I did it finally, deleted win10 and installed Linux Mint
I did it finally, deleted win10 and installed Linux Mint
This is just to share my experience with everyone, especially the people still undecided.
I was planning the switch for months, and finally had a couple hours undisturbed from the wife and the kids :)
It was a slightly rocky start, as my USB wifi receiver did not have native drivers, but with wired internet and the official Mint tutorial the rest of the transition was super smooth.
The OS install went flawlessly and within an hour I had all the basic programs, browser and utilities up and running. I love that I just download the app from the dedicated place, no pointless web surfing for the latest versions.
I backed up my steam folder (with the rest of my files of course), so after installing the steam client and some quick synchronization I had my installed games library back in minutes. I did some testing and everything works great. As I own a steam deck I already had some experience with games not running natively on Linux, but a saw many great tutorials for beginners. I cant wait to test out some more games!
Edit: thank you for all the positivity and great feedback! I know Lemmy users love Linux and I have to admit I feel a little bit more included :D
Who knows, maybe I will start warching Star Trek next...
Welcome to the club! I did the same thing earlier this year, although I ended up moving from Mint to openSUSE Tumbleweed after a couple weeks due to needing support for some bleeding edge hardware.
Thanks to Steam / Proton it’s been relatively painless!
Welcome to the club! You might need to enable proton in the steam settings, I think it's under compatibility?
Thank you! Yes, it needs to be enabled there. Its basically just 3 extra clicks and the game is good to go :)
You may know this already from the Steam Deck, but I highly recommend installing protonup-qt which will enable you to install the glorious eggroll versions of Proton. A lot of game cutscenes don't work with vanilla proton but will with ProtonGE.
I'm surprised this still isn't enabled by default
I think it is technically still counted as a beta.
I’m proud of you. Linux Mint was my first daily-driver distro and it’s still one I’d recommend to newcomers. I hope you have a great time with it!
I dont know you but it means a lot :)
Reverse defenestration (throwing Windows out of your computer)! Congrats!
Good times! Thanks for sharing your experience!
Having a Linux PC and a SteamDeck, as well, I've been quite pleased with the various ways they compliment - streaming, install from peer, etc.
That is for later, but definetly will do some experimenting with the deck.
Welcome brother.
Yea I switched from Windows to Fedora and aside from issues with music production, I have been happy with the switch. Its a weight off my mind knowing i dont have to worry about Windows stealing my data anymore.
I'm probably going to be switching to Ubuntu or something Ubuntu based since it seems it will be a bit easier to work with for making music. Not that Fedora hasnt been great in general but i think my specific needs like having yabridge for Windows vsts is making me consider switching.
Take a look at AV Linux and Fedora Jam.
Highly recommend Reaper fwiw.
I have looked at Fedora jam, my issue with it is the same issue I currently have with no way to use yabridge that I could find though this may have chnaged since i last looked.
AV linux does look promising, just haven't deep dived on it yet. My concern was that its done by a single dev iirc but again i haven't done a deep dive quite yet.
And also a huge fan of reaper. Been using it for years now and I love it so very solid recommendations. I appreciate it. :)
Welcome to the world of Linux gaming (minus your Deck, of course)! Hope you have fun.
That's great to hear! I am still dual booting mint and windows but I am slowly moving towards being fully on mint. I recommend checking out Lutris if you have games on other stores, it also works well with running windows games.
Thank you for this inspiration. I've also been things about a switch to Mint but the only thing holding me back is my Steam library. I'm going to dig into it a little more and look at the compatibility of my games. It's encouraging to hear others making the leap.
Unless you want to play recent multiplayer AAA titles your steam library will work with little to no tinkering.
There is a website Check My Deck, which is originally designed for steam deck users, but linking your steam library you can check how many of your games will run out of the box, and how many require some additional steps on Linux/Proton.
For the ones not on the list you can check ProtonDB for guides and opinions from other Linux users.
Thanks for the recommendation. I'm looking like 73% compatibility with the deck, so I'd assume slightly higher for the computer. I mostly play single player anyways so I'm probably overall looking good.
One thing that stopped me from switching was the lack of the Nvidia Control Panel. The alternative "X Server" app is missing several must-have features, most importantly being the 3D Settings page (where all the extra graphics settings that aren't available in-game are) and the Video settings page where you can toggle AI upscaling and SDR to HDR conversion on and off.
Did you by any chance figure out how to get the Nvidia Control Panel working in Linux? I tried for weeks before giving up and going back to windows.
Link your Steam profile to ProtonDB and make sure it is public and you can see the ratings of your library in their dashboard. Of course it isn't a 100% accurate thing since they're user based reviews but it might give you a surprising insight on how much is actually playable with little to no effort.
Even games without their own native compatibility for Linux Steam provides support for. I was able to run Doom Eternal from Steam without any issues, just had to find and turn on "enable Steam Linux support".
Yay! Glad you're enjoying it so far :)
I can also say the past month or two rocking Mint have been a breath of fresh air, everything feels fast and I've only had one GOG game not run (think I could with some effort) :)
Even the Unity game engine works, and debugs, it's lightyears ahead of my previous goes at Mint over the years (and they only "ended" because of needing music software for college and uni!)
Hope it continues to treat you well! Also you may wish to indulge in the greatest Linux feature I know, which is Wobbly Windows - it makes your windows wobbly when dragged, which is very enjoyable for reasons I am not sure of! :)
Just commenting to acknowledge the mint/breath of fresh air line. Solid work.
I had absolutely unplanned that pun, but I'm thrilled it's there!😅 Thank you!
Congrats! As a Linux user of nearly 6 years, I hope you feel welcome here.
Happy ascension brother!
Kick ass, Good job
Brother, I did the same thing a year ago for my personal computer after always pissing and moaning about Windows even with having Linux at work, or for server stuff. LMDE6 only now, and I haven't looked back.
It's a good time to migrate to Linux!
If you need to run the EA launcher, I found it works best in Bottles.
This is the exact path I'm taking in the near future, glad it went well. What gpu do you have? That's my biggest concern at the moment with my 3070
Sorry, I have a Radeon rx580, no experience with Nvidia yet.
I have a 5600X3D and 3070 and had issues with PopOS and Fedora but EndeavourOS which wraps arch works like a dream. Others have reported no issues with nvidia and PopOS and other distros but you may need to try more than 1
I love that I just download the app from the dedicated place, no pointless web surfing for the latest versions.
IMO this is a huge thing, Linux actually does a lot better than Windows. I know the Windows Store exists, but it is lacking in lots of ways.
Not found a better OS for me than Mint :)
So far loving it!
Congrats! Mint is a good place to start.
I mostly play older games on my Ryzen 5 2400g with 16gb of RAM and an RX 580 I bought off a crypto miner, though I did manage to get Starfield running at 1080P in Win10 with a framerate and detail level that doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out. Still, I think I should be pretty undemanding for the current state of Linux gaming, and I'm just about ready to bail on Windows but haven't yet. Currently dual booting with Kubuntu.
Beyond a few stubborn games, I have Windows CAD software I think I could run in a VM with maybe 8GB of RAM and access to my GPU. What's the easiest way for a motivated amateur to get that set up? Having come up with MS-DOS, I am comfortable with a CLI conceptually, and I can copy and paste commands like a mofo, but I generally don't know the exact use and flags well enough to do much on my own beyond apt and mkdir. :-)
What’s the easiest way for a motivated amateur to get that set up?
There really isn't an easy way. You'd have to run the Windows VM within Linux then assign the PCI device (your GPU) to the VM. Look up gpu passthrough if you really want to dive into it. I find it much easier to just throw a second drive in the machine for a Windows install and dual boot. If you want to dual boot with Windows, make sure Linux is installed first and on a different physical drive, unless you want to be sad later, and by sad I mean learn how to unfuck your Linux install after Windows overwrites the bootloader due to some random update.
I'm psyched for you! I just researched hardware benchmarks and ordered a new AMD laptop and planned to run Linux. But I didn't research well, because the Wifi card doesn't have official drivers yet and I couldn't be bothered to learn to edit, make from source, and load alternate drivers, so I retreated to Win10 for a little. I'll try again later.
Welcome!
Did the switch a little while ago too, couldn't be happier.
