If you’re already with Linux, this is not for you. This is for people who’re indecisive or been contemplating for long about whether to make that jump.
For me, it’s a matter of a few things. I’m on a Windows 10 version that guarantees me until 2032 of support. That means I would effectively skip Windows 11, like I already mostly have and potentially skip Windows 12 if that turns out to be a shitty choice. I’d be coming in right in time for whatever Microslop shits out for Win13.
Should Windows 13 suck, I think that’s a consideration. Another consideration is when Valve keeps dropping support for certain Windows versions of Steam. Because I know for a fact they will drop Windows 10 support entirely one day and then Windows 11. I believe it is really stupid that they do this.
By the time my Windows 10 version expires, I’d be getting older, which means I’ll probably care less and less about computer-related things. Going to Linux wouldn’t be a problem since I’d be doing barebones things like browsing and checking e-mail.
And I’d also hope that by 2032, Linux would have better development like easier access to proprietary drivers and software among other things.
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It needs to actually work.
No display issues with Nvidia. Working HDR out of the box. The OS and games most pick up the correct resolution both on desktop and running in proton. I need to be able to turn my monitor off and on without having to remove and insert the HDMI.
Same with audio. I need it to correctly detect my HDMI pass through and not need a script to run on boot to pull and grep a changing device id on every fucking update.
Finally I need Bluetooth to not be a total piece of shit and correctly support a controller without latency.
Now, where is the nerd to come screech at me, tell me my issues were fixed a decade ago and that Linux just works perfectly on random hardware and that Linux is so easy an idiot could do it? All the while I spend 40 hours a week on the cli and ide.
Even steam deck has a bunch of issues that needs will hand wave away.
Sounds like most of your problem is NVIDIA. I don’t have any of that on AMD. But if that’s what you have that’s what you have. I’m not blaming you. Unfortunately NVIDIA (the company) is just not as good about making their stuff work with Linux.
Bluetooth works great for me. At least since I switched from a shitty old Broadcom wireless card to a modern Intel wireless one.
Checks clock. 40m.
So you’re just going to have wave away the other 2/3rd? I get it Nvidia made it a pain in the ass. What excuse for BT, HDMI, and Wi-Fi?
Normal people aren’t going to buy hardware just to use Linux.
Like I said I’m not blaming you. If that’s the reality for you I’m not here to prosthelytize. Maybe you can try again on your next PC if you’re still trying to get away from Windows.
BT
Commented on
HDMI
NVIDIA, along with HDMI audio.
WiFi
Not something you mentioned but honestly not something I’ve had a problem with in 5+ years across a lot of hardware. Except this one old Broadcom card that was pulled from a Mac because I wanted to try Hackintoshing (running macOS on a normal PC).
Your HDMI problems are Nvidia’s fault. WIFI I’ve never had problems unless it’s a shitty WIFI card, BT also works, even with my shitty adapter. No noticable latency on a DualSense controller.
Perfection. No notes.
Hoestly same.
If linux meets your needs, cool. I’m even a little jealous, but please, linux guys, understand that not everyone has the same needs as you.
I need my personal computer to get out of the way and let me do other stuff, not be a project in itself. If you’re a developer, desktop Linux is pretty good at that. Lots of nice compilers and versioning systems and IDEs and runtime environments to play around with. If you’re literally anyone else it just doesn’t cut it.
I have been trying to use Linux since 2009. I keep trying, but it never gets any better for my needs. In fact it has gotten worse.
tbh it isn’t that big of an issue to use an outdated OS as long as the user is competent enough and has basic security measures. power users (like the ones on lemmy) can just use whatever that works well enough for them, be it WinXP, OS X, …
and switching to linux isn’t that big deal either, there’s no need to get rid of the existing machine/windows install if there’s something that works better there
You’re claiming running Windows XP is fine to do and it absolutely is not. There are likely hundreds of security holes in it that can never be patched. This is dangerous advice you’re giving, and on top of it, it would make life hard constantly. When I have tried to use XP in a vm for certain things, it’s unbelievable how many things don’t work which are a problem. For example, the most up to date version of Firefox that would work on it was v3.5 iirc. The latest version is 149 I think. This meant that when I browsed the Internet, it was an insanely broken experience.
Tldr; trying to run Windows XP is a horrifyingly terrible idea which is not feasible and even if you managed to do it, your data is not safe and can be stolen or modified by malicious actors at any moment.
3.5? what? no, the latest firefox that runs is 56 and the latest esr 52. seamonkey supported xp till 2019 with 2.49.5. in 2026, there’s a fork of latest chromium with support for winxp backported including full sandbox. there are security holes in the os, yes, but the kind of ‘power user’ i mentioned are the ones who know how to use XP properly in present day and can reasonably setup their network to block all unnecessary stuff, not run fishy softwares, etc. see win2k.org for an example of such power user patching their legacy system to the extreme and keeping it usable.
i’m not suggesting to run XP. I’m saying it’s still possible, so there’s no way win10 will be unusable in a short time from now. At least I’m reasonably sure it will remain filly usable for power users with all kinds of workarounds for around 10 or more years. those who are not more comfortable with doing such workarounds can switch to linux or other similarly free system, which is also of course what i recommend.
You’re focused on it being possible and you’re hand waving the very valid and very major security concerns with “some power users can do it safely”. Nope. Once an os becomes unsupported, at that moment it becomes unsafe as a daily driver. This isn’t my opinion, this is just a sober look at the reality of data security.
It starts becoming an issue though because of what I mentioned about what Valve does with Steam. For the longest time, people used Windows XP out of protest because they didn’t like Vista or they’ll use 7 out of protest for 8.1 or even 10. Then Valve one day decided to axe Windows XP support for Steam. Then they did it for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.
We see this happen all of the time with browsers, there will eventually become a point where you have to force yourself to either upgrade or jump ship.
well there still are people using XP and 7 on personal computers in 2026. there’s a tool that makes a lot of win10+ programs work on 7/8.1, and also a lot of patched softwares that runs on those older versions. or workarounds that make the last compatible version still function well.
there always will be a workaround, though at some point it might be easier to just use a linux vm for some stuff
People doing it does not make it a good idea. In fact it an absolutely TERRIBLE idea and that cannot be overstated. I explained why in another comment, but I’m not even sure why I would need to explain that, even to very inexperienced users. That operating system hasn’t received an update of any kind in like… 15 years?
more like 7 years. posready 2009 got updates till 2019, many xp users apply updates from it.
i’m not telling them to switch to xp. i’m saying that considering the fact that XP still remains usable to many after all these years, win10 will remain fully usable for a lot more years to come.
Okay I don’t understand what you mean but it’s irrelevant. An os without updates for 1 year will leave it far too unsafe to use.
You’re wrong though. Using an unsupported os is a bad idea. Being able to do it is not the issue. It’s the fact that it is not at all safe which means it shouldn’t be done.
Downvote me all you want, I’m speaking the truth. You should not be encouraging people to stay on windows versions that lose support. It’s literally dangerous to do it.
it’s pointless to keep explaining when our opinions are so different. I disagree with your comment, and I use the downvote button to express my disagreement to the specific comment. I don’t have anything against you, sorry if this bothered you.
(votes are public on the fediverse anyway, and it’s not like reddit where your karma decreases and you get banned if you lose too much karma…)
Mine is not an opinion. The mistake you’re making is thinking it is. It is simply a fact that windows is already insecure as hell, using a version of it that is even more so is not something you should tell people they can or should do. You are advocating for using windows 10 in perpetuity. It is actually an unsafe thing to attempt.
Nothing. I’ve been here a while.
And might I add, fuck anything that doesn’t work on Linux, didn’t need it anyway
I still have a machine that runs Windows 10 LTSC. Used to need it to run Adobe softwares, but I get past that now.
Now I need it to run my heavily modded Bethesda games. I can’t get my GOG versions to run through MO2 or NMM even with the help of Steam. I feel really stupid. Heroic Launcher somehow can’t run some Proton supported games on my end, too. My small collection on Steam seems fine, but most of my games are on GOG, I can’t figure out why sometimes Heroic won’t work.
get Cricut design space studio to work over USB in a bottle, without having to run a whole damn windows virtual machine
I’m not the only person using the machine, and the only other user wants to use a circuit, which requires design space studio
I tried some things on reddit but people trying to figure this specific thing out is a recent development but it just happens to apply to me
If I could find something like AltSnap on Linux I would move like, this week.
I know some of the features may already be part of Linux but I use this program pretty extensively and I don’t know much about Linux desktops and how they control.But anyway I’m gonna move to Linux anyway, I have a date in my calendar later this year and my friend is gonna help me switch to it.
It sounds like you’re describing a tiling window manager? The first response in this thread has some good information from someone who uses one and loves it. This thread on the EndeavorOS forums discusses some and it sounds like i3wm is one of the easiest to use right away but is also really easy to customize.
I use the “windows” key and click to drag windows around quite a bit. It came as part of KDE.
A lack of laziness I suppose. I’ve been using it on and off over the years and have Mint in dual boot right now in preperation for a post-win10 migration, but I’m constantly running into various small/large issues. In the past few years I’ve had issues with wifi drivers, with gpu drivers (f u again nvidia), issues with sleep mode and battery drain, issues with finding equivalent os management tools ( totalcmd, task manager, treeview etc ), issues with “alternative source” games etc. I’ve also had issues wrapping my head around bottles and wine prefixes ( but I will admit wine is an excellent piece of software and has come a looong way since the mid 00s ).
Linux is great if you’re a tinkerer because you will need to tinker with it at some point or another. But as I get older I just can’t be arsed most of the time.
This is pretty much me. If Linux and associated software like Proton were at their current state 10 years ago, I would’ve made the jump by now. At this point, I just can’t be bothered. I work in IT, so I already deal with computer stuff at work, and I really don’t want to tinker with my pc at home as well. I bought some extra storage a few months ago, partially in preparation to try Linux, but have yet to install it.
For me it’s because I have an iPhone and Windows has at least some compatibility with it, mainly for syncing my local music collection to my phone so I can listen with Apple Music offline. While it can be a pain, at least it works. If I were to use Linux I would need a way to transfer files between Linux and iPhone so I can listen to my music on a third party iPhone music player app, which I also haven’t found a good solution for yet. If anyone has any suggestions I’m all ears!
The iPhone is intentionally incompatible with Linux, or at least it was. They dropped support for Linux over 10 years ago.
VLC will let you do this! This is how I got all of my music off of my Linux machine over to my iPad and iPhone. I haven’t tried transferring from iPhone back to Linux, however.
There are 2 barriers for me:
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Ease of access - I haven’t found a distro that I can just download and install. They all require some sort of third-party software that runs the installation. Which means I usually end up struggling to find a tutorial that actually works with the distro I chose.
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Driver issues - The only thing I want to do is run a browser. I stream movies. Seems simple, but I’ve yet to find a distro that will smoothly stream. I’ve tried various browsers.
In fairness, I’m using a single laptop for this purpose, so maybe it’s a hardware issue? Dunno, don’t care, just want things to work.
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Mint and Fedora both have live images that dial function as test images and install media. Move your data off your drive, install, put it back. It’s super simple to make them using Rufus.
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You can test how well they stream from the live image.
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I need a spare computer, a video course on demand for learning Linux, and a source of income to cover my bills so I can spend time on something that doesn’t require looking for work.
Lazyness.
I’d try it on a new system but I really don’t want to live migrate my whole system.My copy of win10 to stop working, probably. Not planning on switching to win11, so Linux it will be.
I’m kinda in the same boat as you I think. Currently still using win10 and waiting it out, till either windows becomes decent or I switch to linux. Currently considering linux because I don’t game as much anymore, but kinda too lazy to switch till something breaks.
If you’re curious, then I would recommend you play around with Linux before something breaks. It’s a horrible experience to have to scramble to figure out what to do when you’re tight on time - better to learn the lingo first, so that when something does break, you can switch with no learning curve.
Plus, you might end up really liking Linux anyways. That’s kinda what happened to me 2 years ago, I’m not honestly sure why I haven’t tried Linux sooner
I use it on all of my servers and an old laptop already. But indeed might be a nice idea to play around with it (dual booting) and maybe switching once i find some time.
My desktop PC is already running on Linux. I’ve been holding onto my Macbook because I was under the impression that neither Photoshop or DaVinvi Resolve work on Linux but I believe this to no longer be the case so I’ll either switch to Framework at some point or I just go back to using only desktop PC as I don’t exactly take advantage of my laptop’s portability anyway.
Davinci works, tho it tends to be buggy and requires some tinkering to get it working. Really hit and miss. When it comes to photoshop your best bet is running it through wine
Resolve is officially supported on Linux and it’s worked for me fine. The way you’re putting it makes it sound like it only barely works with some hacking or something and that is just not true.
many games and apps dont work well even with lutris & wine :(
