It’s bad when an operating system keeps giving you a screen full of options and the best answer for every single one is No.
Ok folks telling me to just get a Linux Distro.
PC Gaming - Enshrouded, Valheim, BG3, Dragon Age: Origins, and No Man’s Sky, generally Steam platform. Classics like Caesar III, TIE Fighter.
Work - Data Analysis, Lots of word documents, spreadsheets
Internet - Light browsing, podcast listening, music streaming
What distro and why?
https://distrochooser.de/ --> find a distro that fits your criteria
https://alternativeto.net/ --> find alternatives to your windows products
https://protondb.com/ --> check if your games run on linux
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I use Linux currently and have for many years. It is a wonderful operating system. However, if you wish to switch to Linux, it is in your best interest to understand that enthusiasts will oversell whatever they love, and they will do so without even noticing it.
Gaming on Linux is impressive and it’s getting better every day, but it is still not the same as Windows.
Depending on the games you wish to play, you may feel frustrated at times. Also, barely any peripherals have official Linux support on a software level. I’m talking about fancy keyboards, mice, gamepads, cameras, microphones, headphones, and all kinds of RGB contraptions.
If something doesn’t work, the next recommended steps can range from installing a complicated third-party interface to essentially programming your own. If I read the word “kernel” as part of a solution, chances are that I’m just buying something else instead.
People also forget that even supported games sometimes malfunction, and all tips and fixes will assume you’re running Windows. Besides, not every game is on Steam, and even when they are, some may require the use of external software to install and manage mods. So using Linux for games is awesome, but significantly less so if you are not an advanced user and want more than the defaults for your games.
When it comes to work, you might find yourself restricted to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office Online. It is possible to run Office via Wine, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea (more on that here). A bit off-topic, but I’ve been trying to purchase a legit license for local Microsoft Office and I don’t think they even sell it anymore. They’re completely focused on the cloud version.
If you like the older windows ui, Linux mint. You don’t need to look any further than that. If you want something fresh and cool, use regular fedora with gnome, if you want a more mac like or windows 11 experience use fedora kde. That’s all you need to know.
if I need to go in to a command line and make a custom boot of the OS. I might as well be using a Linux distribution and not have the system reset my work every time it updates.
10 years strong on Linux and still the only windows laptop I have at home is the one my work gave me to use.
I did this about a year ago and haven’t looked back. The only thing that’s sometimes a problem is if a game has anti cheat stuff that’s super Windows specific, but I wouldn’t want to run those things anyway.
So when you clean windows, how long does it actually stay clean? I uninstalled a bunch of stuff when I was using windows 10 and they kept reappearing.
I’ve got a whole powershell script I run these days on a new Windows install to remove eveything I don’t need and set things how I like them
If your OS is nuisance, maybe get a different OS.
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I’m on your side, but comments like these are nonsense and help nobody.
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(Not the person you replied to)
Windows has issues, but so does Linux. My personal experience with Fedora (Silverblue) has been fairly good with minimal hassle (Gnome Software breaks sometimes with auto updates, but is leaps and bounds ahead of the Synaptic days). However, someone using other hardware, another distro, or using other software might have a lot more problems to contend with.
There’s a lot of case-by-case nuance that in my opinion makes broad switch from A to B recommendations less meaningful than discussing the pros and cons and letting people decide on their own whether Linux could be useful for them.
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When going from Windows to Linux, all of the tradeoffs are involved. For me what I don’t like about Windows outweighs the pain points of my choice of Linux distro, but for some they’d weigh the sides and Windows still comes out on top.
Anyway my take is that Linux is better ideologically, but for the average consumer who justs want to use their favorite apps, Windows works fine and they’re not really going to care until Windows piles on enough garbage to make switching worthwhile.
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I guess it kind of depends. Not really sure what most people actually use, but for those who use MS’s services, Office web isn’t great, and Skype for Linux is rather temperamental. A lot of games work under Proton, but not all.
My perception of “average user” is probably skewed towards being not technical enough to troubleshoot on their own, but skilled enough to run through a tutorial of what keys to press. For someone used to Windows, patching things up is simpler than learning all the ins and outs of a new OS.
I don’t disagree that most people would be fine using Linux, but there needs to be a compelling reason why Linux would be significantly better, or else the switching cost makes it not worthwhile.
