I switched a few years ago. I've been using windows for over 30 years. They changed a bunch of random shit I had used in the past. I figured I'd give it a shot.
I never went back. I'm not a coder. I don't even like tech very much. I've been really happy with Ubuntu for years.
Just switched from windows to arch with KDE Plasma on my laptop and I have been experiencing so much joy playing with all the wonderful FOSS I never even knew about
If there's any new Lemmy users here, coming from Reddit (feel like I'm opening a seance), and if you're wondering what else you might decide to change during this era of change -
Try Linux! It's easy now, and frankly just better :)
Can anyone recommend a very beginner friendly Linux OS for someone who only knows what Linux is but doesn't have experience with it and has never used anything but windows? Even Apple's OS is confusing to me. But windows is trying to force this most recent terrible update every time we turn on the computer, and I've had enough.
(I told my husband about all the helpful comments and he sent me this, thinking that's what everyone was explaining to me. I told him no, I know Linux isn't an OS, I just didn't know the OS's are called distros. Cue the most confused face I've ever seen. He's usually more tech savvy than I am, so I got an ego boost explaining it to him. Thanks everyone!)
Win2Linux project that i'm working on. It should be an official part of KDE Eco initiative soon, if there's no unexpected problems coming up. I'm running it on my private server for testing. It does not collect any information. Give me feedback on the design..
I already got that the font size is a little bit too large. Oh and some links don't work yet.
Y'all, for real, I was on Windows for gaming. Gaming on Linux really does seem to "just work" now. I'm using CachyOS. It just works. The only tweak I had to do was to tell Helldivers 2 to use the vanilla version of Proton instead of Cachy's version. So literally if I was on a more traditional distribution I'd have to do less.
There's still the odd game that's somehow broken in WINE that isn't broken by anticheat or DRM, but by just being crusty code, but those edge cases will do fine in a Windows VM /w a spare GPU being passed through to it.
Anything that uses kernel anticheat, so basically any modern multiplayer title, is platform-locked into a baremetal Windows install, but since I have no interest whatsoever in modern multiplayer titles and thus no interest in anything with a kernel anticheat, I can do just fine virtualizing Windows in that scenario while using a Linux host for everything else.
(which, Soulbringer, one of my previous edge-case titles, works great in Proton /w dxwrapper+DXVK, but Civ3's audio is still broken in Proton even if C3X fixes the graphics, so that's still being ran in a Windows VM, which I currently have Win11 LTSC running in a VM /w my Vega 56 being passed through to it for just that very purpose, while I'm using an RX 6600 for my host card)
As for apps like Maya, Blender is actually competitive with it nowadays.
As an addendum relating to modern multiplayer titles, those are the few titles where it would make more sense to play them on console instead of PC anyways since the way in which they're locked down goes against PC's main selling point: the fact that you actually own your system to a degree where the consoles are effectively locked into the PS, Xbox, or Nintendo walled garden.
To be real Linux is far from ready to be an all in all viable alternative to windows.
The fact that it has a hundred desktops. An absence of major software like ms office. Adobe and autodesk suites, and not being able to avoid the command line when shit hits the fan. Will make users choose to purchase new hardware rather than make the jump.
I bet Linux will make a 2% after win 10 end of support.
Can't recommend it enough! I've tried Linux distros in the past but always found that there were hardware issues or certain programs didn't work. Not to mention I essentially had to give up gaming. Linux was cool but I just couldn't use it as my daily driver.
I switched to Pop!_OS last month and I've been blown away. The install was simple and straightforward and the only hardware that required special config was my gaming mouse that needed "libratbag" and "piper" to remap the extra buttons and adjust the RGB.
Other than that, all the programs I normally use like Discord, Dropbox, Steam, and every game I've tested so far work flawlessly. I don't feel like I'm missing anything or had to give up something like I did before. I actually feel like I've upgraded since I'm loving the auto tiling window manager and multiple desktops that Pop!_OS has as options.
I tried Mac os and I thought it was cool until I got docker and it made me make an account. It also in order to change things in the desktop environment you had to pay for apps and I'm cheap. Windows is annoying to me after being on Linux for so long even if they have wsl. My computer broke and I ended up needing Linux to make an old MacBook we had work again is the only reason I switched originally.
Developing software I appreciate that the ide and terminal are super convenient to use.
Normal people for Linux.... Nope. Getting my Bluetooth to work was a 3 hour journey. Normal people use their PC that much in a month where as I use mine 12 hours+ a day.
So true. Windows XP was the one that made me bail. I can't for the life of me understand what is taking everyone else so long... Its been all down hill since win 2000.
I still alternate because not everything works as it should on Linux.
I usually host a local mumble server, I haven't been able to make it work, same for ZeroTier and xlink kai.
DRG crashes constantly, seems I need a new GPU... I don't have that kind of money and I won't have it for a while.
I'm still looking for a music player that has an UI like MusicBee, specifically its file explorer because I have my own organisation and most players just shove every album together (Elisa comes closer but it isn't the same).
Along Music Bee I have a plugin that searches for missing lyrics (lrc).
On the same line, I don't know if there's something like mp3tag so I keep going back.
I was planning on switching this year anyways but windows filling out a driveiI configured specifically to not get any data and then complaining about it led to an early switch.
Well to be fair I was using Debian on a second computer for years, but now my main one also runs Fedora
The constant linux echo chamber garbage on Lemmy is why I stopped doing anything but keep to my own communitie.
But since this shit never. Ever. Fucking. Stops.
I'm so done, I'm out, forever.
Just out of spite I'll be going windows again too, at least than I know shits gonna work. (Wine was always a crapshot in the dark, proton too)