I currently use windows 10 in my daily life. I often play games, use browsers, basic stuff like that. On top of that, I also experiment with different music software, mostly Reaper for now. I edit videos and images at a very basic level as well. Upon switching, what should I expect to change? I’m considering Pop!_OS seeing as its praised for its compatibility and easy switching. What’s the situation with gaming look like? I know gaming on Linux has been a HIGHLY discussed topic for a while, is it easy to play any (non triple-A) steam game? I’m nowhere near involved in computer science, I’d just consider myself more stubborn than most end-users so I can persevere through some basic problems.

  • obnomus@lemmy.ml
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    19 days ago

    I think you should try dual booting or try Linux in a virtual box just to check that you can do your work on Linux and if you can’t then you know the answer.

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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    19 days ago

    LLMs are useful when dealing with linux. Linux works different so there is learning curve esp if you want to get most out of it.

    PopOS is a decent choice, however COSMIC is in late alpha with that being said it does work overall. I would not advise 22.04 at this point.

    You can install classic GNOME also.

  • dragospirvu75@lemmy.ml
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    8 days ago

    Things that I would tell to younger me before I switched to GNU/Linux:

    1. GNU/Linux is an excellent and easy operating system to use as a replacement to Windows for laptops or computers. It depends on distro too, I talk at least about begginer-friendly distros like Mint, Trisquel.
    2. GNU/ Linux is easy to install, at least begginer-friendly distros.
    3. As a begginer, start with a Debian/Ubuntu based distro. Because there is a lot of support, many software in repositories (apt), many tutorials on internet, many .deb software to download online. After you get used to it, you can try rpm distros (which run .rpm software, like Fedora) or even other types of distros.
    4. Using terminal, at least for basic commands, is really easy. Like sudo apt update/upgrade/remove/purge, chmod +x [file].
    5. You can use Linux even without terminal (what I said above can be made through a package manager interface which is already installed on most distros, or using ‘right click-properties’ for file permissions).
    6. There are a lot of great replacements for Windows-only programs (browsers, office, text editors, photo and video viewer etc.).
    7. You can run Windows software on Linux (using Wine), if you really need to.
    8. Gaming can be made on Linux (a lot of native games, plus Steam offers Proton to run Windows games on Linux). You can verify how well games work using this website: www.protondb.com
    9. There is not a black-and-white situation. You don’t have to quit Windows forever. You can keep it in dual boot and use it only when you need software that doesn’t work on Linux. For example, a Windows game that is running bad on Proton in Linux.
    10. There are a lot of desktop environments (Gnome, Mate, KDE, Cinnamon, LXQt etc.), so your system can look how you want to. My favourite ones are Cinnamon and Mate.
    11. You will feel great that you use a free and open source system and support small players in this area, instead of using a monopolistic closed system.
    12. People will think you are a really advanced programmer, tech person (quite funny).

    Let’s talk about disadvantages now:

    1. Changing anything, including an operating system, is intimidating. You will think you will never get used to the new system, software, its way of installing apps etc. But you will, quite fast.

    2. Some Windows apps may not work, or work bad. It didn’t happen to me, but I am quite sure it might happen. So you better make some tests of Windows apps on Linux before.

    3. If you choose automatic partitioning when installing the distro, it might do it in an inconvenient way. Let’s say you have 960 GB SSD. Choosing automatic partitioning might allocate only 25 GB for system, and the rest (900 GB) for home partition. And it’s very frustrating, because apps install (using sudo apt install ‘app’) in system partition, not home. So always use manual partitioning and put a lot of size for system (/). It can be intimidating, but you find tutorials online.

    That’s all I can think of. Enjoy your journey in Linux world!

  • Donebrach@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    probably a lifetime of trouble shooting and asking the internet if there’s a linux equivalent of insert name software available.

  • Trent@lemmy.ml
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    19 days ago

    Your computer to run faster? 😁

    I’m not that much of a gamer, but ask your favorite search engine for winedb and protondb for details about game compatibility.

  • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    For gaming and browsing, you should have a very similar if not the exact same experience on Linux save for a few cases.

    Most browser stuff just works, no real issues with anything in browser in my experience over the last 2 years or so since I switched. Only thing I’ve noticed is some streaming platforms dont allow you to stream in full HD like Hulu for whatever reason, likely piracy concerns. I’m sure theres other minor things too that I may have missed over the years but nothing that really made a difference.

    For gaming, aside from multiplayer games with anticheat, its been great. I haven’t had any issues with playing games in my library. Proton is fantastic for steam games and from what I’ve heard, lutris is great as well.

    I’m a musician/artist and Linux has been a bad experience for me with music production unfortunately. Between most VSTs not working for me even with yabridge, things would crash, not work at all or would load but then crash in the middle of production. I actually used Reaper and was running PopOS, (great daw BTW, good choice) and while Reaper itself was great, most things, even native Linux VST didn’t work for me. I hope your experience is better than mine but I ended up building a 3rd machine just for music production running Windows 10 with no internet access. I also had Windows only VSTs that I spent a considerable amount of money on so that was also another big thing for me.

    Aside from music production, other creative workflows like photo editing have been good with Krita. I’ve heard good things about kdenlive, and davinci resolve Ive heard is good on Linux as well. Ive used davinci resolve myself on windows and its a good video editing software IMO.

    The popshop kinda sucks. I went to kubuntu recently just for ease of use and not being so tied in to PopOS’s weird system. I wasn’t able to do simple things like change the file manager without it breaking a ton of shit, even after editing configs. If you dont need to mess around with stuff like that, PopOS is good.

    All in all, I’m glad I switched from Windows.

  • terraborra@lemmy.nz
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    19 days ago

    This is a weird one, but read up on folder structures. If you’ve used MacOS at all then the logic is very similar. However if you’re coming from a pure windows background then it can get confusing figuring out where everything gets put when you install applications or need to make changes to config files.

    The Pop desktop environment and search works well the vast majority of the time but it’s handy to know how to find you’re way around when you hit a roadblock.

  • lordnikon@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Don’t switch your OS first switch your apps to cross platform apps first that work on both Linux and Windows for all your major tasks. Then after you feel good about it then switch to Linux and switch everything no dual boot for at least 6 months or you will switch at the slightest roadblock vs just troubleshooting like you would do if you ran into a roadblock on windows.

  • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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    19 days ago

    Some times you may need to install a few extra stuff to get a game to run properly, other times you may see a few visual glitches like a pop-up menu not rendering properly, but you’re unlikely to find any game that just can’t run on Linux unless the devs intentionally don’t want people to play it on Linux.

    Check protondb for general compatibility of any games you play.

  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works
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    19 days ago

    No matter what distro you choose, expect a learning curve. Depending on your usage it can be minor or significant. You may find a simple task doesn’t work as you expect in Linux and it’s time consuming to figure it out. If you run Windows in a virtual machine on Linux or set up a dual boot system you can switch back and get the task done easily, and figure out how things work at your leisure.

    When I first switched I went back to Windows a couple of times a week for simple tasks that I didn’t know how to complete in Linux. (It usually was an issue with figuring out a new application and rarely had anything to do with the OS itself.) After a couple of months I found I was wasn’t using Windows much, and in less than a year I was able to delete the Windows partition.

  • muhyb@programming.dev
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    19 days ago

    For games it’s really great unless that game you’re looking for has kernel-level anticheat. You can check ProtonDB for Steam games, Lutris for other platforms. If you prefer single-player games mostly like me, you won’t have much of a problem.

    For music, there are software like Ardour and LMMS. For video editing, you can check KDEnlive.

    Before switching, I suggest you to try at least a couple different distros on a virtual machine, better if you have a separate laptop to try things. PopOS is great. You can also check Linux Mint, Bazzite and openSUSE Leap.

  • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    I would suggest searching what Linux alts exist for your productivity and install those on Windows. If that hurts your ability to work (in particular paid work) then you won’t have a good time switching over. If you still want to move at least try and get a new hard drive and install linux there. If you don’t like linux then you can swap back to your old windows drive.