For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
Gonna repeat something I said a little while ago.
If you're planning to try Linux but have no experience with it, the best piece of advice I was given is this. Learn how the filesystem is structured. It will make everything else you try to do easier.
You're also going to get a ton of conflicting advice on which distro to use. Pop OS or Mint are my suggestions. [email protected] is a good resource to know about too
Thanks for this. I loathe the idea of being stuck on a platform that's hard to use and swarmed by too many angry idiots who only ever say that linux is perfect and everybody who doesn't think so is too dumb to read. Everything that makes linux approachable is a big win.
Gotta ditch Microsoft though. Ugh. Changing an OS is such a massive pain, regardless of how much of a requirement Microsoft Recall makes it.
Anyway, more stuff like this, everybody! Thank you again.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't do a little of that in my younger years, but I've calmed down a lot. These days I generally advise caution when someone tells me they want to switch to Linux.
I personally don't actually think any one variant of Linux is that much harder to use than Windows or Mac. I think the difficulty comes from two things:
One, I think people forget how much learning is involved in those OS's as well. If you've ever tried to teach an elderly grandparent how to use "the computer" then you know first hand how much of this specialised knowledge you can take for granted. Simple things like knowing where to look to change mouse sensitivity as an example, are really challenging to any new user of any OS.
Two, there isn't just one variant of Linux. It's biggest strength is also it's greatest weakness here. It's amazing that you have so many choices for your desktop environment, but that comes with the major drawback of users needing to understand what a desktop environment is, and why Googling "how to change mouse sensitivity in Linux" is probably not going to return anything useful. You have so much choice in Linux for every little thing. Down to a level of granularity that most Windows or Mac users wouldn't even realise they're not getting a choice in. Alsa vs pulseaudio, xorg vs wayland, not to mention the plethora of package managers. Hell even drivers for your video card: proprietary vs open source. And yes, some of those examples boil down to the old way vs the new way, but ALL of this is added complexity, which results in a steeper learning curve for a new user.
So yeah, Linux is hard to use. The learning curve is a cliff, and anyone who thinks it's perfect is kidding themselves! ESPECIALLY for the user who just wants to play a few games, and maybe do some browsing. We'll never get the year of the Linux desktop with this mentality!
I do also try to warn new users about this. It is a whole new ballgame, and it will take some effort to get up to the same level of comfort you have in Windows. It really is best to not just jump in to the deep end, and fully wipe your system on day 1.
Start with a VM, then dual boot, and once you've stopped booting into WIndows in frustration, then you're ready to commit.
One thing I promise though, it is 100% worth the effort
Yeah well Windows 11 fucking sucks. What do they expect? Maybe if you have to do all kinds of shady shit to get people to accept the newest version of your shitty product you should take a good look at yourself and evaluate why that is.
I like the optimism of Linux users thinking there will be a massive flood towards their favourite Linux distro.
When the obvious path the majority of gamers will take is just ... not upgrade anything and stay on an unsecure OS until their next major PC upgrade.
Most users don't care about security as long as it allows them to do with their computer what they want.
If Microsoft didn't push people to a new version, you know too many would still be rocking Windows 8.
You mean 7, right? Most people skipped 8, and that's why Microsoft made the update to 10 free.
Yeah, I stayed on xp until I got a new pc during 7, then I stayed on 7 until I got a new pc during 10. I'll probably stay on 10 until whatever is after 11 comes out, even though I know better, because I just don't care enough.
Windows had to force updates because so many people just didn’t update
Anyone that is on 10 still isn’t going to go to Linux
Thing is, there's people out there on windows 10 on a computer without the magic special chip windows 11 demands.
Lots of those people can't update and lots don't know about Linux or understand how to even use a USB drive to install it.
Yes it's easy for us semi tech people, but remember not everyone is into tech or understand how computers works.
People NEED computers to do stuff like applying for jobs, or searching online, or video games with friends.
Those people who don't have a tpm chip and can't upgrade will just not and continue using a insecure windows 10 because they don't know or understand what it is.
Remember Lemmy, just because you understand tech, doesn't mean everyone knows about it, or can grasp the concepts.
Like seriously, if there was ever a time to do a concerted push for linux, it's now. Start the campaigns, start the tutorials start the memes and the warnings and get the process down to under an hour. It won't be a weird thing, it will be the lord and savior allowing your PC to continue even when windows says it can't.
My dad has a bunch of old friends that elected me to be their tech support, which makes me have to explain the basics of the basics most of the time. Trust me when I say that a lot of people in these forums have no idea how tech illiterate some people are.
I had a situation years ago where an old guy asked me to reset his android phone. I - unfortunately - complied because I made the mistake of trusting that he knew what he was asking, so I just made sure everything was backed up on his cloud. Result: he lost access to his photos, numbers, etc because he had no idea that he had a gmail account associated to his phone. Fortunately, his daughter knew and remembered the password so he recovered them.
Another situation I had with another guy was having to explain why stremio wouldn’t work on his iphone while his friends (with androids) could use it. Without going into details, he didn’t know what an “OS” was.
Let me repeat it because it’s relevant to this post: the guy didn’t know what an Operative System was. And he’s hardly alone.
In these kind of tech forums, I found that a lot of users don’t truly grasp how tech illiterates can be (and sometimes confuse that for lack of intelligence, but that’s another discussion). It’s hard for them to understand how most people don’t care what OS they are running. A lot of people will continue to use Windows 10 and not care they don’t receive more updates, as far as they are concerned, it still works and lets them do their stuff.
Every single edition of Windows introduces new forms of bloat and new ways for MS to overreach and attempt to play corporate nanny over a user's system; why the fuck would anyone willingly upgrade Windows when they have the chance not to?
Win 11 is downgrade to Win 10, and I expect Win 12 to be a downgrade to Win 11. I still didnt decide whether Mint or Kubuntu will be the next OS on my pc. I'm pretty sure Windows 12 has no chance.
"Windows 10 will be the last Windows OS released!" - Microshaft
I like the UI of 11 but not the extra spyware
MS can pry Windows 10 out of my cold, dead hands. I'll switch to Linux before Win11 and I don't particularly want to do that either.
I wonder how I’d be considered. I use Steam on Linux on one computer, Windows 10 on another, and Mac on another. Maybe I get counted thrice.
pretty sure it's based off of which clients of yours got prompted to do the hardware survey
fuck Windows, I am done with M$
Maybe because Windows 11 sucks
The only reason I'm still on windows 10 is because I'm dreading the weekend of head banging against table I'm going to have when I do the switch to Linux before October... Not looking forward to getting it all set up and working
Make a dual boot system. You can continue to use win10 while getting comfortable with linux. If something breaks just reboot.
I stayed with XP until 7. I stayed with 7 until 10. I'll probably stay with 10 until the next Windows. Assuming it actually is decent again, and not just even shittier than 11.
I’m one of the many. Hate where tech is headed, I remember hearing about Microsoft wanting to turn windows cloud based with a subscription. Hell no
i'll upgrade to some baby Linux distro once the end of life hits, i am lazy
(i'd also need to set up a dual boot as i'm cursed to need Adobe apps and those are famously allergic to Linux)
Don’t do dual boot. Windows will purposefully fuck up your MBR so Linux disappears every update and it’s a bitch to fix.
Run that shit in a VM. It’s 2025 you will get good performance.
I had to install Win 11 on my work computer and it is still total dogshit. One example - The search from the Start menu never works so you have to pin every app to start or go through the whole app list to find the one you want. Its been like this for a year at least. Things, like my speakers, just randomly stop working and I have to restart to get them to work again.
M$ ended win7 support in January 14, 2020. Steam did not end win7 support until January 1 2024. M$ ending support for their OS does not mean Steam will do so anytime soon. Considering how small number of their users has updated, there's a good chance Steam will keep supporting win10 for many more years. By that time I know I will no longer be using Windows.
IF steam OS is ready for wide release by then, you'll see massive adoption.
The other half is running linux, right?
Right?
Or, like me, still on Windows 7, they could just no longer use Steam. Lots of games I can still play on this OS or in my browser. Maybe someday I'll go back to Linux, or maybe even React, just for the hell of it.
People, I've already mentioned that Windows 10 LTSC is out there until 2027. Additionally, Windows 11 non-TPM is available out in the 'bay.