Skip Navigation

Windows is hell, i need to do something

Yo linux team, i would love some advice.

I’m pretty mad at windows, 11 keeps getting worse and worse and I pretty done with Bill’s fetishes about bing and ai. Who knows where’s cortana right now…

Anyway, I heard about this new company called Linux and I’m open to try new stuff. I’m a simple guy and just need some basic stuff:

  • graphic stuff: affinity, canva, corel, gimp etc.. (no adobe anymore, please don’t ask.)
  • 3d modelling and render: blender, rhino, cinema, keyshot
  • video editing: davinci
  • some little coding in Dart/flutter (i use VS code, I don’t know if this is good or bad)
  • a working file explorer (can’t believe i have to say this)
  • NO FUCKIN ADS
  • NO MF STUPID ASS DISGUSTING ADVERTISING

The tricky part is the laptop, a zenbook duo pro (i9-10/rtx2060), with double touch screens.

I tried ubuntu several years ago but since it wasn’t ready for my use i never went into different distros and their differences. Now unfortunately, ready or not, I need to switch.

Edit: the linux-company thing is just for triggering people, sorry I didn’t know it was this effective.

266 comments
  • Linux is not a company lol I hope that was a joke. Also Linux is not new.

    Now to the software: it will likely run everywhere. Davinci resolve is a bit picky but also fine.

    You have quite some Windows-only software. Check https://alternative-to.net or try running it through WINE with Bottles

    To the Distro: this is complex. Many people will recommend Linux Mint and it is easy to use but very restricted. I dont think it is great really.

    There are many many parallel efforts, so on Linux Distributions (Linux + packages + desktop + ...) you can get very different software.

    For a painfree experience running Windows software and Davinci Resolve I recommend to try Bazzite

    It is very different from others:

    • it updates automatically in the background. But completely different from Windows. Updates always work and are efficient and stable. No 10 times rebooting
    • updates finish and you can reboot any time to apply it. Literally a week later, nobody cares
    • the reboot takes just as long as any other reboot, no downtime

    The system is way better and more stable than "traditional" ones. This is quite complex but lets say while on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora etc. you will have an indivudual system, with individual packages and in the end some strange errors only happening on your setup, with Bazzite you will have exactly 1:1 the system that the developers create.

    It is based on Fedora Atomic Desktops which are pretty great. But for your use case I dont recommend them.

    I recommend the Bazzite Desktop version with the KDE Plasma desktop. This will be Windows-like in a very good way, but incredibly more efficient, faster and also more powerful. Like a Filemanager with tabs and extensions, that is not written in whatever bloat Microsoft uses (their Win11 stuff is so slow...).


    To sum it up, on Linux you have to decide:

    What Desktop environment?

    • I recommend KDE Plasma a lot
    • GNOME is also good but veery opinionated and minimalist
    • I dont recommend others like Linux Mint's Cinnamon yet, as they dont support modern standards (Wayland)

    What Distribution family?

    • Debian, Fedora, Arch, OpenSUSE
    • they are all a bit different but basically doing the same
    • Ubuntu stems from Debian and became popular as "the beginner Linux" but they do very controversial stuff nobody else does (like the Snap store) and have tons of bugs. I used it a lot with bad experiences and dont recommend.
    • Linux Mint and others also use Ubuntu or Debian under the hood
    • Arch is very manual and difficult for new users, dont use it
    • OpenSUSE does whatever they do, not recommended
    • Fedora is pretty modern in their software, has a nice community and a big variety of options. They are not allowed to ship restricted media codecs for stuff like h264 video though
    • uBlue (Bazzite, Bluefin, Aurora) is a project using Fedoras versions and adding nice stuff to it, making them usable out of the box. This is their goal, and they do it really well.
  • I heard about this new company called Linux

    I thought it was funny at least, so you gave me a good laugh.

    I'd say Linux Mint or Ubuntu (you're familiar with this one) would be good "Out of the Box" options. They run an environment known as "Debian" so they're super similar and are pretty similar to what Windows offers in all honesty. You just burn them to a USB, run them from your desired computer's BIOS, and the rest is through a GUI interface you can follow along with. I have no experience with a touchscreen as I'm running Linux Mint XFCE (lightest weight version) on a laptop from the early 2010's with an Intel N2820 in it, but I'm assuming some workaround can exist to implement that. You also seem somewhat familiar with the alternative programs for different purposes, but rest assured both Ubuntu and Mint come with file explorers (Mint XFCE uses one called Thunar which is pretty effective) and you can easily swap out/install a different file manager to get jobs done as needed.

    Plus - any programs you used with Windows which may not have Linux alternatives or versions - can be run through Wine. I've encountered a few hiccups when doing this (like a program I needed for school which was unable to pass the initial installation and actually run the program).

    I've run Linux Mint XFCE as my daily driver for work and school tasks on my laptop for about 2-3 years at this point and it's been pretty great. Full disclosure: I still run Windows 11 on my main PC at home and have Windows 10 on a HTPC/Server with docker on it (though I've been debating switching to Ubuntu for this as well) so I still know there are benefits to a Windows system (while working to remove any and all advertising and AI garbage) but if I were to recommend someone a distro it would be as I've said above.

    Good luck! Hope you find one that works for you!

  • https://zorin.com/os/ its an out of the box distro that specifically tries to emulate the windows feel. In particular it has play on linux installed by default making running windows programs when needed as easy as it can be. the out of the box is office type stuff really though so you will have to install blender and such.

    • I really like Zorin as a beginner's distro. It's based on Ubuntu so most everything is designed to work with it without learning a whole new command line tool, but it doesn't try to hide the Linuxey stuff and mimic windows. On top of that it's just very polished.

      • im not really a beginner myself but Im lazy and this point and just want a system up and running asap. if I was not using it I would likely use puppy because I like the read only core.

  • Linux is not a company! Its a community driven open source project made by people like you who don't want to be under a corporations thumb!

    There are many such open source programs, and they should be your first choice when looking for alternatives.

    I suggest trying the Fedora OS, and using the site alternativeto.net to find open source alternatives to any programs you need.

    Don't forget to always use the packge manager to install sotfware!

  • Linux Mint if you're unsure

    Fedora if you're brave and want the full Toolbox

    Please not Ubuntu. It has enough of its own issues that it originally turned me away from Linux.

    Oh and KDE for the desktop environment if you want great out of box windows like UI if you go with Fedora. Mint comes with cinnamon which is also pretty good. xfce if you want to run linux on a potato.

  • I'm going to toss in another recommendation for Linux Mint. The interface is very similar to classic Windows and it has a large user base so it shouldn't be hard to find instructions online if you get stuck. Software-wise, Linux Mint 21.3 is entirely compatible with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Use the default Cinnamon version.

    Coming from Windows, the only other very important non-obvious thing is that you should look for software on the app store application first instead of downloading packages from the Internet. Unlike the Microsoft Store, Linux app stores are often connected to a variety of software sources, and they will also update your software to the latest versions automatically whenever you download system updates. Almost all of the software you mentioned can be found in the app store. It's very convenient!

  • No-one has commented on your mentioning VS and Flutter... I haven't used it but I think VS is available for Linux?

    I contribute to the Thunder client for Lemmy from my system running EndeavourOS with KDE.

    I personally use android studio for this. I hit a pitfall on installing the android, flutter and dart SDKs from the AUR, but that turned out to be the lesser method. It was much easier to just let android studio install them to a folder, and thereby have it manage their versions.

    The one downside was having to add their folders to PATH, so terminal commands like adb, dart, emulator, flutter, etc. work, but that's not a big deal.

    • There is a Flatpak for Android Studio and I had it installed. It likely works very well.

      • Good!

        My main concern would be running terminal commands to control an emulator and dart and flutter commands, but as long as all that can interact correctly, it should serve.

  • OK, let me fill you with my experience. Now I am on Desktop Linux, and I can't say how your Double Touch screens will work. But I can tell you about some of your points.

    Affinity, canva, corel, and cinema4d are not Linux compatible and you'll need to run them in Wine/Wine GE via software like Bottles or Lutris. Most will not work, while others like affinity might work, but requires a lot of working around. If these software's are required, you may want to look at a Mac.

    keyshot, gimp, vscode(ium) are all native and have either scripts or can be installed via Flatpak or from the distros app repos.

    Davinci Resolve is interesting, You've lucked out since you have an rtx2060, but Resolve is quite finicky to get working Linux. You'll need nvidia drivers and the open source free drivers will not work. All good Linux distros should have easy access, but I found Fedora to be trickier to install. Once you can get Resolve working, you'll either need to buy Studio if you want H.264 support, and if your videos aren't using PCM audio then you'll need to convert it using FFMPEG. I have a script which I use at the end of my injest. Afterwords, it runs and works fine, with no issues (assuming you have the RAM to run it 32GB recommended). If you don't want to deal with any of this (understandable) Mac OS has no issues out of the box.

    Working file explorer: up to taste, and personal preference. Every distro will have one and it'll be good enough, but some distros tailor theirs to their OS's tastes. If you are running with a popular Desktop Environment, i.e. KDE Plasma, Gnome, Cinnamon, then it'll work.

    Now if you want my two cents on all of this. First you should aim for a Ubuntu based distro. While Ubuntu itself isn't bad, I personally prefer a different Desktop Environment as Gnome is too different for me from what Windows offers. Linux Mint with Cinnamon and POP_OS are good alternative with a more Windows/Mac flavoring, and since they are running Gnome underneath it'll have the same compatibility as Ubuntu proper with hardware.

    Another option is Kubuntu which used KDE's Plasma. Plasma is OK, but I find it to be a little less refined than it's appearance lead me to believe.

    Now for testing, I'd advise you to get a second SSD and an enclosure and plug it into a USB-C port. It'll do wonders to quickly go an run everything, without sacrificing you existing install of Winblows. Linux is so efficent I ran my main PC for a week off of it, and only noticed while running games.

    Finally, depending on how often you are using your Windows only software. You might get away with running them in a Windows 10 VM, and using a shared folder to the Host machine to move files back and forth.

    This is definatly a project you should look into, but I feel you should probably look at more cross platform alternatives to your software first. Since another alternative, if you aren't playing games, is a Mac.

  • I would say to just try it out and see how it is! The live USB works nicely and you can decide you don't like a distro and move on rapidly. There are also tools out there that let you load up multiple distros on the USB at once, and then pick which one to use when you boot up.

    I went through my own struggles with dual booting Linux some time ago. If you search on Lemmy, you can find those embarrassing posts. It was my fault, I got confident and messed with 'grub' in all the wrong ways, before cutting my losses early and reverting everything because I had other commitments to deal with.

    The good thing though is that it's totally possible to put Windows back 100% the way it was before, even after messing up as badly as I did (I couldn't boot into either operating system because the machine couldn't find the boot entry). Once you're ready to replace windows with Linux (or dual boot etc.), make a good backup with something like Macrium Reflect and you should be safe to go for it. I highly doubt you'll make the mistakes I did, the story is to say that you can mess up and be just fine!

    As for your use case:

    • affinity programs aren't on Linux from what I remember, you might want to experiment and see if you can run it with Wine or if you have an alternative (ex. Dual boot, different programs)
    • Not sure about Davinci, comments suggest that it runs ok on Linux. I like KdenLive

    As for what people recommended, and what I'm planning to try soon

    • Kubuntu (if you want Ubuntu that looks similar to windows)
    • Fedora (what I tried last time)
    • Linux Mint
  • Gimp and Blender are both available on Linux. VS Code is on Linux (most coding stuff is on Linux). Linux file explorers work pretty well (Dolphin, for example). I’d recommend Kubuntu, KDE neon or Linux Mint for the distro, all are pretty similar in appearance to Windows. It won’t take much learning with them.

  • Intro:

    Linux is open source, anyone can grab the code and distribute their own Linux distro, some of them are community Maintained, some are backed by big companies. Some of them are based on another distro and they change stuff, a spin off of sorts. Think of Linux as a big waterfall which then is forked into several rivers, and then forked into more rivers. Each river has it's own characteristics, which some come from upstream and some others are their own.

    There are four big players: Debian, Ubuntu (which is based on Debian), Fedora and Arch. Then you have POP OS and Linux Mint which are based on Ubuntu, but they change stuff to make it even easier to use, specially for Nvidia users.

    In Linux, everything works out of the box because every driver is part of the core of Linux called the Linux Kernel. Except for Nvidia, for which you need their own non-open source, proprietary driver. Installing that driver manually is much harder than on Windows, so that's why everyone recommends a distro that ships with Nvidia drivers out of the box.

    I don't know how they will behave with double touchscreens. Try some distros and report back please.

    OS

    All major Linux distros have no ads For a PC with Nvidia GPU, pick a distro that ships with Nvidia drivers. Like POP OS & Linux Mint.

    Software

    GFX:

    Vector: Inkscape Raster: GIMP, Krita, Photopea, Canva

    VFX:

    Editing: Davinci Resolve, KDEnlive Post: Davinci Resolve, Natron

    3D Modeling: Blender

266 comments