I’m just so sick of Microsoft and Google. But there’s two things holding me back:
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I wanna play Steam games on my PC
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I am just an amateur hobbyist, not a tech wizard
Is there any hope for me?
Just remember to turn steam play on for all titles in Steam -> Settings -> Compatibility.
As others have said, Mint is a great starting option. It looks familiar when coming from Windows, and almost everything works without having to touch a terminal.
AAA games with anti-cheat may not work, but just about everything else will. Check Proton DB for each game’s compatibility.
You can add non-Steam games to Steam to take advantage of Proton. Lutris can also work for some Windows games.
If you want to try Linux distributions to see what they’re like before committing, VirtualBox or other virtual machine programs can give you a risk-free preview.
Another option is a live preview. Install Linux Mint on a USB using Rufus or a similar program, then boot your computer from the USB. So long as you don’t access your computer’s hard drive (under devices on the left of the file manager) or run the installer, no changes should be made from your computer. You can simply reboot and remove the USB to go back to your usual OS.
If you are going to dual-boot, install Windows first. Windows has a habit of overriding or deleting Linux if it’s installed second. If you just want to shrink your Windows partition to allow room for Linux, shrink it from Windows. Linux can move “unmovable” Windows files resulting in Windows not booting.
Always have a backup of everything you are not prepared to lose before you play with installing operating systems (and make sure it’s disconnected from that computer). Data loss from software issues is rare, but mistakes are difficult (sometimes impossible) to reverse, particularly as a beginner.
For dual booting I strongly recommend having Windows and Linux on separate drives altogether.
Linux is way easier than it was even 10 years ago and many games run better on Linux than they do on Windows. There’s gaming distros but I’m not sure what the benefit is other than the built-in NVIDIA drivers. I just game on Fedora. You need to enable Proton stuff in the settings and you’re off.
Unless the Steamdeck flew under your radar you should know that you can absolutly play games on Linux. Most of the exceptions are big online games with crazy anti-cheats (yeah in that case no luck).
As for hope : migrating to another OS (be it Linux, MacOS or whatever) can be disorienting at first, wich tend to repel some people (it’s like learning how to use a pc for the first time), that’s actually the most important thing to keep in mind for everything to go smoothly, you don’t need to be a tech wizzard, just to be patient.
As long as you don’t rush things, don’t expect everything to behave as somekind of windows clone and learn how it works a bit you should be fine.
Before you try anything I’d also suggest you check if all the software you are using are available on Linux and if not what alternative you can use : alternativeto.net can help. To check if the games you play work you can also go to protondb.com. Preparing as much as you can before install is a huge plus, and it’s really not that hard.
As an exemple I’ve helped a curious friend who wanted to try Linux, they’re the most tech illiterate person I’ve ever known…like even worse than some old people. It took them two hard month to be fully acclimated, like as fine as they were doing on windows if not better. Never even asked me for help ever since. (My eyes still bleed when I see how they’re using their pc but they clearly have no issue doing whatever they’re doing) So if they can I’m sure anyone can.
I’m not sure what you mean by flew under my radar but I don’t really even know what steamdeck is. some kind of handheld console? how’s it relevant here?
It’s been a big factor in Linux now having extremely strong support for windows games, as it runs Steam on Linux, uses PC hardware to play PC games, and it’s built/supported by Valve who did a lot of the heavy lifting on improving the existing Linux windows compatibility layer to where it is now. What that means for you is basically anything in Steam will run well in Linux even if it’s not a native Linux game (which most aren’t).
Otherwise, Proton’s the name of Valve/Steam’s compatibility layer project, and you can look up game-specific user reports on playability here: https://www.protondb.com/
It’s because it’s quite popular so alot of people know it exists, but yes it’s a handheld console made by steam and it’s using linux, it’s basicly a Linux console.
Yes, ez one (if you have installed operating systems before and know how to paste an error passage into google ) -4hours and your done start to finish. (Given you have standard hardware and don’t want to set up something crazy like dual boot with raid and nas)
Moderate complexity if you have never done anything like that, plan 2-6 evenings to get it fully working with everything you need
Also: consider your scopes. For most cases Linux will just work, you just have to get used to some different interfaces.
BUT: some things will not run under linux no matter how hard you try --> google if stuff you can’t live without will work
(for me I still have a dual boot windows for playing league of legends and running my vive wireless adapter, as those will not run under Linux.
For games use protonDB
I may be oldschool, but for people not comfortable around terminals I would suggest Debian KDE as it never breaks and the transition from windows is easy. You can do everything from GUI (clicky button interfaces)
For the installation of steam you might need a terminal, but there are good guides online (and you really dont need to be a wizard for that) from where you can just copy paste (when searching just add your distro e.g. “install steam Debian”, and once you’ve got that running you can just run every game from within steam.
Since Steam has done a lot of work with proton, most games just run under Linux. In steam: Install–>play
For nearly all games not directly running, you can just force them to run with proton. It will say: “Game not compatible” in steam, you just click the gear icon on the right to open settings, go to “compatibilty” and tick “force use of compatibility layer” and select the newest proton from the drop down
The button where steam previously said “not compatible” magically turns into the blue “install” button we all know and love. And nearly all games run with only minor inconveniences (like showing keyboard hotkeys even when playing with a gamepad) or no issues at all.
You need to be aware that some games using kernel level anticheat (e.g. league of legends, valorant) can not and will never run on Linux, if the developers of the games don’t add the possibility.
EDIT: for programs not related to gaming its often easier to use an alternative, if the program is not available for Linux. Most times its also more privacy foccused, open source and free
Adobe light room --> darktable
Microsoft office --> libre office
Adobe Premiere pro --> davinci resolve/shotcut
Paint/Photoshop --> gimp/davinci/dark table
Edge --> firfox
Notepad --> Kate
Fraps/relive/shadowPlay --> OBS
Etc. Pp.
What gamepad are you using? If it’s Xbox One/S/X try out xpadneo
- before you switch, sort out your apps. Look at what you use on windows, see if it runs on Linux. If not, find a replacement that does and test it out.
- Most Linux distros can boot into a desktop from a thumb drive. You can play and test without touching your windows installation.
- in that vein, ventoy is neat. You can make a bootable drive and drop ISOs in a folder to boot from. No messing with etcher or whatever it’s called
- desktop environment matters as much as the distro. Check out gnome, KDE, and cinnamon.
A start for alternate softwares, though other resources available this is just a first to come to mind: https://www.alternative.to/
I saw some cinnamon stuff and i still dont get what that means!
If a computer is a car, then Linux(the Kernal) is the chassis. Mint (the distro) is the motor, and Cinnamon (the desktop environment) is the fancy interior.
KDE plasma is a fancy interior that works with tons of different motors.
Cinnamon is designed for mint and works best with it.
DISCLAIMER: All of this is analogy and isn’t technically correct in a pedantic sense, but it works well enough for me. I’m sorry if my analogy isn’t exactly accurate.
I’d say Linux (the kernel) is the motor/engine and Mint (the distro) is the chassis. The chassis defines the shape of the vehicle and its size class, for instance.
Well I’d say the distro is the model/manufacturer, Linux is the motor/engine/software, and the DE is the HUD/dashboard/wheel/pedels.
Okay, so the Linux ecosystem is more modular than Windows. Windows is synonymous with its Graphical User Interface (GUI) for reasons I’ll get into later.
With Linux, there are several GUIs available to choose from. These tend to fall into two main categories: Tiling Window Managers, and Desktop Environments.
Tiling Window Managers have minimal on-screen UI elements, usually they’re meant to be used with keyboard combos with little usage of the mouse. A major feature is everything that is running is visible on the screen, when you open a new window, another window divides in half to give it room, “tiling” the screen. Some examples of TWMs include i3 and Awesome.
Desktop Environments are going to be more familiar to newcomers from Windows or MacOS. They’re made more for mouse control, several have what you would recognize as a taskbar, start menu and system tray. Windows can be stacked on top of each other like papers on a desktop, exactly like MS Windows does. Some more closely resemble MacOS though none behave exactly the same way. Some examples of DEs include Gnome, KDE, MATE, and Cinnamon.
Cinnamon is a DE made by the Linux Mint development community, and the default/flagship DE for Linux Mint. It is designed to be familiar and easy to use for Windows users. KDE’s Plasma DE is similar in many ways to Mint although it’s based on different tech; KDE is based on qt, Cinnamon is a distant fork of Gnome and based on GTK. Some are designed to be more minimal so they take up less system resources, like xfce and LXDE, others are trying mostly to resemble MacOS, like ElementaryOS’ Pantheon DE. Then there’s Gnome, which I goddamn hate.
For a beginner, the choice of DE is going to present most of the differences you’ll notice when trying out distros. It can be instructive to try, say, Kubuntu and Fedora KDE. Both ship with the KDE Plasma desktop, but the underlying OSes are different. Then try out, say, Fedora Workstation (with the Gnome desktop) and Fedora KDE. That exercise will give you a good understanding of distro vs DE.
Edit to add: It’s kind of like launchers on Android. You can go in the Google Play store and install a different launcher on your phone, you can make a Samsung Galaxy look like a Google Pixel. Linux DEs work the same way, you can install KDE or Cinnamon the same way you’d install a normal app, you can have multiple and switch between them. It’s not a great idea but you can.
The desktop environment is all the stuff like the taskbar, the settings menus, the application launcher, the login screen, that kind of thing. It’s the system level user interface.
You choose which one by which distro you download. Linux mint uses cinnamon, Ubuntu and fedora use gnome. There are “flavors” of Ubuntu and fedora that use KDE. That’s why I suggested ventoy: you can download a few different ones and boot into them without making a new thumb drive.
If you don’t feel like bothering with any of that, just use Linux mint. It’s good.
Here are three variants of Linux Mint with different Desktop Environments: (click their example image to make it larger)
- Linux Mint (Cinnamon Edition) - the default, I’d use that until you have a reason not to
- Linux Mint (MATE Edition)
- Linux Mint (XFCE Edition)
All of those are Linux Mint, they use pretty much the same core tools under the hood, but the desktop environments change how you engage with them. Mostly the way things look, the way you organize programs on your screen, and the default apps (like which text editor it comes with by default). This can change your experience a lot, I think Cinnamon looks nice and is smooth, while MATE and XFCE are more lightweight and might be better for older computers or if you don’t like something about Cinnamon.
Now, those are all somewhat similar, they have a program start menu in the bottom left, a taskbar on the bottom, the basics are familiar. There are some (not officially supported by Mint) which are more different, like GNOME (Ubuntu’s desktop default) which has a different app launcher instead of a start menu and a different way of switching between programs. Then, as others mentioned, some people choose to not even install a pre-designed Desktop Environment and only install some of the more core components of a DE, like the Window Manager. People who really love the keyboard might use a tiling window manager, these tend to make you think “wow, this person’s a hacker”, where they’ll rapidly switch between programs using keyboard controls, with the window manager automatically shifting and dividing new windows so that they tile together to fill the screen. Loosely speaking, the opposite of a tiling window manager is a floating window manager, where windows just float and you move them around with your mouse, just like Windows (well, apart from the tiling options in more recent Windows versions when you can drag a window into the corner and it tiles to fill the screen.) I think the “best of both worlds” midpoint is a dynamic WM? I’m not sure. hyprland is an example of that.
Check your games on ProtonDB
The only games in my library that don’t work are entirely the publisher’s fault for blacklisting Linux in their anticheat, and it’s very few games even then.
If your library is on steam, then there’s nothing to worry about! Works natively on Linux. If your library is on other platforms, I’d honestly think twice about switching full time. Dual booting might be a better option. My library is split amongst multiple platforms and I decided that it wasn’t working well enough for me. Steam games will work great though!
Many distros are easy enough to install and navigate as a newbie. My go to for years now has been Linux Mint! It’s based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian.
If your library is on other platform like gog, epic, amazon or off platform .exe you can use heroic launcher and for most stuff it works just as well.
For some games there is a little more learning curve because you have to translate custom steam configurations found on protondb to do the same thing in heroic but overall you actually have way more control then steam.
The only reason “id think twice” is if you play lots of games with anticheat which does not work on every distro (like arch btw).
oh that’s cool. nope, whole library is on windows on one PC right now.
I was thinking about trying out dual booting to get a feel for it. my understanding was that many programs wont work with linux or require complicated fixes to get them running. so id hate to be left downstream without a paddle, so to speak
They mean other platforms like GOG or Epic, not stuff like consoles.
Steam games mostly work, with some exceptions. You can check out ProtonDB to see more precisely what games work, which ones straight up don’t, and which ones need a fix. ProtonDB will usually also tell you what that fix is, which is handy.
But most of the time, you can just hit play and not worry about it.
A note on dualbooting. Linux uses different filesystems from windows. It can access windows NTFS partitions, but it’s not a smooth experience.
A common pitfall is trying use your game library while it is still on a windows filesystem, from linux. Since you can see the folders, and even add them in steam, it’ll seem like it should work. But you’ll run into issues actually running the games. It’s technically possible, but not worth the hassle.
Generally you really want to either format your storage and redownload your games, or if you have the space, copy them over to a fully supported file system.
thank you for that tip. I currently run all my games and docs from external HDs. (my pc itself only has a small amount of SSD storage used only for booting etc, and i dont know how to install a new hard drive yet…) I would have definitely tried to just plug in my HD and tried to run it through steam lol
Depends which programs. Also, it’s very possible that there are open source alternatives
But if you are dead set on using exactly the same program, https://appdb.winehq.org/ is a database of if and how to make them run on Linux. Wine’s core focus is games, but many programs are covered there too
ProtonDB is probably a better choice these days for finding tbe compatibility of games specifically.
For testing try the live USB sticks Just flash them to an empty stick with programs like etcher, then power dowb and select the stick in your bios (usually reachable by hammering f1, f2 or Del while starting
(Remember that performance will be much better when installing it for real compared tusing running it from a stick though)
Dual boot will work and is not that hard to setup, but you should back up all your data before trying it.
Also when dual booting to avoid duplicates etc I have all my documents and stuff on a USB stick, so I don’t have a version in my win and a version iny linux. Cloud works as well
Very few programs require anything complicated to get them working. A lot of productivity programs don’t support Linux though, like anything from Adobe, but there are usually alternatives, and if not can often be run in a VM. This probably doesn’t matter for you though, since you don’t seem to be particularly technical (not an insult). You probably know what programs you need that may not work. If there’s nothing like that then you’ll be fine.
yeah adobe isn’t something i use regularly. not sure whether you mean photoshop (never) or pdf viewer (which i use adobe for and also hate)
Um, on any given day I’m running Steam, VLC, and Firefox. yeah it seems that those are all better than fine
One thing to keep in mind is that dual booting can work to highlight what you’re missing because generally all of the games that run on Linux will run on Windows, but the reverse is not true. It becomes easy to just default to windows so you don’t have to reboot to play something that doesn’t work in Linux and that can undermine the attempt to switch the OS.
Not so much help but hope: I got rid of Windows 11 and switched fully to Linux Mint a few weeks ago. I had no idea what I was doing but I tested things on USB and also on a very old laptop I had laying around before I made it my daily driver.
I’m not particularly a tech person. I own a small creative business and have a toddler, but I figured out what I needed to quickly. I don’t game and didnt use Winsows exclusive software so have no opinions about that.
What I didn’t expect: to actually be genuinely interested in my computer again for the first time since I was a teenager (which was not recent…). I love customizing my desktop. I love discovering new open source software. I’m learning more than I expected and it’s just a totally different relationship with the tech I use every day, in a nice way. And no more BS ads / bloat when I’m just trying to exist on my computer.
this is it
Lots of good advice here. I’ll add a bit about dual booting.
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the problem with dual booting is when you use the same physical hard drive. Windows doesn’t play nice sometimes on the same drive. Just do yourself a favor and buy a second ssd. Then you can break linux six ways to Sunday and always have a windows backup. (And if you want to be extra safe - you can just unplug your windows drive during Linux install and you can’t f up and pick the wrong drive by accident)
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dual booting is nice just in case something doesn’t work - you can easily switch back to windows.
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dual booting sucks because there’s very few things that don’t work in Linux - it just requires a little elbow grease to figure out. But having a windows partition right there leads to many people giving up way too early with fixing their issues.
My recommendation is always to have more than one drive in your computer. It’s YOUR computer. Regardless of what you pick as your “main” OS, you always have another spot to screw around in. Distro hop, extra storage, set up a hiveos miner, whatever. Its flexibility and screwing around with other things helps you understand what’s YOUR computer vs what is Microsoft’s OS.
I say unplug the windows drive always, even if you don’t fuck up your Linux install may nuke your windows boot partition and it’s massive PITA to get it back
Same thing applies to Windows.
This is not a debate whether one is better or the other, just saying to unplug your windows drive to install Linux, no need to defend linux
I was attempting to warn them so that they unplug the Linux drive when updating windows too.
Nobody here is talking about updating windows, you should at least write the context for your previous message
Has that ever happened across drives? Without user error?
Every Linux distro I’ve ever used has been pretty damn specific about where it installs boot, and respectful of all other drives and boot loaders.
I’ll concede defeat, but I find your claim hard to believe.
Yes, first time when I installed Nobara, then second time when I installed Fedora. Both times windows was in another drive, both times I picked the right drive. I asked around and people recommend unplugging your windows drive, I agree.
I’m gonna have to figure out how to install another SSD I guess… hope my motherboard is compatible with whatever is on the Market. I bought it all in asia and apparently the motherboard is an issue
Hey, I’m glad that my Obviously Sprcial Idea of getting another ssd just for linux have legs. I decided this is my plan going forward to learn Linux as daily driver and gaming.
Now there’s only the first step that I have to make.
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This post is like catnip to Lemmy users.
lol it’s been a bit overwhelming on the inbox. I expected to get told off
Can I tell you off from Arch Linux?
There are around three Linux families to choose a derivative Linux OS from,
some are more obscure ones and then some really obscure ones.
Choose one of the Linux family OSes and choose the most popular derivative of that one.
So for example Aurora is a derivative of Fedora, which is a derivative of RHEL (derivative-(in)ception).The reasons to choose derative OSes and not one of the basic main three is that:
- The Linux derative OSes have bells and whistles build on top of the parent OS. This is especially true for the extremely bare bones Arch Linux, that will throw you back into 1985.
- And this is most important… community support! You will at some point have issues and a forum where developers and experienced users can help you out are a godsend. Derivatives tend to have better community support than the bare bone ones. I’ve experienced this with the Arch Linux community. I’m not sure if Debian or RHEL communities would haved fared better, but to me this community felt like having a conversation with a real life Sheldon Cooper. I am really thankful for the excellent expert level help I did get there, but I will not go there back again. And I don’t know if I even can, because the last time I was there, I got banned for a third time.
I’ve had great experiences on the Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Manjaro communities. Other communities from less popular Linux OSes have been too small in my experience to get help on time.
For Debian, the most popular one right now is Linux Mint, a derivative of Ubuntu (derivative-(in)ception). It used to be Ubuntu, but Ubuntu tends to take big moves and risks that don’t always pay off.
Linux Mint I consider to be the safe option for beginners.
Debian is known for stability.For Redhat it’s Fedora. I haven’t used it that much.
Redhat is known for good security.For Arch it’s Endeavour OS and recently Cachy OS.
It used to be Manjaro, but they fumbled a lot on security issues.
Arch is known for having the best documentation,
and the largest amount of software available,
especially made by fellow users,
and if I may add myself, having the best package manager.I still use Manjaro myself, because I don’t feel enough need to switch to a new one,
and I like the community there.Linux folks used to be much worse about gatekeeping, but even 20+ years ago when I was first starting out, there were always decent folks among the techie dumbfucks.
Maybe the decent folks have moved to derivative OSes?
So while techie absolutists stayed at Debian/Arch/RHEL,
the commons folks have gone to Linux Mint/Cachy OS/Fedora?
I take it you’ve never even tried Linux before. Both of those things are not things that will hold you back. My mom uses Linux, and she barely knows what “right click” means.
With regard to your Steam games, as long as you don’t play games that use restrictive anticheat, you’ll be fine.
A lot of people here have already given good advice. I shall add my experience, recommendation and some tips (may incidentally repeat some of them).
- If you play some games with kernel level anti-cheat (like Rainbow Six Siege, Apex, Valorant, LoL, Fortnite, Battlefield games, Destiny 2 among others), you will have to stick to dual-boot. Check on ProtonDB for compatibility of games. I have 500+ games on Steam and pretty much everything I’ve played has worked so far.
In terms of other software you use, make sure you have alternatives that work on Linux.
- For Photoshop, there’s Krita/GIMP.
- For Video editing, there’s Kdenlive, DaVinci Resolve, etc.
- For browsing and office apps, there’s LibreWolf and LibreOffice.
If you happen to have any software that you don’t have a good alternative or that only runs on Windows, then you’ll have to stick to dual booting.
- If you do end up dual booting, DO NOT use your external HDD in NTFS to run games on linux. It will work for a while, but you’ll constantly have to ‘chkdsk’ or check disk on Windows every time your HDD is found corrupted. Also, NTFS is Windows’ proprietary filesystem. So, I’ve heard that using ntfs-fix (chkdsk equivalent on linux) might cause data loss. Not sure how far it’s true, but be cautious of using that too. But otherwise, I believe that just reading files from NTFS drive usually is not a problem.
- If you are NOT dual booting however, you won’t have to face this mess. You can backup the data on your HDD somewhere, format it in ‘ext4’ filesystem for Linux-only use (‘Exfat’ if you want to share any data with others on Windows/Mac) and restore all your files back to this HDD in ext4. Hope you have extra HDD with enough free space to move your files while you convert disks to ext4. You can also probably use cloud services for backup.
- I’ve used Ubuntu, Mint, Arch and Fedora.
- Had faced a lot of issues with Ubuntu back in the day, and Snap Steam is a mess. So, avoid it.
- Mint is easy to use, removes snap from Ubuntu and just uses apt, has a great Desktop Environment called Cinnamon, and I’d usually recommend this to someone new, but I wanted to shift from X-11 to Wayland for security reasons and HDR support among others. If Wayland worked well with Mint, I’d still be using it today, but that was the only reason I moved away from it.
- While Arch is nice, it’s certainly not for someone new.
- That leaves us with Fedora KDE, which would be my recommendation. It has good security features like SE-Linux out of the box. The reason I suggest KDE over Gnome is so that you might have an easier transition from Windows to Linux. Once you have a hang of this, you can later use a pen drive to load other distro with other DE like Gnome, XFCE, Cinnamon, Cosmic, etc and test them out by live booting.
- Speaking of pendrives, make sure to always have one with Ventoy installed and the distribution you’re using. This will be handy if you want to troubleshoot your system anytime. And I say Ventoy over others because it makes loading distro easier. You can just drag and drop the ISO files instead of having to burn with Balena Etcher or Rufus everytime.
- Rufus is great, but if you’re moving out of Windows, you don’t need it.
- And I have seen a lot of people have trouble with using Balena Etcher. So, avoid it.
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- Turn off Secure Boot in BIOS. (And maybe also fast boot).
- And if your disk is on RAID instead of AHCI, you might have trouble installing. So, you might want to set your SATA configuration to AHCI mode in BIOS if you face issues.
- If you end up choosing Fedora, you may want to follow this.
Fedora only comes with FOSS by default. So, you’ll have to install Nvidia driver and proprietary multimedia Codecs separately by including RPMFusion repo.
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You can download the free and non-free repo files from the RPM-Fusion site(Graphical Setup) and install them through the Software Center. After adding the repo, you might have to enable them in the Settings of Discover Software Center. Enable all of them except those containing the words ‘testing’, ‘Test’, ‘Source’, ‘Debug’ and ‘google chrome’.
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After that, it’s just a few lines you type in the terminal (Konsole by default) for installing driver and codecs. Make sure to update the system and restart first before doing these.
For Nvidia driver, type:
sudo dnf install akmod-nvidiaFor optional CUDA support, type:
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cudaFor Video acceleration support, type:
sudo dnf install nvidia-vaapi-driver libva-utils vdpauinfoFor Codecs, type:
sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasingSteam is also included in the non-free repo. You may install it by typing:
sudo dnf install steam- Other than these, most applications can now be installed directly from the store as a Flatpak. You can select them in the store between Flatpaks, Fedora managed Flatpaks and Fedora Linux app for a particular one.
- For flatpak apps, you’ll see a tick next to the developer if they are verified. So, you can look out for that if necessary.
- Make sure ‘Flathub’ repo is enabled in the Settings of Discover Software Center for the Flatpak apps to appear.
NOTE: Every time the video driver updates, you will have to do a follow-on update for flatpak runtimes. You might see a bunch of ‘Application platform’ and ‘Freedesktop’ stuff which you’ll have to install. If you fail to do this, you might suddenly find flatpak applications not working properly.
- Troubleshooting tips:
- If Steam doesn’t launch the first time, type:
__GL_CONSTANT_FRAME_RATE_HINT=3 steam-
If your system is frozen, try switching to TTY by pressing (Ctrl+Alt+F3) and going back to GUI by pressing (Ctrl+Alt+F2)*. *Could be F1 in some cases.
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To check what errors you got during the recent boot,
journalctl -b 0 -p errApart from the driver installation and some troubleshooting, you generally won’t have to use the terminal if you’re averse to it.
- In terms of deGoogling, I’d recommend the following:
- Buy a pixel and install Graphene OS.
Switch to
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Tuta/Proton Mail for email,
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Proton/Tresorit Drive for storage,
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Mullvad (or i, proton) VPN or (Rethink DNS for firewall) I am not sure if you can use both Rethink and VPN at the same time. I assume there is a way.
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OsmAnd for maps,
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Newpipe for youtube frontend(Grayjay on Linux),
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Bitwarden/KeepassXC for Password management,
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Aegis for TOTP
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Fdroid, Accrescent, Aurora for App store.
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Molly FOSS for Messaging.
Can’t forget Zen Browser for best productivity browser. Also Ungoogled Chromium
OP if you want to use AI locally but privately then use Ollama with Open Web UI
Also HuggingChat is an AI Chatbot that can do all kinds of stuff with the 1-tap community extensions, models, and assistants avilable. Website is free with an account. Use as a web app for it to be even better experience
When you are more advanced learn distrobox to add apps only available on other distros natively to your laptop
If you have any questions feel free to ask me whenever
While Zen and ungoogled chromium are fine, I’d suggest to stay away from Brave for any serious purposes 'cause you never know what shady things they might be doing. Case in point, they had previously been changing regular URLs to include affiliate links on their own. They also have that crypto bloat.
Interesting I was not aware of that thanks for the heads up! I took off Brave from the comment
This is graat info. Didn’t know about Ventoy before, it sounds really cool.
Just wanted to add that if you’re running multiple monitors on an nvidia card, you may find that the second monitor has low fps/stutters on wayland (common on dual graphics laptops). The fix is as follows:
Add these 3 lines to
/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf:options nvidia-drm modeset=1 options nvidia NVreg_UsePageAttributeTable=1 NVreg_InitializeSystemMemoryAllocations=0 NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0Add this line to
/etc/environment:KWIN_DRM_DEVICES="/dev/dri/by-path/pci-0000\:01\:00.0-card:/dev/dri/by-path/pci-0000\:00\:02.0-card"You may have to modify the part that says
pci-xxxx\:xx\:xx.x-cardwith the appropriate values for your graphics card.Run
lspci | egrep VGAto list installed PCI graphics cards and try to map the values from thereDisclaimer: I don’t know why this works but it does and it isn’t malicious as far as I can tell. If anyone knows what exactly it’s doing, I’d like to know please.
Thanks for that info.
I just want to add that the drm modeset is enabled by default ever since the 560 drivers. You only need to do that for the older ones, if I’m right.
Previously, you also had to disable nouveau yourself and Nvidia driver installation used to be a headache. Things have gotten better over the ages. I’m sure this multi-monitor issue will also be fixed soon as well.
Huh, this was definitely a fix I used on an older version that I just moved over to a new install with the new drivers so the drm modset line may not be necessary anymore yeah. I’ll check next time I connect to my monitor.
And yeah, it’s def gonna get better. I’ve already seen both wayland and nvidia improve significantly over the last 2-3 years so at this rate, things should “just work” pretty soon (insert meme about year of the Linux desktop).
I vividly remember struggling to get proprietary drivers working on Fedora 37 (or 38, it’s been a minute) only to have them break on the next version on my previous laptop. It was definitely much MUCH easier to install on Fedora 42 on my current one and updates haven’t broken anything for me since 40.
Or, hear me out, you could install Bazzite and avoid all those terminal steps that are intimidating for new, non-tech savvy linux users.
Being intimidated by the terminal is fine, but the sooner you learn it, the better. Terminal is your friend, not your enemy. Take baby steps if you need to, but you’re really doing yourself a disservice by staying away from the terminal.
This isn’t how you get non-tech gamers to* switch to Linux and honestly, this attitude needs to die. Do you want Windows to always dominate? Because this is how you get Windows to always dominate.
People are afraid of the terminal because Windows has a shitty, unfriendly terminal. One of the things that brought me back to Linux was the cool-looking terminals. They make me feel like I’m Hackerman.
Linux isn’t just a different operating system. It’s a paradigm shift. Windows is always going to dominate as long as people are trapped in a Windows mindset.
Well, it’s just 4-5 lines that you’re going to have to type and it’s just a one-time thing. Surely, it’s not that intimidating.
Bazzite seems to be based on Fedora Kinoite, an atomic desktop. Now, I haven’t used atomic desktops. Although I wanted to, I ended up not doing that for the following reason.
From what I understand, you can’t easily alter the base image of the system and everything else is a flatpak. This seems fine, but if you end up having to install an application for which there is no Flatpak, how would a non-tech savvy user do that? Still have to use the terminal at that point, I’d bet.
Case in point, even the other day, I came across this application called ‘syncplay’ for which there’s no flatpak alternative and thankfully, Fedora repo had it.
I also hear that if you end up installing apps this way(Layering as it’s called?), the update times become slower. You may shed some light on this.
Also, while it may not be as good as a snapshot system of the atomic desktops, the regular Fedora nonetheless shows the last two kernel installations on every boot so you could revert back to one if an update goes wrong.
I also have to mention that I always have my important files backed up on HDD or cloud that in the worst case scenario of losing my files on any update, (which hasn’t happened so far btw), I can always restore them. In case of Steam games, it shouldn’t be a problem if you have a fast internet connection. You should download them back in no-time. That is another reason I can still live without having to use a stable atomic desktop.
New users find the terminal very intimidating, I’ve seen that come up time and again. It’s kind of the whole point of Bazzite.
If you’re already learning terminal to install software though, at that point you can use a distrobox, install whatever you want in it, and then export the application to your usual application menu. It’ll launch the container in the background when you start the application, and shut it down automatically too. It’s a little slower than a usual launch but it’s still just a stripped down container so it’s fine.
I was you 18 months ago. It’s certainly achievable, even with a crazy busy schedule. Highly recommended that you go for it.
Here are the unpopular opinions that attract downvotes:
- adopting Linux is painful. Stuff breaks. Stuff doesnt work. You will be battling uphill, but hopefully you’ll find it worthwhile in the end.
- moving to Linux permanently wouldn’t have been possible for me without AI. Now you can ask AI and it will almost always solve the problem for you. In the old days, you’d just have forum posts saying “just compile the driver and do a 10 step process with terminal that you need to figure out from the wiki…noob”. But now, these previously system breaking problems are now easily solvable without spending the whole weekend on a single issue.
- don’t let go of Windows to start with. Put Linux on a secondary machine. Do not dual boot, you will break your installation and won’t be able to troubleshoot it and will have to do a full wipe (along with the time and data loss that comes with that).
- Don’t get caught up in the distro wars. Pick Linux Mint, or a similar very beginner friendly distro. I prefer KDE desktop so I would recommend something else… But don’t go for anything with even moderate difficulty.
- Check protondB.com for the games you play. Some don’t work on Linux (e.g. Apex Legends).
There might be a reason they are unpopular.
Stuff breaks? What breaks? I don’t have stuff that breaks. Windows has been far more breaky to me over the last decade than Linux has ever been. What have you been doing? This may have been true 20 years ago, but not today.
AI? Look, I helped a friend fix a new install. It wasn’t Linux fault, it was a setting in the bios that needed to be changed. But the AI had them trying all sorts of things that were unrelated, and was never going to help. Use with a grain of salt. You shouldn’t really need to do much if you can get through the install anyways.
I am really curious what “system breaking problems” you have? My latest laptop over the last 2+ years has been so uneventful and boring. Never used a command line on it, but don’t forget when you see people share command line fixes, it is because it is the easiest way to directly share information. Not the only way to do something. My desktop has had a few hiccups over the last 5, but that is what I get for running Arch on it.
I’m glad it worked smoothly for you and it sometimes is a smooth effortless experience for some people; but if you want to “convert” people then you’ve got to be honest about the fact that people commonly face difficulties. I’ve commented about my Linux issues before and I can paste the comment again here to give an example:
One of the first issues I had problems with was figuring out what was wrong with Street Fighter 6 giving ultra low frame rates in multiplayer, but working fine in single player. It needed disabling of split lock protections in the CPU.
A recent update in OpenSUSE made the computer fail to boot half the time and made the image on the right half of the screen garbled. I rolled back to before the update and am using it without updating for a few weeks to see if the GPU driver problem gets ironed out (AMD GPU).
I installed VMware Horizon for my job’s remote work login and it fucked up my Steam big picture mode and controller detection. I didn’t bother trying to figure that out and just uninstalled VMware remote desktop.
I managed to install my printer driver, but manually finding the correct RPM file to install would not be tolerable for normies. Update: I’m using CachyOS now and the Brother website says Arch plainly isn’t supported. When I install the driver from AUR that’s specific to my printer, then it doesnt print and just spews out endless blank pages.
I still can’t get my Dualshock 3 controller to pair via Bluetooth despite instructions on the OpenSUSE wiki. I’ve stopped trying to troubleshoot that and use my 8BitDo controller instead.
I still can’t find a horizontal page scrolling PDF app.
Figuring out how to edit fstab to automount my secondary drives is not a process normies would be able to execute. I still can’t figure out how to use this to auto-mount my Synology NAS.
Plasma added monitor brightness controls to software and these seem to have disappeared for me now, and I can’t figure out why. It reappears intermittently, but then disappears when it feels like.
My KDE Plasma task bar widgets for monitoring CPU/GPU temp worked till I reinstalled OpenSUSE, and I can’t figure out why they’ve decided to not work on this fresh install. System monitor can see the temperature sensors just fine still. Update: this seems to have fixed itself (maybe through am update?).
Flatpak Steam app wouldn’t pick up controllers for some reason. Minor issue, but unnecessary jankiness.
My laptop fingerprint reader plainly isn’t supported.
Trying to set up dual boot kept destroying (I.e. making unbootable) either the Linux install or the Windows install. I have up eventually as I couldn’t figure out how to fix GRUB from the command line.
I’ve been trying to find a solution for keeping a downloaded synchronised copy of my online storage (Mailbox.org). Can’t figure out rsync. I get an error with Celeste and it doesn’t sync after the initial file install. Having a 2 way sync for online storage could be considered a pretty basic requirement these days and something Mailbox can easily suggest an app for in Windows.
People do not tolerate this amount of jankiness. And this doesn’t include the discomfort with relearning minor design differences between OS’s when switching. Linux is a bit of a battle with relearning and troubleshooting things that would never be problematic on Windows. I know we all love Linux, but allow people to be honest rather than being dismissive. I had over 2 decades of experience with Windows and it had its quirks and problems, but my preexisting familiarity with it made it much easier to use and troubleshoot.
Sure I know I’m a noob and not doing this right. But that’s the point…can someone with limited knowleddge still work this OS?
I agree that computers can have issues. But none of these are linux only. Windows does all this stupid shit too. My printer wont work with windows, only linux (how the hell this can be true is beyond me). Bluetooth drops in windows, works fine in linux. The latest nvidia update on windows broke all games making it black screen until I used some regedit fixes. A windows update broke my firmware on a video card for a while, almost got RMA’d. I could go on, talk about Jankiness. I don’t use windows as my main computer due to it being so all over the place. I say this as a MSDN dev and windows server and azure dev and support person. I remote entirely from Linux, I need to have an OS that works.
My point is windows does this shit too.
But: That is your issues are a long list that seems to have a repeating theme: OpenSuse.
You don’t need to edit FSTAB to add a drive, there is a gui for that, for whatever that’s worth.
I have not had any of these issues on the 5 or so linux computers I use daily. I have had a few upgrades in Arch cause me to update grub or roll back, but that is about it.
Over the last two years I have found Fedora KDE has been amazingly easy to use and update.
I still can’t find a horizontal page scrolling PDF app.
That one has me curious: what is that? (I mean by definition - scroll - that can’t be a thing, lol) But I am sure it is, got examples?
I’m glad it works well for you.
OpenSUSE is what helped me get past even more basic problems with getting my PC up and running, that’s why I stuck with it because I couldn’t even get this far on other distros. I’m on CachyOS now and can manage better now that I’ve learnt to troubleshoot some of the main issues.
Horizontal page scrolling. I want to be able to read massive documents by scrolling through side-by-side pages rather than scrolling up/down.
Okular can be set to do that, but it doesnt have a scroll bar, which you might not like. Firefox can do that as well, but I concede that browser PDF viewers are not ideal.
Stuff breaks? What breaks? I don’t have stuff that breaks. Windows has been far more breaky to me over the last decade than Linux has ever been. What have you been doing? This may have been true 20 years ago, but not today.
I’ve been trying to adapt to Linux Mint/Cinnamon as my daily driver and yes, stuff breaks. My sata and nvme connected drives kept disappearing every time I started my computer so I had to learn about mounting and auto mount (they are just there on Windows). My game and program installs on Bottles and Lutris kept going “missing” and losing their .exe’s. I downloaded 70gb of Guild Wars 2 files at least 8 times because I thought each time I had fixed the “files missing” problem only to have them disappear on reboot. I still didn’t figure out what was happening and am only able to play now because I found out how to use the provider portal on Steam. I can’t make launcher short cuts from the actual executable, I have to go to the desktop and do it and when I do, it won’t let me drag it to my panel for some reason. When I thought I had found a solution, I reactivated some launcher applets and ended up with three different instances of my panel launcher icons and still no ability to add new ones. My systems connected to the same ethernet used to show up in my network panel and I was able to access my shared folders and media files but they all stopped showing up a few days ago and I had to learn all about Samba share and minimum and maximum server protocols and still am trying to find a solution.
Yes, Windows breaks stuff too, but Linux is NOT a perfect product that works flawlessly for everyone and [@cRazi_man@europe.pub is right. All of their points are things I’ve been struggling with and would warn a Linux noob about. I personally would rather trust those random forum posts than LLM summaries (and have solved some issues that way) but otherwise I agree with each of their bullet points.
Yes mounting is different, but that is not a Linux issue. Same as when you boot into windows, but an EXT formatted drive will not appear AND it will never mount. Windows helpful choice is “unknown” and offer to format. These are just OS differences, not breakages.
Cinnamon might be part of your problem with shortcuts…
Yeah SMB shares can be tricky. I have issues with them in Windows as well, not linux specifically.
I am not saying linux is perfect. All computers rely on a person being able to deal with them. I just find it much more stable then windows ever was. You add bottles and Lutris into the mix, and now it is a third party software issue: just like plenty of software in windows as well.
I think there’s a difference in personal interpretation of what a “Linux issue” is, here. It sounds like you might be interpreting “Linux issue” as problems with the software itself, or its capabilities, features and processes etc. Personally, I am using “issues with Linux” to mean the entire user experience from start up to using the GUI and whether or not I can do the things I want and need to do on a daily basis easily and intuitively. Certainly, Linux as a software plays into it, but the things you are brushing off as 3rd party incompatibilities are absolutely part of the Linux experience in my opinion. I’m not trying to throw blame, but when introducing new people to Linux it’s best to acknowledge there may be some tinkering and adaptation needed to get things working as they should.
when introducing new people to Linux it’s best to acknowledge there may be some tinkering and adaptation needed to get things working as they should.
Depends on what “should” means. My printer for example will not work with windows. It works fine with linux. So… that really is a printer driver issue. No matter which one it works with.
As for the OS out of the box, everything works on a fresh install of either - although linux is far more loaded with ready to go software, and windows requires you to add it. And any of the software you add to either can cause breakages, that is computing.
I noticed over the years that Linux works fairly well for people who did not start with windows first. Both have learning curves, but habits are habits.
I am going to take my linux laptop for an example: 2 years. No tinkering. There is nothing to do, it just works.
My other laptop (windows): damn thing need tinkering all the time: turn off this, regedit that, just to get the nagware and crap out. Won’t allow remote desktop with the license, needs drivers to be updated, software that came with it is bloatware garbage.
I’ve been tinkering with my Linux machine for the past 8 months or so, and having random issues like the ones I listed and more besides that I’ve already solved. Meanwhile my old Windows 7 machine has been working flawlessly for about 8 years, no regedits or crap software issues. I think I had a driver issue with my mouse a couple years ago that I clicked a button and it fixed it. My laptop running Windows 7 also has been working flawlessly since about 2016 beyond prompting me to format media that I connect to it, but I press a button and that goes away. Recently I’ve been having compatibility issues with software because it’s such an old OS but as you said, that’s a 3rd party software issue, not a problem with Windows 7.
Glad your Linux experience is so smooth though. Must be nice!
This is a pointless conversation man. There are clearly plenty of Linux zealots on Lemmy. Noobs like me have had a hard time with Linux. I’ve never understood the argument that “my experience was different, so your experience is invalid”. Once someone learns about something, they forget what it’s like to have no knowledge of the thing.
The Linux community was reacting like this when Linus (from LTT) installed PopOS and tried to install Steam and it somehow wiped his desktop environment. Shit happens in Linux and the noob experience is brushed aside, while touting “the year of Linux”. I really don’t get it.
Two desktops and three laptops, they all work great. My biggest ongoing issue, and it is fair to say it is a problem, is VR. I have not tried recently, but that is one area that was smooth to set up in windows and I havent had luck in Linux.
AI? Look, I helped a friend fix a new install. It wasn’t Linux fault, it was a setting in the bios that needed to be changed. But the AI had them trying all sorts of things that were unrelated, and was never going to help. Use with a grain of salt.
I have the same experience but sometimes it was even worse; Sometimes the AI would confidently recommend doing things that might lead to breakage. Personally I recommend against using AI to learn Linux. It’s just not worth it and will only give new users a false impression of how things work on Linux. People are much better off reading documentation (actual documentation, not SEO slop on random websites) or asking for help in forums.
whelp, I’ve got a laptop and a desktop. the desktop is old as hell, maybe it’s time for a new start. I could set up a new machine to run with Linux
Linux is perfect for hardware that is old as hell.
Yeah, this. In fact, going with hardware that’s too-too new can lead to a different problem on Linux.
OP, if you’re buying hardware, it’s worth web searching to make sure people have tried it on Linux and are having good experiences with it. Since most manufacturers only care if their stuff works on Windows, it can take a little while for Linux devs to write drivers and get them shipped in Linux distros.
I see! if it can take a while, I see why old machines would be friendlier to linux. more time for drivers to get updates.
Got that AMD fine wine technology
I just switched and, yeah, the learning curve can be tough. This month I’ve learned two dozen abbreviations just because I’ve had to install, fix things, and customize. No way the average users would want to go through that.
The results can be cool though. Terminal opens as a matrix window and then neofetches an ascii art image of my face. Makes it all worth it haha. Also, fuck Microsoft.
Bazzite. Set it and forget it. 2mo on my new PC build, has only ever had bazzite. Runs like a dream.
yeah I started with popOS, used it for about a year, then tried Fedora for a week but figured if Im moving distro to get the latest and dive deeper might as well go with Arch, that lasted like two months with hyprland then decided to try bazzite and its been solid, everything I need is just there already, shortcuts working just like windows so its easy to transition from work laptop to personal, screen shots, lock, mounting network shares etc
Yeah I haven’t had to open the terminal or download a single driver yet. Another person says that apparently it has all kinds of problems and breaks all the time because it’s based on fedora?
I have a relatively easy and nice setup on PopOS currently and I don’t want you switch just because I don’t want to lose my files and setup.
Is there a process you recommend to transfer UI, etc. to another distro as an experiment? I know how to transfer my video files, for example, just don’t know how or if other programs can transfer easily between distros.
I think there are ways to just mount your home directly that has your files but I haven’t done that, not sure if it had to be setup separate from the beginning or something, I keep my files on a local nas so its easier for me to just wipe my desktop
The fact people suggest anything fedora based to new users is even more baffling then suggesting pure arch.
Fedora loves to just randomly destroy itself every so often. Hell they are currently thinking of doing it right now!
If your going to do a gamer distro like bazzite as a gamer your objectively better off just going with cachyOS.
It’s literally the same base as steam OS, has half the problems. And wont just implode because fedora decides to change something stupid yet again.
It may be baffling to you but honestly I’ve had no issues and you clearly know more about the subject than I do. I just wasn’t aware of any of what you mentioned, though I certainly am not calling it into question.
As somebody who is pretty good with computers but is by no means a coder/programmer/engineer of any sort, I’ve just been very happy with bazzite 🤷♂️
I have not seen those problems, but I’ve also only been on it for a couple of months. I will keep an eye out for that and keep cachyOS in mind.
even my parents and grandparents are on bazzite which massively reduced my family tech support work, but it seems like fedora is indeed being fedora again and discussions are for dropping 32 bit which would be troubling for gamers still.
Absolutely. I likewise moved to Linux more out of frustration with Windows than any of my own tech ability. It needn’t be a concerted effort either. I had it on a separate SSD (for a more stable dual-boot) and dabbled for a couple of years until I found myself gradually booting into Linux instead of Windows more and more.
I started using Zorin OS just to get out of Windows. Ngl I work in IT and the last thing I wanna do when I’m off work is to go home and do more tech-related stuff, so I just picked it for ease of use. Happy with it though!
Yep, if you have the means, I recommend having two SSDs until you feel confident using one of them full-time. The only downside is that if your computer is so small/cheap/old like mine was all those years ago and doesn’t have enough cables to keep both drives plugged in, switching between them can be annoying for a while.
