In the 2000's I used to fear that not having windows at home would lead me to a lack of troubleshooting prowess when it comes to problems with windows at work.
Now I'm just glad I only have to suffer windows at work.
>So if anything goes wrong in my install, it’ll be a lot of forum-hopping and Discord searching to figure it all out
This is not inaccurate, however every time I've had to interface with either Microsoft or Adobe issues, both the professional and community support have been abysmal. Both community forums seem to incentivize engagement to the point where every response is 3+ hyperlinks deep to someone else's vaguely related post.
Maybe the linux forums self select for independent problem solvers..
Any technical minds care to explain how the "agentic Windows" actually functions?
Based on the marketing it seems to run a sandboxed copilot instance that can impersonate the user to take actions, with their permission?
Something like "hey copilot install Putty"? and it does it?
I can relate to the reluctance to adopt AI features into the OS -- but I would also like to understand how they work and any utility they might provide.
Anyone have experience with CachyOS or Bazzite here? I'm using Fedora KDE standard, never toyed with Arch distros, and don't know much about Bazzite/Kinoite. Regular Fedora seems pretty usable to me.
In any case, it's really great to see Linux overcoming its final major hurdle for a lot of technical people to dump Windows: Gaming compatibility.
I prefer CachyOS. It's basically an easy-to-use Arch distro. They package more than the default Arch repos contain which helps a bit in avoiding building stuff yourself out of AUR.
I tried Bazzite, but I'm just not a fan of how everything is installed as a flatpak. It might be more secure and allow for easy rollbacks and stuff, but it limits what apps are allowed to do by default. The main issue that caused for me is that the 1Password Firefox extension was not able to communicate with the main 1Password process. Maybe I could have tinkered with it using Flatseal, but that feels like such a hack.
Over here we've been saying for years that gaming on Linux is a far better experience, with better framerates and better stability.
Just you're kind of SOL if you want to play anything that isn't based on some flavour of Quake or Unreal engine.
Well, that's different now. See? Told you. Faster, smoother, less crashy.
Oh, you want Microsoft Office? Yeah well you're probably using Office 365 these days anyway. Everything's in a browser. No, it looks just the same. Edge? It's less crashy in Linux, weirdly.
I was still using Windows 8.1 at the start of 2024 and was trying to slowly shift away to Linux at the time, but circumstances beyond my control ended up throwing me into the deep end a lot quicker than I expected.
I'm really enjoying Linux. It's one of those things that makes me somewhat passionate about computing for the first time in a long time.
> but circumstances beyond my control ended up throwing me into the deep end a lot quicker than I expected
As a Linux user since 2006/7, I totally understand. I had atleast 1 computer at home that would dual-boot to either Windows or Linux. Regardless, I had to have a Windows system.
My reasons may not be the same as yourself - but I do still get stuck and HAVE to use Windows from time-to-time. It's not just for playing games or work related. It's sometimes a simple file I have to download, fill in and email back. The file is likely a Microsoft Excel or Word file and while OpenOffice/LibreOffice is good most of the time, there is bound to be something off.
Sometimes my kids will have homework (going back a few years now) and it would only work on Internet Explorer despite the fact Chrome was dominant back then.
(I remember, back in 2008, I would ensure the websites I created had decent support for Firefox as well as Internet Explorer, despite my boss telling me "everyone uses Internet Explorer" - that soon changed by 2010 with Chrome)
Thing is these problems are not the fault of Linux, or the Office suite, or the web browsers. The problem was the people using files specific to a brand, or focusing on specific web browser, etc. However, many people wont view it like that. In these scenarios.. Linux was the problem.
I always remember writing my Resumes for recruitment agencies. I would hand over it is 3 formats. ODT, PDF, and DOCX. I did this because I was not sure how the DOCX version would look on Microsoft Word. Of course, it looked great in Open/Libre Office.
I always encouraged the PDF version.
> I'm really enjoying Linux. It's one of those things that makes me somewhat passionate about computing for the first time in a long time.
This is bad. New user going onto an arch distro with a ton of tweaks is worst case scenario for a smooth experience.
I'm sure cachyOS will work a treat out of the box, but i'm also sure that one day things will stop working and cascade into a distro hop or reinstall leaving a sour taste in the users mouth.
You do not need a "gaming" distro, all distros use the same software and you will be fine on ubuntu, fedora etc.
> You do not need a "gaming" distro, all distros use the same software and you will be fine on ubuntu, fedora etc.
That's not necessarily true. I mean, you will be fine, but gaming is one of the areas where you can benefit from having everything on bleeding edge. And Cachy is surprisingly stable (and the "one day things will stop working" can realistically be said about any Linux distro, really).
Honestly I've been pleasantly surprised with CachyOS, admittedly I've been using Linux for over a decade but it was my first foray into Arch-land and I'm genuinely impressed with it. The stability is very good, and I'm yet to break anything seriously on it.
The idea isn't that it's a 'gaming distro' specifically, and more that it's suited to performance in general which can be a useful thing. If someone's new to Linux and doesn't understand why they might want to run something like CachyOS I agree they should just pick Ubuntu or similar and be done with it, but personally I rate CachyOS as a daily driver.
I have been waiting for this time to come. Microsoft clearly doesn't care about Windows very much, and Linux has never been more ready to break out in market share. Quite exciting to see!
I use bazzite linux for gaming full time and can't say enough good things about it. You don't need to do anything at all to maintain it. Every Windows game I've ever tried just works perfectly out of the box. Sometimes I will see a warning telling me that a certain game is not certified for a good experience by Steam, and it all just works perfect anyway.
When I was running Windows on the same machine I was constantly trying to diagnose why things stopped working, and downloading drivers.
Perhaps my experience with Windows was worse than average, I don't know. But from my perspective there is zero reason not to run Linux full time for gaming.
Also daily driving Bazzite on my gaming laptop, everything is supported out of the box (iGPU / dGPU switcher, fan control, LED keyboard, low/high screen refresh), there's barely any maintenance needed and it runs really smooth. The other day I connected my G27 (wheel, pedals and gear shifter) to play BeamNG, it just worked, no drivers, crapware or configuration needed.
I also use the same machine for dev work and everything works amazingly well.
My gaming PC sits next to the TV in my living room and I use it like a console, I have one of those cheap blutooth wireless keyboards with trackpad for the really basic iteractions and then I just use a game controller for playing games.
Windows 11 has been fine for me, I don't interact with it much other than seeing it for a bit when launching games.
I honestly wouldn't mind giving Linux a go, the only downside is I made the mistake of buying an nvidia graphics card, I'm not sure how much of a pain it is these days but last time I tried it was a bit of a nightmare - the general wisdom at the time was to go with an AMD card.
Changed from Windows 10 to an Ubuntu with beefy specs. When I saw firsthand the improvement of the user experience, I felt the year of the Linux desktop is nigh.
I had to briefly go back to Windows and I just couldn't understand how anyone serious can run an OS that just decides to reboot itself in the middle of the night.
For most users, they don't even notice that it rebooted, because their apps were relaunched and put back in place. It's (ironically) the people who run Linux who notice, because they probably have their Windows machine full of FOSS ports from Linux that don't restore on relaunch.
>I’m going to install CachyOS, an Arch-based distro optimized for gaming on modern hardware, with support for cutting-edge CPUs and GPUs and an allegedly easy setup.
Please don't install some weird trendy distro. I'm starting to think that Microsoft is sponsoring them just to make sure that people come running back to Windows, complaining, saying "not ready for prime time." Just install Debian. Stable. Or Mint or even Ubuntu. Move over to something bizarre when you know why you want it.
Funny timing. I just said screw it the other day and wiped an old laptop to install Linux. I'm using budgie at the moment, but it's been pretty smooth sailing.
I suspect the combination of modern Linux + + Steam + LLM to troubleshoot and learn may see more conversions like myself
> So really, why wouldn’t I blow that up and start over?
I really wish more people would mention the option of dual booting. Use another separate SSD to install your linux OS and that way you always have the option of going back to your Windows install. You can even reserve some programs for Windows and do everything else with linux.
There's really no need to approach it with a "screw it" attitude. You'll probably get yourself in too deep with that approach.
Honestly, I'm just surprised it took this long, and this much end-user abuse, to get things to where even casual enthusiasts are realizing that Microsoft (any proprietary vendor really) is NOT their friend, and looking long and hard at giving Linux a go. But I'm glad y'all are here.
I wish my parents would switch. Look at my comment history if you want more details, but TL;DR the auto update to windows 11 bricked my mom’s laptop and I had to do some weirdness with Linux to save her files and then wipe the computer.
Since I am a software person I have become the person that my parents call for IT help, and increasingly I have grown pretty frustrated with Windows. I have been trying to convince them to move to Zorin or Mint or something or to buy a Mac, and they will not yield.
In a bit of fairness to them, the biggest issue is MS Office; they did recently try LibreOffice and the MS Office online, and they had shortcomings with both. Since I have been wholly unsuccessful at getting any modern Office to work on Linux (without virtualization), so now I don’t have a case for them to move.
Which is annoying, because I really hate having to deal with it.
78 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 78.9 ms ] threadNow I'm just glad I only have to suffer windows at work.
This is not inaccurate, however every time I've had to interface with either Microsoft or Adobe issues, both the professional and community support have been abysmal. Both community forums seem to incentivize engagement to the point where every response is 3+ hyperlinks deep to someone else's vaguely related post.
Maybe the linux forums self select for independent problem solvers..
Yikes. This is the main issue of Discord, it's not publicly searchable.
Based on the marketing it seems to run a sandboxed copilot instance that can impersonate the user to take actions, with their permission?
Something like "hey copilot install Putty"? and it does it?
I can relate to the reluctance to adopt AI features into the OS -- but I would also like to understand how they work and any utility they might provide.
In any case, it's really great to see Linux overcoming its final major hurdle for a lot of technical people to dump Windows: Gaming compatibility.
I tried Bazzite, but I'm just not a fan of how everything is installed as a flatpak. It might be more secure and allow for easy rollbacks and stuff, but it limits what apps are allowed to do by default. The main issue that caused for me is that the 1Password Firefox extension was not able to communicate with the main 1Password process. Maybe I could have tinkered with it using Flatseal, but that feels like such a hack.
Started with Linux Mint then Debian/Ubuntu, tried some others too but ultimately just stuck with Ubuntu
Just you're kind of SOL if you want to play anything that isn't based on some flavour of Quake or Unreal engine.
Well, that's different now. See? Told you. Faster, smoother, less crashy.
Oh, you want Microsoft Office? Yeah well you're probably using Office 365 these days anyway. Everything's in a browser. No, it looks just the same. Edge? It's less crashy in Linux, weirdly.
AutoCAD? Nah. Still SOL.
I'm really enjoying Linux. It's one of those things that makes me somewhat passionate about computing for the first time in a long time.
As a Linux user since 2006/7, I totally understand. I had atleast 1 computer at home that would dual-boot to either Windows or Linux. Regardless, I had to have a Windows system.
My reasons may not be the same as yourself - but I do still get stuck and HAVE to use Windows from time-to-time. It's not just for playing games or work related. It's sometimes a simple file I have to download, fill in and email back. The file is likely a Microsoft Excel or Word file and while OpenOffice/LibreOffice is good most of the time, there is bound to be something off.
Sometimes my kids will have homework (going back a few years now) and it would only work on Internet Explorer despite the fact Chrome was dominant back then.
(I remember, back in 2008, I would ensure the websites I created had decent support for Firefox as well as Internet Explorer, despite my boss telling me "everyone uses Internet Explorer" - that soon changed by 2010 with Chrome)
Thing is these problems are not the fault of Linux, or the Office suite, or the web browsers. The problem was the people using files specific to a brand, or focusing on specific web browser, etc. However, many people wont view it like that. In these scenarios.. Linux was the problem.
I always remember writing my Resumes for recruitment agencies. I would hand over it is 3 formats. ODT, PDF, and DOCX. I did this because I was not sure how the DOCX version would look on Microsoft Word. Of course, it looked great in Open/Libre Office.
I always encouraged the PDF version.
> I'm really enjoying Linux. It's one of those things that makes me somewhat passionate about computing for the first time in a long time.
100%!
I recently vibe coded a voice typing software (using Parakeet — your best bet is probably Handy though).
It works in my terminal. (I just changed my paste shortcut to Ctrl+V
I can now literally speak software into existence!
I made a thin wrapper around my llm() function I can pipe text into from Bash.
This allows me to make many other thin LLM wrappers, such as one that summarizes then contents of entire directories.
I have a thing called Jarvis inspired by a Twitter post, where I ask it to do anything in bash, and it just does that.
I wouldn't exactly say it's useful (I am unemployed) but I am kind of having my mind blown a little bit.
The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed yet.
I'm sure cachyOS will work a treat out of the box, but i'm also sure that one day things will stop working and cascade into a distro hop or reinstall leaving a sour taste in the users mouth.
You do not need a "gaming" distro, all distros use the same software and you will be fine on ubuntu, fedora etc.
That's not necessarily true. I mean, you will be fine, but gaming is one of the areas where you can benefit from having everything on bleeding edge. And Cachy is surprisingly stable (and the "one day things will stop working" can realistically be said about any Linux distro, really).
The idea isn't that it's a 'gaming distro' specifically, and more that it's suited to performance in general which can be a useful thing. If someone's new to Linux and doesn't understand why they might want to run something like CachyOS I agree they should just pick Ubuntu or similar and be done with it, but personally I rate CachyOS as a daily driver.
Not once in initial setup or first week of use did it use dark patterns to try to trick or force me into something I don’t want to do.
When I was running Windows on the same machine I was constantly trying to diagnose why things stopped working, and downloading drivers.
Perhaps my experience with Windows was worse than average, I don't know. But from my perspective there is zero reason not to run Linux full time for gaming.
I also use the same machine for dev work and everything works amazingly well.
Windows 11 has been fine for me, I don't interact with it much other than seeing it for a bit when launching games.
I honestly wouldn't mind giving Linux a go, the only downside is I made the mistake of buying an nvidia graphics card, I'm not sure how much of a pain it is these days but last time I tried it was a bit of a nightmare - the general wisdom at the time was to go with an AMD card.
oh no
I suspect the combination of modern Linux + + Steam + LLM to troubleshoot and learn may see more conversions like myself
I really wish more people would mention the option of dual booting. Use another separate SSD to install your linux OS and that way you always have the option of going back to your Windows install. You can even reserve some programs for Windows and do everything else with linux.
There's really no need to approach it with a "screw it" attitude. You'll probably get yourself in too deep with that approach.
Honestly, I'm just surprised it took this long, and this much end-user abuse, to get things to where even casual enthusiasts are realizing that Microsoft (any proprietary vendor really) is NOT their friend, and looking long and hard at giving Linux a go. But I'm glad y'all are here.
Since I am a software person I have become the person that my parents call for IT help, and increasingly I have grown pretty frustrated with Windows. I have been trying to convince them to move to Zorin or Mint or something or to buy a Mac, and they will not yield.
In a bit of fairness to them, the biggest issue is MS Office; they did recently try LibreOffice and the MS Office online, and they had shortcomings with both. Since I have been wholly unsuccessful at getting any modern Office to work on Linux (without virtualization), so now I don’t have a case for them to move.
Which is annoying, because I really hate having to deal with it.