDE. KDE's the most featureful, powerful, and Windows-like DE, and Manjaro's most Windows 10-like in that you're getting new updates all the time, indefinitely, which are pretty close to bleeding edge but held back for a margin of safety (as opposed to Ubuntu, where you're stuck with old stuff unless you mess with PPAs or install the new version of the OS every few years -- however, in edge cases like CUDA development, you might want to have older packages, since Ubuntu kind of dictates the pacing of outside development given its marketshare). It also benefits from the insanely-detailed Arch Wiki (since it's Arch-based) and has the AUR, which has every package ever, and it has GUI tools for kernel rollbacks and driver stuff, AND the Manjaro forums are amazingly helpful.
- spacemanmatt 6y agoI replaced my 2013 MBP with a System76 laptop in late 2019. No regrets whatsoever. I can boot the new machine into Windows if I really want to. It's been months since I left it at installed.