I am literally typing this on linux mint and I am NEVER going back to windows ever again. Hell, I don't care about my games being in Windows. I will play and find other games. I can buy compatibility layers. So, good on you Blind! And I hope others are encouraged to join you and others. :)
You can actually play around with SteamOS. It's really hard to find any windows game wich wouldn work on it after some workarounds. I'm myself can only name a few from 1000+++ titles library. I'm get used to it because of Deck, ofc, but i'm thinking about having it as dual boot on my main system.
@@vidal9747, the way that you phrased it sounds like you dislike GNU. If so, could you please explain your reasons? Either way, could you please also explain what you like about Alpine?
In linux mint you can also just search for the windows equivalent program at it usually just pops up with the correct one. You need task manager to kill a program? hit the windows key start typing "task" and system monitor shows up so you can get rid of that frozen app...or that you need to save scum some certain paradox games
I was skeptical about switching over to Linux(Mint) full time. What sealed the deal for me was when I booted into Windows to grab some files, it updated and nuked Grub. This triggered my fight or flight response and penguins are flightless(I don't think this analogy works here) so I'm on Mint for my personal devices. I still use Windows at my job and the "features" they keep adding are dumb and being in a hybrid Azure environment, these improvements have just been making everything harder to use. Love the follow up on the video, glad you're having a good time and not going to look back.
Note: The recommended DE for Mint is Cinnamon, rather than GNOME, as is a project that was forked from an earlier version of GNOME... so getting them mixed up is understandable... the workflow of modern GNOME is _dramatically_ different from Windows, disabling minimising tabs by default, in favour organising apps across multiple workspaces. It's a really nice change from the Windows workflow, if you understand it's design patterns, but I wouldn't recommend modern GNOME to beginners... 😅 Edit: Oh, no, Dwarf Fortress has run natively on Linux for a while. It's even packaged by the Debian maintainers, meaning you can install it via `apt` (and maybe the software manager as well...)
Flatpaks are more about allowing you to limit what an app has access to rather than it being about stopping you from breaking things. It's like how on your phone you can set an app's permissions. As you can see it's still a bit buggy though. It's a fairly recent development, so I expect over the coming years we will see them integrate a lot better into the other features of Linux.
I agree. I'm seriously considering moving to Linux too. I strongly despise the direction windows is going. Windows was perfect when Windows 7 was the main version. Then they just had to try to "innovate" on perfection. W10 and W11 SUCKS!
It's never been easier to do so. Some good starting distros would be Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora. With Gnome extensions you can pretty much simulate the windows 7 experience.
@@SonataNumber8 Rather than Ubuntu I prefer Pop!OS. It's a lot like Ubuntu, but without Snap package manager. My first experience with Ubuntu was trying to get the Snap version of Docker running, and that soured me in the entire thing.
I'm so glad to see someone actually put in an earnest effort to move away from Adobe. So many people hear photoshop doesn't work and refuse to try it, which is airways a shame. Yes, the replacements aren't completely perfect, but they do what 99% of people will ever need.
In in the process of moving over to linux. I jumped in the deep end with a minimal install of debian, and its been both a rewarding and at times irritating experience. I highly recommend mint to anyone who is looking to dip in their toes. But, i hope that going the debian route forces me into becoming literate in the software before fully switching
I am always interested in the newbie experience. I know that I had issues a long time ago, but for many years now, Debian has been smooth for me. (I even ran it on a Mac.)
Keep on going! I did the transition years ago and I've found Linux rewarding. I highly recommend trying out the FreedomBox project if you want pre-canned working templates of FLOSS software stacks like Apache / Mediawiki (documentation) / WordPress (blog) / Element (VOIP) to learn from. Having a clearly useful goal to work towards helps immensely in motivating your daily learning.
I switched to linux because I wanted control of my computer. A ton of ubuntu and its derivatives are taking away that control with snap; e.g, i cant install the deb of firefox without jumping through a ton of hoops. So Debian has been the best option for me, its upstream of ubuntu anyways... Plus its super stable, and just works. I was running Kubuntu (KDE DE + Ubunutu) for its DE customization, but switching to Debian 12 with Gnome was the best choice. KDE just doesnt perform well on my laptop. Plus I've never had a nvidia driver issue with debian. Debian, in my case, was the best choice linux distro and I'm glad to see other folks here using, or planning on using it! Its not so hard, installation was super easy! Just follow the workflow on the installation guide!
as a gamer this year I've been looking back and forth between Windows 10 getting an expiry date (September or something next year will no longer automatically receive security updates), and the growing bullshit being added to Windows 11 instead of actually fixing the OS... and been wondering if it may be getting to the time to jump ship off Windows entirely. (not to mention Windows 11 costing about $250-$300 AUD)
Where are you getting these prices, Windows 11 costs 15 - 20$ here (I am here because I'm genuinely interested in switching to Linux, I'm scared of Win starting up in the middle of the night and demanding an update every other week, I tried everything to force it to NOT update, but the fact that my computer can start on its own while I sleep freaks me out)
@@alexandrachernysh7 a license for windows 11 pro is $199 usd if you buy grey market then you can skip that but run the risk of getting keys rejected. Its happened to me a few times in the past with windows 7 and 10 where I had to rebuy windows because it was unverified by a grey market sale.
Yeah, never do arch first. You must feel the pain of building the latest version of your software from source if you want it to be the latest version. Then you go arch on your first install and endeavour os on all the following
Hey blind, check if your package manager has a package called "tldr", it is basically the "man" command but it shows only the most important stuff like use flags
Thumbs up for using Mint! I installed Mint on a laptop to test it out as well and it’s been working great. I’m getting ready to ditch Windows for good soon. Thanks for the update. Glad to hear your experience with it has been great. Time to show Microsoft that we don’t need windows anymore.
It is so impressive how much Gaming on Linux has grown the last couple of years... So far all of my favorite games run like it would be on Windows. Thank you for sharing your experience!
That's great, I'm glad you are having fun with linux! I used Mint for 3 months and It was so much more nice than windows. I did switch back to windows though but that's because I was having some major crashing issues that were caused by a bad GPU and since Parsec doesn't yet support hosting on linux it was kind of hard to use reliably. The GPU has been replaced, now I'm just waiting for Parsec to get their asses in gear and add hosting support to linux so I can remote into my computer from anywhere in the world. I can't wait to get back to using Linux again.
The walkthrough of how you made the OS jump is really helpful in making the process of switching seem less intimidating, so thank you, Blind. I'm thinking increasingly about jumping to linux when I finally run my current laptop into the ground. Every new 'ai' centered headline I see in general takes ten years off my will to exist but the windows news in specific is driving me up the wall faster than working in customer service. The main thing holding me back for the moment is compatibility with my main art software, clip studio. I think as time passes its more and more likely that there will be easier workarounds to get it up on linux. Or maybe csp will pull another stupid business move and it'll be time to jump to a different art program again! Who knows these days!! :D
My 1st contact with Linux was on the Steam Deck, and I gotta say that it's surprisingly fine for almost everything I do, and then most of the things with which it is not totally fine you'd have to tinker around, fix it, and then it works forever. The only issue I had was some multiplayer games. I don't generally use Steam Deck for those, but that's kind of my only real problem with Linux. That being said, I'm switching when Windows 10 dies.
my starting point was debian and i had basically no idea about anything, i even struggled with the live usb. the reason i switched was because i thought that i could simply reinstall windows since i paid 60 bucks, owned the install cd as well as the codes. didnt work, crapped the bed, and i havent looked back (and dont plan to ever spend money on microsoft again)
I switched last year to Fedora for my laptop. It's been great for the most part. Firefox, single player games, VLC, running well and I'm happy. Unfortunately I still need a Windows work computer.
Great job switching over! I use Arch for the granularity you can set up your system with. Fun fact, all Linux distros are just a bunch of open source projects in a trench coat. You and I pretty much have the same experience because we both use Gnome desktop, I just use a different package manager and encrypted my hard drives with luks2 encryption. If you use Mint for a while, switching over to a different distro will be easier and easier because you'll pretty much run into the same problems across most distros.
Arch seems cool. But if I will get into a hard distro, I don't see the point of not getting into either Gentoo or Nix. Nix because I can rebuild my system without any problems and Gentoo because it will perform better. I do a lot of number crushing in all my machines, so compiling everything from source with CPU specific instructions would probably be beneficial.
The only thing that's been holding me back is gaming... With the new push to upgrade to 11 and this video.., I feel the timing here couldn't be better! -Thanks!
The most perfect part of Linux ecosystem is transparency. If something goes wrong, user have all options to detect and solve an issue: every logs, documentation and community help. In Windows you need to throw a dice to guess what’s could happen and blindly download fixers hoping that it’s not a virus. BTW: I recommend to read the Arch Wiki if some problem happens with user-level packages or drivers. Even if it’s a different distro, it usually has a lot of useful info, because packages are mostly common.
I've heard that even graphically intensive VR games work acceptably well on Linux now. Even though I run Linux, I haven't tried yet because my GPU is old. Will give it a shot after upgrading my hardware.
I don't have Windows 11, and I'm probably going to uninstall Windows 10 off most of my devices next summer when I finish college. Need dual boot to run certain Windows specific programs.
You should find someone who would help you to setup a VM with Windows for those specific programs. Should do that myself probably, even just for another Linux box in VM that I just can nuke and don't worry about each time after installing some poo-poo software like discord and so on.
Super happy to have you in the GNU Linux club dude! Glad you’re no longer constrained by Microsoft walls, let alone Windows. Edit: Btw, Manjaro is my daily driver.
I did the same back around June '24. I swtiched to Mint and then to Garuda because I wanted more cutting edge drivers. I am extremely pleased with my current daily driver running KDE Plasma 6 DE. I do operate and administer Linux servers professionally and while the desktop environment is very different from a server, there's a good bit of crossover with the skillset. I would recommend Mint to anyone who wants to switch from Windows (the community is very supportive) and I'd also recommend Garuda if you want a more gaming-focused distro running more recent drivers especially if you are running cutting edge hardware, install on both was straightforward and my machine runs more reliably with less bloat.
Welcome to Linux. I have been using Linux for around 17 years now. It has improved a lot, and the drastic difference with Windows has only increased. All my games work perfectly with no issues. It's good to see many more people using Linux
I've been watching you for a bit and noticed, that your old videos don't have the standard windows cursor. A part of me was hoping, that you made the switch and I was right! I'm incredibly happy with this video showing the average user experience in detail as it may get some people, who are on edge about switching to finally make the switch. I use Arch btw
I’ve been on nobara since the beginning of the year and it’s been a delight as someone who basically just uses my home pc for gaming, if you want to try out something with a rolling release I’d recommend either checking that or some flavor of fedora out :3
I stopped using Windows 2 months ago, now only using it for VR compatibility. Pretty much for the same reason you did, resource consumption was so high on my laptop that the fans were going like a jet engine while I sat idling on the desktop. And this was after I’d done a full wipe of my hard drive. Started with Arch btw, then realised I was in way over my head (bluetooth driver straight up died) and went for a Linux Mint install. Honestly I heard that compatibility for games had improved drastically but I was still surprised to see that I could install and run UT99 from CD. Compatibility has really come a long way. And seeing as this is the longest I’ve ever daily driven linux, I think I’m here to stay. Edit: Btw I had to update my Nvidia drivers through the driver manager, the updates never seemed to appear in the update manager which threw me off a bit.
I am kind of in a moment of being absolute passionate about my job, so it is pretty rare for me to switch to windows. I also sometimes let calculations running overnight and Linux doesn't act up. It doesn't reboot when I don't want it to. It only updates when I tell it to do so. It just works better if you're in Comoutational Chemistry/Physics. Also, it can be kept on indefinitely. I had to reboot Windows sometimes, but linux is so incredible stable. I use Fedora btw, that aims to be an intermediary between rolling release (Arch) and stable (Mint/Ubuntu). I also installed it in my lab's workstation and it works flawless. Also, as I don't have much ram at the moment, I can literally just kill gnome. The system works totally fine without a graphical enviroment. Also, remote access can be setup easily.
I switched to arch last month and it's been great. I have access to the entire computer, any file I want to delete I can, if I wanted to be diabolical I can "sudo rm -rf /" and delete the entire system. There's no forced installed software like edge or one drive. Freedom over my computer is really one of the big reasons I switched and over the years I just got sick of using an operating system that didn't respect that at all. I'm glad I made the switch and I don't see myself going back to windows.
I am deeply a fan of Mint. I use it daily, and probably won't ever switch away from it. That said, I am slowly aggregating computer pieces to put together a testbed computer for a bunch of other distros, so I can learn more about what is out there, and how Linux works as a whole.
Recently switched to POP!_OS and despite some minor hiccups getting some games to run or games not running quite as well (but that probably has more to do with the age of my hardware), I've really been enjoying it. Personally what surprised me, was how little space the OS uses on the hard drive compared to windows, since it basically comes with minimal extra software.
Started about a year ago fully swapped over, initially Manjaro which is Arch based, then to Endevour OS ,also arch, then tried Nobara for something different, being Fedora based. Having settled with my love of the AUR and Arch in general I've swapped back and forth between just straight Arch itself and Cachy OS which is what I currently run, much like you said if you play single player games or games that don't have overly aggressive anti cheat then everything has been pretty flawless!
Windows 10 as the last actually usable version makes sense, it's got an official year or so left. After that there are piles of perfectly usable PCs practically forced to use Linux unless W12 starts moving into a totally different direction.
Yes, I do indeed use Arch, btw. It's good fun, and the need to build my system from *almost* the ground up has actually created something that I don't think I could ever move away from. If I ever swap distros, I'm just going to end up configuring it exactly like my current setup even to the point of moving to KDE Plasma if I need to. I know you've voiced snarky comments about Arch users at least once on stream (and I get it) but do try arch on a boot drive sometime. It has its own prepackaged versions like EndeavourOS, Manjaro, etc., but Arch is finicky enough that these could actually cause more problems than blindly diving into Arch with the install guide (or ArchInstall). I doubt you'd like it enough to switch, but if you like feeling cool on terminal, Arch is the perfect place for it.
Welcome to the club! I’ve been using Linux for ages, and have been using it as my primary desktop for 14 years or so. Just plain Ubuntu, it just works. If I have an itch to try some other distribution I just grab some random hardware and check it out. Steam is a godsend and I have no problems playing the games that I want, most of them run fine or even better than on Windows.
Good to hear that. Although Cinnamon is the default window manager (UI) on Mint, not Gnome. While you could install Gnome on mint, most people coming from windows will want to avoid it to start with, it has a much more Mac OS approach. Let's just say that is is very opinionated about how your workflow should be, unlike Cinnamon etc. Cinnamon is good and XFCE (another Mint default window manager) is quite windows like although you'll need to change some settings to make it look less 1997.
On linux here. For years more or less. Not a big gamer, but the few games I played (or I play now) are just native. Minecraft in the past, DF now (and Minecraft for my son). Been through a lot of distros. with the time, they are all the same, so not a big deal. Except very exotic stuff like NixOS, wich I use, btw (Arch is for n00bs). Glad you enjoy your experience. I am sure that a large majority of windows users would feel the same if they take the step. "Age of linux desktop"... I mean, I wish the world feels the same... Future will tell us. Until then... Strike the keyboard ! :)
Great decision! Especially with the amazing work being done to get practically any windows game and application run on linux smoothly, there is no good reason to give all your data to MS. On linux you always have choices, which data to share, what data to give away, which apps to use, which programs to spend money on. And the choice of how your desktop and environment shall look like. In the end all we care about is: does it run Dwarf Fortress? In fact it does.
Very nice making the shift to Linux. It something I am only partially doing myself. It just depends on the things I need at the time. Also thanks for showing me to the video editing software, been using a well out of date program that I paid for. I didn't want to "rent" the most recent version. Hmm... this is a moment of genuine, "I think you can make it work." The multiple rtmp plugin still does work with a fully up to date obs, at least I still use it. When I asked on your stream when you bought it up, I was literally thinking of that plugin. Is this a case of it not working (for some reason) on your install or linux in general?
I dual boot between Windows and Linux, well, up until a few months ago. For Linux I was using Arch up until and update rendered the OS unable to load the desktop environment. Grub and the login screen worked great, but once I typed in my password to go into the DE I was presented with a black screen. So, now I just boot into Windows. This holiday season when I have some spare time I plan on re-imaging both OS and starting fresh. I install both OS on their own physical drive so Windows doesn’t blow up the boot process.
Congrats on switching over to Linux! I'm glad it's working out for you. It has been a fun and liberating experience for me and has only improved how I use my computer. I use Debian with the I3 window manager, pretty simple, works fine, just how I like it. There are also graphical task managers out for those who are scared of the terminal ones. Given you are a Dwarf Fortress player, learning some keybinds to use it probably wasn't a big endeavor (Although I've never used glances specifically).
I tried switching to linux many years ago, but I'm not super proficient with computer and I got overwhelmed and stumped, and switched back. I've always wabted to have a linux computer though, and it seems like with Mint and the user friendliness of it, I might give it another shot soon!. I'm so tired of windows and macOS can shove it too (mac is my work computer)
only reason Windows hasn't been completely replaced by any experienced users is the games tbh. Windows has screwed themselves by forcing lots of crap into their OS by each iteration.
I have a laptop that I upgraded to Windows 11 about a year ago and the experience made me seriously consider switching to Linux. Maybe I'll move that laptop over and see how it goes.
Congratulations! I dumped both Windows(7) and Mac 2017. I did not like the way either of them was going. I was prepared and had tested a number of distros beforehand. During the years I have used a number of distributions of Linux. But I have settled on MX-Linux (with KDE or XFCE desktop) and TuxedoOS (laptops). Both are rock solid stable and so well working they have become boring (a good thing). Never going back. Never had to sacrifice much at all. Basically flowers and sunshine....
I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I do use arch. I originally tried manjaro, but that crashed and died. Then I moved to arch and i haven't looked back. It took a bit of a learning curve but it's been great. Glad I can play dark and darker via steam on Linux
Do right now yourself a favor: start using /usr/local directory, put actuall confings that you need from /etc into /usr/local/etc and just symlink them. It would be much easier to backup stuff that you tinkered with and just nuke the whole system by moving /usr/local to root, rm -rf /usr/, /var/ and /etc/, reinstalling arch as in first time and putting everything back where it was. No need for second disks just to format the existing one or some stupid stuff like that.
The instructions for installing OBS on ANY Ubuntu based distro 22.04 or newer is through terminal and are written plainly on the OBS download page. The worst thing to happen to Linux imo is snaps and flatpaks. Especially for newer users.
I use EndeavourOS (which is a more user friendly I use Arch btw) and have been using some fork of arch since 2015 ish. Not a power user but not a fair bit of experience now. The only major issue I've ever had was Wayland with an Nvidia card, because... Nvidia does not care in the slightest about open sourcing anything. Anticheat is a bit of a pain even, though Valve has done miracles to get the less invasive ones functional out of the box (if the devs enable it) which hopefully will become less and less of an issue as Steam deck adoption increases and people grow wearier of hella invasive software within their computer. Now I must also make the nitpick that "uhm actually" DF classic has always been natively compatible with Linux but the steam release didn't originally.
I switched to Linux Mint as well. Even got VR working on it But I still have Windows for dual boot because some games and stuff I use is not compatible with Linux.
@@MarvelousLXVII I use the Pico 4 with ALVR it is a bit of a hassle to set up (lots of google search with "try and error") but I got it working I think I had to manually install an Nvidia driver from their website as well... 1660 super
Linux is the best! I use Linux Mint, and although I’ve tried several other distributions, Mint is the one that always works best for my tasks. For managing Flatpaks, I use Flatseal, which allows me to control everything the programs have access to, like directories and other permissions. I also use DistroBox, which lets me run any Linux distribution inside Mint. If software runs on another Linux distro, it will run here as well.
I installed Ubuntu a couple of months ago (yeah I know conservative AF) on my notebook HDD since I didn't want to partition my ssd as it was my first time installing it and wanted to be safe just in case. And the sense of freshness could be a factor but wow it runs *so* smooth and also not the hurdle I'd imagined. I plan eventually to transition my desktop into linux as well to play games with a small partition with windows just for those pesky game but overall I'm extremely satisfied
I switched to mint after Fallout 4 somehow killed my windows 11 install 100% wonderful, NO ADS, works the same, only 2 major issues I ran into: Working with multiple hard drives is weird at the start because they dont just work, you have to mount them Also, make sure secure boot is disabled in BIOS. I was confused why no games were running, and why only 1 monitor was displaying It was because with Secure Boot enabled I coudnt update any drivers, including NVIDIA so my games were just running raw off my cpu Its free!! It works great!! Wish I switched sooner
I use mint. The occasional flatpack frustration is worth it for not experiencing the glacial pace that a few years old windows install takes to make itself usable from boot. Did you look into using blender for video editing?
This is reassuring, but I think that I’ll stay as a filthy Windows casual for the time being. The big moment will be if computer systems ship with Linux OS fully installed and good to go. It still seems to be an enthusiastic-level thing, for those with the time to dedicate to it.
On the same boat! Been using it for years, and for first graders and grandmas alike, you cannot go wrong with mint. I have some Manjaro and Endeavour in the mix too, but Mint is still the best for me. One thing though: aren't you using the Cinnamon Desktop here, or did you tweak gnome so much that it looks like cinnamon? Have a good time!
My experience with ubuntu 10 years ago was horrible. Along with its forums which I got banned from because i asked if they could stop editing my posts every 5 minutes instead of helping me. I also disgust where windows 11 is going but thinking about moving to linux is equally anxiety inducing to me and my OCD so im kinda stuck on win 10. I also have a barely used surface pro that cant run 11 and windows tells me to "turn it inn for measly 20$" im worried what I will end up doing...
Things have changed a lot in ten years. Mint, pop and a lot of other distros just run directly off a USB so you can mess around without actually installing anything.
I use debian, with Mate Desktop Environment, it's absolutely rock stable, looks and finctions like windows 98, and for me that's not a bad thing, an os that mostly stays out if the way, and let's you run things...
I've been full time Linux gaming for 2 years and I think there's 2 or 3 games I would like to play but can't. League of Legends and Minecraft (bedrock) have been on and off in terms of compatibility. But I don't forsee going back to Windows any time soon. I use Arch BTW
Since i got the steam deck I considered using it as a working computer, couldn't get adobe working on it so I managed to install windows on it instead, but hope adobe will be available in linux in the future. On the obs issue, theres a steam version of obs that works pretty well for me at least, maybe is something to look into
Quick correction: the desktop environment you're using on mint is called cinnamon, not gnome (although it's based on gnome). Cinnamon is very much made to resemble windows, gnome isn't. Also, there is a task manager equivalent, it's system monitor and you can set up a shortcut for it in "Keyboard" (the shortcut should point to "gnome-system-monitor") that way you can press ctrl+alt+del and have the same experience you would on windows) Linux is a terrible experience as you've already seen, you have to tinker with everything all the time and you can't really be a gamer on that OS. That being said if you use the same handful of softwares and games once it's all set up there's no real problem (jk updates will break stuff)
The only reason Windows has more software that "just works" is because it has more users to report platform specific issues. Many software corporations prefer you use windows because they maintain more control over you the user, and can squeeze more money out of you (look at Adobe). In the alternate timeline where Linux got the first accessible GUI the majority of software would be developed for Linux first, and it may even be the magical "everything is UNIX" timeline.
I finally lost my shit with windows about 10 years ago (I guess i have a lower tolerance for corporate bullshit that most!), I've been messing with linux since the 90s but i'm certainly no expert (and i have an amazing ability to forget console commands nearly as quickly as i can type them!). but I'll never go back, nearly everything just works, and if it doesn't, I don't want it!
Fedora, for over a decade now. And before that Gentoo, LFS, Debian and SuSE Linux (when they were still their own company). Same for work computers. Fedora, if it's my choice. Didn't work on Windows for more than a decade and won't ever again.
I want to switch to linux again however my art program of choice, clip studio, doesnt have a native linux version, meaning I would have to run it through compatibility layers and looking at other people who have tried with my software... doesnt look good. So I am stuck on w10 for the time being, or until I try a new piece of art software.
I am literally typing this on linux mint and I am NEVER going back to windows ever again.
Hell, I don't care about my games being in Windows. I will play and find other games. I can buy compatibility layers.
So, good on you Blind! And I hope others are encouraged to join you and others. :)
Same here, also on Mint
You can actually play around with SteamOS. It's really hard to find any windows game wich wouldn work on it after some workarounds.
I'm myself can only name a few from 1000+++ titles library.
I'm get used to it because of Deck, ofc, but i'm thinking about having it as dual boot on my main system.
Welcome to the GNU + Linux community
I don't do GNU. I use Alpine. I prefer to call it Linux as it is the subset of systems that use Linux as the kernel.
@@vidal9747, the way that you phrased it sounds like you dislike GNU. If so, could you please explain your reasons? Either way, could you please also explain what you like about Alpine?
glad to be here.
In linux mint you can also just search for the windows equivalent program at it usually just pops up with the correct one. You need task manager to kill a program? hit the windows key start typing "task" and system monitor shows up so you can get rid of that frozen app...or that you need to save scum some certain paradox games
I was skeptical about switching over to Linux(Mint) full time. What sealed the deal for me was when I booted into Windows to grab some files, it updated and nuked Grub. This triggered my fight or flight response and penguins are flightless(I don't think this analogy works here) so I'm on Mint for my personal devices.
I still use Windows at my job and the "features" they keep adding are dumb and being in a hybrid Azure environment, these improvements have just been making everything harder to use.
Love the follow up on the video, glad you're having a good time and not going to look back.
Note: The recommended DE for Mint is Cinnamon, rather than GNOME, as is a project that was forked from an earlier version of GNOME... so getting them mixed up is understandable... the workflow of modern GNOME is _dramatically_ different from Windows, disabling minimising tabs by default, in favour organising apps across multiple workspaces. It's a really nice change from the Windows workflow, if you understand it's design patterns, but I wouldn't recommend modern GNOME to beginners... 😅
Edit: Oh, no, Dwarf Fortress has run natively on Linux for a while. It's even packaged by the Debian maintainers, meaning you can install it via `apt` (and maybe the software manager as well...)
Welcome to the dark side. I regret to inform you that we lied. We don't just have cookies, we also have chocolate pie. Hope you enjoy your stay.
Oh no!
But do you have chocolate mint cookies?
Flatpaks are more about allowing you to limit what an app has access to rather than it being about stopping you from breaking things. It's like how on your phone you can set an app's permissions. As you can see it's still a bit buggy though. It's a fairly recent development, so I expect over the coming years we will see them integrate a lot better into the other features of Linux.
I agree. I'm seriously considering moving to Linux too. I strongly despise the direction windows is going. Windows was perfect when Windows 7 was the main version. Then they just had to try to "innovate" on perfection. W10 and W11 SUCKS!
It's never been easier to do so. Some good starting distros would be Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora. With Gnome extensions you can pretty much simulate the windows 7 experience.
@@SonataNumber8 Rather than Ubuntu I prefer Pop!OS. It's a lot like Ubuntu, but without Snap package manager. My first experience with Ubuntu was trying to get the Snap version of Docker running, and that soured me in the entire thing.
Windows 3 came out in 1990... I can't believe you were using it until months ago!
I got on Nobara Linux about two years ago and have never looked back. Its incredible how good these operating systems have gotten
I'm so glad to see someone actually put in an earnest effort to move away from Adobe. So many people hear photoshop doesn't work and refuse to try it, which is airways a shame. Yes, the replacements aren't completely perfect, but they do what 99% of people will ever need.
Which is baffling to me because gimp is more than satisfactory for the vast majority of users.
In in the process of moving over to linux. I jumped in the deep end with a minimal install of debian, and its been both a rewarding and at times irritating experience. I highly recommend mint to anyone who is looking to dip in their toes. But, i hope that going the debian route forces me into becoming literate in the software before fully switching
I am always interested in the newbie experience. I know that I had issues a long time ago, but for many years now, Debian has been smooth for me. (I even ran it on a Mac.)
Keep on going! I did the transition years ago and I've found Linux rewarding. I highly recommend trying out the FreedomBox project if you want pre-canned working templates of FLOSS software stacks like Apache / Mediawiki (documentation) / WordPress (blog) / Element (VOIP) to learn from. Having a clearly useful goal to work towards helps immensely in motivating your daily learning.
I switched to linux because I wanted control of my computer. A ton of ubuntu and its derivatives are taking away that control with snap; e.g, i cant install the deb of firefox without jumping through a ton of hoops. So Debian has been the best option for me, its upstream of ubuntu anyways... Plus its super stable, and just works. I was running Kubuntu (KDE DE + Ubunutu) for its DE customization, but switching to Debian 12 with Gnome was the best choice. KDE just doesnt perform well on my laptop. Plus I've never had a nvidia driver issue with debian.
Debian, in my case, was the best choice linux distro and I'm glad to see other folks here using, or planning on using it! Its not so hard, installation was super easy! Just follow the workflow on the installation guide!
as a gamer this year I've been looking back and forth between Windows 10 getting an expiry date (September or something next year will no longer automatically receive security updates), and the growing bullshit being added to Windows 11 instead of actually fixing the OS... and been wondering if it may be getting to the time to jump ship off Windows entirely. (not to mention Windows 11 costing about $250-$300 AUD)
Presuming your CPU is compatible with windows 11
@@BlindiRL which it isn't. been trying to get that sorted buuuuut life keeps saying FU.
Where are you getting these prices, Windows 11 costs 15 - 20$ here
(I am here because I'm genuinely interested in switching to Linux, I'm scared of Win starting up in the middle of the night and demanding an update every other week, I tried everything to force it to NOT update, but the fact that my computer can start on its own while I sleep freaks me out)
@@alexandrachernysh7 a license for windows 11 pro is $199 usd if you buy grey market then you can skip that but run the risk of getting keys rejected. Its happened to me a few times in the past with windows 7 and 10 where I had to rebuy windows because it was unverified by a grey market sale.
@@alexandrachernysh7 that's off the shelf cost for a new copy and license here in Australia.
It feels so nice to idle at like 600mb and fully boot up in 15 seconds. I use arch btw (but I don't recommend it as your first distro)
My almost bare arch boots slower than windows 11 on my system
My mint install idles at less than a gig and boots in 8-10 seconds.
@@ruadeil_zabelindo you have fast start enabled on your motherboard and Windows? That "feature" actually slows down Linux boot times
@@ultimate9056 No i don't, because it screws with being able to enter the bios easily on mine.
Yeah, never do arch first. You must feel the pain of building the latest version of your software from source if you want it to be the latest version. Then you go arch on your first install and endeavour os on all the following
Hey blind, check if your package manager has a package called "tldr", it is basically the "man" command but it shows only the most important stuff like use flags
Welcome to the penguin brother! Glad to see more people giving the OS a fair shot.
Switched to linux back in spring and its been great. Only wayland weirdness keeps me down. Life's good free from microsoft! Edit: Arch btw
Thumbs up for using Mint! I installed Mint on a laptop to test it out as well and it’s been working great. I’m getting ready to ditch Windows for good soon.
Thanks for the update. Glad to hear your experience with it has been great. Time to show Microsoft that we don’t need windows anymore.
For the Algorithm!
Welcome brother! I've been on a Linux desktop since the mid-90s and I have no regrets.
It is so impressive how much Gaming on Linux has grown the last couple of years... So far all of my favorite games run like it would be on Windows. Thank you for sharing your experience!
That's great, I'm glad you are having fun with linux! I used Mint for 3 months and It was so much more nice than windows. I did switch back to windows though but that's because I was having some major crashing issues that were caused by a bad GPU and since Parsec doesn't yet support hosting on linux it was kind of hard to use reliably.
The GPU has been replaced, now I'm just waiting for Parsec to get their asses in gear and add hosting support to linux so I can remote into my computer from anywhere in the world. I can't wait to get back to using Linux again.
Welcome to the light side
The walkthrough of how you made the OS jump is really helpful in making the process of switching seem less intimidating, so thank you, Blind.
I'm thinking increasingly about jumping to linux when I finally run my current laptop into the ground. Every new 'ai' centered headline I see in general takes ten years off my will to exist but the windows news in specific is driving me up the wall faster than working in customer service.
The main thing holding me back for the moment is compatibility with my main art software, clip studio. I think as time passes its more and more likely that there will be easier workarounds to get it up on linux. Or maybe csp will pull another stupid business move and it'll be time to jump to a different art program again! Who knows these days!! :D
My 1st contact with Linux was on the Steam Deck, and I gotta say that it's surprisingly fine for almost everything I do, and then most of the things with which it is not totally fine you'd have to tinker around, fix it, and then it works forever. The only issue I had was some multiplayer games. I don't generally use Steam Deck for those, but that's kind of my only real problem with Linux. That being said, I'm switching when Windows 10 dies.
my starting point was debian and i had basically no idea about anything, i even struggled with the live usb. the reason i switched was because i thought that i could simply reinstall windows since i paid 60 bucks, owned the install cd as well as the codes. didnt work, crapped the bed, and i havent looked back (and dont plan to ever spend money on microsoft again)
Thank you for doing this video. It was quite helpful and when I update my old computer I’ll probably switch the os.
I switched last year to Fedora for my laptop. It's been great for the most part. Firefox, single player games, VLC, running well and I'm happy. Unfortunately I still need a Windows work computer.
Seriously considering this... thanks for the update on your journey!
Great job switching over! I use Arch for the granularity you can set up your system with. Fun fact, all Linux distros are just a bunch of open source projects in a trench coat. You and I pretty much have the same experience because we both use Gnome desktop, I just use a different package manager and encrypted my hard drives with luks2 encryption. If you use Mint for a while, switching over to a different distro will be easier and easier because you'll pretty much run into the same problems across most distros.
You forgot the 'btw'
Arch seems cool. But if I will get into a hard distro, I don't see the point of not getting into either Gentoo or Nix. Nix because I can rebuild my system without any problems and Gentoo because it will perform better. I do a lot of number crushing in all my machines, so compiling everything from source with CPU specific instructions would probably be beneficial.
I think you may have just finally convinced me to move over too after considering it for a year or so. Thanks!
The only thing that's been holding me back is gaming... With the new push to upgrade to 11 and this video.., I feel the timing here couldn't be better! -Thanks!
Seriously not a fan of the direction Win10 took and Win11 is looking even worse. I've got an old laptop I might try this on to test.
The most perfect part of Linux ecosystem is transparency. If something goes wrong, user have all options to detect and solve an issue: every logs, documentation and community help. In Windows you need to throw a dice to guess what’s could happen and blindly download fixers hoping that it’s not a virus.
BTW: I recommend to read the Arch Wiki if some problem happens with user-level packages or drivers. Even if it’s a different distro, it usually has a lot of useful info, because packages are mostly common.
I've heard that even graphically intensive VR games work acceptably well on Linux now. Even though I run Linux, I haven't tried yet because my GPU is old. Will give it a shot after upgrading my hardware.
I don't have Windows 11, and I'm probably going to uninstall Windows 10 off most of my devices next summer when I finish college. Need dual boot to run certain Windows specific programs.
You should find someone who would help you to setup a VM with Windows for those specific programs. Should do that myself probably, even just for another Linux box in VM that I just can nuke and don't worry about each time after installing some poo-poo software like discord and so on.
You can run Windows 10 in a VM.
Thanks for this video. I've been considering the switch for a little bit now and this has pushed me over the ledge. Down with MS bloatware!
Thanks for this! Not ready to make the switch quite yet but down the road I assume I will.
Super happy to have you in the GNU Linux club dude! Glad you’re no longer constrained by Microsoft walls, let alone Windows.
Edit: Btw, Manjaro is my daily driver.
glad you stuck with it!
I did the same back around June '24. I swtiched to Mint and then to Garuda because I wanted more cutting edge drivers. I am extremely pleased with my current daily driver running KDE Plasma 6 DE. I do operate and administer Linux servers professionally and while the desktop environment is very different from a server, there's a good bit of crossover with the skillset. I would recommend Mint to anyone who wants to switch from Windows (the community is very supportive) and I'd also recommend Garuda if you want a more gaming-focused distro running more recent drivers especially if you are running cutting edge hardware, install on both was straightforward and my machine runs more reliably with less bloat.
Welcome to Linux. I have been using Linux for around 17 years now. It has improved a lot, and the drastic difference with Windows has only increased. All my games work perfectly with no issues. It's good to see many more people using Linux
I've been watching you for a bit and noticed, that your old videos don't have the standard windows cursor. A part of me was hoping, that you made the switch and I was right! I'm incredibly happy with this video showing the average user experience in detail as it may get some people, who are on edge about switching to finally make the switch. I use Arch btw
i would recommend fedora gnome for your laptop, the touchpad gestures are very good. i even bought a magic trackpad for my desktop its so nice.
As a Fedore KDE user I say I have the better version of Fedora :)
I’ve been on nobara since the beginning of the year and it’s been a delight as someone who basically just uses my home pc for gaming, if you want to try out something with a rolling release I’d recommend either checking that or some flavor of fedora out :3
I stopped using Windows 2 months ago, now only using it for VR compatibility. Pretty much for the same reason you did, resource consumption was so high on my laptop that the fans were going like a jet engine while I sat idling on the desktop. And this was after I’d done a full wipe of my hard drive.
Started with Arch btw, then realised I was in way over my head (bluetooth driver straight up died) and went for a Linux Mint install.
Honestly I heard that compatibility for games had improved drastically but I was still surprised to see that I could install and run UT99 from CD. Compatibility has really come a long way. And seeing as this is the longest I’ve ever daily driven linux, I think I’m here to stay.
Edit: Btw I had to update my Nvidia drivers through the driver manager, the updates never seemed to appear in the update manager which threw me off a bit.
I am kind of in a moment of being absolute passionate about my job, so it is pretty rare for me to switch to windows. I also sometimes let calculations running overnight and Linux doesn't act up. It doesn't reboot when I don't want it to. It only updates when I tell it to do so. It just works better if you're in Comoutational Chemistry/Physics. Also, it can be kept on indefinitely. I had to reboot Windows sometimes, but linux is so incredible stable. I use Fedora btw, that aims to be an intermediary between rolling release (Arch) and stable (Mint/Ubuntu). I also installed it in my lab's workstation and it works flawless. Also, as I don't have much ram at the moment, I can literally just kill gnome. The system works totally fine without a graphical enviroment. Also, remote access can be setup easily.
One of us, one of us.
I switched to arch last month and it's been great.
I have access to the entire computer, any file I want to delete I can, if I wanted to be diabolical I can "sudo rm -rf /" and delete the entire system. There's no forced installed software like edge or one drive.
Freedom over my computer is really one of the big reasons I switched and over the years I just got sick of using an operating system that didn't respect that at all.
I'm glad I made the switch and I don't see myself going back to windows.
I am deeply a fan of Mint. I use it daily, and probably won't ever switch away from it. That said, I am slowly aggregating computer pieces to put together a testbed computer for a bunch of other distros, so I can learn more about what is out there, and how Linux works as a whole.
Recently switched to POP!_OS and despite some minor hiccups getting some games to run or games not running quite as well (but that probably has more to do with the age of my hardware), I've really been enjoying it. Personally what surprised me, was how little space the OS uses on the hard drive compared to windows, since it basically comes with minimal extra software.
Started about a year ago fully swapped over, initially Manjaro which is Arch based, then to Endevour OS ,also arch, then tried Nobara for something different, being Fedora based. Having settled with my love of the AUR and Arch in general I've swapped back and forth between just straight Arch itself and Cachy OS which is what I currently run, much like you said if you play single player games or games that don't have overly aggressive anti cheat then everything has been pretty flawless!
Windows 10 as the last actually usable version makes sense, it's got an official year or so left. After that there are piles of perfectly usable PCs practically forced to use Linux unless W12 starts moving into a totally different direction.
man you got me thinking since you cant get earlier versions of win so i am stuck with the garbage they called win11
Yes, I do indeed use Arch, btw.
It's good fun, and the need to build my system from *almost* the ground up has actually created something that I don't think I could ever move away from. If I ever swap distros, I'm just going to end up configuring it exactly like my current setup even to the point of moving to KDE Plasma if I need to.
I know you've voiced snarky comments about Arch users at least once on stream (and I get it) but do try arch on a boot drive sometime. It has its own prepackaged versions like EndeavourOS, Manjaro, etc., but Arch is finicky enough that these could actually cause more problems than blindly diving into Arch with the install guide (or ArchInstall). I doubt you'd like it enough to switch, but if you like feeling cool on terminal, Arch is the perfect place for it.
Welcome to the club! I’ve been using Linux for ages, and have been using it as my primary desktop for 14 years or so. Just plain Ubuntu, it just works. If I have an itch to try some other distribution I just grab some random hardware and check it out. Steam is a godsend and I have no problems playing the games that I want, most of them run fine or even better than on Windows.
Good to hear that. Although Cinnamon is the default window manager (UI) on Mint, not Gnome. While you could install Gnome on mint, most people coming from windows will want to avoid it to start with, it has a much more Mac OS approach. Let's just say that is is very opinionated about how your workflow should be, unlike Cinnamon etc. Cinnamon is good and XFCE (another Mint default window manager) is quite windows like although you'll need to change some settings to make it look less 1997.
On linux here. For years more or less.
Not a big gamer, but the few games I played (or I play now) are just native. Minecraft in the past, DF now (and Minecraft for my son).
Been through a lot of distros. with the time, they are all the same, so not a big deal. Except very exotic stuff like NixOS, wich I use, btw (Arch is for n00bs).
Glad you enjoy your experience. I am sure that a large majority of windows users would feel the same if they take the step.
"Age of linux desktop"... I mean, I wish the world feels the same... Future will tell us.
Until then... Strike the keyboard ! :)
Great decision! Especially with the amazing work being done to get practically any windows game and application run on linux smoothly, there is no good reason to give all your data to MS. On linux you always have choices, which data to share, what data to give away, which apps to use, which programs to spend money on. And the choice of how your desktop and environment shall look like. In the end all we care about is: does it run Dwarf Fortress? In fact it does.
Very nice making the shift to Linux. It something I am only partially doing myself. It just depends on the things I need at the time. Also thanks for showing me to the video editing software, been using a well out of date program that I paid for. I didn't want to "rent" the most recent version.
Hmm... this is a moment of genuine, "I think you can make it work." The multiple rtmp plugin still does work with a fully up to date obs, at least I still use it. When I asked on your stream when you bought it up, I was literally thinking of that plugin. Is this a case of it not working (for some reason) on your install or linux in general?
I dual boot between Windows and Linux, well, up until a few months ago. For Linux I was using Arch up until and update rendered the OS unable to load the desktop environment. Grub and the login screen worked great, but once I typed in my password to go into the DE I was presented with a black screen. So, now I just boot into Windows. This holiday season when I have some spare time I plan on re-imaging both OS and starting fresh. I install both OS on their own physical drive so Windows doesn’t blow up the boot process.
Congrats on switching over to Linux! I'm glad it's working out for you. It has been a fun and liberating experience for me and has only improved how I use my computer. I use Debian with the I3 window manager, pretty simple, works fine, just how I like it. There are also graphical task managers out for those who are scared of the terminal ones. Given you are a Dwarf Fortress player, learning some keybinds to use it probably wasn't a big endeavor (Although I've never used glances specifically).
I tried switching to linux many years ago, but I'm not super proficient with computer and I got overwhelmed and stumped, and switched back. I've always wabted to have a linux computer though, and it seems like with Mint and the user friendliness of it, I might give it another shot soon!. I'm so tired of windows and macOS can shove it too (mac is my work computer)
If you like new cutting edge stuff, rolling release distros can be better than stable distros. But not always of course
only reason Windows hasn't been completely replaced by any experienced users is the games tbh.
Windows has screwed themselves by forcing lots of crap into their OS by each iteration.
I have a laptop that I upgraded to Windows 11 about a year ago and the experience made me seriously consider switching to Linux. Maybe I'll move that laptop over and see how it goes.
Been using Ubuntu as my daily driver since 2015, and it has been my sole OS on disk since 2020. Very little regret.
Congratulations! I dumped both Windows(7) and Mac 2017. I did not like the way either of them was going.
I was prepared and had tested a number of distros beforehand. During the years I have used a number of distributions of Linux.
But I have settled on MX-Linux (with KDE or XFCE desktop) and TuxedoOS (laptops). Both are rock solid stable and so well working
they have become boring (a good thing). Never going back. Never had to sacrifice much at all. Basically flowers and sunshine....
I use NixOS, never leaving that operating system paradigm. I recommend you try in on your laptop if you want try something very different.
I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I do use arch. I originally tried manjaro, but that crashed and died. Then I moved to arch and i haven't looked back. It took a bit of a learning curve but it's been great.
Glad I can play dark and darker via steam on Linux
Do right now yourself a favor: start using /usr/local directory, put actuall confings that you need from /etc into /usr/local/etc and just symlink them. It would be much easier to backup stuff that you tinkered with and just nuke the whole system by moving /usr/local to root, rm -rf /usr/, /var/ and /etc/, reinstalling arch as in first time and putting everything back where it was. No need for second disks just to format the existing one or some stupid stuff like that.
One day maybe.
The instructions for installing OBS on ANY Ubuntu based distro 22.04 or newer is through terminal and are written plainly on the OBS download page. The worst thing to happen to Linux imo is snaps and flatpaks. Especially for newer users.
I use EndeavourOS (which is a more user friendly I use Arch btw) and have been using some fork of arch since 2015 ish. Not a power user but not a fair bit of experience now. The only major issue I've ever had was Wayland with an Nvidia card, because... Nvidia does not care in the slightest about open sourcing anything. Anticheat is a bit of a pain even, though Valve has done miracles to get the less invasive ones functional out of the box (if the devs enable it) which hopefully will become less and less of an issue as Steam deck adoption increases and people grow wearier of hella invasive software within their computer.
Now I must also make the nitpick that "uhm actually" DF classic has always been natively compatible with Linux but the steam release didn't originally.
I switched to Linux Mint as well. Even got VR working on it
But I still have Windows for dual boot because some games and stuff I use is not compatible with Linux.
I have to ask--how did you get VR to work with it? One of the main reasons I haven't switched.
@@MarvelousLXVII I use the Pico 4 with ALVR
it is a bit of a hassle to set up (lots of google search with "try and error") but I got it working
I think I had to manually install an Nvidia driver from their website as well... 1660 super
@@MarvelousLXVII vr doesn't work smoothly on linux the difference is huge if you compare it to windows. sadly i wouldn't even try for now.
@@MarvelousLXVII
Pico 4 with ALVR took some tinkering and manual driver update
@@luca4870for me it works without any issues, no idea what you are doing wrong...
Linux is the best! I use Linux Mint, and although I’ve tried several other distributions, Mint is the one that always works best for my tasks. For managing Flatpaks, I use Flatseal, which allows me to control everything the programs have access to, like directories and other permissions. I also use DistroBox, which lets me run any Linux distribution inside Mint. If software runs on another Linux distro, it will run here as well.
I installed Ubuntu a couple of months ago (yeah I know conservative AF) on my notebook HDD since I didn't want to partition my ssd as it was my first time installing it and wanted to be safe just in case. And the sense of freshness could be a factor but wow it runs *so* smooth and also not the hurdle I'd imagined. I plan eventually to transition my desktop into linux as well to play games with a small partition with windows just for those pesky game but overall I'm extremely satisfied
Thanks Blind!
I switched to mint after Fallout 4 somehow killed my windows 11 install
100% wonderful, NO ADS, works the same, only 2 major issues I ran into:
Working with multiple hard drives is weird at the start because they dont just work, you have to mount them
Also, make sure secure boot is disabled in BIOS. I was confused why no games were running, and why only 1 monitor was displaying
It was because with Secure Boot enabled I coudnt update any drivers, including NVIDIA so my games were just running raw off my cpu
Its free!! It works great!! Wish I switched sooner
I use mint. The occasional flatpack frustration is worth it for not experiencing the glacial pace that a few years old windows install takes to make itself usable from boot. Did you look into using blender for video editing?
This is reassuring, but I think that I’ll stay as a filthy Windows casual for the time being.
The big moment will be if computer systems ship with Linux OS fully installed and good to go.
It still seems to be an enthusiastic-level thing, for those with the time to dedicate to it.
On the same boat! Been using it for years, and for first graders and grandmas alike, you cannot go wrong with mint. I have some Manjaro and Endeavour in the mix too, but Mint is still the best for me.
One thing though: aren't you using the Cinnamon Desktop here, or did you tweak gnome so much that it looks like cinnamon?
Have a good time!
I am using cinnamon, gnome terminal. That was a error in my script on this one.
My experience with ubuntu 10 years ago was horrible. Along with its forums which I got banned from because i asked if they could stop editing my posts every 5 minutes instead of helping me.
I also disgust where windows 11 is going but thinking about moving to linux is equally anxiety inducing to me and my OCD so im kinda stuck on win 10. I also have a barely used surface pro that cant run 11 and windows tells me to "turn it inn for measly 20$" im worried what I will end up doing...
Things have changed a lot in ten years. Mint, pop and a lot of other distros just run directly off a USB so you can mess around without actually installing anything.
I hope more people make the smart decision like you did.
I use debian, with Mate Desktop Environment, it's absolutely rock stable, looks and finctions like windows 98, and for me that's not a bad thing, an os that mostly stays out if the way, and let's you run things...
I've been full time Linux gaming for 2 years and I think there's 2 or 3 games I would like to play but can't. League of Legends and Minecraft (bedrock) have been on and off in terms of compatibility. But I don't forsee going back to Windows any time soon.
I use Arch BTW
idk what is flatpak, I use Arch, btw
Since i got the steam deck I considered using it as a working computer, couldn't get adobe working on it so I managed to install windows on it instead, but hope adobe will be available in linux in the future. On the obs issue, theres a steam version of obs that works pretty well for me at least, maybe is something to look into
Quick correction: the desktop environment you're using on mint is called cinnamon, not gnome (although it's based on gnome). Cinnamon is very much made to resemble windows, gnome isn't. Also, there is a task manager equivalent, it's system monitor and you can set up a shortcut for it in "Keyboard" (the shortcut should point to "gnome-system-monitor") that way you can press ctrl+alt+del and have the same experience you would on windows)
Linux is a terrible experience as you've already seen, you have to tinker with everything all the time and you can't really be a gamer on that OS. That being said if you use the same handful of softwares and games once it's all set up there's no real problem (jk updates will break stuff)
Congrats on the transition
the transcript of this video is EXACTLY why linux isn't able to replace windows (sadly)
The only reason Windows has more software that "just works" is because it has more users to report platform specific issues. Many software corporations prefer you use windows because they maintain more control over you the user, and can squeeze more money out of you (look at Adobe). In the alternate timeline where Linux got the first accessible GUI the majority of software would be developed for Linux first, and it may even be the magical "everything is UNIX" timeline.
I finally lost my shit with windows about 10 years ago (I guess i have a lower tolerance for corporate bullshit that most!), I've been messing with linux since the 90s but i'm certainly no expert (and i have an amazing ability to forget console commands nearly as quickly as i can type them!). but I'll never go back, nearly everything just works, and if it doesn't, I don't want it!
Once you go Gnome you never go home!
ruclips.net/video/LzG-qji05Lc/видео.html
I avoid apt based systems (I constantly break them, my fault). If you get annoyed with mint, maybe give arch/endeavour a try.
Linux FTW, I use Ubuntu everyday for work. Windows just for games
I wish I had the mental power to move to linux
Tbh if most of what i use wasn't windows only i will be back to linux instantly
What do you do in terms of security? Does it have an equivalent of windows defender?
Prob a good choice
Honestly I'm kinda shocked you were using windows to begin with. You always seemed like a Linux guy.
lazy mostly
Fedora, for over a decade now. And before that Gentoo, LFS, Debian and SuSE Linux (when they were still their own company). Same for work computers. Fedora, if it's my choice. Didn't work on Windows for more than a decade and won't ever again.
I want to switch to linux again however my art program of choice, clip studio, doesnt have a native linux version, meaning I would have to run it through compatibility layers and looking at other people who have tried with my software... doesnt look good. So I am stuck on w10 for the time being, or until I try a new piece of art software.