this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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This affects roughly 0.91% of the users according to the latest hardware survey (november 2023)

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

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[–] Krafting 112 points 10 months ago (21 children)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I tried. I finally wanted to switch away from Windows and installed mint. Spent about 3 hours trying to get my headphone jacks to work with some mildly obscure tools and commands but no dice. Then I managed to destroy one of my partitions by trying to Mount it but it gave me an obscure error. Searched the forums and found NTFS fix, well turns out I accidentally had turned the partition dynamic when moving it to a larger drive. NTFS fix didn't like that and promptly destroyed the file table. I lost a buch of data. So back to the cruddy Windows then...I'm not tech savvy enough, which is sad.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you've never, ever used Linux before and are not confident about its tools, it's almost always better to use a fresh machine. NTFS and Linux really don't mix well, for example.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Haha, yeah, as I've learned. I'll try again when I build a new machine. I really like the overall look and feel of Mint.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's been a few years since I used Mint, but I enjoyed it. Most of the Debian-based distros are very similar, actually. All are decent for beginners. If not Mint, Pop is another good option.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I installed Zorin on my wife's (=no prior Linux experience) laptop something like 2 years ago. Considering the fact that she still uses it almost daily, I'd say you're right.

Personally, I dislike some of the custom stuff it has over the more standard desktop environments, but I do think it's great for usability in that it feels Windows-adjacent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Just boot it off a thumb drive and take it for a test drive.

Use Ventoy if you want to test multiple distros.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I did that prior and decided I like it, so I did a proper install. I just didn't try the sound jacks and didn't notice one of my drives not mounting.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Well, valve plans on bringing steam deck os to desktop eventually.

[–] drctrl -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Backups before doing anything else with partitions (or OS in general)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Yes, all the important stuff was backed up naturally. Still lost some, I'd say "nostalgic old files" It just happens when you have large drives you can't just back it up without paying lots.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

mint will be stuck on xorg for the foreseeable future.

if you want something with similar workflow to windows, KDE distros are pretty good nowadays.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

mint will be stuck on xorg for the foreseeable future.

Mint will use xorg as the default session until 2026, where it is projected that wayland will solve most if not all of its showstoppers.

Mint's cinnamon DE is built off of Mutter, GNOME's compositor, so all it means is that Mint will be doing the same thing that it has always done, been what GNOME could have been if it hadn't reinvented itself.

Mint is a workflow extremely similar to what most users have experienced on Windows and specifically caters to Windows users or users coming from proprietary operating systems.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

Why does it matter? What user really cares if it's Wayland or x11? Software is about solving problems for the user. Mint is far superior to Windows.

Sent from KDE with x11...

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To me mint was always the closest to what I wanted as a Windows user. I still user windows most of the time now but whenever I use Linux, it's mint.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

been meaning to try this one

how stable is it?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

I find it stable but admit I use macOS and Windows as daily drivers still

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My last attempt to get games working on Linux did not go well, but I am hopeful the kinks will be sorted out by the time Win10 starts getting dropped.

[–] theangryseal 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I game exclusively on Linux these days. I haven’t had an issue that I couldn’t solve so far aside from shitty anti cheat software that doesn’t play nice.

I play single player almost exclusively, so that isn’t much of a problem for me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think my hardware might have had something to do with it, was trying on a somewhat older laptop. Most games would not launch even with Proton and even most Linux native games did not work even after a fair bit of troubleshooting. I get that some people might not have problems but I believe problems still remain widespread.

[–] theangryseal 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, definitely.

Still, I think you should try with better hardware when you can.

Any differences will not be significant.

Get a Steam deck. Holy hell I love mine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I'd rather not have to upgrade hardware that can run the games I want to play perfectly fine, hoping for improved support (or at the very least a straightforward way to tell specifically what the problem is). Though once Win10 ends it's not like there's going to be an alternative to Linux anyway since Win11 has strict requirements for new stuff.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What are the specs of your machine?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It is a ThinkPad E15 (the one I was trying at least)

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