cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/34247715
Curious on the experiences of those recently migrating to Linux from Windows 10, Intel-based MacOS, etc. How is it being on Linux? Anything surprise or frustrate you?
Mint since May. Preferring to work from home these days not to have to deal with Winslop 11 on my work laptop.
Personal laptop is on Linux and working fine since I got it last year. Windows gaming machine is the next candidate for a move over this year.
It’s amazing! Full customization beyond what I’m used to and it all just runs my hardware perfectly.
My only issue is getting VR to work nicely with my specific setup but I imagine when steam frame comes out there will be a lot of VR specific updates to Linux drivers.
Going real well. My gaming PC (5800X3D/7900XTX/32GB) is running LMDE6 and so far none of my games have complained; Steam+Proton is great.
I also have a laptop (i7-10750H/1650Ti/16GB) running LMDE7, and that’s been my portable gaming machine for a while. Doesn’t play nice with RPCS3, but honestly that’s not a dealbreaker.
Been on Linux desktop since 2003, never looked back.
Don’t get me wrong, Linux has its bugs here and there, like all software, but the difference is night and day.
FREEDOM! I can do whatever the fuck I want with my computer without “nope, can’t do this, that requires complicated APIs and development, that requires more paid licenses to do on your own goddamn computer”
I’ve built so much stuff over the years, it’s like a giant Lego box to me
I’ve been using Linux since 2008… It’s been fine. I do not miss windows. I get to deal with enough of windows bullshit at work.
About a year ago, I installed kubuntu on a laptop that couldn’t officially support windows 11. So far, I’ve only had minor annoyances.
I had a program that wouldn’t work when I first switched, despite being supported. I installed MakeMKV from the built-in repository, and it wouldn’t detect my optical drive. I installed from a separate repo, and it still wouldn’t work. I compiled it from source, and I don’t think it even launched anymore. Then one day, while randomly flailing, some combination of uninstalling, reinstalling, and random commands I found online made it work for no reason I could discern. I haven’t had a problem with it since.
If my optical drive can’t read a disc, the eject button doesn’t work. I have to either reboot or use the terminal to eject the disc.
Every once in a while, something (presumably Firefox) locks up the entire system. Mouse won’t move, keyboard is unresponsive, the works. It’s a decade-old laptop, but it had a decent processor for the time, and I upgraded the RAM, so that shouldn’t really be happening as often as it does.
I want to make this happen. Last block for me is editing documents on my iPhone. I haven’t found a LibreOffice-compatible mobile suite that is solid yet. Latest try was Collabra Office but the navigation within-document just seems buggy and weirdly idiosyncratic. Am i missing something there or can anyone recommend an alternative?
That one is on Apple, not on Linux. Their insistence on charging an arm and a leg just to distribute a binary to users and locking down the best open source alternatives forbidding users from installing apps in the device they paid for. Android has a plethora of open source and free office suites available, some better than others, but development isn’t stifled, yet. Google is doing their share in fucking up the space by locking up “sideloading”.
Been mostly smooth sailing with EndeavourOS, a couple of games anticheat hindered me from playing and some issues with disks because I can’t be arsed to move my files around to switch the fs. And a strange issue with where my monitor flickers if it has a static image while VRR is active, so some loading screens in games are a pain to look at. Overall pleased :)
Everything is fantastic. Switched my laptop (a surface go 2 lol) to Mint, then my desktop to Arch, mini PC to Batocera and built a server that I put OpenMediaVault on.
So far, I have notes (Flatnotes), RSS (FreshRSS), ebooks (Kavita) and recipes (RecipeSage) self hosted as well as media (Kodi) and qBittorrent. Despite being responsible for server admin it’s been quite painless overall.
Nothing eventful. It’s just a straightforward OS.
Boring is what most people want in an OS - usually for most people it’s at it’s best when it’s quietly enhancing the user experience and then getting out of the way.
It’s been great overall, after about one full year now. The only major complaints are keyboard-related. Between my work-supplied macbook that runs macOS, my old macbook that runs GNOME, and my desktop that runs KDE, keeping my muscle memory in tune with keybinds and shortcuts and window management is a headache. Maybe sometimes I’m thrown off by some command line tool not being available on Mac or Linux or it’s named differently.
Keyboard shortcuts are endlessly customizable in KDE. You could always just change them to what you’re used to
I settled on Mint and now want to hop to CachyOS. I’m not sure I’m a fan of Cinnamon; setting up the panel (aka taskbar) on multiple monitors was an absolute nightmare and I ended up just giving up. There were other hiccups getting things set up here and there, but that’s the Linux life, baby.
I dual boot Windows because I need it for a few professional applications, but I swapped it to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC, have a local account, ran the ChrisTitus WinUtil to debloat and remove telemetry, and completely blocked all Microsoft-owned domains using NextDNS. It’s stable, does what I need, and Microsoft doesn’t need to know every time I turn my computer on.
Not strictly Linux but relevant to ditching Microsoft, I’m currently in the process of moving my projects off Github and into Codeburg for public repos and into Keybase (fully E2EE) for private repos. Fuck Microsoft’s AI data-scraping bullshit.
Bonus, I also recently completely degoogled, and installed GrapheneOS on my phone. It is awesome, and was absurdly easy to set up.
Made Fedora KDE my only home OS last year. I’m experienced with Linux but did not have to pull out arcane knowledge at all for setting it up. I.e it has been very smooth. The rough edges have been:
- Slightly worse audio
- GIFs on Reddit RES don’t always play well
- Will have to find a web browser based tax software instead of what I’m used to
- Remapping a key (print screen to right click) has not been easy
- I miss some features of notepad++ that are missing from Kate.
- I miss Irfanview image viewer
Will have to find a web browser based tax software instead of what I’m used to
I just went to a tax preparer this year. Costs about the same and my 2025 taxes are going to be all sorts of fun because I did fun new taxable things like contract work and a Roth conversion that I need to make sure are accounted for correctly. But yeah I just give them the documents and they file it all for me.
Right now might be a little late though. Most tax places will already have their clients for 2025 locked in and very little opportunity to take on more clients
Irfanview is honestly a huge loss, I’m honestly shocked I haven’t been able to find something even close to comparable.
Do you use the built-in tool for remapping keys in KDEs system-settings, or something else?
its nice. just that it runs out of ram when using multiple apps compared to on windows, but i couldnt care less if thats a sacrifice i have to make to escape big tech.
If you’re having OOM issues you might have have good luck enabling ZRAM
On Debian based systems it’s as simple as running
sudo apt install zramand rebootingHow much RAM do you have? My experience has been that it’s always used less RAM than Windows
