this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025

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Linux Gaming

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Alright you nerds, I made the jump to Linux. (lemmy.world)

submitted 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) by CatZoomies to c/linux_gaming

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I've been a Windows user all my life and had dabbled in the Apple ecosystem for a bit. With the upcoming end of support for Windows 10 in Oct 2025, I figured I'd put myself through a huge challenge of cutting over completely to LInux without a secondary backup drive with Win 10 on it. If I could survive the struggles for a few months, I'd be golden, and if I couldn't, then I could switch to Windows 10 LTSC and be good until 2029. The intention was to completely force myself in without a backup plan - the only way out would be to install a new Windows OS. I chose Linux Mint after careful consideration, especially considering that there's tons of resources and help with this distro, and it's a great onboarding ramp for Windows users. I need the familiarity since I'm in tech full time and just don't have the energy to hassle with my PC after a long stressful day at work.

I also used this as a good excuse to upgrade my PC a bit, too. 😀

After switching in mid December, I'm happy to report that I'm still alive after 30 days. My computer hasn't killed me. And I've been able to do work and game on my PC without too many hiccups. Marvel Rivals still crashes ever since the Season 1 update. Overwatch works perfect. My other games, on both Steam and GOG, work perfectly fine. But I haven't been able to test every game out there, but I know I can use Proton DB if needed.

I even edited this screenshot in GIMP after being forged in the fires of Macromedia Fireworks and Photoshop all my life! I even stripped exif data using command line tools! I even installed this cool neofetch thing that I always saw in people screenshots of their PC or whatever, every time I saw someone's Linux build with their thigh high socks and neofetch on the terminal!

But so far, switching to Linux Mint has been great! I'm excited to deep dive more!

Note:

I backed up all my data from Windows into a USB drive. I'm slowly bringing all that stuff over to my Linux Mint computer and rebuilding my music, video, photos, etc. Lot of work, but it's so cool feeling so liberated!
I may also want help from you Linux nerds from time to time. I'll make posts/memes begging for help when I get desperate. But so far, almost every issue I've had has been resolved via an internet search!
I pray that I won't come crawling back to Windows. I don't expect that to happen with how great my experience has been thus far.

Specs:

Linux Mint 22
Ryzen 7 9800x3d
Thermalright Phantom Spirit
MSI X670e Carbon WiFi
Sapphire Nitro+ RX7900 XTX
Corsair Vegeance 64 GB DDR5-7200
Gen 5 Crucial T700 (?) M.2 x 2
Corsair 5000d
Noctua case fans (Lian Li too problematic on Linux based on all the research I did in advance)
Seasonic Focus Gold 1000W

Old Specs Everything the same as above apart from:

Windows 10 Pro
Intel i7-12700k
Noctua NH-U12A
MSI Pro Z690-A
MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio
Samsung Gen 3/4 M.2
Corsair Vengeance Pro 32 GB DDR4-3600
Lian Li AL120 case fans

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[–] ticho 6 points 9 hours ago

My condolences, and welcome!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Protip.once you have it setup make a snapshot or backup. You will be trying stupid shit out and breaking the system as you explore.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago

My first month was finding out how to unbreak that thing I shouldn't have touched, knew I shouldn't have touched, but touched it anyways. Step 1 is snapshots.

[–] CatZoomies 6 points 10 hours ago (4 children)

Always great advice. I set up Time Shift to take daily and weekly snapshots. Is that all I need or is there a "backup" thing I need to engage.

My history of this in Windows was System Restore, but that was always hit or miss for me back in the Windows XP days. Although I was a teen so I probably didn't know fully well what I was doing.

[–] kjetil 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You probably already know this, but just to be clear; Timeshift (by default) only backs up your system, but not your data, documents photos etc . Basically everything outside your Home directory.

You can probably tell Timeshift to also backup your home directory, or install a separate backup app for that.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago

I would also set it up to make a new timeshift anytime you add or remove apps. That's when things tend to break.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 13 hours ago (4 children)

A bit of unsolicited advice now you're in to tinkering. Set up some kind of NAS.

Having everything available wherever and whenever you need it is so much better than messing about with thumb drives.

[–] CatZoomies 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Appreciate the advice. I'll be looking into something like that for sure to have some kind of on-prem storage solution. NAS might be the best way to go so I'll be looking into that this year as I get more comfortable.

Edit: I realise I said USB drive in my post lol. I meant I'm using a large external hard drive for all my media rather than thumb drives! :) My external HDD is a "USB drive" I guess, it's just a big one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

You don't have to have anything particularly special. I just have nextcloud via yunohost on a raspberry pi. It's apparently possible to just plug the harddrive in and use it as external storage, but I've mounted it in place of my home folder.

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[–] [email protected] 150 points 22 hours ago (11 children)

"You" nerds? It's "we" nerds now, nerd.

[–] whotookkarl 3 points 7 hours ago

"Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"

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[–] maplebar 17 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (3 children)

Have fun with it! This is how it starts. :)

But seriously, whether you stick with it in the long run or not, toying with Linux from time to time is a great experience for any computer nerd and now is really a great time to do it.

Feel free to ask questions!

Also save yourself some hassle by using the right terms when you search for things, for example, searching for "How to X in Linux Mint" or "How to Y in Cinnamon Desktop". A lot of people do searches for "Linux" and end up frustrated when the bulk of the results are terminal commands, but familiarizing yourself with the different pieces that make up your system is I think a big part of learning "Linux".

[–] Katana314 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Even though I was aware of it, this was one of my challenges. I was using Bazzite, which is obviously so niche that few tutorials would be specific. So, I tried to understand which distro was the base layer for it, and based my searches around that. Even then, a lot of things felt inapplicable, or needed to go through its containerized compatibility structure.

[–] kjetil 1 points 6 hours ago

For Bazzite , I search for "how to do X in Silverblue", or "how to do X in KDE"

Bazzite is built on the same technologies as Fedora Silverblue (immutable base, ostree, btrfs etc).

[–] CatZoomies 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm working on learning all the terminology, which I'll figure out over time as I immerse myself.

Things that catch my attention are distro hopping. As a hopefully former Windows user, the idea of being able to switch your OS to another distro just baffles me. Without having any understanding of this, I would imagine it's possible switching from a Debian to a different Debian distro. But if I switched from an entirely new "framework" (no idea what to call original Linux distros), such as Fedora to Debian or something, that baffles me. I don't expect to distro hop but who knows!

And then I learned you can switch things out like KDE, Gnome, and even learned that Gnome is not pronounced like the traditional word, but like "Guh-Nome" as a play on the acronym "GNU". LOL

I'm very much a novice with this system. In the past I tried to roll Pop_OS! and also Ubuntu, but they were so glitchy and didn't work great for me. After having my Steam Deck and seeing just how stable Linux is, I felt much more confident going all in on Linux Mint (appreciating Steam Deck is Arch).

Anyway, the point of my rambling is unknown. If you made it this far, I'm proud of you.

[–] Katana314 2 points 9 hours ago

Though I had a negative experience on my last go of it, and a "root"-based filesystem still confuses me, this was one of the big solid advantages last time I checked a few distros. I followed some advice of putting the system-level directories on one partition, and my user content on a different one. When I got fed up with one distribution, I cleaned and reinstalled things onto the system-level partition, leaving the user directory alone; I just had to inform it where those directory mappings would go.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago

Also important to know is, us that Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. The majority of Stuff that works on Linux Mint should work the sane way on Debian and Ubuntu(except UI solutions OFC). So if you're stuck try exchanging "how to do XYZ in Linux Mint" to "how to do XYZ in Ubuntu/Debian"

[–] shotgun_crab 23 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

You are a certified penguin now

[–] CatZoomies 5 points 10 hours ago

Thank you! Now I'm ready to kill the Batman and torrent more Linux ISOs. It will make a fine piece to my collection

[–] [email protected] 12 points 15 hours ago

Another nail in the Windows coffin.

Another lost potential customer for Linux hostile gaming publishers.

[–] Bosht 65 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Bro thank you from the bottom of my heart for the type up. I've been contemplating this for months and this very may well be the final tipping point for me to make the plunge. I'm in pretty much the same boat, tech savvy but don't want to deal with shit I dont have to which has been my main reason for not diving in yet. I've thought of doing exactly what you described as I do love a little challenge, which I get contradicts what I just typed. Anyway, yeah, thanks again for the post! Will be doing my own switch here in the near future.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago

You have the option of trying without installing. Lots of Linux distros can run straight from DVD or USB without having to be installed. This way you can rest assure that it will either work for you once installed or you can just eject the media without altering or touching anything on your drive.

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