My Linux Journey

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20956471

This is a 12 year dream. I have always run a Windows workstation along side a Debian laptop. I am no stranger to Debian. I have a 12 year association with it. I am not a Linux wizard yet but have been adept with it.

Why not use Debian daily then? My personal computing usage unfortunately centered around consumption rather than creation. I watched videos, listened to podcasts, read technical articles, and browsed social media. On top of this, inertia and great software like Visual Studio, Notepad++, Excel, OneDrive held me back.

Visual Studio is an absolute must-have for all .NET developers. I built small pieces of complex web projects only occasionally. VS Code on Linux is decent for .NET development but it is not the same. Though Jetbrains Rider existed along-side, it is unthinkable to drop Visual Studio. At least for dark matter developers.

Notepad++ is a fabulous software program that had no complete alternatives on Linux. I used it for scripting, text manipulation, note taking, dumping and editing thoughts. Scintilla-based equivalents Geany, SciTE exist, but do not come close.

MS-Office Excel is another remarkable software program with no real alternatives in other ecosystems. It is worth the 5K INR per year. Organizing data, life planning, and creating simple reports are a few of its greatest capabilities. Also, the formulas system is amazing. OneDrive is another great and a utilitarian software program from the Microsoft stable.

So, why now? I had the most fun and growth when I built things. I love the independence that comes with the experience of building things. As far as I can remember, I was always a tinkerer, thinker, builder, doer and explorer. After a decade or so of inaction, I needed a change. A few things fell into place recently.

• Windows is about to get a whole lot more annoying. An increase in ads, baked-in Copilot, and a suffocating push to outlook user-linked usage.
• Jetbrains Rider became formidable now for CLI and web app development.
• I learnt enough of apt-pinning, backports and makedeb repository.
• The last straw is from an unexpected experience. I set up a Win 11 VM recently using the KVM+QEMU route. I noticed that the VM's performance was quite responsive. KVM+QEMU despite all the pain felt worthy. I cannot recommend it enough.

Immediately I decided to remove Windows, install Debian with a Windows VM inside. I will write about various experiments and experiences over the next year. These are some of the sub-projects on my mind in no particular order.

• Write about this setup
• Implement a nice 3-2-1 backup strategy
• Write about significant alternatives
• Write about significant issues
• Linking to phone
• Configure monitoring, notifications and alerts
• Configure auto dark mode
• Find a way to play an old strategy game on Linux

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19291220

I did it. For a few years now I've wanted to make the jump but lazyness and a bit of worry that my main game wouldn't work very well kept me from it.

Then some effing windows update caused ridiculous stuttering on games (or maybe it was a auto-update of some other hidden thing, I couldn't figure it out) so I decided that if I needed a system wipe, might as well as try gaming on linux.

Honestly? Much easier than I expected. Install Steam, turn two options on and 90% of your library is ready to go. I had to tinker with getting freesync to work (ended up just switching to wayland, which just worked) but other than the plugins I use for my main game requiring a bit of more work, smooth as butter really.

So yeah, if you are a lazy gamer like I am, next time you do a system wipe or get a new computer, try installing linux first. Don't even bother Dual booting it, if you don't like it just reinstall (setup your usb drive with ventoy and the images you want to try out.)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18652304

I've tried to switch multiple times and always found or encountered some issue that got me back to Windows (on desktop PC).

Last year it was after 2 months on Fedora 38 KDE when I had enough with the KDE Window Manager acting weird and broken unusable VRR on desktop and some other smaller but daily issues that I went back to W11 on my PC.

I like GNOME over KDE and back then there was no VRR support on GNOME so I only had to stick with KDE, now it's a different story.

I still have some minor annoyance which are probably solvable but I don't know how as I didn't put enough effort in finding solution.

Namely:

1.) Sometimes my 2nd monitor after boot remains blank and I have to unplug and plug back in the DP cable from the graphics card. Typically happens after a kernel update or restart but rarely on cold boot. I've seen others having this issue on Fedora40 but I haven't seen any solution mentioned.

2.) Steam UI hangs up sometimes for several seconds when trying to navigate fast trough it and especially if it needs to pop a different window.

3.) GPU VRAM OC is completely busted and even doing +-1MHz will result in massive artifacting even on desktop, not a big deal but I would take the extra 5% boost I can have from VRAM OC on Windows :)

4.) After every Kernel update I have to run two commands to get my GPU overclock to work again. I haven't figured out yet how to make a scrip that can read output from 1st command and copy it into 2nd command so I just do it manually every time which is roughly once a week.

5.) Free scrolling does not work in Chromium based browsers :( Luckily Vivaldi has some nice workaround with mouse gestures but I would still like free scrolling like on Windows.

And these are about the only annoyance I found worthwhile to mention.

Gaming works fine.

The apps I use typically work fine on Linux as well. Mangohud is amazing. No issues with audio unlike my last experience. Heck even Discord has no issues streaming video and audio now despite just using the web app. VRR despite being experimental works flawlessly on GNOME for me. I'm happy.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18604309

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...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18158630

The amount of bullshit there is to make things work is... not that bad. When it comes to games, I just can't. Having to reboot just to fix common FPS issues is too much. I've had a bunch of things that require a config change, which then has caused other issues.

The state of Linux Desktop is the best it has ever been and I'll be back the moment Wayland works better. I love Linux, but for now, it's not working out for me... Just needed to vent, thanks for reading.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18417229

A continuation rant of

https://lemmy.world/post/18158630

Oh my. The games I usually play work fine under Linux, and now they work equally or worse. The few Unreal games that caused me to break my Linux streak work way better under Windows, but the experience is so much worse. Spectacle screenshots always work, windows one just somehow manages to break itself, there is no fix. Every second boot it advertises Windows 11, even though I'm "ineligble", since I have TPM disabled. No middle click paste. Applications keep going off bounds. PowerTools managed to reset twice now. Which C++ redistributable do I need to run this program? It's not the newest one or the year before that. It's not the one provided by the installer. It's 2013 (in this case only)! WSL mounting is a nightmare if I want it to be read only. AMD drivers refuse to install because windows update is stuck at a "failed" security update. Tried to make a folder? Explorer.exe just crashed! Update went through finally? Just kidding, xbox app was just installed! Do you like to change individual application volume? I knew you didn't! Install EarTrumpet! Oh, Windows store is broken by design! Then the settings. Why are they there if they just redirect to control panel?

What is this shit? I'm actually just going straight back to Linux, Fedora this time because of recommendations. If Wayland on fedora still does weird glitches, I will use x11 and suffer what happens on a 3-monitor setup with one monitor having a higher refresh rate and resolution. Windows is now only for games that won't run under it.

Now... Extra question; Why does every distro need yet another package manager? Yay/pacman I get because it seems to build it. Though I don't understand why, other than AUR. APT is so nice and easy... I hope DNF is the same.