I currently use windows 10 in my daily life. I often play games, use browsers, basic stuff like that. On top of that, I also experiment with different music software, mostly Reaper for now. I edit videos and images at a very basic level as well. Upon switching, what should I expect to change? I’m considering Pop!_OS seeing as its praised for its compatibility and easy switching. What’s the situation with gaming look like? I know gaming on Linux has been a HIGHLY discussed topic for a while, is it easy to play any (non triple-A) steam game? I’m nowhere near involved in computer science, I’d just consider myself more stubborn than most end-users so I can persevere through some basic problems.
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LLMs are useful when dealing with linux. Linux works different so there is learning curve esp if you want to get most out of it.
PopOS is a decent choice, however COSMIC is in late alpha with that being said it does work overall. I would not advise 22.04 at this point.
You can install classic GNOME also.
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I think you should try dual booting or try Linux in a virtual box just to check that you can do your work on Linux and if you can’t then you know the answer.
Be prepared to ditch a few apps when switching to Linux! Most games work great, but those sneaky, spyware-heavy ones? Not so much. (/me looks at GTA Online & League.)
People have already mentioned ProtonDB for games. Another website you can use for alternative versions of software is https://osalt.com/
Oh that’s new for me. I’ve been using alternativeto.com
Don’t switch based on hype.
Put your chosen distro on a USB pen and boot from that. Try to do the activities you usually do, see if it works for you.
If you feel comfortable, make the switch. If you have any doubts, get a second disk and install Linux in it so you can have a fall back plan.
Very based suggestion!
Yes OP, I suggest you do your research before switching your operating system. This is a choice which is going to affect not just gaming but a lot of other aspects of your life including how you open and work with documents, the browser of choice, just using a computer in general.
Ask yourself:
- Which software other than games do you use regularly and are they Linux compatible? I know you have listed some, but you have hand-waved off a lot of software as “usual stuff”. It’s not. For example, I still have to use Microsoft PowerPoint in my Friend’s laptop because LibreOffice Impress is s#!t in comparison (but completely beats other MS products like Word or Excel out of the water, BTW!).
- Your computer may not be compatible with a lot of distros. The usual start for most people migrating from Windows is Linux Mint or Pop_OS! who make a lot of stuff work out of the box. But my friend could (for some reason) only get An arch-based Endeavor OS to get everything working.
- Be prepared to read patiently. ChatGPT or other LLMs are only going to help you so much, but your problem could be unique or more bespoke. For example, my Acer laptop’s BIOS was a proper pain in backside and just refused to get things working. I had to manually update it and change settings and only then could I even get the installed OS listed in the GRUB.
The first one month is going to be a bit of a challenge, but is smooth sailing thereafter.
Never assume Linux works like Windows. You’ll be confused.
You also do not have to use Pop because it is generally praised for its easiness. There are a few other good and easy to use distros out there, like Fedora, Mint or openSUSE.
There are also a few DEs out there, with the two most popular ones being KDE Plasma and GNOME
If you want to use KDE, I recommend you try out Fedora’s new KDE version.
While not all, you also should know a few very commonly used commands to use in the terminal and maybe some basic troubleshooting skills. You don’t need to be using the terminal all the time, if at all. Some common stuff is pretty much doable with a GUI nowadays and you’ll probably be installing your applications through the DEs builtin software center. Pop uses a customized GNOME, so you’ll be using the GNOME Software Center. KDE has Discover.
Since you do game, I suggest you check out ProtonDB. This is a database of rankings of games that work with Proton (Wine) and some even natively. If you play games from Epic, GOG and/or Amazon Prime, you should check out the Heroic Games Launcher. For any other games, check out Lutris. Do note that you might have a bad or good time depending on your GPU vendor. AMD generally works out of the box while NVIDIA might not work as nice as an AMD GPU out of the box. But I think Pop has the option to install the proprietaty NVIDIA drivers during installation, so make sure to select that if you have one. Nouveau isn’t as good as the proprietary drivers.
Regarding your other software, I don’t know whether Reaper will work with Wine. If you don’t mind switching to an alternative, we have Kdenlive and GIMP or Krita.
Reaper sports Linux natively.
For games it’s really great unless that game you’re looking for has kernel-level anticheat. You can check ProtonDB for Steam games, Lutris for other platforms. If you prefer single-player games mostly like me, you won’t have much of a problem.
For music, there are software like Ardour and LMMS. For video editing, you can check KDEnlive.
Before switching, I suggest you to try at least a couple different distros on a virtual machine, better if you have a separate laptop to try things. PopOS is great. You can also check Linux Mint, Bazzite and openSUSE Leap.
Reaper, the daw mentioned in the post, also runs fine on Linux.
Davinci resolve runs well on several Linux distros and the non-studio version (free) is very robust. If it works on your distro >>>>> KDEnlive.
I think PopOS is a good option for gaming since ypu can get it with NVIDIA drivers included if you need them but I’d reccommend looking at Bazzite as well:
Generally I’d say: Be prepared to keep an open mind, while you can use Linux like any other OS in most cases nowadays don’t get stuck on wanting to have everything, every workflow exactly like it is on Windoge. Try new things, tinker, it’s fun!
Upon switching, what should I expect to change?
Many things are very similar on Linux compared to Windows (e.g. Browsing, Steam). One big difference is that people prefer using package managers to install software (instead of downloading and installing it manually).
I’m considering Pop!_OS seeing as its praised for its compatibility and easy switching.
Pop!_OS is a nice distro and it should work well for you if you like the UI. There also many other good distros if you want to play around a bit. You can easily test them using a Live ISO.
What’s the situation with gaming look like? I know gaming on Linux has been a HIGHLY discussed topic for a while, is it easy to play any (non triple-A) steam game? I’m nowhere near involved in computer science, I’d just consider myself more stubborn than most end-users so I can persevere through some basic problems.
I’d say that you can expect almost all games to work. The main exception are games with anti-cheat that decide not to support Linux. In my case, there has only been one game in the last two years that didn’t work (War Thunder crashes a lot more than on Windows). Playing AAA games is generally not an issue. You can check https://www.protondb.com/ for specific games.
Many things are very similar on Linux compared to Windows (e.g. Browsing, Steam). One big difference is that people prefer using package managers to install software (instead of downloading and installing it manually).
This. Especially for drivers, always use the package manager of your distro and do not attempt to manually install Nvidia drivers you downloaded from their website.
For gaming and browsing, you should have a very similar if not the exact same experience on Linux save for a few cases.
Most browser stuff just works, no real issues with anything in browser in my experience over the last 2 years or so since I switched. Only thing I’ve noticed is some streaming platforms dont allow you to stream in full HD like Hulu for whatever reason, likely piracy concerns. I’m sure theres other minor things too that I may have missed over the years but nothing that really made a difference.
For gaming, aside from multiplayer games with anticheat, its been great. I haven’t had any issues with playing games in my library. Proton is fantastic for steam games and from what I’ve heard, lutris is great as well.
I’m a musician/artist and Linux has been a bad experience for me with music production unfortunately. Between most VSTs not working for me even with yabridge, things would crash, not work at all or would load but then crash in the middle of production. I actually used Reaper and was running PopOS, (great daw BTW, good choice) and while Reaper itself was great, most things, even native Linux VST didn’t work for me. I hope your experience is better than mine but I ended up building a 3rd machine just for music production running Windows 10 with no internet access. I also had Windows only VSTs that I spent a considerable amount of money on so that was also another big thing for me.
Aside from music production, other creative workflows like photo editing have been good with Krita. I’ve heard good things about kdenlive, and davinci resolve Ive heard is good on Linux as well. Ive used davinci resolve myself on windows and its a good video editing software IMO.
The popshop kinda sucks. I went to kubuntu recently just for ease of use and not being so tied in to PopOS’s weird system. I wasn’t able to do simple things like change the file manager without it breaking a ton of shit, even after editing configs. If you dont need to mess around with stuff like that, PopOS is good.
All in all, I’m glad I switched from Windows.
I’m not a musician but I recently stumbled across https://linuxmusicians.com/ which seems like a decent forum for people that are determined to make it work.
Your computer to run faster? 😁
I’m not that much of a gamer, but ask your favorite search engine for winedb and protondb for details about game compatibility.
Don’t switch your OS first switch your apps to cross platform apps first that work on both Linux and Windows for all your major tasks. Then after you feel good about it then switch to Linux and switch everything no dual boot for at least 6 months or you will switch at the slightest roadblock vs just troubleshooting like you would do if you ran into a roadblock on windows.
This sounds like a good idea, but I think the problem here is that a lot of popular software runs great on Linux but is very clunky and ugly on other systems (looking at you, LibreOffice). So keep that in mind if you try out FOSS on Windows as a sneak peek.
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Some times you may need to install a few extra stuff to get a game to run properly, other times you may see a few visual glitches like a pop-up menu not rendering properly, but you’re unlikely to find any game that just can’t run on Linux unless the devs intentionally don’t want people to play it on Linux.
Check protondb for general compatibility of any games you play.
