I was using Windows for a long time, from 95, XP, 7 and 10. Games just worked out fine, software that I needed I pirated. But I was annoyed from updates, (cannot turn off MY pc, just update and turn off option) bing, fokin bing and oh the best - F1 binded to it.

On parent’s pc is 7 still installed lol, not gonna change soon, anyway, my old laptop(server since 2017) wasn’t working properly with win, so only option to save it was Linux. Ubuntu was my choice in few years back, That was the moment I discovered open source software (head exploding image).

Recently i switched my main computer into PopOs, since I worked on it I was ,scared, to do it, because of some windows specific software. (I’m still able to boot into win, I kept it for some programs that I need once per year).

But I will never go back to windows as a main. First month was little bit stressful, configuring things and getting used to new workflows, but it is just a pleasure to use. No annoying popups, no preinstalled spyware, no stress related to running unknown .exe files, no bing. I just went from small dark closed box to a nice huge green open(source) forest…

Everything just works. If not, I still can fix it (mostly). I’ve got better with security, I understand more how things works generally. I found my peace in getting to know more how things works, not just guessing what it can do and never actually find out.

So if there is some one that is disgusted with how windows pc works, and is still using it, just switch it for Linux. Just do it, it will bring joy into using your machine as you need to and want to.

Just wanted to say this…

…and share the software, you’ll be free… https://youtu.be/9sJUDx7iEJw

  • Dandroid
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    222 years ago

    One of us! One of us! Which distro did you go with, and how has the driver functionality been? Is this for a laptop or a desktop?

    • @[email protected]OP
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      152 years ago

      Main is Pop_Os and server is now Mint. With ryzen PC setup it´s great. Laptop is old i5, didn’t have a problem.

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        I’m thinking about making the switch soon, can you tell me why you went pop_OS instead of mint?

        I’m getting overwhelmed with options and just want to know why you went with one over the other

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          Not OP, but I’m building a new PC that will run Pop too. Main reason is that it’s very different from a UI perspective than Windows. Which I’m so sick of. I actually like MacOS but hate Apple’s hardware prices. So Linux it is and Pop seems like it’s stable and designed well. I may have to run a Win VM to use Fusion360, but I’d like to try FreeCAD first though. I’m designing for 3d printing so nothing crazy complicated.

  • Dave
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    59
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    2 years ago

    It’s interesting how far Linux desktop has progressed recently… I don’t hate Windows, in fact I think it’s a great OS for most purposes. But I happened to try Linux Mint a few years ago in a fit of pique about being excluded from the Win11 upgrade for spurious reasons… and it just kind of stuck.

    Two years later and I am full on Linux now. Don’t even have a Windows partition (though I do keep a VM). And I’m about to buy a new laptop that I intend to buy without an OS, it will never be touched by Windows, there’s just no need.

    For my purposes, Linux does everything now. OS, software, the games I want to play… I never even think about it. Also, everywhere I look, I see Linux - my Steamdeck, my MiSTer, my Pis, my Miyoo Mini. It’s everywhere…

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      I didnt hate Windows until 10/11. I hate the design aesthetic they’ve taken with it, and I hate the walled garden approach they are slowly moving the OS towards, and the ridiculous overbearing nature of the telemetry data gathering.

      I still will argue any day that Windows 7 is the best OS ever made, It had the best balance of usability, stability, and performance, and I would still be using it today if it wasnt for being EoL’d. first OS I got at launch, and installed Day 1.

      But I’m on linux now, and on Linux I’m staying.

    • @[email protected]
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      162 years ago

      Your not missing much with window 11. It’s like moving from a toxic relationship to an abusive one. Your constantly second guessing yourself on what your still allowed to do on it while you question if you actually own the os you spent $200 on.

      • Dave
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        62 years ago

        I use it for work. Other than having to think for a second to find weirdly hidden menu items, it’s fine. At least for my purposes, as a .NET dev. One thing I love about it is Windows Sandbox… really wish Linux would could up something similar.

    • Sparrow
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      132 years ago

      I switched five years ago or so, but the last two years have been great. Almost all of the little annoyances I had disappeared in that time.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        The past two years is mostly learning not to brute force the windows or macos way on Linux. I had the benefit of moving from windows to Mac os and back to windows.

        Your not married to any software after the first time you switch OSes and open source is very good at existing everywhere there isn’t a fee to operate.

      • Dave
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        82 years ago

        Yeah, it’s weird. I’d been trying it on and off since 1997, and always bounced off because of some annoyance or other. Now… nothing. It’s very low friction.

        • Dablin
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          42 years ago

          I had a similar experience. Tried Linux off and on since the early 2000s but never really got proper hardware support and kept giving up on it; only to try again some time later. Then around 2013 things just started to work and I got a usable experience overall. Though saying that Linux Mandrake did get pretty close at an earlier stage, I believe the accelerated graphics card was the only thing not working at the time (approx 2006-2008).

  • @[email protected]
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    972 years ago

    I just went from small dark closed box to a nice huge green open(source) forest…

    best. sentence. ever.

    enjoy your new found freedom to explore and learn, friend.

  • jimmydoreisalefty
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    102 years ago

    Great to hear!

    Now that you have a couple of days since the switch what are you missing or not missing aside from what you pointed out? Any little things that stick out?

    • @[email protected]OP
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      92 years ago

      Missing? Nothing. Few things were easier to run on win, some wizards helped me along the way but otherwise, I don’t think I was happier to use a computer. It’s 3-4 months since I switched main and only one time booted into win for my bookmarks and passwords

  • @[email protected]
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    52 years ago

    I just did this also with my laptop after getting a bigger SSD and dual booting it. The only thing I am missing is fingerprint support, but even with windows it was extremely spotty. I had went through the trouble of adding another finger as a backup and still had over a 50% failure rate when trying to unlock my computer so I haven’t missed it.

  • @[email protected]
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    162 years ago

    I made the switch recently as well. I was really unsure of how the whole thing would turn out with me having used Windows for the last 20 years +, but man, it was way easier than I thought.

    I went with EndeavourOS on my desktop and Pop!OS on my laptop (for easy igpu/dedicated gpu switching) and I haven’t missed Windows since. What’s the most difficult is learning the new keyboard shortcuts, but even those you could rebind in Linux. Because you can customize the OS to however YOU work best, instead of having to conform to whatever the OS thinks is best for you.

    And man, package managers, am I right? How cool are they…I tried to use chocolatey and winget on Win11 but they never felt quite right, but pacman and yay? Absolutely glorious. I love typing yay into the terminal every couple of days and watching it go, keeping my system up to date.

    • dditty
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      22 years ago

      This is exactly my setup as well - endeavourOS on the desktop, Pop_Os! on the gaming laptop, both dual-booted with Windows (for now). I’m not doing much PC gaming recently anyway but that’s why I kept the windows 10 installs for now - but haven’t used either in more than a month.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        I actually do most of my gaming on Linux. No problems thus far. I’ve only got Win11 on my PC to play VR.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 years ago

      Hey, you know the keyboard shortcut for endeavor that does the same thing as the Win+X for Windows? That’s always how I shut down our restart my windows PC. I installed endeavor on my Lenovo duet 3 that came preinstalled with win 11 and that is one of the few things I’m missing. Snip with shift+win+s, and the clipboard history would be the others.

      I’m debating if I want to dual boot endeavor on my main PC, but I’m not sure about it because my nvme is pretty small. I also networked my kids computer and my garage computer for file shares and I’m not quite sure how well using those windows PCs to get files off a Linux system would work. Thoughts?

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        That depends on your desktop manager. I am using GNOME and I’m using its custom shortcut feature as well. If you’re also using GNOME you can just go into Settings -> Keyboard -> View and Customise Shortcuts -> Custom Shortcuts to add keyboard shortcuts. I added Shift+Win+S to take screenshots with Flameshot for example. But you can add pretty much anything there.

        File sharing from Linux to Windows is extremely easy. Samba (Linux implementation of smb) is very easy to implement. From what I remember you just have to install samba and then add new network shares in /etc/samba/smb.conf.

        In terms of disk space you’ll have to put some thought into if you really want to dual boot. If disk space is sparse it’s going to be tough. EndeavourOS is pretty lightweight but if you want to daily drive it it’s still going to take up a considerable amount of space. The biggest problem with one disk drive is usually creating partitions. With Windows already installed your UEFI partition is likely too small to contain both Win and Linux boot data. And when you install Linux as a new partition on your existing drive you will simultaneously hamper your ability to change the existing partition sizes. I would advise to get a new (even if small) SSD for Linux to get around any partition related problems.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          Hmm… That’s a good answer, thanks for taking the time! I currently have about 130gb free on my boot drive, and I keep all my data on a separate 4tb drive. Dual booting on the same nvme could possibly be an issue though.

          Thanks much!

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            If you have any more questions don’t hesitate to write me a PM or otherwise reach out. I might be able to help. As for your free disk space I think you’ll have a hard time making it all work with just 130GB of free disk space. Not because EndeavourOS can’t work with 130GB but because as soon as you set the partitions it’s extremely hard to change your partition size for Windows and Linux because of the way these partitions sit on your physicial drive.

            Your 4tb drive should be less of an issue. I don’t have a lot of knowledge as to how Linux works with NTFS but as far as I know Linux is way better at working with Windows file systems as Windows is with working with Linux file systems.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 years ago

      is Zion acceptable? I’m running it in a VM on my unraid server. passing through my graphics card and mouse and everything to the Zion VM. so far it has worked better out of the box than anything else I’ve tried. so I kind of assumed that it was for losers because it works too well lol

  • StarServal
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    62 years ago

    I want to switch, but every flavor I’ve tried so far has not been compatible with my twin graphic cards.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 years ago

      No promises but arch Linux is pretty much a swiss army knife for stuff like this. I just use it because I can get it running on anything and set it up anyway I want.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            … and with high probability you will make it subpar to one maden by industry.

            Don’t get me wrong, Linux sure is entertaining and powerful, but it demands you to be very very experienced with it to gain considerable profit over using proprietary stuff.

            • @[email protected]
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              52 years ago

              I’m beginning to think you’ve never used Linux or you have only dabbled with it a little in the past. I almost wonder if you’ve even used arch properly setup with kde or gnome or even booted up arch before.

              Either way, it’s hard to have a debate with someone who is either arguing a point without understanding the other side or has very outdated information about a subject and is disinterested in discussion. I don’t judge if you prefer windows or Mac os or whatever. I don’t think this conversation is going to go anywhere and I don’t care to waste energy on it.

              • @[email protected]
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                22 years ago

                Either way, it’s hard to have a debate with someone who is either arguing a point without understanding the other side

                It’s true.

  • DarkenLM
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    42 years ago

    The only thing currently stopping me from using *nix as my main OS is the fact that my wireless card does not work with linux distros, and the graphics driver sometimes decides to commit Seppuku.

      • DarkenLM
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        12 years ago

        It’s a Realtek, don’t remember the exact model, but every time I tried to make it work, it simply didn’t. Manually installing the driver didn’t get me much further either.

  • SeducingCamel [he/him]
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    142 years ago

    Hell yeah I just installed mint on my PC. Gonna dual boot for now as I transition but god windows just keeps getting worse