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I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

• a_state_full 9mo ago
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• smitty1e 9mo ago
  Can recommend https://system76.com https://system76.com and Pop!_OS https://youtu.be/IOp7g7BNzRE?si=IKm6SLIdedgHr-u3 https://youtu.be/IOp7g7BNzRE?si=IKm6SLIdedgHr-u3 even if the name "Pop OS" isn't my favorite.
  • tweakimp 9mo ago
    Can you also add why and for who you recommend it?
    • rasmus-kirk 9mo ago
      I like it because it's based on Ubuntu, so there's almost always a working guide/solution targeting it. It also ships with Nvidia drivers which saves a lot of headaches for some users. To me the game-changer is the fact that it supports tiling window management with minimal configuration. It also looks and feels pretty sleek.
    • smitty1e 9mo ago
      Pop!_OS is a solid desktop tailoring of Ubuntu for the hardware. I would not recommend Pop for server situations, as the desktop trim might be unneeded.
• sumalamana 9mo ago
  Try CachyOS, it's based on Arch but with additional optimizations, better defaults, and is user friendly. The problems the author of the article had would not have happened if he spent some time using an user friendly distro before trying a hard distro.
  • YorickPeterse 9mo ago
    A user friendly distribution would be something like Fedora or Ubuntu, not "Arch but with some optimizations that probably won't matter much"
    • zabzonk 9mo ago
      Or Mint? Works flawlessly for me when I need a Linux, which is not so often these days, but if I was still doing cross-platform software development it's what I'd use. Minimal fuss.
      • doodlesdev 9mo ago
        Mint is one of the greatest distributions to get started with for users coming from Windows. I've been using Fedora full-time for more than four years now, but before that I used Linux Mint for about a year. It's a great, seamless experience. Only problem I believe is the lack of customization options in Cinnamon compared to KDE and even Gnome with extensions. I guess that makes the user miss out on some of the cool parts of owning your software. Also, being stuck in X11 will start to become a problem in the next few years: I'm waiting to see what they come up with on that front.
  • TOMDM 9mo ago
    I find this comment funny given it reminded me of a very similar recent thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46567586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46567586
    • dizzy9 9mo ago
      That's what I first thought of too. The author picks CatchyOS as their first Linux distro, only to find it's more complicated to set up, and then the mouse buttons don't work. For the Linux newcomer, the biggest advantage of Ubuntu (or Ubuntu derivatives like Mint) is the wealth of guides, tutorials, and Q&As online, allowing you to google most common problems. You can always switch to another distro once you become more confident with Linux.
• grigio 9mo ago
  I hope one day to upgrade my laptop to a Honor/Huawei AMD Ryzen AI computer to run Linux. Modern Macbooks unfortunatly do not run Linux and the other laptop manifacturers basically produce expensive trash laptops
  • primer42 9mo ago
    Modern MacBooks DO run Linux Check out https://asahilinux.org/ https://asahilinux.org/
    • TheDong 9mo ago
      > Supported processors - M1 and M2, not M3 or M4 The M2 models came out in 2022. You can't buy them new anymore. Asahi linux doesn't support any of the currently sold macbooks, so I think it's fair to say modern macbooks don't run linux. This is also at Apple's mercy, if enough people do it there's a non-zero chance they lock things down further. They've done even more consumer-unfriendly things before.
    • al_borland 9mo ago
      Looking at the support page, that comes with a lot of asterisks still.
    • mmcnl 9mo ago
      Not really, it's a nice tech demo at best.
  • rjdj377dhabsn 9mo ago
    What's so great about Huawei laptops? I've been using an Asus EliteBook for the last 3 years. Despite taking a beating, the build quality has held up flawlessly and with 32 GB of RAM, 1 kg form factor, and great battery life, I have no reason to upgrade yet.
    • everdrive 9mo ago
      > What's so great about Huawei laptops? Unlike other laptops, there is always the lingering fear of a Chinese backdoor.
• sunil_loanmeet 9mo ago
  What about computer games such as age of empires ? Can we play regular computer games ?
  • onli 9mo ago
    For years now. Look into proton, its built into steam even.
  • realusername 9mo ago
    You can play almost all solo games and most multi-player games depending on anti-cheat Age of empires will be okay.
    • doodlesdev 9mo ago
      For reference, you can always check out these websites: [0]: https://www.protondb.com/explore https://www.protondb.com/explore [1]: https://areweanticheatyet.com/ https://areweanticheatyet.com/
  • nehal3m 9mo ago
    Sure, Valve has done some amazing work in that regard. Most mainstream and older games just work, others require some tinkering.
  • ggeorgovassilis 9mo ago
    Many are playable with Steam on Linux, each game in the store states whether that's supported or not. Even non-supported games allow an override. I've tried that for a few with varying success. Steam has so far refunded purchases that didn't run on Linux. Then there's Lutris which runs many old games fine.
  • Saoshyant 9mo ago
    Yes. Valve (Steam) spent more than a decade building and refining a translation layer called Proton. Nearly 80% of the vast Steam library is now compatible with Linux to the point they are releasing actual Linux consoles (Steam Deck and Steam Machine). For your regular PC, you can install a gaming-focused distribution like Bazzite to get everything sorted out automatically.
• meow_cat 9mo ago
  Only thing holding me back is Adobe Lightroom, and has been for a while.
  • phkahler 9mo ago
    >> Only thing holding me back is Adobe Lightroom. You might be interested in Darktable or the less common fork called Ansel. https://www.darktable.org/ https://www.darktable.org/ https://ansel.photos/en/ https://ansel.photos/en/ These have Windows versions you can try before moving your world to Linux.
    • doodlesdev 9mo ago
      Darktable is the best photography editing and classifying software I've ever used. New users should be warned it's quite power-user centric though. Adopting isn't like opening up Lightroom and messing around. You may have to read a bit of documentation regarding the modules and different workflows (i.e. Sigmoid vs FilmicRGB). I think the Ansel developer has a YouTube series with tutorials on how to edit in Darktable using the Filmic RGB workflow. Not sure if that's where I'd get started nowadays (I've just adopted Sigmoid and it's way quicker to edit with it), but it gave me a solid base in how to use this software.
    • p_ing 9mo ago
      Darktable is another piece of software that really shows warts in UX. For example, you can right click empty space to "remove" or "update path to file..." in the left hand rail. There shouldn't be a right click option in empty space. Everything lower case makes it very difficult to quickly parse, especially the settings menu. Inkscape is also full of these sins. For that matter, so is KDE.
    • meow_cat 9mo ago
      I tested literally all alternatives to Lightroom, including even other commercial Windows only software, just because I want to get off the subscription. I tested two specific functions I use and need, and zero of all other programs do them well. It's frustrating.
• meetingthrower 9mo ago
  How to run PowerPoint and Excel? I'm stuck with these for work?
  • tonyhart7 9mo ago
    dual boot
    • viraptor 9mo ago
      Or a VM for just that purpose. Quickgui was discussed here recently for example to make this easier https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickgui https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickgui
    • al_borland 9mo ago
      This never lasts long, in my experience. It’s a nice idea, but it’s a huge pain. At some point, I always end up sticking with the OS that has what I need, which is never Linux. Linux is what I install when feeling idealistic, but it doesn’t allow me to do anything I can’t do on a mainstream OS that is mission critical to my life.
      • tonyhart7 9mo ago
        so dual pc ???
        • al_borland 9mo ago
          I’d say commit. Force yourself to find new tools and workflows on the new OS of choice. If that isn’t possible, it seems like a waste of time and effort.
  • skinkestek 9mo ago
    Can you use the online versions? They are starting to become usable now. That is what we are supposed to do at work.
    • 9mo ago
• perihelions 9mo ago
  This HN thread is ongoing, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566465 ("I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great (theverge.com)"; 20 hours ago, 596 comments)
• dividedbyzero 9mo ago
  Not saying I'm not considering it given the current political climate, but I'm spoiled by my Macbook Air. The Thinkpad I've been issued for work costs about the same, runs hot like crazy, always has fans running, is cheap-feeling plastic, thicker, heavier, garbage touchpad, weird keyboard layout (printscreen right next to the arrow keys, what were they thinking?), mushy keys, barely serviceable display ... what do I buy if I want something as sleek and well-built and polished as Apple?
  • foobarbecue 9mo ago
    So the weird answer is... a better model Lenovo. They vary from plastic disaster to metal or carbon fiber dream machine.
    • ahartmetz 9mo ago
      Yeah, if you don't like the case quality of a T model Thinkpad, you are the problem ;) - fiber reinforced plastic is arguably a more suitable laptop case material than aluminum. Lenovo's cheap laptops are as bad as anyone's.
  • everdrive 9mo ago
    I don't think anyone will build as nice hardware as Apple anytime soon, so I think if that's your primary requirement then any other choice will be a compromise. I don't really like Apple, but it must must acknowledged that even a few basic things (the monitor turning on immediately as I open the screen, the touchpad quality, etc.) seem totally elusive to other manufacturers. Apple's pretty imperfect, and it's sad to see that they've neglected and regressed their desktop OS, however I don't think anyone can argue that macOS is anywhere near as bad as Windows 11.
    • Kye 9mo ago
      Some of the stuff coming out of CES is nice. Whether the apparent quality survives in production is another question.
    • anta40 9mo ago
• fzeroracer 9mo ago
  > So why did I switch to Linux, and why am I writing this article about the experience? In a word: joy. I think this is really what more people should take away from the switch. A lot of the time I see people not wanting to make the leap because they're afraid: Afraid of learning how to use the command line, afraid of asking other people for help, afraid of really using the computer. Learning how things work is how you learn to be free, and that holds true no matter your hobby. The cyclist with their repair kit, the driver with their beater car, the cook and their kitchenware. The more we give away for the sake of immediate convenience, the less control we have. Linux is no longer in the realm of needing to be an expert to resolve issues, just a little bit of willingness to experiment. This isn't to say all issues are easily solvable, there's plenty of workflows that still require you to stay on Windows and some edge cases where things won't work as you expect. But I always encourage people to try, because why not?
• senectus1 9mo ago
  Did this 2 years ago. I run Fedora, if its what Linus himself runs then why should i choose anything else?
  • al_borland 9mo ago
    Linus runs this specifically because it supports kernel development decently well. If you aren’t developing the kernel, his reasons for running Fedora have little to no impact on you.
    • senectus1 9mo ago
      while i provisionally agree with you, the rest of the distro is very leading edge and very stable and solid. those are also solid good reasons, and likely play a role in his choices as well.
• onli 9mo ago
  The article mentions that the author had a negative experience with Void Linux, that it was missing programs in its repository. If you considered it, give it a try anyway. Void is fast and ridiculously stable, even more so given it's a rolling release distro (so often has very new program versions). And in contrast to the author, I was impressed with the broad range of the package system - he might have had a bit of bad luck with the selection.
  • archargelod 9mo ago
    Seconding this. I was impressed by Void linux stability and speed: xbps (with xtools) might be the fastest and most powerful package manager I've *ever* used. Sure, Void doesn't have the endless options of Arch+AUR for packages, but it had everything I needed. Even the well-maintained, latest versions of less common software, like Nim compiler. The author might also missed that Void has a non-free repository, that you have to install for stuff like proprietary drivers, DRM and Steam.
  • branon 9mo ago
    I've found a very comfortable home on Void Linux for nearly a decade at this point, and wouldn't consider any other distro for desktop use. I find Void to be rock-solid stable and relentlessly simple. The author of TFA hopped from Mint -> Debian -> Bazzite -> Fedora -> Void -> Artix, so Void is an extremely obvious outlier here. Aside from Void, every other distro he tried was either a newbie-friendly desktop distro (Mint, Debian, Fedora, Bazzite), or "Arch, but easier, with an installer" (Artix). Bad luck with Void's package selection is fair enough, but I'm not sure what he meant by "driver compatibility was a big issue" - Void uses an upstream kernel and driver availability should be roughly the same anywhere. He's using a Ryzen APU on desktop so graphics drivers shouldn't have been an issue there. The MacBook had problems with Broadcom Wi-Fi drivers on Artix(!), but I'd wager this would affect all distros out of the box, and Void has the Broadcom drivers[0] available as well. It's frustrating that he doesn't explicitly mention what he couldn't find drivers for on Void. I assume it was Broadcom Wi-Fi and he didn't enable the nonfree repository. In fairness, Void's docs don't cover any Broadcom quirks so maybe this isn't as discoverable as it should be. [0] https://voidlinux.org/packages/?arch=x86_64&q=broadcom https://voidlinux.org/packages/?arch=x86_64&q=broadcom
• Jackknife9 9mo ago
  I tried to leave Windows 11 for Linux - it just didn't work for me. I installed EndeavourOS onto my main gaming desktop. It worked great for a while and ran all the games I played with my friends. However, one night when I went on to play a game I ran a system update and it seemed to completely break my nvidea drivers - I tried reinstalling them and also using the open source driver. This meant I just couldn't play any games that night and was simply diagnosing linux issues. I probably chose the wrong distro for this but I really just want the PC to work for playing games without any issues. I don't use it for anything other than playing games so for my time I just went back to Windows 10 and will use that until apps stop working.
  • clappski 9mo ago
    The mistake is that you did a system update when you wanted to use the computer. Not implying that system updates should be a dangerous thing to do, but just something learnt from experience - I’ve had similar issues, especially with Nvidea drivers and kernel versions getting updated at the same time. The take away is keep the updates to when you have an hour to debug or get comfortable rolling back updates.
    • agoodusername63 9mo ago
      So just like windows, don’t update it Year of the Linux desktop for sure
      • smrq 9mo ago
        I mean, you get what you signed up for. If you wanted total stability and infrequent updates then why would you use Arch? (If the answer is "I didn't know what I signed up for" then that's fair. Simply understanding the practical differences between distros is a huge hurdle.)
    • drysart 9mo ago
      That's absurd. The system should be able to update itself without fear that it's going to break anything. The user should not be expected to have to set aside time to babysit an update. Windows isn't perfect in this respect by any means, but it sure seems like it handles updates a lot better than the distros that have been mentioned in this thread; in that Windows at least takes steps to examine your hardware first and to not apply updates where it's known something has fallen out of support. Windows also, apparently unlike these mentioned distros, maintains a Last Known Good configuration so if an update does start causing failures, it can automatically roll itself back (or, at worst, can manually be rolled back). There are some distros that do similar, particularly immutable distros; but honestly this sort of thing should be table stakes to the point that if a distro doesn't do it, it should be laughed out of the room. There is absolutely no acceptable excuse for any operating system to break itself in an update.
• bobse 9mo ago
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• molteanu 9mo ago
  I thought this was Hacker News! How come dumping Windows for Linux in the year 2026 makes the headlines?
  • doodlesdev 9mo ago
    For some reason, there's a huge amount of Hacker News readers who are still full-time Windows users. With the forced migration to Windows 11, I guess a lot of them are now not only trying out Linux for the first time (as a desktop system), but also for some reason going for Arch derivatives, which is always fun to see a beginner mess with LOL
  • UqWBcuFx6NV4r 9mo ago
    [flagged]
  • MonkeyClub 9mo ago
    It's been Eternal September for quite a few years now.
    • Telaneo 9mo ago
      Today is the 11820th of September 1993.
  • haunter 9mo ago
    Easy karma on HN. We have these posts every couple of days. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46483432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46483432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46471199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46471199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457770
    • molteanu 9mo ago
      Oh, damn! I bet 2027 will be the year when writing code by hand will be (re)discovered. Hopefully.
• everdrive 9mo ago
  Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and Mint remain great recommendations; good stability, community support, etc. (even for Ubuntu, a regular user might not actually care that much about snaps so long as everything works) I just moved to CachyOS, (from Fedora, and earlier from Ubuntu -- I've been on Linux for a while) and I've been very, very happy. The gaming performance is legitimately better than what I was getting on Fedora, and I've just enjoyed the OS and KDE much more than Gnome Shell. I haven't had any real showstoppers with CachyOS, and it really has felt like a user-friendly version of Arch finally exists.
  • troupo 9mo ago
    I've yet to have a day when CachyOS can come out of sleep: hangs at various steps and requires a hard reboot that somehow relaunches apps on login that I explicitly closed hours ago.
    • everdrive 9mo ago
      I had the same problem with Fedora which is part of what prompted me to switch. It works great for me in Cachy. I assume either way it was an Nvidia problem.
      • troupo 9mo ago
        Yup, I have Nvidia :) Interestingly enough, I didn't have the same issue with Omarchy/Hyprland. Hyprland doesn't have even the most rudimentary ability to restore windows but it was almost rock solid when it came to coming out of sleep. Still searching for that one true Linux distribution :) Will stay on Cachy for now because gaming is so much better.
  • GordonS 9mo ago
    Are you able to quantify the performance improvement, e.g. in FPS on particular games? Curious as to how CachyOS does it.
  • tapoxi 9mo ago
    I think a lot of cachy performance is placebo, because Steam games use the container runtime's Debian 11 libraries, it doesn't use the native CachyOS ones at all.
• emptyfile 9mo ago
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• tuckwat 9mo ago
  I went Arch recently as well for about 6 months but am now back on Windows. I was impressed by the amount of games that "just work" but ultimately went back for the few that didn't. Had issues on BF6 and major performance issues on Borderlands 4.
• chenzhekl 9mo ago
  Some of the games I am playing only run on Windows. Thats's the biggest obstacle for me to adopt Linux.
  • Fronzie 9mo ago
    Do they require anti-cheat kernel drivers? If not, there's a good chance proton/steam to runs them.
• decide1000 9mo ago
  I am on Linux for 26 years. Last 5 years I run PopOs! on my desktop. User friendly and stable, Ubuntu based.
  • randunel 9mo ago
    Linux user for 25-ish years here, and exclusively so. I used to heavily configure my ubuntu distros to be keyboard exclusive with i3wm and such, but I ended up with regolith desktop, a version of ubuntu with pre installed i3wm and keyboard focus. I'm too old to keep my dotfiles updated. Nowadays, imo you should only choose the package manager, any os using that chosen package manager (aptitude for ubuntu) definitely had a version that's close enough to your use cases.
  • rpdillon 9mo ago
    Similarly, I picked up Linux in 1997 and have used it as my primary since 1999. I've distro hopped through probably a dozen or so distros, but ultimately landed on PopOS for most of my machines, similarly to you. These threads are always somewhat disheartening, hearing everybody say they tried to switch but couldn't because of one issue or another. I guess I've just learned to work through it.
• Ylpertnodi 9mo ago
  C'mon Steinberg, Make cubase for Linux so i can jump ship.
  • Kye 9mo ago
    I'm waiting on Ableton, Arturia, and Native Instruments. The latter two should have the easiest time since all their stuff is already VST3 and it can support Linux.
• jonesjohnson 9mo ago
  I can recommend the other way round: For un-bricking my phone, I had to use some proprietary windows-only software. So I took an old Laptop and installed Windows 10. Installing it was such a pain already. So many dark patterns, so many privacy issues. I even had to create a microsoft account! After the deed was done, I closed the Laprop, went back to my Linux system and enjoyed it even more :-)
• adontz 9mo ago
  These articles... I'm not sure who are the target audience, because I am definitely not and I don't know anyone who is. Specific OS is not the important, anything with modern KDE is good enough to replace Windows 10/11. But do I (and all my colleagues) need Microsoft Office (Word, Excel at least) and/or Drawing software (Adobe or something) and/or god forbid Visual Studio 2026, and some other corporate software to make a living? Inevitably yes.
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  • manuelabeledo 9mo ago
    Don’t all of these run in the browser nowadays?
    • Neywiny 9mo ago
      While office can run in the browser, the browser version sucks and I commonly need to open the files in the desktop version. This often happens when there's a browser version or a mobile version or an app version. There's a lack of feature parity.
    • g947o 9mo ago
      I don't think you'll ever see a web version of Visual Studio.
      • vanviegen 9mo ago
        Is Visual Studio still relevant if you're not developing native Windows software?
        • adontz 9mo ago
          I'm currently developing ASP.Net Core services and modern .Net is quite nice. Everyone around me uses absolutely free Visual Studio Community edition, so it would be weird to not use it.
• wbshaw 9mo ago
  Even though the author trivialized the problems he had getting his laptop up and running, there were enough obstacles to keep 90% of non-techies from actually getting it working. How many normies have a USB ethernet laying around and understand enough to uninstall drivers that are interfering with the UI?
  • Certhas 9mo ago
    Getting Windows up and running isn't necessarily easier. There was a recent review of a handheld Windows device that needed unauthorized hidden driver updates to get performance to match Steam OS. The only way to avoid this type of stuff is to get a Laptop with Ubuntu or Windows preinstalled.
  • deleted 9mo ago
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  • ndepoel 9mo ago
    Windows is not exactly free of this sort of nonsense either. Just recently I built a new PC for a friend, and we wanted to keep using his old SSD and Windows installation. After messing about with Bitlocker recovery keys which was already cumbersome enough, we ran into a catch-22 issue where we needed internet access to be able to log in and verify his Microsoft account, but we needed to install a driver for the new motherboard's networking chipset first, for which you need to be able to log in to an account first. Eventually we found that you can use USB tethering from a phone to gain internet access, for which no special driver is needed, which got around the issue but it was not exactly an obvious solution.
    • fyredge 9mo ago
      Non-techies neither build their own pc, nor do they bother with bitlocker...
  • randunel 9mo ago
    It's next to impossible to get windows up and running if you dare not get a computer with it preinstalled, AHCI drivers are almost never included in the installation disc. And windows support gives you links to self installing exe files which you can't run, because you presumably run a linux live cd to be able to access the internet and ask for help, and exe files don't run on it, and can't be accessed by the windows installer either. Then windows and intel support decide to blame the customer, because it's never their company's fault. Sample conversation: https://community.intel.com/t5/Rapid-Storage-Technology/Intel-VMD-driver-not-working-with-Windows-10-nor-11-on-Lenovo/m-p/1564996#M12717 https://community.intel.com/t5/Rapid-Storage-Technology/Inte...
• rasur 9mo ago
  Gaming is all well and good, but I'd be interested to hear of experiences with moving and using Audio apps (Ableton Live, Cubase and other Steinberg apps, plus many VSTs) from Windows to Linux. I see Wine, YABridge and LinVST mentioned in searches, but while I've got plenty of Linux experience, I'm time-poor and would prefer to make computers make noises rather than spend my time making things work. I have Reaper which is cross-platform but again, getting the VSTs working would be great (at a bare minimum). A Mac is not an option here. Any pointers gratefully received!
  • nickjj 9mo ago
    I can't speak for DAWs but in 2019 when I tried switching to native Linux my Scarlett 2i2 3rd gen USB audio interface did not play nicely with Debian at the time. I'd get an endless amount of crackles and pops during recordings / playback and I spent days going over tons of audio configs / tools (Jack, Alsa, PulseAudio, etc.). They weren't xruns, at least Jack wasn't reporting them as that. Buffer sizes were normal too. The good news is the same interface today works fine with PipeWire, without needing to tweak anything. I am using Arch this time around.
    • rasur 9mo ago
      Yeah, these days the Scarletts are fine (as is the aging Firewire connected Edirol FA-101 I've got attached). Non-DAW things such as Supercollider work fine, but I focus less on that sort of environment (which isn't a dis - SC is great!).
  • hejira 9mo ago
    I use Reaper for Linux and love it. Getting Windows VSTs to work is okay with lin-vst and wine. Bascially install wine with your package manager, maybe run winecfg, then get lin-vst and make a copy of its single so-file, named the same as each vst binary in the same directory, then add that dir as a vst location in Reaper. As far as I remember.
    • rasur 9mo ago
      thanks!
• nickjj 9mo ago
  I also switched to Linux last month. It hasn't been a smooth experience with my GPU as I'm encountering memory leaks in popular compositors. I also get 150-200ms keyboard input delay in all games using some compositors but not all. I documented as much as I could here https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/gpu-memory-allocation-bugs-with-nvidia-on-linux-and-wayland-adventures https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/gpu-memory-allocation-bugs-wi.... Still, despite all of that when it works it is better than Windows. It's just ironic that my Linux desktop is less stable than Windows 10 since I have to reboot 2-3 times a day from GPU memory leaks. Windows 10 was really stable with the same hardware and had no input delay in games. I only rebooted when the OS pushed an update since I keep my machine on 24 / 7.
  • formerly_proven 9mo ago
    It would be fair to mention that this is happening for you with a decade old GPU using an EOL driver, which sucks, but is unlikely to be a common experience.
    • nickjj 9mo ago
      > It would be fair to mention that this is happening for you with a decade old GPU using an EOL driver, which sucks, but is unlikely to be a common experience. The drivers are still getting maintained by NVIDIA until August 2026. They also got classified as "legacy" on paper 1 day before I installed them. The compositor memory leak is affecting a lot of people. Since COSMIC and niri both use the same one (smithay), there's threads on GitHub with people using modern GPUs, both NVIDIA and AMD who experience it. There's a lot of replies across all of the different open issues. The GPU allocation issue on Wayland (separate from the memory leak) also has hundreds of replies on the NVIDIA developer forums with people using new NVIDIA cards with the latest drivers. The thing is, most people don't talk about either of them because if you have 8+ GB of GPU memory and turn your computer off every night then you won't experience this problem since all GPU memory allocations get reset on shutdown. It happens to be more of a direct problem for me because I have 2 GB of GPU memory but that doesn't mean the problem isn't common. The root cause is still there. Even if I switched to an AMD GPU the niri / smithay memory leak would be present. Instead of rebooting twice a day, if the GPU had 8 GB of memory I'd have to reboot every 2 days (x4 basically). Since I opened that issue on GitHub NVIDIA did acknowledge it and suggested I try their experimental egl-wayland2 library. I did try that and it hasn't fixed it fully but it has made GPU memory allocations more stable. It even fixed 1 type of leak in niri. This library is decoupled from the drivers themselves as far as I know. I mean, this same library could still be used for the 590 series, it's not 580 specific which means it's not dependent on your GPU model.
• keyshapegeo99 9mo ago
  For both ideological and practical reasons, I'd love to switch. If I were a desktop computing person, I'd already have done so years ago. Alas, I exclusively use laptops - as I work a great deal while travelling. I do not wish to have to carry around a mouse with me wherever I go with my portable computer. If any Linux distro manages to replicate even 80% of the smoothness and functionality of a Mac trackpad experience, I'll switch. I have yet to find one, however (and yes, I've tried all the Asahi variants - they don't come close).
  • mmcnl 9mo ago
    Agreed. Trackpads on Windows are very good (approaching Mac quality) but on Linux it's hit and (mostly) miss. Gnome gestures are borderline unusable. Sometimes Gnome forgets how many fingers I'm using and every single finger mouse movement is suddenly a gesture, have to retry gestures to switch workspaces because the first two times it fails, etc. It becomes worse with more windows open. No back swipe gesture in Chrome, etc. Basic stuff that is annoying in every day use. Flawless mouse/touchpad support is not too much to ask.
  • nehal3m 9mo ago
    Take this with a grain of salt, it's impossible for me to tell what you are and aren't comfortable with, but there is an alternative to using trackpads or mice at all and that's tiling window managers. You drive the OS with your keyboard. Combining this with plugins like Vimium for Chromium based browsers (or Tridactyl for Firefox) you can drive your entire OS and browser with keybindings. As an aside, the latter also teaches you the bindings for Vim which is a nice boon if you've tried in the past and couldn't make it stick. But again, this might not fit your use case or your preparedness to invest time and effort. I'm just saying.
  • stainablesteel 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    • keyshapegeo99 9mo ago
      People can have different preferred input devices to others. It doesn't make them amateurs. My gripes with the trackpad are less to do with window management and are more to do with the graphical components of my job. Please explain to me how I'm supposed to design graphics in Inkscape using only the keyboard? Or create presentations in LibreOffice Impress using only the keyboard? I don't spend the entirety of my time in a text editor. Consider these "amateur" tasks all you like, most organisations value them and I need to be able to undertake them without frustration. MacOS won't fight me in these contexts. Linux will.
• cubano 9mo ago
  I just turned 60. My first computer was a 4.77MHz IBM PC with an 8088 processor, two floppy drives, and that magnificent mechanical keyboard IBM shipped in those days. My father, clearly receiving excellent financial advice at the time, picked up a 300bps Hayes modem for the princely sum of $599. CompuServe, here I come! For context, this was early 1982. That 599 would cost 1,900 today — still a lot for a modem, but not quite the "gazillion" I remembered. Still, it illustrates just how far we've come. Since then, I've written software professionally for over 40 years (with varying degrees of success). I've owned well over 200 computers — roughly 90% Wintel machines and 10% MacBooks. I've built them, repaired them, debugged them, and occasionally, after particularly frustrating days, set them back together again. I like to think I know my way around a PC. Six months ago, I decided it was time. "This is the year of the Linux desktop on my machine," I declared, and I meant it. I installed over 20 of the most popular distributions from DistroWatch and used each one for at least two weeks. I was on a mission to rediscover the joy of computing. For a while, it was genuinely fun. The sheer number of options was overwhelming in the best way possible. Customization everywhere I looked. All those incredible free software packages waiting in the repositories. In the beginning, I didn't even mind that I found myself doing full reinstalls every two or three days due to random instabilities. I was living the dream. Desktop effects and visual flair? Bring it on. Why does Compiz get so much criticism these days? What's more satisfying than a beautifully animated window? Six weeks in, things changed. The Linux installations started to degrade — subtle at first, then undeniable. Random slowdowns. Browser links that wouldn't register for 10 or 15 seconds. The kind of frustration that makes you stare at the screen and wonder what's happening under the hood. It was consistent across distributions, which suggests this wasn't just a bad package here or there. Something fundamental was happening. And yes, I'm aware of the irony. The system celebrated for its stability and reliability was the one leaving me longing for a responsive desktop environment. But that's exactly what I experienced, and I gave each distribution a fair shot. There's also the practical reality: I'm a heavy Ableton Live user, and dual-booting has become increasingly grating. The Linux audio ecosystem has made real progress, but for my specific workflow, it's not there yet. Maybe in another year or two. So I'm back on Windows 11. It works. It doesn't surprise me. After four decades, I'm okay with "it works" as a primary criterion. Will I try Linux again? Maybe. The ecosystem continues to improve, and who knows what the next wave of AI-assisted tools might change. But for now, I wanted to share an honest account of what I encountered — because I genuinely wanted Linux to win.
• mnls 9mo ago
  Every now and then a new article "Why you should go Linux". I get it, I like Linux too but every case is different. I want to use Linux but I have to use Digital Audio Workstation. So in my case, I shouldn't dump Windows (and thousand of $$ I've spent on audio software). I know people desperately want to believe that Linux is "there", but it really isn't. And will probably never be. It’s still too confusing for the average user (many distros, many desktop environments, Wayland vs X, systemd vs init, snap vs flatpak).
  • a456463 9mo ago
    FLStudio in Wine, Bitwig and Reaper work amazing on Linux, Mixxx for DJing works with Traktor keyboards.
  • reactordev 9mo ago
    Reaper is just as good as FL Studio or Logic Pro. VSTs are really your biggest hurdle. Depending on how they are compiled, they may rely on platform specific code. Most big plugin makers have VSTs for all platforms though and your license works on all. The pathway is there should you choose, one day. Linux is quite good now. That being said, I know a lot of niche plugins that some guy wrote that only works on windows because that’s all he/she has access to. Some 8-bit synth bitcrushers come to mind. Also Steinburg made VST 3 sdk open source so you have a path to a free music production studio. https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk
    • g947o 9mo ago
      "as good as" (debatable in the first place) isn't enough justification to switch. Everyone has their own workflows, settings etc that they used over many years, which they are not going to give up, just to "switch to Linux". This is about real loss in productivity.
      • reactordev 9mo ago
        Yes but readers may be reading and think that Linux isn’t capable. It is. There’s plenty of DAWs available. You can also use WINE with proton to run FL Studio on Linux. My suggestion is just that, a suggestion to explore the possible. If we just learn one thing and never change then we wind up being left behind. While FL Studio and Logic, Cubase and Ableton are what most people know. There’s ways of running ALL of them on Linux.
• BrouteMinou 9mo ago
  Another of those? Can people install their OS without having to tell the whole planet about it? I don't see articles about people installing Windows or Mac everyday like the people installing Linux. Is it such an achievement to do? That make you proud enough to tell the world? It's worse than vegetarian people at that point. And what's the point? The whole thread is filled with "yeah yeah, I installed Linux too!" just like some kind of cult. Look at you...
  • buzzardbait 9mo ago
    Misery loves company. You won't see anybody telling people to switch to Windows, Mac or iPhone because those people are too busy enjoying their OS.
    • rasmus-kirk 9mo ago
      Not really, Linux evangelists are a thing because Linux is primarily held back by lack of adoption. A lot of common issues can be attributed to either: 1. The hardware manufacturer has never tested Linux support for drivers. 2. Some application that you need doesn't target Linux due to lack of users This isn't everything, sure. But I think it's a majority of the headaches. Thus, Linux-users really want other people to also use Linux, so that companies actually give a shit about supporting it. There's also the whole ideology involved. A lot of companies are increasingly pushing that you are not allowed to control the computer/phone/device you buy and Linux is at the forefront of combating this.
      • buzzardbait 9mo ago
        I don't think Linux itself is held back by lack of adoption at all. Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the world, last I checked. My dad doesn't know the difference between dir and ls, and he will only use an Android phone. I would rather hug a fully grown crocodile than install Linux on my computer. But even I wouldn't deny that Android - and by extension Linux - is probably the best thing that happened to mobile devices. Desktop Linux is lacking in adoption, but maybe that's because it's not packaged nearly as nicely as Android.
• pelagicAustral 9mo ago
  I have... I switched to Bluefin, which is a branch of Universal Blue, which is flavour of Fedora. Sounds complicated, but in fact is the best thing to ever happen to Linux. I get all the ease of use of something like macOS but pre-built with tools for development like distrobox, and then I can just build my dev environments and get shit done in no time, without having to worry about breaking updates or nuking the whole file system because my bash sucks. Its Linux for babies, and it makes me happy. ===== Further ass-kissing: Also I forgot to mention I tried gaming on it via Steam and it works like a charm... Not so sure about bleeding edge AAA games since I don't play any of that, but at least for all my oldies it works just fine. Oh!, and the one thing I miss is Affinity Designer.
  • iinnPP 9mo ago
    As another anecdote in favor of Universal Blue's approach. My mother (who can't use a computer but to check email or regular websites) has been swapped to Aurora and has nothing but positive feedback. Been 90 days with zero issues.
    • pelagicAustral 9mo ago
      I thought about mentioning my mom, since she's been my number 1 tech support client since ever... And I was going to say that, I am so certain of how solid this distro is, that I would even install it on my mom's laptop without any hesitation.
    • odie5533 9mo ago
      I've not heard of Universal Blue before, so thank you both for mentioning it! Seems like a great step forward for Linux Desktop!
      • 747-8I 9mo ago
        It's very good
    • flexagoon 9mo ago
      To be fair, the people who barely use the computer are the easiest to move to Linux. As Mental Outlaw said, "to a normie, an OS is just a bootloader for Google Chrome". If all you do is check emails, it doesn't really matter what OS you have installed. Switching to Linux hasn't been an issue for those users for a long time - it's usually gamers, users of professional software, or IT people with deeply established workflows who have troubles I guess the only part that matters is updates, and atomic systems like Fedora Silverblue do allow you to enable automatic updates without the fear of breaking everything, which is great
• shevy-java 9mo ago
  It is indeed a huge problem. The whole operating system now behaves and feels like the US government spying on everyone. Now, Microsoft has done that before, but with Win11 it really now seems almost shameless AND desperate in abusing users, while also alienating many of them via "features" they don't want, in particular all the AI garbage slop. It does not really affect me that much, as I switched to Linux in 2005 or so, give or take, but some people around me, in particular elderly, depend on Windows still. So that's a dilemma. Do I want to install Win11 for them? Or Win10? And help maintain either? Replacing those computers with Linux is not so trivial. You would need virtually kind of 100% "what works on Windows must work on Linux too". Any complexity is a real total showstopper for many elderly people who have very little experience with computer systems.
• samiv 9mo ago
  As a long time Linux user I started with Red Hat 7.2. Then moved on to Slackware from there to Ububtu and finally to ArchLinux. While Linux and the user space ecosystem has come a long way there are still plenty of sharp edges and anyone planning to use Linux long term must be able to figure some issues that will inevitably happen sooner or later when some update/system upgrade happens. Even though I consider myself fairly proficient Linux user I also gave up on Linux on laptops..life is just too short to tinker to make it work. (Power saving, suspend/resume, graphics with Optimus etc. Are still pain points)
  • cptaj 9mo ago
    Ironically, instead of Linux eventually closing this usability gap, what we have is windows developing its own sharp edges and annoyances. For many users, linux is already easier to use.
  • cosmic_cheese 9mo ago
    I’ll echo this. I keep at least one secondary machine booting Linux and periodically try moving a main one over, but the experience definitely is not yet without significant pains, depending on one’s needs. This is not to discount the tens of thousands of hours of hard (often volunteer) work put into the ecosystem, but a substantial amount of work remains on things like battery life and UX (both for devs and more typical end users). For example, why does getting virtualization under Fedora working require a whole stack of commands? Elsewhere, the most that’s needed is ticking a checkbox (if that). Worse, the mode of failure if you haven’t done the correct dance is unintelligible errors in e.g. GNOME Boxes that don’t even point the user in the right direction. There’s all sorts of somewhat low hanging fruit like this that I suspect hasn’t gotten attention because it’s not particularly sexy or interesting.
  • Zak 9mo ago
    Windows has its own sharp edges, such as the crashes the author of this article experienced. It's hard to evaluate fairly. This author, for example is fed up with specific issues on Windows and new to Linux. He is likely be more forgiving of sharp edges on Linux, recognizing that it's normal for something unfamiliar to be more challenging. On the other hand, someone content with Windows might think of its sharp edges as just how computers are and consider every way in which Linux is merely different to be pointless aggravation. Most publications covering Windows have a bunch of articles about how to tinker with Windows 11 to keep it from spying on you, showing ads, and forcing the use of an online account. One might argue life is also too short for that.
• Mountain_Skies 9mo ago
  Can we stop with the implicit agism that always pops up in Linux threads? I know it's meant to be positive for Linux but it's still agism that diminishes people whose only crime is that they're of advanced age.
  • graemep 9mo ago
    I hate it too. Not long ago I met a grandmother who had spent part of her career writing embedded software for nuclear reactors. I met many others who had jobs in technology.
• free652 9mo ago
  I switched to Debian/Cinnamon few weeks ago. I am fairly good with the server sides of things, but the desktop a little painful. Screens dont wake up properly, sometimes only one screens wakes up, sometimes one screen wakes up with a wrong resolution. The usual linux desktop problems where nothing really works and finding a solution is very hard to many different permutations of hardware / os / kernel / drivers / window manager / etc. I have the framework desktop with AMD 395+ My windows ssd is plugged and I can boot it directly using virt-manager, so thats kinda solves some windows specific stuff like tax software.
  • WD-42 9mo ago
    You are using a distro that is generally very behind on software versions and doesn’t bundle non free software (Debian) on a laptop with brand new hardware. Additionally, you are running a DE (cinnamon) which is really designed for a specific distro (Mint) which you are not using. If you want stuff to just work you might want to try using a more up to date distro with a mainstream desktop. Stock Ubuntu or Fedora would probably work fine for you.
    • free652 9mo ago
      debian 13 is using kernel 6.12 vs ubuntu 24 6.14. I don't think it's a kernel issue, and more that amd drivers aren't there yet for the new hardware. running the latest also is problematic, i.e. a new kernel upgrade that blows thing up. and that's the main difference between linux and windows, windows just works, osx just works, linux is a minefield of different quirks.
      • WD-42 9mo ago
        The amd drivers might not there, and they will continue to not be there on the version of the kernel you are using and choosing to be stuck on by using Debian. Drivers are part of the kernel in Linux, it’s not how windows works. Ubuntu and Fedora are not unstable, you are just choosing pain for yourself.
        • 9mo ago
• sakopov 9mo ago
  I never run into stability issues and couldn't care less about telemetry which feels like admitting some kind of a sin on HN. Windows 11 is fine and Linux will always be for niche use cases.
• re5i5tor 9mo ago
  Am I the only one who thinks (mobile safari with an ad blocker) it’s a jackass move to show a fake popup that leads to “must be an adblocker” and prevents page viewing? Or maybe just bad JS junk causing it? Update: OMG I turned ad blocker off and what a disaster of a site.
• Pxtl 9mo ago
  As somebody who's doing the same thing for the first time in almost 2 decades: kubuntu wins for me. Mint was too buggy. It just felt so single-threaded. It had upsides - easiest Nvidia support for example. Cinnamon is nicely customizable and has some great ideas but it's just too rough around the edges. Raw Debian was just too hard to get Nvidia drivers playing nice. But for "I'm comfy editing config files but I need some hand-holding for this" KDE with Ubuntu is the best balance of performance and clean design and support. My biggest disappointment is how little batteries-included gui I'm seeing for core Linux functionality. Where is the systemd service manager? Why are all the file managers so bad at editing permissions?
  • graemep 9mo ago
    > Where is the systemd service manager? Kde used to have a systems settings module for Systemd. There are defitely GUIs for managing user services (its called Background services for me) > Why are all the file managers so bad at editing permissions? What does right click and then choose properties in Dolphin not do satisfactorily for you?
• alkonaut 9mo ago
  I wouldn't worry much about operating systems. They are just a means to an end (which is running your applications) few are in the situation that 100% of their applications run on more than 1 OS, so they even get a choice of OS.
• erghjunk 9mo ago
  I tried it (PopOS) on my old gaming laptop. It worked when it worked but when it didn't, it REALLY didn't. Linux unfortunately does not support my preferred (which I use semi-professionally) photo software, either (Capture One). Linux desktop feels like nuclear power to me - I've tried switching many many times over the last 20 years and it's just never quite there. I even use a lot of the open source solutions for office software etc. already, just on Windows.
• jonathanstrange 9mo ago
  I can't fully switch because of audio plugins but I'm using Linux, Windows, and macOS anyway because I'm creating cross-platform apps. I think it's best to use all common operating systems and stay proficient with them.
• zkmon 9mo ago
  I never understood the Linux guys. All that matters to a common user is the user interface and whether their apps and games run or not. They don't care about telemetry, architecture etc. The damn thing should just work and it should allow familiar interactions. I have tried switching to Linux several times over the decades. It required many compromises on the interface and compatibilities. Why is it so difficult to slap on a clone of Windows or Mac UI on Linux? I'm not saying they are good. But it avoids the feel of moving to an alien land and learn everything afresh. People don't have time for that.
  • pawelduda 9mo ago
    Have you tried Linux with KDE? Feels more Windows-ish than modern Windows
  • johnebgd 9mo ago
    Trademarks and other intellectual property rights prevent cloning those.
  • odie5533 9mo ago
    This is why I recommend macOS to everyone. It's the only OS that is truly polished and where you don't have to worry about viruses and everything just works. mac could be better, but it's still leading the pack. People don't want the OS to become their hobby.
    • splatter9859 9mo ago
      MacOS has its warts and 'unpolish' as well, as it also gets viruses despite what Apple may want you to believe.
    • embedding-shape 9mo ago
      [dead]
    • poolnoodle 9mo ago
      I dislike what Microsoft is doing to Windows as much as the next guy but if you get Windows Pro and disable all the icky stuff it is a rock solid OS that just works. Sure, once a year an update might add some new icky stuff but then you just spend 10 minutes to find out how to disable that and go about your business. It. Just. Works.
• amanaplanacanal 9mo ago
  Frankly I'd love to switch from Windows to Linux. But it's the applications. My last attempt to switch got hung up on a few things (in order if importance, probably): - Quicken. I have 30 years of personal financial data in quicken. I'm not completely opposed to migrating to something else, but I haven't seen a good substitute. I'd probably have to learn double entry bookkeeping, and I'm unsure if other software could still download data from my bank and investment accounts. I'm sure as hell not going to start entering transactions manually (ugh). - Ableton live. I do have a copy of bitwig, but I am unfamiliar with its workflow, and would have to figure out which of my vsts I would lose, and it seems a big pain in the ass. - Plex server. For some reason, out of the box this was dog slow. Because of the other issues, I was unwilling to spend the time to try to figure out what was going on with this. - The are games I would probably lose, but honestly there are so many games available I doubt I would care that much. How many hundreds of hours am I gonna have to take to figure this all out before I have a working system again? Not my idea of a good time even if I like the outcome. Edit: and this is from somebody who loves the idea of Linux! I first installed 0.11 or 0.12 way back in the early 90s from a stack of floppies!
  • SecretDreams 9mo ago
    > - Quicken. I have 30 years of personal financial data in quicken. I'm not completely opposed to migrating to something else, Genuinely curious - outside of personal satisfaction/scratching the itch to store data, does personal financial data dating 30 years ago serve any practical purpose?
    • amanaplanacanal 9mo ago
      Occasionally I want to see what I paid for something, or when it happened, or who the vendor was. So if I can't migrate the data somehow, I'd still have to keep a copy of quicken around to access that old data even if I was using some other software for current data. I might be willing to give all that up if I could find something that worked for new transactions, but I haven't found it yet.
  • dangus 9mo ago
    Based on your assessment you’d have almost no issue at all. I’m almost certain you’d have no trouble running Quicken or Ableton. Ableton even has a Bottles configuration available, which is a one-click GUI install: https://usebottles.com/app/#abletonlive https://usebottles.com/app/#abletonlive Isn’t Quicken also primarily a web/cloud app now? Of course, if Wine-based solutions really don’t work, you also have the option to run a VM or dual boot for those one-off needs. Your comment on plex server seems odd. It seems like most people run it via Docker, I can’t imagine what kind of Linux-specific issue you had. Docker/podman on Linux is quite superior to the experience on Mac and Windows. As far as games, I have trouble finding games that don’t work. Steam and other launchers for other stores have pretty much eliminated this issue. There are even some online games with anti-cheat software that work in Linux. Hundreds of hours? No, not really. Not these days. I know it’s hard to believe me but I went through this same thing switching from macOS to Linux last year. I was shocked, I almost thought my experiment would fail and I’d go back. But no, it’s so solid and a bunch of stuff I expected to not work just…worked. (I chose Bazzite as my distribution on a Framework 13).
• tmtvl 9mo ago
  In 2012 I borked my Windows 7 install by messing with the registry. I then used an Ubuntu live disk to back up my data. Then I reinstalled Windows 7, but when I couldn't access the internet because I hadn't installed the ethernet driver I had a thought: 'that Ubuntu thing didn't need me to install an ethernet driver to access the internet'. So I decided to install Ubuntu instead and I've been using GNU/Linux exclusively since then. I switched away from Ubuntu when the Amazon lens controversy happened and eventually wound up bouncing between Arch and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
• hinkley 9mo ago
  Mate, I haven’t touched a Windows machine in almost fifteen years. It’s all Linux and Mac.
• ordu 9mo ago
  > After a Windows update (that I didn't choose to do) wiped that partition and, consequently, the Linux installation WHAT? How people could tolerate a software that wipes partitions without asking? I mean, I can see that it can be handy if OS managed partitions by itself without asking a user what to do, but if it leads to removing user created partitions, it is a no go. A long time ago I tried to install Mandrake Linux. In the installation process I started to change partition table and wiped it all, due to a fact that Mandrake Linux used its own custom made partition managed written in Perl that applied changes to a partition table as they arrive. I was used to fdisk, that accumulate changes and allows to review them before applying, the behavior of Mandrake's partition manages was completely alien for me. It was the first and the last time I touched Mandrake or its successor Mandriva or anything with "Mand" in front, even despite the fact that it was my mistake, I should've learned more about the partition manager before using it. It was hard (or maybe impossible) to do in an installer, but it is not an excuse. It was the last time I used installers to install Linux, I don't trust them anymore. But people are tolerating windows that can wipe a partition when you even do not touch them. I can empathize the author ditching Windows.
  • yxhuvud 9mo ago
    It is a known and fairly common dual booting people gets hit with in that windows update rewrite the dual booting setup, it is possible that the author misunderstood what had happened and that it could have been fixed by just fixing the boot setup. That should of course not be necessary, but it could have saved a few hours of setup if that was the case.
    • ordu 9mo ago
      It makes sense. Yes, if OS rewrites the booting setup sometimes, it is kinda tolerable.
• dangus 9mo ago
  I don’t really agree with the “Windows 11 is unstable” narrative, especially compared to the ways that system updates on macOS and Linux have not always been 100% stable. The functionality of the iPhone connection to Linux is not unique to the platform, that works on Windows as well. iPhones present themselves as cameras when connected via USB and as the author found out, some apps present their internal storage for manipulation. I’m surprised the author didn’t get KDE Connect to work. It’s a clutch app, and it’s even better for Android users. It’s one of the things that has had me consider switching to Android over iPhone (but there are still a couple of things I just can’t quite get over leaving behind like FaceTime for my non-technical family, the unmatched-by-competitors utility of AirTags, Siri Shortcuts, and my general feeling that without installing GrapheneOS, that Android is a less private and secure OS).
• fleroviumna 9mo ago
  [dead]
• crocowhile 9mo ago
  I have been using Linux exclusively for twenty years now. I don't understand people who use anything else, to be honest.
  • luqtas 9mo ago
    have you tried to draw a circle with GIMP? /s
    • noufalibrahim 9mo ago
      Yes but i usually use inkscape for geometric figures.
    • breezykoi 9mo ago
      Yes, on my work's laptop that is running windows...
  • buzzardbait 9mo ago
    I'm sure most people feel the opposite way. I've been using Windows and Macs for 20 years and I don't ever see myself ever using Linux as a desktop OS.
    • asveikau 9mo ago
      Among the subculture that would be the type to visit Hacker News (or Slashdot back in the day), this attitude emerged around 25 years ago. In the late 90s, there was widespread enthusiasm for the Linux desktop. I remember those days fondly. It was glorious. Then macOS (or OS X as we called it) swept away a lot of people. A lot of them would get hostile or angry or mock people when they would mention they didn't join the Mac bandwagon.
  • NegativeK 9mo ago
    > I have been using Linux exclusively for twenty years now. Ditto. I can't stand other OSs; they are constantly in my way for just the basic tasks. > I don't understand people who use anything else, to be honest. Anti-ditto. I would never give Linux to my parents. They're capable enough to maintain their own Windows computers, and switching them to Linux would mean that I'd have to take over all of those tasks -- because they've got other, more important things to do than to learn a new OS. I'd agree with you if you could buy rando PC with Linux installed and working with no stupid hardware issues. People who can live in Google Docs/Office 365 web and don't have industry specific use cases will almost always be fine. But once you break out of that subset of people, tossing them a Linux machine can be kind of mean.
• ashish01 9mo ago
  I have an old Lenovo IdeaPad with fairly modest hardware, and I have both Fedora and Windows installed. About 90% of the time I use Fedora, and it works fine overall. The only thing that bothers me is that Firefox on Fedora feels noticeably more sluggish compared to Edge or Firefox on Windows. Maybe it’s just a perception issue, but I’d love to know what others are using as their web browser on Linux.
  • celsoazevedo 9mo ago
    Edge is based on Chromium. I'd test any Chromium based browsers (Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, etc) to see if performance is better.
• drnick1 9mo ago
  > There's also ADB (Android Debugging Bridge) via the terminal for executing commands to an Android device. However, I use an iPhone. I am sorry for you. Looking forward to your next article: I dumped my iPhone for GrapheneOS, and you should too.
• deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
• tcbawo 9mo ago
  I am pretty sure that my previous attempts at a Linux desktop have failed because I would tweak my setup by installing packages and updates until I broke it and needed to reinstall. But I want my machine to be indestructible and "just work". Waiting day(s) to diagnose and fix an issue just isn't worth it. I have been contemplating a switch to Linux again. This time, I will embrace a LTS distribution and virtualization so that my tinkering doesn't break things. I always want a safe level to fall back to. Also, I would enthusiastically pay for a support subscription. I know they are out there. Which companies/organizations have the most positive impact in the open source community?
  • TingPing 9mo ago
    There is no meaningful support subscription for end users, only enterprise. If you want to donate pick specific small projects you like. I don’t understand how someone breaks a system but look into immutable options like Fedora Silverblue.
    • tcbawo 9mo ago
      It has been a few years, but for example breaking the display, bluetooth, power states/sleep, or wifi. Or subtly messing up dependencies of various other packages that I was trying. I just don't want the overhead of system administration. These days I mostly use VMs or WSL. But I am thinking that I want my host OS to be Linux.
      • TingPing 9mo ago
        Immutable saves you from packaging issues but configuration always has to happen to some degree. To help there maybe use file system snapshots (btrfs) to rollback changes.
        • tcbawo 9mo ago
          From what I remember, trying to fix configuration was mostly to recover from whatever broken state package/distro updates caused. Thanks for the Silverblue suggestion. In recent years, I enjoyed using Pop!_OS, at least on VMs.
• voxleone 9mo ago
  It’s worth acknowledging the real challenges raised in this thread: desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases, hardware support isn’t always perfect, and niche professional software may lack native support or require workarounds. But these obstacles are not intrinsic technical limitations so much as ecosystem and investment gaps, areas where community projects, standards efforts, and wider adoption could drive improvement without sacrificing freedom. Viewed through the lens of digital autonomy and citizenship, the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives?
  • volkercraig 9mo ago
    I think you are thinking about it way too hard. Windows 11 is a dog. Constant hardware problems, slow, and frustrating UX. Is any desktop linux perfect? No, but its better than w11 right now.
    • GlacierFox 9mo ago
      I take it you just read the first sentence and darted to the reply button...
      • normie3000 9mo ago
        Or GP knows that anyone who finds the following appealing has already been using linux for years: > Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? But if windows is now objectively worse than linux, normal people also now have a reason to switch.
        • vladvasiliu 9mo ago
          The problem I see with most people is that it just doesn't occur to them that there are alternatives. They're so used to a shitty experience with Windows and MS apps, and to them there's no such thing as os" and "hardware", in their minds they're lumped together. So they shrug, say "meh, computers, I just can't understand them," and go on their merry way rebooting Windows for the 10th time that day. Now, don't get me wrong, Windows has improved a lot from a robustness standpoint. Moreover, most people only use computers that come pre-configured, either from the factory or by their IT department. They won't face the crazy shit I have to put up with when I manually reinstall mine. Half the things on my 5 yo HP Elitebook don't work out of the box and I need to install a bunch of drivers from HP with dubious names, like sp1234 which makes the touchpad work, and sp4321 which enables the webcam. After a further set of updates, I can use my external screen connected to the intel integrated gpu and finally try to get some work done. Good times.
• sovietmudkipz 9mo ago
  I’m so close to the switch myself for silly reasons. I don’t like windows due to their creepy business practices and negative design patterns in their OS so I’m very bias against it. Forcing copilot is just the latest in their creepy practices… For more details on why I came close to switching: I use my win desktop as a host for ai services such as Comfy UI for stable diffusion generation since it is a beefy platform; for example, I generate reference stuff for Krita (digital painting software) illustrations on my drawing tablet. I remember the process to configure windows as being strange, GUI bound (NOT windows strong suit), and just annoying due to my aforementioned bias. Valve has done great work with running games on linux which is the only reason I keep that OS and I’d rather set up services on linux. This comment serves as a reminder to myself that I should just go ahead grab my windows license keys for archival purposes and flash a better OS on that system.
  • krior 9mo ago
    Don't forget that Krita has home-turf advantage on Linux :)
    • bigyabai 9mo ago
      As does Wacom. My drawing tablet from 2002 is plug-and-play with zero driver installation.
    • moooo99 9mo ago
      Krita is among the main reasons why I am so impressed with the KDE project. Not only do they deliver a very good desktop environment, but they also deliver some genuine flagship apps for it
  • francoi8 9mo ago
    There's nothing silly about those reasons.
    • tempest_ 9mo ago
      Eh those applications can both be run in linux without issue. They are likely to have more issues related to getting the drawing tablet configured correctly. The rest is just having to start from scratch and lose the decades of windows experience and intuition which can make things painful as that type of thing cant be replaced without time.
• deleted 9mo ago
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• Moosdijk 9mo ago
  The opening paragraph gives the reason why Linux is still not at the same level as windows: “ A few months and several headaches later…” Additionally, the first comment I read is very positive, yet it also gives insight into the same situation.
  • mariusor 9mo ago
    > The opening paragraph gives the reason why Linux is still not at the same level as windows: > “ A few months and several headaches later…” These are the words of someone that hasn't tried to install Windows on a recent machine. There's plenty of headaches there too.
    • Moosdijk 9mo ago
      I have, actually. It was a several-click process with few to no headaches (I don’t recall any in the last several installs I did).
      • mariusor 9mo ago
        Lol, I had to hunt for drivers for a while and then research which ones match my hardware, then I had to research how to strip windows 11 of the more egregious privacy intrusions and nags ... in my case there was plenty of headaches.
  • graemep 9mo ago
    Given how many people here are saying that Windows is great after you do enough tweaking it does not seem very different.
    • Moosdijk 9mo ago
      Yet it is. I don’t see myself or anyone in my family effortlessly choosing and setting up a Linux distro without outside help. Windows on the other hand is easy to install and set up. I’d argue most people in my family can do this and I’m the only one that is technically inclined.
• knollimar 9mo ago
  I just want autodesk stuff on Linux and I'll move over, but I imagine they wouldn't like that since it would be easier to circumvent license checking.
• hamilyon2 9mo ago
  >Dolphin held a pleasant surprise: it could detect my iPhone when it was plugged in. This made it a snap to transfer files to and from my phone as the file manager granted full file access to the iPhone Wait, what? Is this true? Since when?
  • graemep 9mo ago
    Do iphones show the file system as a USB storage or MTP device when plugged into a computer? If so, that has worked for many years. You can also access the file system over the local network from Dolphin using KDE connect. I know that with Android the phone just appears as a drive and I think its the same with Apple devices.
• osigurdson 9mo ago
  I don't know about the "you should too" part. I use Arch, it works fine for me but I am patient and want to use it. Realistically, I would expect the largest migration should be devs switching from mac to Linux. I don't see any reason at all to use a mac for development anymore.
  • School-Cotton 9mo ago
    Unfortunately Mac hardware is a huge leap ahead of anything else.
    • raffael_de 9mo ago
      Most of those advantages are practically irrelevant for the majority of users or a matter of having gotten used to things being a certain way.
      • School-Cotton 9mo ago
        That just isn't true. Battery life, for example, is definitely not irrelevant for most users.
        • raffael_de 9mo ago
          Most people sit at their desk with the laptop plugged into the socket and use the battery for meetings or in a cafeteria. Either takes maybe an hour or two, three hours tops.
          • mystifyingpoi 9mo ago
            So what? Most people don't care about battery, so let's just have a crap battery? That argument would work, if Apple released a super light laptop with a tiny battery, specially made for "most people who sit at their desk". No, people do care about battery life. That's where Macs excel. (I'm saying this as a Thinkpad user, where getting 6-8hrs of battery is doable, if you don't do anything on the laptop).
• deleted 9mo ago
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• QuiEgo 9mo ago
  Every major tech publication seems to be making a version of this article for the new year. It's impressive Microsoft has bungled Windows enough to make this go viral.
• doubleorseven 9mo ago
  let me know when you can run visual studio, the best IDE in the world, on Linux, and I wont flinch
• QuiEgo 9mo ago
  I am very interested in the Steam Machine, because it will be an out-of-the-box Linux experience with (hopefully) no tweaking required. Hardware designed for Linux gaming from the beginning. I'm willing to put up with worse performance per dollar to not have to spend time tweaking the thing myself, similar to a game console. I think Steam Machine + macOS laptop + NAS running debian headless is my personal compute plan for the next few years.
  • systemtest 9mo ago
    I'm not interested in the Steam Machine, but I DO am interested in switching my gaming PC to Steam OS! I hope the Steam Machine will put more pressure on getting Steam OS to the masses.
• kayo_20211030 9mo ago
  I won't comment on the merits. Each person can do what they want. But, the line that caught my attention was: > The first question often asked of Windows refugees migrating to Linux is, "Why Linux?" The answer, realistically, is probably "What else?". Unless you're comfortable with the BSD's (which I like, and weren't mentioned), or unless you have recent Mac hardware lying around, it's the easiest and most practical alternative. It's a bit of a duopoly, isn't it?; with a third leg that's sometimes something in the BSD camp, and sometimes in the MacOS camp.
• thom 9mo ago
  I installed Bazzite on a slightly esoteric machine, a 16" dual-screen Asus laptop. It's not really my cup of tea as a distribution, either philosophically or practically, but it has some specific patches for Asus hardware and as a result it seems to work better in every way than Windows. Every couple of months I'm annoyed for a moment by all the immutability stuff and the package system, but for both work and play it's running perfectly.
• squeegmeister 9mo ago
  I would if Unreal Engine was properly supported
• jwpapi 9mo ago
  I switched to fedora and I’m so happy it’s so chill not ads and bullshit everywhere. All my littler hacking projects are faster setup and my idea is faster However I think if you do video editing you need Mac or Windows
  • fragmede 9mo ago
    Davinci Resolve is a high end professional video editing suite, and is well supported on Linux. Also Lightworks (but I'm biased because I used to work there).
• a-dub 9mo ago
  it's really good these days. nvidia finally fixed their drivers (i suppose all it took was becoming the richest company on earth), kde is really nicely polished and all the friction from the x11 to wayland transition is over (at least from my perspective of an end user of linux desktops). it's remarkably stable and reliable and way less annoying than modern windows or macos. i'm looking forward to a panther lake thinkpad with robust linux support and incredible battery life.
• a456463 9mo ago
  I did the same for my media centers! Netflix and iQIYI refuse to work. I am cancelling Netflix. Been a member since 2010. I don't need 4k either. The 4k tax is losing ownership over your media. HDMI is closed source compared to display port. My media center experience is so so much better. The apps on roku logout randomly, the nvidia shield remote craps out, windows firefox/chrome are slow and the logitech keyboard doesn't work. But the same keyboard and browser setup works like a charm on the same machine on linux. Manufactured waste, fight against general purpose computing and ownership is what is at stake.
  • OsrsNeedsf2P 9mo ago
    You're all too generous. The first time Netflix didn't display past 720p in Firefox, I immediately cancelled my subscription (which was paying for the whole family) and redirected everyone to Bitsearch[0] to pirate everything instead. I don't agree the moral or ethical arguments against it either. [0] Bitsearch uses a distributed hash table (DHT)[1] to find all public tracker content [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table
• longhaul 9mo ago
  How do you deal with malware/etc ?. Are there reliable products available ?
  • OsrsNeedsf2P 9mo ago
    The line of defenses are different. All my Linux applications are either installed via Flatpak (which runs in a sandbox) or via the official package registry (which requires programs to be open source, and has a strong track record)
• BuddyPickett 9mo ago
  Linux doesn't have all the features that Windows has, features that I use daily. It also doesn't work with all of my games and software so it's a non starter for me still. Tried it several times but it always falls short of what I need. I do have it sandboxed in Windows but it's rare that it is needed for how I use a computer.
  • graemep 9mo ago
    What specific features? Some people have specific software they need, but features really surprises me.
    • mystifyingpoi 9mo ago
      For me, one of them would be an actually working way of putting laptop to sleep. Screw you, modern standby.
  • YVoyiatzis 9mo ago
    That’s the exact same 'missing features' script people used to dismiss Apple during the height of the PC era.
• poolnoodle 9mo ago
  I agree modern Windows sucks for the average consumer, with all the dark patterns and icky stuff, but if you are on this forum and technically inclined enough to install Linux, you can just disable all the bad parts of Windows and get a rock solid OS with perfect compatibility. Unpopular opinion, I know, but that's how I view it.
• fassssst 9mo ago
  Sure but I use Ableton, Lightroom, and Battlefield 6 daily.
• thisnameuser 9mo ago
  [dead]
• smetj 9mo ago
  Its simple. If you require specific software which only runs on Windows, then you cannot use Linux. If that's not the case, the Linux desktop these days is entirely capable of helping you achieve your goals.
• rkagerer 9mo ago
  If you must, Windows 11 Enterprise IoT LTSC is where the goodness is at. Less bloat, no ads, a frozen feature set (so they won't move your cheese every 6 months), 10 years of official support and security updates... it's like it's 1997 again! And you can install tools like Classic Shell (with its superior Start menu) to make it even better.
• DenisDolya 9mo ago
  Eh, I wanted to do this, but the manufacturer of my laptop doesn't allow me to disable RST in the BIOS, so I can only work from a flash drive, and it's slow. :(
• Chance-Device 9mo ago
  Everyone is talking about moving to Linux lately, it’s a bit of a trend. I wish they’d stop, for one simple reason: I’ve been using Linux exclusively (when I’m not forced to use macOS by work) for several years now, and I rather enjoy the lack of malware, spyware and other bullshit on the platform. If the general public comes over this situation might end. Desktop linux isn’t a target right now because its niche, I’d prefer that didn’t stop. Oh well. Maybe nothing lasts forever.
  • vladvasiliu 9mo ago
    While I sympathize with this angle, there's another side to this coin: if more people do the switch, maybe some applications will finally get linux versions. I'm a Sunday photographer and quite like Lightroom and Photoshop (I know about the drama, but to me, I get enough value from them compared to Darktable and the GIMP to not switch just yet). It's the only reason I still have a windows pc hanging around the house.
    • glitchcrab 9mo ago
      I am in a similar boat; my media editing machine ruined windows 10 so that I can use Lightroom. But I would dearly love to ditch windows so I'm currently looking to try out running Lightroom under Winapps to see if it is usable. There's no way of passing the GPU through without something like SR-IOV so I'll have to see how it goes. https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
      • vladvasiliu 9mo ago
        I was thinking of doing that, but since that would require me to switch the monitor and whatnot, it would be just like using two PCs. And since I only use my desktop for LR and not much else, jumping through the hoops with emulation doesn't make much sense.
        • glitchcrab 9mo ago
          How so? Winapps lets you run windows applications as if they were native to Linux, you interact with them the same way you would anything installed by apt/pacman/dnf etc. Unless I'm very much misunderstanding things (which I don't believe I am)
• desireco42 9mo ago
  First you don't have to dump anything to use Linux. The whole thing should not be as antogonistic. I switched to Linux, Arch btw, Omarchy, sometime last year when it was announced. I installed it on my old Thinkpad and it worked wonderfully, for most part. I realized that I am more productive there in real sense and experience is more delightful. When I would go back to Mac, I would realize I need several clicks to accomplish something I had on shortcut available. Having websites/apps on shortcuts as an app is huge help. Also working on command line is really much more focused. Sometimes in September I plugged Thinkpad to desktop setup and in December I set my powerful computer to Omarchy as well. It isn't seamless experience, there are issues switching from speakers to headphones and dictation can be hard to setup. Overall whole machine seems more powerful and interesting to work on. This is first time in many years that I can both play and work on same machine which is definitely welcome and surprising.
  • desireco42 9mo ago
    One more thing to note, nowadays Arch is more stable then Ubunty and works better. However, any distro you pick, you should be happy with, especially if you want to do work, you should just pick and stick with distro.
• jama211 9mo ago
  Oh look, a “I switched to linux” article that will convince nobody because it’s full of issues they ran into that users don’t want to and should not have to learn how to solve. Or maybe I’m wrong and everything is smooth now? _reads article_ Nope, it’s exactly as I expected. Ugghhh.
• ahf8Aithaex7Nai 9mo ago
  My last Windows was Windows 95 (or 98?). I've been exclusively using Linux for ~25 years. I use Ubuntu because I've been using it for ~20 years and have better things to do than try out different distros. My mother, my grandmother, and many of my non-computer-savvy friends also use Ubuntu. I know a Germanist who uses Debian. It's a bit like with cars. If you know someone who really knows about cars, they'll be able to recommend a solid, simple, super cheap, practical car that will just work and give you no problems. It'll probably be something like a 2010 Toyota Aygo, which you can pick up for next to nothing on the used car market (here in Germany) and which you would never have thought of buying yourself. This is a Linux laptop. Other people who never got this insider tip that driving can be cheap and hassle-free might instead buy a new car from a German manufacturer on credit for half a gross annual salary (or even a whole one). Two years later, the car may already be in the repair shop because the engine is losing oil or because the Nanoslide/Nikasil cylinder liner coating is damaged. With the Aygo, you can drive from A to B just as well as with any other car, and you might even have a little more fun doing so. But if you need CarPlay and heated seats, distrust things that are cheap, and love that je ne sais quoi that comes with things you've just bought for a lot of money, then this simple 2010 Aygo is not for you. This weekend, I wrote code for a non-trivial compiler on my old everyday laptop. I didn't even buy it; I got it for free because the previous owner considered the device obsolete and unusable. Slowly, the thing is getting too old for me too, but Linux (Ubuntu) has gotten another couple of years of use out of it. Meanwhile, a friend of mine just bought a used Macbook that still cost more than I would ever spend on a new laptop because she has to write papers for her studies and thinks she needs a “good” computer for that.
• deepakrb 9mo ago
  Bluefin has been a game changer for me
• OhMeadhbh 9mo ago
  fwiw... after 20 years I went back to FreeBSD from Linux. I recommend it if you like FreeBSD. [Actually, I run a hybrid where I have a stripped down Debian system and run BSD in a virtual machine, but 99% of my interaction w/ the machine is via FreeBSD.]
• foopalooter 9mo ago
  Yep, once I read microsoft was going to integrate that abomination co-pilot into the taskbar and desktop in general, I wiped my windows partition for good. I didn't even back anything up. I have fedora servers at work, but I just need a stable and performant OS at home to do some remote work, hobby coding, and connect to some telescope equipment. So I just run Ubuntu LTS - why? because I don't need to spend my time nerding out on ricing a linux distro, I have better things to do with my time. The same goes for Windows, I have better things to do than try to get an operating system to work - and there lies the big rub. Linux is easy enough now for anyone who is decent at windows to learn and use, and it's free, upgradable, tons of support available, and WORKS BETTER. As I'm typing this, on my work windows PC, the taskbar icons aren't rendering. Generally the graphics are slow, Microsoft outlook randomly freezes my entire computer, and occasionally my USB drives turn on/off if I'm plugged into a docking station. I experience exactly zero of these issues when running
• EbNar 9mo ago
  I'm a Linux users since 1999ish and I find extremely annoying and condescending these kind of titles. What about "Hey! I tried Linux and it's cool! Let me show you!", instead?
  • megous 9mo ago
    Yep, and the comment section predictably attracts the people who just complain they want something but will do nothing about it, not even complain to the right place (like their favorite proprietary SW/HW vendor, to improve their Linux support).
• raziel2701 9mo ago
  I bought a thinkpad X1 carbon refurbished for about ~$300. I wanted to travel abroad with a laptop I wouldn't mind getting stolen if it happened. During the installation of Win11 it asked me to create a microsoft account, fuck that. I installed linux mint. Very nice experience overall, so nice to not get assaulted by ads in the start menu. Pleased to see the nightlight functionality (I googled f.lux for linux and that's how I discovered it) is built-in, and with flatpack I installed vlc, qbittorrent and obsidian. Firefox setup was straightforward. And that was it. This is a laptop for youtube and movies, I used the pre-installed libre office calc for small budget things and list making. It just worked for me. The things that bother me about this laptop are primarily hardware related coming from using a mac laptop (which is the laptop I would mind getting stolen). Trackpad on X1 carbon is definitely not as good, battery life not as good. And opening the lid momentarily reveals what you were on before the lock screen comes on. This last one tastes more like a software issue. I had another issue with the hdmi port being finicky, but that's hardware again. Overall very happy with this setup, linux mint is in great shape. I do wish there were fewer distro choices for people considering making the switch. It does introduce choice paralysis. I had to set aside my ego and pipe dream aspirations of being a "hacker" and went with a distro that seemed to be simple and straightforward to setup. Mint definitely is easier to install than windows, hands down, no need to create a microsoft account and you don't have to deal with all the slop features it tries to shove down your throat.
• cranium 9mo ago
  I've linked it multiple times on HN already but winapps (https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps) can be a game-changer for people relying on some Windows-only software. It sets up a Windows machine in Docker where you can install your apps, then you'll get .desktop applications that starts the program in the VM and use RDP to only show the app window – it feels nearly native. I've even bought an Office 2024 license to improve some VBA Excel macros for a client.
• morshu9001 9mo ago
  I tried Linux again recently. Microsoft needs to be deleted, but this plan is still delusional. Linux is way too confusing for preventable reasons, not even talking about compatibility with Windows stuff. I'm no Linux expert, but if a SWE has a hard time with it, can't imagine how an average person is supposed to use this. Yeah it's learnable, but nobody wants to. Come back when I can install Linux on a PC, not a "distro" but just Linux, no choices for random stuff like DEs unless you're an expert. And that's necessary, not sufficient.
  • HeavyStorm 9mo ago
    Which distro and shell you've tried? I believe this makes a lot of difference, and there are distros that are catering for average users, but I have no ideia if it works.
    • morshu9001 9mo ago
      Ubuntu, Mint, Debian lately. Tons of others before. bash shell At some point Ubuntu had Gnome2 and only apt for packages, that made more sense than now
  • Zetaphor 9mo ago
    You are learning an entirely different operating system. You're going to have to make some choices and do some research/learn new things. There will be challenges because it's something completely different from what you know. The entire point of Linux is there isn't just one Linux, having centralized control of an OS is how Mac and Windows ended up so godawful. As time goes on the UX will continue to improve (through targeted distros) for less sophisticated users, but we're realistically only now at the point where everything in the ecosystem is "good enough" for a large number of people.
    • morshu9001 9mo ago
      I've been using Linux on and off for a decade+, and it's a moving target. There is one Linux kernel, they can make one Linux OS. (and ofc people can fork but it should remain niche) Meanwhile I can go on Windows after years and still know how to use it. Last version I daily used was 98, but 11 is still intuitive (despite being annoying).
• NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
  With recent ntsync changes in Linux and wine. Start citizen runs fine and gives excellent FPS NOW
• lizknope 9mo ago
  I switched from Solaris/HP-UX to Linux in 1994. Never ran dos/windows. It's been working great for me for 31 years now.
• giancarlostoro 9mo ago
  I did this sometime in 2022. First I was using POP OS but I wanted to have something more up to date so I gave an Arch based distro a shot, EndeavourOS has been my go to for a full year without any feel of missing out on another distro or features. Yay is the best thing to happen to Arch Linux and its derivatives. I feel like Pacman is the real reason for instability with people who dont understand how Pacman works messing up upgrade commands and not getting all their dependencies properly updated. When I tried Manjaro like ten years ago it was a mess.
• opponent4 9mo ago
  This was, still is and for the foreseeable future it'll be bad advice. Stay on Windows 10 as long as you can. With LTSC IoT that's 2032. We will figure out something then. It doesn't work. Right now the main issue is Wayland vs X where Wayland is not working and will never work because the underlying ideas and goals do not align with that of a desktop. Someone described X as ALSA, Wayland as PulseAudio and we are waiting for PipeWire to arrive. Maybe Phoenix will sweep in to save the day, maybe something else will. Also, hardware and software issues will always be there because the incentives are not there. I swear Linux on the desktop adherents sound like they have some sort of Stockholm Syndrome but of course in reality just cognitive dissonance explains it.
  • BLKNSLVR 9mo ago
    This was true for a majority of users even fairly recently, but the 'niche' for which Linux is a better option has grown such that those who are worse off with Linux (better off with Windows) are becoming the 'niche'.
  • lpcvoid 9mo ago
    >Wayland is not working What's your source on that? I have been using it for years. Skill issue?
    • worksonmine 9mo ago
      I'm still on X because I'm too comfortable with dwm and I've never had problems with Wayland the few times I've tried KDE/Gnome. That said blaming the user for lacking skill for basic stuff like copy/paste between applications or screen sharing isn't constructive. Those features should just work and shouldn't require skill. Building a niche window manager from source is a different discussion.
      • lpcvoid 9mo ago
        Alright, good point. Sorry for my bad first comment, I am just a bit defensive after all these years of people saying Wayland is unusable. The problems you describe with screen sharing are likely because of missing xdg-portal implementation (the implementation depends on your setup). >Those features should just work and shouldn't require skill. Maybe, yeah. But we are on hacker news, I assumed people would be open to hacking on things, but the comments are always very much not like that.
• deleted 9mo ago
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• psyclobe 9mo ago
  Just be sure to give up any dreams of power saving, sleep states or hibernation
• misterbishop 9mo ago
  I love desktop linux. I've used it on and off since 2000. Even with Valve's excellent work on gaming, there's still whole software categories that require Windows. Pro audio software is very Windows reliant and I don't see it changing. If you're a software developer, there are many benefits to using and deeply learning linux. But even as a linux super-geek, I don't expect to ditch Windows entirely any time soon.
• kachapopopow 9mo ago
  At some point it is not that Linux is better, it's about rejecting the decisions made by a company blinded by profits.
  • vlod 9mo ago
    Yeah this is what switched me. I was forever complaining about wall gardens and yet was too 'comfortable' with my macbook-pro as it was the best laptop period. I switched to a thinkpad x1-carbon and popos and never looked back. Sure I would love 10 hour battery life, but it's not THAT big of deal (for me) to carry a charger.
    • kachapopopow 9mo ago
      new intel cpus might change that as long as standby is fixed :)
• AdeptusAquinas 9mo ago
  I switched my laptop (Surface Laptop Go) from Win11 to Tumbleweed, and its great. Mainly because Windows kept getting slower, and arguably Win11 isn't great for an 8GB system. OpenSuse is a great distro. But my gaming PC and primary workstation remains Win11, and always will be (windows, that is). Notably Suse under WSL2 works great there as well, and my Kubes workflow is just as easy with PowerShell commands as it is with bash. OS's have purposes, and arguably there is no single platform that is better than the others in every way - Windows is better for games and is more stable across different hardware and configurations. Linux is much lighter, more intentional, and for me better for infosec and some coding activities.
• vegabook 9mo ago
  I moved from Windows about 10 years ago and it took 6 months to click. It was an enlightening experience, like the curtains had been drawn back. The only comparable experience was finally clicking with NixOS, about 18 months ago. Will never go back to any other Linux distro.
• silexia 9mo ago
  I would be interested in doing the same, but my Linux server in my house has been a bit of a pain for my remote employees to use. Maybe I don't know the best software?
• jadbox 9mo ago
  My home nvidia desktop is running CachyOS and it's been an overall good experience. 99% of the apps I need just run without issue, and I've only needed to apply a few minor tweaks to get my other laptop set up (switched to deep sleep). As a long time Fedora fan, I was not sure about switching to CachyOS but the performance has been marginally better under heavy use-cases. However, Fedora is fine and can be tweaked to get most of the same benefits though.
• indymike 9mo ago
  Since 2008 I've been on linux as my daily driver. You'll find two laptops in my backpack: a macbook air and whatever linux machine I'm using for development. I'm almost to the point with the mac, I use it maybe once a month. So much works better on linux. The Mac (and occasions where I've tried Windows) is not nearly as easy to deal with as it was. Far too many decisions for the user to make, and far too many situation where you just aren't allowed. For example, I once fired up my macbook, only to be jarred by Apple News notifications about a gristly mass murder. While I sympathize with the victims, I do not want my routine broken by news out of my control. So I tried to get rid of Apple news only to be told by Apple support that was not possible. My computer is mine. I do not want the manufacturer or author of the OS controlling it. Ever. Full stop.
• 0x59 9mo ago
  I bought a laptop in 2008 and in 2017 was forced to install W10. Well, the `08 hardware wasn't having it and I didn't have the cash to pony up for a new laptop so I installed Linux. Great decision. There's definitely specific niche software that is restricted to MS and if you must use that, then by all means stay aboard. Otherwise, today's a great day to scroll distrowatch and pick your poison.
• AuthAuth 9mo ago
  My non technical friend she choose to try installing linux and picked mint. I laughed and I was sure she would brick it at least once but its been over 6 month and the system is still running fine. She did end up dual booting windows because there are a few games which were to hard for her to get setup and some that will never work. I think dual booting is fine its a good pressure release valve as long as you're spending most of the time booting into linux.
• unlikelytomato 9mo ago
  The real issue is the lack of support. Real users buy those support packages from vendors. They bring their PC in to be fixed at their local shop. They might Google a problem and find a solution occasionally of they are feeling spicy but how often do you get screenshots to get something to work in a Linux GUI? Web browser only laptops are great until your uncle gets a "killer deal" on some random printer on Facebook marketplace and they can't get it to work. Or a webcam. Or a Bluetooth headset. Or a game controller. Scanner. etc etc. On top of all of this, they will just give up and buy a new machine and return it if that doesn't fix their issue. Linux provides virtually nothing on any of those fronts unless you get a private level 8 tech support contact provided by your grandson. Who wants to be 24/7 on call for their extended family?
• deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
• adammarples 9mo ago
  I installed CachyOS on a spare ssd with the idea that if it became a headache I would go back to windows. All my games work, even weird open source ones. All my sounds, monitor, kvm switch, volume rockers, Bluetooth game controllers, headsets, everything works with zero issue. Cuda works, I can run ML models, and it all works much better and faster than Windows. There's been no reason so far to switch back. Next, I'll wipe my NVME drive and be done with windows for good.
• Escapade5160 9mo ago
  If you're primarily a gamer, Bazzite is fantastic.
• sedatk 9mo ago
  It’s astonishing to me that Microsoft is letting go of all these users because someone drew something on whiteboard that looked like “force Microsoft Account on all users -> ??? -> Profit”, and has repeatedly done the same with Teams, Ads, Bing, OneDrive, use of WebView in essential components etc. I’m not only saying that as a former Windows engineer, but as someone who actively uses Windows, OneDrive, Office, etc. Microsoft is hurting their userbase and that’s not a winning strategy in the long term. But I’m sure some exec will eventually justify Windows’ decline caused by these thousand cuts as “inevitable outcome of macro-level changes in technological trends” or whatever.
  • marcosdumay 9mo ago
    > someone drew something on whiteboard that looked like “force Microsoft Account on all users -> ??? -> Profit” The problem is not what people have drawn on the whiteboard. The problem is all the long-term decisions and actual values that aren't there anymore.
• CommonSenseAl 9mo ago
  Unfortunately it's harder to run CSS HTML Validator's GUI on Linux, but at least there is the command-line tool!
• ekianjo 9mo ago
  the "you should too" is so tiring. You don't know what is ultimately the best option for most people out there, stop preaching
• Timothycquinn 9mo ago
  I did this 10 years ago. I now run windows server as my windows guest so I dont get all the client cruft. Works like a charm
• Darthagnon 9mo ago
  I can't use Linux because it doesn't have offline installers (without hacks and workarounds), even if I were willing to ditch decades worth of engineering software, Adobe and old games. I am replacing Win11 with Win10 and Win7.
  • worksonmine 9mo ago
    What? You can just put the executable in your path (in simpler terms put the program where the OS will look for it). You have the install command which does that and sets some permissions. That's not a hack that's just how it works. There's also apt-offline[0] which is apt (the package manager on Debian/Ubuntu and the rest) but wait for it... offline. Of course you will need to get the source or the executable on the machine by some method, such as a USB or whatever. But I'm pretty sure Windows or Mac can't create software out of thin air either. Can you give me an example of a workflow that you use on Windows that you would like on Linux? I'm pretty sure I can help you solve it without hacks. If you forget what you believe "installing" software means I'm sure you can learn to appreciate Linux and maybe even see that it's simpler and easier than Windows. [0]: https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man8/apt-offline.8.html https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man8/apt-offline...
• pipeline_peak 9mo ago
  >Everything’s great except I can’t run this >Everything’s great except it doesn’t recognize this device >Everything’s great except there’s a learning curve >Conky
• BatteryMountain 9mo ago
  I don't know why people jump into obscure/difficult distros as a first round... it's like you want to fail. Just use a something simple like Fedora + KDE. NONE of the issues the author would be a problem here out of the box.
• gigatexal 9mo ago
  As soon as the wizards at wine figure out how to get the ricochet kernel level tpm anti cheat stuff for Call Or Duty 7 and similar games working I am nuking windows. But alas playing COD zombies is how I unwind and it’s a no go on Linux. So I have a windows install
• UberFly 9mo ago
  This topic is red meat in a shark tank for online tech forums. Second only to "What's the best browser?".
• adornKey 9mo ago
  For a normal User I think Linux has been almost perfect for decades. For Games Windows still had some advantage. But for developing software I really didn't like Linux. The windows API is very stable. In Linux constantly new problems showed up. E.g. some window-manager suddenly started stealing my focus, just because it wants to have the focus on an irrelevant Edit-Field somewhere... If Linux wants to be the standard I think it should have a stable Api first. And I don't have much hope in Gnome and KDE doing anything like that.
• phplovesong 9mo ago
  It boils down to hardware support. Look at games like CS2, you need the max performance to play, and so far windows is just more optimized, as the driver authors prioritize it.
• rldjbpin 9mo ago
  > My laptop is a 2014 MacBook Air, which is still a pretty solid machine. as a long-term contributor to a website that benchmarks (quite extensively!) notebooks of all sorts, quite interesting to see the choice of portable machine. quite aligned with the overall take and was well-supported with examples.
• pjjpo 9mo ago
  Anyone suggesting "you should too" switch to Linux is signing up to a whole lot of troubleshooting work for their friends that listened to them. Anyone somewhat technical, sure, but not anyone.
• masfoobar 9mo ago
  I have been a Linux user since 2005 or 06. It was one of the best decisions I ever made in the world of computers. I started with Ubuntu and went on a distro hunt such as Fedora, Mandriva, Mint, and others. In the end, I have stayed with Debian for a good 10 years, now. Both for desktop/laptop and server. (Maybe one day I will dive deeper with Arch.. but I also like the direction of Guix) While I use Windows at work, I did have one machine at home dual-boot with Windows. I used it at times for games or work. Now, I cannot find a good reason to have it. My recent Debian install for my laptop + has Steam and Heroic (Epic) without issues. Despite all the above, I am not someone who forces Linux on others - though I speak my truth and make jokes about it.. but I have little issues with my Linux installs. While I have an ATI card which installed without issue, I did not have much problems with nVidia cards in the past. I dont hate Windows as a pure Operating System. If you remove all the fluff on top of it - especially with what is going on with Windows 11, you likely have a stable, reliable kernel + core applications. I do not like the direction MS is going with Windows 11. I am expecting the next version of Windows to simply be named "Windows AI" but don't worry -- they will tell you AI is optional. Boiling Frog Syndrome - little by little more features will be mandatory. :-)
• geldedus 9mo ago
  I use both, like pros do.
• adham-omran 9mo ago
  Wish I could too. I ended up running Windows, Linux and MacOS. While gaming is getting there, tools in many many domains are still unsupported, e.g. Office, Adobe, Audio Production. No OS is perfect and running all three is the way for the most comprehensive experience for people with interests in multiple domains.
• subjectsigma 9mo ago
  Did he sneak in OpenCore Legacy Patcher in with the icons for various Linux distros? EDIT: he did, I should have read FTA
• nurettin 9mo ago
  I watched gnome evolve to the point where your calendar notifies you of meetings 10 minutes prior and has a join button which runs the appropriate application. I also get notifications for new emails and slack messages. Last week I was pleasantly surprised by snap install tmnationsforever We are in a good place.
• BAM-DevCrew 9mo ago
  Starting on Jan 5th, I am mostly migrated from Windows 10 to Zorin Linux. It has taken about a week. Would have went faster if I wasn't a "power user" who tests every option and tweaks the shit out of my system. I have researched and tested multiple file managers (Nemo won) and terminals (Tabby won). Moved everything possible out of sandboxes. Set up VSCodium with Claude Code desktop extension, moved MCP servers to global in both Linux and Windows vs project specific, installed the wrapper for Claude Desktop, wired in 4 hard drives, bookmarked directories, imported Thunderbird and Librewolf profiles. E.T.C... And to do it I guided Claude Desktop with full access to both Windows 10 and Linux to research and implement, verbosely explaining each step of the way. Zorin did work out of the box. If I was not, unfortunately, a freak about how everything has to work exactly how I want, with a full software dev environment (no, not for vibe coding) to get working fluidly, the migration would have been instant. Zorin worked out of the box, other than passwords. It looks and behaves very similar to Windows. This is on my 2012 Hp 220Z with 32gb ram and an SSD for the OS. It works like a champ.