Windows 11 vs Linux supported HW
Windows 11 vs Linux supported HW
Windows 11 vs Linux supported HW
I could never go back to Windows, after having tasted the freedom of Linux.
Linux has its flaws, but so does Windows. And for me, the flaws in Windows became much more annoying than the ones in Linux. Game compatibility was the main factor that kept me backt from using it on a desktop, and that's a non issue nowadays.
Flaws I didn't pay for piss me off a lot less.
I'm still dualbooting Windows to play games with a controller until I can get off my ass and buy a USB hub. Reason being that the Xbox Series controllers has issues with my mobo's Bluetooth chipset, even when updating the firmware. Bluetooth support is particularly inconsistent with these.
But outside of the odd app that needs Windows (and I can just boot a VM for that), Linux has been really good on the desktop.
For me it's the basic things that drive me crazy in Windows: the Start menu doesn't work half of the time, and it shows web results above the program you want to run. File operations are slow and the File Explorer crashes a lot. Application windows constantly steal focus from the one I'm typing in, leading to passwords being typed into code, documents, web browsers or other unsafe places. Background indexing is constant and eats up CPU, and the file search still takes forever despite all this indexing.
These are all basic things that Microsoft has had decades to get working, and they're all still broken. Microsoft always seem to be paying attention to anything but the quality of the user's experience.
By contrast, Linux is just relaxing.
Mine is VST’s and games. Never had much luck using a vst bridge/wine, so i just went back to windows.
and that's a non issue nowadays.
Again, this community is delusional lol. If you consider only about 5% of Steam games being Linux-friendly these days as "a non issue nowadays," I'd hate to see your game library.
I always see people say this but does no one here use professional apps like solidworks or revit? Are there good Linux alternatives? I’d switch to Linux but I need solidworks for work I do.
Windows is the defacto standard for desktop PCs for a reason. In a corporate setting it's kind of the ideal.
Because of the sheer number of users, most software is built with Windows in mind and therefore has the most support. It's pretty rare that you find an application that doesn't have a Windows build available.
On top of that tools like Active Directory, and group policy makes managing thousands of machines at scale a reasonably simple affair.
Microsoft is a corporation rather than a community so you can always expect their main goals to be profit-driven and that comes with some nasty baggage, but it's not enough that it's easy for professionals to make the switch.
Linux has made lightspeed progress over the last decade, especially with Proton making games mostly work cross platform, but outside of specialist use cases, the vast majority of business PCs and by extension home PCs will be running Windows for the foreseeable future.
I work in software and I haven’t touched windows in a very long time. Even back whenever I worked on FPGA development all of that software ram on Linux, so I think you’ll find that this is very field dependent.
Closest thing I use to a professional app is DaVinci Resolve Studio on a distribution that is not officially supported by Blackmagic. Not only does Resolve Studio work perfectly, I am able to use Blackmagic hardware (Intensity Pro 4k, Speed Editor) without having to mess around with settings, config files, permissions, packages, etc.
The caveat here is the initial setup: I use an AMD GPU, and it’s a bit of a pain to get the free and licensed versions of Resolve working with those under Linux. However, once that’s out of the way, it’s completely seamless.
As for CAD…yeah that’s where everything falls over. There are tons of FOSS alternatives out there but I have yet to see any of them in a professional setting. Even Fusion360 is hit or miss under Wine, I spun up a Windows VM just to use that for my 3D printer tinkering.
Idk is it CAD software? I know there are webapps for that now
Onshape web based CAD from former SW employees. or if work is paying licenses you can run Siemens NX12 on linux (REL, SUSE, or OpenSUSE)
Windows with WSL became a lot better to what Windows used to be but with the TPM requirement Win11 became factually less compatible that modern Linux (at least without fiddling to override that requirement).
And even WSL is essentially just a Linux VM.
Enough with the fan wars. Let's be perfectly honest for once. Windows, Linux, MacOS - they all suck. Sometimes in similar ways, sometimes in different ways. But they all suck.
Windows users - I get you, you use it because it sorta works 40%, of the time and sucks in the way you understand.
Linux users - I get you, you know all of the arcane incantations you need to quickly install, update, and troubleshoot your os in a terminal window. It works - once you apply your custom bash script that applies every change you need to get everything exactly how you like it. But again, it sucks in the way you understand.
MacOS users - well I don't really get you. You know what you've done.
We deserve better than this, guys. We deserve an os that just works, is easy to use, easy to configure, doesn't require an IT degree to use, and that we can recommend to our grandma without a second thought.
Windows: "We dropped support for that thing you bought brand new 5 years ago"
Linux: "We are considering dropping support for something that has existed for longer than you had"
Linux: “We're dropping support for this device because we're fairly sure we had the last one in existence and it just died.”
I've worked exclusively with Linux servers since 2002 and exclusively Linux desktop since 2004 and I've come to the point where I prettyuch refuse to touch windows for fear it will infect me somehow.
I know most people don't know any better but it's insanity to me that anyone still pays money for windows. It's a scam, no other words for it.
Don't even get me started on Windows servers. It's just sad to see how much money is spent on a company that has so litte focus on quality.
Even the online services suck. Dear God Microsoft, would it kill you to understand that people might have gasp TWO tabs open with your teams "app"?
Even azure runs Linux
To think that even daedric prince would do that.
I guess I pay for the convenience that I get when I buy a new game, simply press Install and start playing. I spend most of my free time playing games on PC, I have no other reasons to stick to Windows. I'll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.
This is going to sound selfish, but I don't have the "energy" of fighting against whatever the current meta is - I just have to appreciate the more invested people that drive Linux forward. I'll just follow and use the OS where I get the smoothest overall experience for gaming (including thing like mouse/kb driver support). Windows is the current answer for this, one day it'll be something else - hopefully Linux.
Shit's been progressing really fast recently - I guess Steam Deck is doing some heavy lifting when it comes to motivating developers to keep Linux in mind. Direct support will always give the best results for everyone.
I'll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.
Let me give you an honest answer that no Linux users is willing to give you (certainly because they fear to scare people off of Linux): you will never see the day where Linux will be equal if not better than Windows for gaming (which it can be sometimes, but it's not always the case) if not a certain amount of people get out of their comfort zone and are willing to try something new. In fact, nobody can improve anything in their life if they're not willing to get out of their comfort zone.
You're already using a PC to play video games, I did this choice too, so trust me, you definitely have the energy to change for a better OS, something ever you recognize as having qualities outside of games. Otherwise, you would've played exclusively on console where you actually have a plug and play experience... unfortunately at the cost of your freedom to use the machine you bought however you want, besides all the other considerable disadvantages.
For me, Linux made as much progress as it can do, meaning now, for Linux to be viable for gaming, either companies start to move their asses and make Linux native games (which they can easily do, if they're willing to use the right tools for their game like Vulkan) but I hardly see that coming any time soon, or new users have to come to Linux so that companies would finally care. Personally, I made my choice by making the first step.
Games don't always run perfectly under Windows on release either.
I specifically remember one of the CoD games running just long enough to use up all my vram, whereby it would promotly crash. Took about about two weeks to sort that one out.
My tinkering under Linux consists of downloading a game under Steam, ticking a compatibility checkbox, and playing the game. For other launchers, I simply open Bottles and install the launcher of my choosing. Been playing Diablo 4 under Battle.net just fine since launch.
It blows my mind just how bad file system performance is under Windows compared to Linux. I mean, you literally have to have an SSD in order for the OS to be responsive. Granted, most have SSD's these days, but performance on spinning rust shouldn't be that bad.
I’ll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.
Yes, it's definitely getting close now...
I stopped gaming a long time ago but what I'm reading is that gaming in Linux has improved immensely and these days is in the same level as Microsoft Windows. I'd give that a try
Linux people will never admit that it’s like that though. I have a few friends on Linux and when we all boot a game to play, the windows users like me sit in the lobby waiting for my friends to trouble shoot why battlefield 1 isn’t launching on Linux, then they give up and just boot into windows and magically the game starts.
I've used Linux since about 2004 for personal use. On my homer server(s) and desktop. 95% of them Gentoo (stable). For my relatives I've installed some EL workstation distro. Especially my father needs a install-and-forget system, which Windows isn't.
But I do install and fix Windows PCs at my work. It's because how Windows works (or rather not work) I get paid. That said, the more I use Windows the more I get frustrated with it.
One of the worst things lately was the accidental activation of BitLocker. It got activated even when the user didn't have Microsoft account (from where he/she would retrieve the encryption key to decrypt the data if Windows decides to lock the drive). "Oh I'm sorry, but because M$ fuckup your data is gone. Do you have backups? 😇" To avoid any BitLocker issues the secure boot should be disabled. BitLocker shouldn't then be available for activation.
Some of the frustrating sides of Windows can be avoided by using Pro version of Windows. But that's simply not enough.
IMO the only reason to use (suffer from) Windows is if you play some games that require it.
My personal solution to that problem ist to not play those games. There's plenty of stuff to play on Steam that runs fine on Linux.
It's the professional software that's lacking in Linux, and that's the only reason I keep a Windows machine around. For music production, video production, design work, photography and so on, Windows has good commercial software that is well established in these professions.
But for most people, including gamers, Linux is a very good option right now.
I recently setup a Windows vm for my mum because she also needs photo and video editing sw and isn't happy with the Linux alternatives. This works astonishingly well. Virtualbox even has a mode now to fully integrate the vm into the existing desktop, so basically she just gets the windows status bar in addition to the Linux one when she starts the vm. Windows programs open as if they were running natively. Might be worth a try for you.
I prettyuch refuse to touch windows for fear it will infect me somehow.
Don't worry. It won't. It'll just frustrate you. Windows has gone seriously downhill since 7.
It was alret horrible at 95. I used windows for about a good 2 years in my life. I've been on Amiga is before, Unix osses for a while and over 21 years now on Linux. Windows, any version, compared to any of those is a joke
I love windows.... I appreciate Linux but as a standard user, I have no need for Linux. I'm careful and I'd say an advanced user. I avoid dodgy websites and idk... I have a dual boot with fedora but I really don't use fedora because no need?
Let's assume you're not a power user who would be confined to Microsoft's "can't do" or "too complicated" rules; why do you pay for windows?
And if you pirate, why? Then just use Linux, it's tree and does all you need
And if iou "got it for free with your computer", you didn't, you paid Microsoft ab obligatory tax, like ot or not. Why?
The KDE UI looks and feels the same like windows but is superior, you don't always have to reboot after any minor issue or change, it's free, it doesn't spy on you, and you don't have the virus bullshit for a variety of reasons
If you don't know better, I can understand, but you do. You know Linux is out there, why windows?
Windows requirements: sprawling list of unsupported hardware based on an arbitrary requirment for a security chip that doesn't actually improve security at all
Linux: CPU (optional)
As a person who has used linux i can confirm that my daughter runs linux
I don't think microcontrollers count as CPU, right? Do they have an ALU?
Yes they do. Microcontrollers contain a microprocessor that is optimized for branching instructions and already include memory and peripheral interfaces which are connected directly to the processor bus (opposed to general purpose CPUs).
carefully select hardware
lmao, i've exclusively run linux on franken pcs cobbled together out of mostly second hand parts
The first thing I installed windows on was an discarded office tower that I had to put new memory And hard drives in. Shit was ancient and specifically did not want anything but windows installed on it. Installed Linux anyway. Works great. No specific hardware
Pop OS has native drivers for nVidia GPUs even 😎🐧
Correction: POP!_OS has their own APT deb farm that has the latest hardware stack. This includes the proprietary 535 nvidia driver and later as well as the kernel and mesa.
This is part of the history of the distribution as it was made to support system76's latest hardware lineup on top of an Ubuntu base.
Nouveau is the libre driver for Nvidia on GNU/Linux with Nvidia slowly segregating their proprietary driver into a firmware blob.
I think this is a bit misleading.
Most or at least the majority of distros offer the proprietary nvidia driver.
Pop, Zorin, Ubuntu, Garuda, etc just bundle it in the install media as an option.
Linux has always been my go to for that specific use case as well, and I honestly have very little Linux experience. Linux just makes bizarre half broken hardware, like bad ram, work.
I have a Jellyfin server running in the office. The video card is about 6 months old. The CPU, case, and motherboard are going on 12 years old.
That’s much easier grounds then.. checks notes.. a modern laptop straight from the factory.
I like Linux a lot, but saying you can't understand why someone would run Windows on a server just shows a lack of knowledge. Linux is great in a lot of server applications in the application realm. However, it doesn't get close to the power of Active Directory and Group Policy for Windows device management. Besides that, a lot of people are more comfortable with a UI for managing DHCP, DNA, etc in a SMB environment. Even if they prefer a command line for those tools PowerShell allows those people to coexist with those that prefer a GUI. Under certain circumstances, (mainly ones where a business is forgoing AD for AAD), Linux can be the right choice. Pretending that there's no place for Windows Server, though, is asinine.
This community is very much a "Windows bad" community. I personally find that annoying as I use Windows and Linux. Both have their pros and cons. Windows though is seen here as the shitest OS out there which far from the truth.
PowerShell is amazing and I install it on my Linux desktop.
The main problem are companies forcing windows servers and technologies when they are not the good ones for the task.
If one needs to set up desktops for accounting, windows is fine. But I saw companies setting shared NFS drives used by Linux severs on windows machines! Not joking!
I know companies that even deploy kubernetes clusters on windows servers!
Just because finding cheap windows engineers is easy, everyone has had an experience on windows to put on a cv. Than some of that cheap labor go up the hierarchy as head of a random infrastructure team because all good sys engineers moved to manage linux servers after some time, he recruits people like-minded, and in few years you ends up with a team refusing to do the right thing because "we know windows and windows can do the same as Linux and Microsoft is good for governance and Linux bad". Execs don't understand the difference and force architecture to go along because they don't believe it's worthy to rebuild a team, we are anyway using windows for accounting and execs laptops, it can't be that bad! Even accenture and mckinsey consultants us it! And they told us that wls2 is the holy grail
Corporate IT is the peak of suboptimal tools for the job because politics and money
We use both. Its not my department but i know the server guys are using windows for some servers and linux for others and the decision is normally made based on which is going to be best for the specific needs of the function of that server.
Pretending one is outright better than the other is childish. Just use whats best at the time.
Have you used windows before? It's flaming garbage. Been using various oses for decades and I still rediscover how shitty windows is on the regular.
Yeah, and Linux still doesn't have a good answer to AD for managing suites of end user machines. Linux has a lot going for it - but windows isn't strictly inferior or anything.
Honestly, the entire AD suite with auth and everything else built in is genuinely a good product. And if what you want is supported by Microsoft, their other services are decent as well.
I upgraded my Intel system to AMD today. And I didn't have to reinstall a damn thing, because my existing Linux installation Just Worked™. It really is to the point that I could never imagine going back to Windows.
CPU vendors are usually pretty seamless to swap on Winblows, other than the fact that Windows will possibly whine that you've modified your system too much and need a new license 🤓
I've encountered issues swapping a Windows install between machines equipped with an Intel processor to one equipped with a current AMD processor.
In the meantime, my KDE Neon install has been swapped between four different PC's now without a single issue.
Windows will possibly whine that you've modified your system too much and need a new license
If the MAC address changes, Windows activation will always fail. I just don't see any of that as worth the trouble anymore since The Windows Difference™ is just telemetry overhead and updates that need to happen while I'm trying to get something done.
There's this thing I notice. If windows asks you to learn something or put up with some BS it's seen as the cost of business, reasonable, or simply not even noticed. If Linux requires you to learn something, like read one article about which distro might work best for you, it's seen as an insurmountable difficulty or an absurd ask.
it's sunk cost bias. I have this trying to use windows or macos, after using linux exclusively for half my life - everything feels foreign and frustrating, with an obnoxious amount of UX patterns you're expected to know in order to find anything. ugh, I could rant for hours on how obtuse macos is (mainly because I have to interact with it for work right now - if you force me to use windows, I'll rant about that too)
The nice thing about Linux is you can pick a DE that apes whatever OS you're used to so the transition from Windows or Mac to desktop Linux can be very painless.
It definitely is ya. I use mac for work and that shit sucks
Every time I've been asked to learn about Windows this year has resulted in "Haha fuck you who do you think you are? The owner of this computer? Eat shit pleb you belong to steve balmer now".
You wouldn't believe the amount of bullshit you have to go through to exorcise Edge. Some people told me "This is to protect the user" so i sent them back a picture of system.32 in the recycle bin.
I quit windows after I spent a few hours trying to get permission to delete a file I knew I didn't need but but windows just refused to allow even admin accounts to touch. Had to dig so deep into windows settings.
I don't use linux because a linux computer is not usable for me. I use mine for blender(works on Linux), Creo(does not work), DCS(no linux support, people say it's hard to get working with wine/proton game things) and Destiny (anti cheat will ban you if you run it through one of the linux game things). Like it or not, "just learn an entire new os and new software for all the things you want to do" is not an option for most people.
No I'll never deny that. Some things do only work in very specific environments. I'll also never pretend learning is a task with zero effort or that everyone is interested in doing. What bugs me is when people are dishonest about it. Linux is not impossibly difficult to use nor is Windows a sublime user experience with no friction.
Anticheat though ya that's fucked. Hate that. I'll admit I have a Windows partition solely for playing the few games that require it. Though haven't booted it in a year or so.
Except that's an article we would probably read, unless we're already set in our ways.
Also the half life of windows knowledge is a lot lower than linux knowledge. Under windows: when you have this problem, click here, click there, find this button, select this option and then it might help, until the next version changes everything. Under linux you find this config file, change this line to that and the fix will likely survive multiple system upgrades and could even work on different distributions.
Absolutely. Once you spend just a bit of time figuring out how config files work suddenly fixing problems on and maintaining your Linux system is far easier than windows. Not hidden behind layers of bad UI that doesn't work. Just edit the file. Restart the process.
I was flirting with Linux for 20 years. There was always something that put me off an I went back to Windows. Recently I installed ubuntu with Kde plasma and I'm not going back. It just works and is heaps faster on older hardware. The old driver issues are gone, compatibility is awesome. The only issue is getting used to new software names.
Everyone acts like nvidia support on linux is completely broken. I game with nvidia on mine regularly and have never had a driver bug.
It's not that it's broken, it's that the open source driver stack and AMD cards are a superior experience. The Nvidia Linux driver is just like the Windows driver.
I think it's more that they are broken (esp. on Wayland) and that they are closed source and that they are not pre-installed in Mesa and that they lack basic features such as GAMMA_LUT for night light on Wayland...
NVIDIA user here, my experience is largely faultless and performance is great.
Raytracing is mostly fucked though, otherwise I'd be gaming exclusively on Linux as well. Aside from that though I've never had any issues with Nvidia on Linux.
What do you mean it's fucked? I've read this before but honestly Cyberpunk 2077 runs way better for me on Linux and I think it looks great. Never checked settings in detail since it seemed to do a good job of automatically selecting graphics settings. I have an Nvidia card on pop_OS and it works better than I ever thought gaming on Linux could!
My wife and I play Grim Dawn and other ARPGs on a regular basis. I run Ubuntu 23.04 (Snap-less, of course); she runs Windows 10. I ALWAYS host, and that should tell you something...
A grim dawn player, how is the game? Their updates actually add things these days? I have the game but not played it too much but I was surprised they still update it
I game … regularly and have never had a driver bug
Presses X to doubt…
Way to prove my point.
You know, I've been using Linux on desktops and laptops for like 20 years now. I can count on one hand then number of times I've had hardware support issues. Outside of a fingerprint scanner, I've been able to solve all of those issues.
Meanwhile, my adventures across the years dealing with Windows drivers led me to finally say "fuck it" earlier this year and nuke the Windows install on my gaming rig in favor of Nobara.
I'll take Linux hardware support over Microsoft any day of the week.
I have the opposite experience. For 15 years I've been installing windows on laptops and desktops. Never did I had to 'solve' driver issues. They were either easy to find, by clicking 'search in windows update' or were supported directly through windows itself. No need to solve anything...
The opposite was true for my few Linux (Ubuntu and Linux mint) adventures. Every time something would just not work. The most frustrating for me was the broken sleep function. There was no way to get my laptop to sleep properly. It would wake up at random times or just not boot anymore thereafter.
Just saying that these kind of things really depend on what you work with and what you want to get out of a system
I totally get that. The world is a funny place, and no two people will habe the same lived experience.
And FTR, as weird as this may sound to you, the big deal to me was that on Linux (usually Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, or a derivative of those three) there were significantly fewer problems in the first place, never mind whether or not they got solved. I may just have gotten a lucky spin on the Great Hardware Roulette Wheel.
Windows is definately not immune to sleep issues. I can state with absolute honesty that sleep under Windows never worked for me until the advent of Windows 10.
I can't remember the last time I had a sleep issue running Linux on any of my laptops, all with Intel iGPU's.
That reminds me of a Microsoft-branded USB WiFi adapter that I was making heavy use of back in mid-2000s. The MN-510. You could buy it brand-new circa 2006. It had a $75 launch MSRP, about $114 adjusted for inflation. Come 2009, we find out that Windows 7 wasn't going to support it. And given what we know about OS development cycles, they presumably made that call in '08 or even '07. Looking back on it, I think this was one of the major catalysts for me to reconsider Linux as a drop-in replacement. Because, wouldn't you know, the adapter kept working just fine when I tried it out in Ubuntu. Support was simply there in the kernel. Plug-and-play. I suddenly had this whole other operating system providing an it-just-works network connection, for free. It was amazing. So I used that adapter for several more years until I could afford a network upgrade. And I'm still using Linux the majority of the time today.
I switched to arch using qtile wm a few months ago. Couldn't be happier. If a game doesn't run on my rig either though stream or lutris well I just don't play it, there's way more games to discover and play.
This! I literally give Windows a chance every version. I even kind of liked Windows 11 this go around.
But something always breaks and no matter how much I trouble shoot the fix is to reinstall windows. To which I say screw that and start distro hoping.
11 with 2022 gaming laptop just stopped updating. The only non native app I had on the thing was STEAM! I have been using Linux for 18 years because it's the only way I know how to fix Windows.
It's just when you have peripherals, you might just not find a driver for Linux at all
I'll take Linux hardware support over Microsoft any day of the week.
I'm really undecided on this. It really depends on the type of hardware, for example when dealing with graphics card drivers, especially nvidia I'll take windows over linux any day. On the other hand on Linux I don't have to install drivers for almost anything and things mostly just work unless the device is brand new.
I've been using all of the major OSs and they're all good and they all suck in their own way. Windows does suck a bit more than the others, but I don't think it's as terrible as diehard Linux fanboys make it out to be.
I still use Windows on my home PC because bideo gaems and music production. I'd prefer to use Linux instead but oh well it's not the worst thing.
Gaming on Linux has gotten to the point that if it won't play on linux, I just shrug and play something else. Their are more native games, and games that aren't native usually run under Proton, Proton GE, or Wine. There's not much left that won't play.
The Nvidia thing is less of a problem these days with distros like Nobara, Gardua, and Vanilla installing proprietary Nvidia drivers out of the box. Heck, you can even do it with almost 0 extra effort on plain Fedora.
I can't help you with music production, though. Linux has some good stuff for that, but my understanding is that Mac and Windows are still the best choice.
Anyway, like I said to someone else, everyone's different, and everyone's threshold for horse hockey gets set off by different things. It's all perspective, really.
Unless you care about privacy. That one's more empirical than perceptual.
I'd rather stick my head in the rotating blades of a combine harvester than deal with HP printer drivers...
Well, you've got me on that one.
I have to use Windows and their extended malsoftware and I was checking if I could run some stuff necessary for my work on Linux but didn't find info. I'm so tired of how low quality and buggy Microsoft stuff is.
And you aren't tired of being unable to find comparable software on Linux?
Fuck Goodix
Sorry, I feel like I'm going to regret asking but… what?
I remember having some issues with Ubuntu 10 because I had a janky pentium 4 built out of scrap. I think it was an pci ide card I had issues with.
Linux will run on anything
Ps3. Raspberry pi. Phones. All computers ive ever tried to install it on.. and even M-chip macs.
I had a pile of old parts of all sorts of machines sitting in some boxes. Was poking through and thought "hang on"... Bing bang boom threw some bits together and built a new PC to run a jellyfin media server on Mint. Don't even know what most of the parts are...
Even the gotdam Leapfrog runs Linux
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Add PS4 to that
That's the first time I've heard of that. For real, tho?
Add PS2 to that https://youtu.be/DjGG-5343AY
The new CPU requirements for Windows 11 are why I wiped it and am now on Linux Mint. No dual-booting.
Wha? Even a bleeping potato can run Linux nowadays, with zero issues at day 1.
t. Got a Orange pi zero 3, and the lil' bastard is rocking solid -- even with (near zero) support.
Imagine not having all your drivers baked in into your kernel
Imagine not knowing about kernel modules 🤣
Nvidia users
I think the main trouble makers for consumers are the odd network or bluetooth controllers, especially in laptops, which often come with some exotic bullshit.
I have a lot of trouble with Bluetooth on laptops so I tend to run 2.4GHz wireless peripherals instead of Bluetooth. That’s my only complaint these days.
Imagine being in the orange forum and thinking everybody's using Mac...
Some builds can get really tetchy about laptop hardware, but that's almost always older hardware.
Though I will say it took entirely too long for most builds to have a "change what closing the lid" does menu option rather than making you modify a .conf file.
And don't get me started on resolution switching when hot swapping display inputs.
Linux does support more CPU architecture (x86 Arm PowerPC RISC) while Windows only support x86 and some Arm CPU so technically Linux support more CPU but Windows does support more GPU and Plug and Play devices (controller, external sound card...)
Windows 11 inherently does not support my CPU because of their fake secure boot requirement. You have to have UEFI.
Rufus USB can take care of that for you
I would probably rephrase it as "external plug 'n' play devices supporting Windows". You can be fairly certain Microsoft wasn't the one doing the work.
I've had way more plug-and-play success with USB-serial devices under Linux than Windows. Maybe just me though...
I've had zero issues with any of my plug and play usb devices. Elgato key light, stream deck, fiio DAC, scarlet solo audio interface, Logitech Webcam, steel series arctis usb headset, etc. All work great without any faffing about.
For stream desk and keylight you aren't using elgato's software but there are pretty good open source options I installed from the graphical package manager in my OS. The audio stuff just all worked when plugged in. I'm missing zero functionality from windows and spent a lot less time "setting up" everything compared to windows.
Even with x86 only, Linux supports more CPUs. For example, the Ryzen 5 1500x in my old PC isn't supported by Windows 11.
They have a point. I'm in the market for a new laptop and I have, so far, returned two of them.
First, I tried a Huawei Matebook 16. I was foolish, but I thought it was "easy". No NVidia, no dGPU at all - just part that looked very standard. It was based on the info I had gathered from a few years of Linux usage: "Basically avoid NVidia and you're good". It was anything but. Broken suspend, WiFi was horrible, random deadlocks, extreme slowness at times (as if the RYZEN 7 wasn't Ryzen 7-ing) to become less smooth than my 5 year old Intel laptop, and broken audio codec (Senary Audio) that didn't work at all on the live, and worked erratically on the installed system using generic hd-audio drivers.
I had a ~€1500 budget, but I raised it to buy a €1700 ThinkPad P16s AMD. No dGPU to speak of, sold with pre loaded Linux, boasting Canonical and Red Hat hardware certifications.
I had:
Boggles my mind that the 2 biggest enterprise Linux vendors took this laptop, ran a "thorough hardware certification process" on it and let it pass. Is this a pass? How long have they tried it? Have they even tried suspending?
Of course, that was a return. But when I think about new laptops and Windows 11, basically anything works. You don't have to pay attention to anything: suspend will work, WiFi will work, audio and speakers as well, if you need fractional scaling you aren't in for a world of pain, and if you want an NVidia dGPU, it does work.
Furthermore, the Windows 11 compatible CPU list is completely unofficial arbitrary, since you can still sideload Windows 11 on "unsupported" hardware and it will run with a far higher success rate than Linux on a random laptop you buy in store now. Like, it has been confirmed to run well on ancient Intel CPUs with screens below the minimum resolution. It's basically a skin over 10 and there are no significant kernel modifications.
To be clear: I don't like Windows, but I hate this post as a consumer of bleeding edge hardware because it hides the problem under the rug - most new hardware is Windows-centric, and Linux supported options are few and far between. Nowdays not even the manufacturer declaring Linux support is enough. This friend of mine got a Dell XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition, and if he uses ANY ISO except the default Dell-customized Ubuntu 20.04 audio doesn't work at all! And my other friend with a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition has various GPU artifacts on the screen on anything except the relative Dell-customized Ubuntu 20.04 image. It's such a minefield.
I have effectively added €500 to my budget, to now reach an outrageous €2000 for a premium Linux laptop with no significant trade-offs (mostly, I want a good screen and good performance). I am considering taking a shot in the dark and pre ordering the Framework 16, effectively swaying from traditional laptop makers entirely and hoping a fully customized laptop by a company that has been long committed to Linux support will be different.
More important IMO is the fact that Linux re-detects hardware on every boot! Try moving a Windows hard drive to completely new hardware and getting it to boot. Not a chance...
I've done that multiple times without issue.
The windows boot drive? Dont think thats possible anymore. If its completely new hardware.
Im not sure what the trigger is but if enough hardware has changed it wont boot.
I had to install windows fresh on a new hard drive when i bought a new pc last year.
That actually works fine since like XP
Until it marks you as unlicensed because you used a new motherboard.
Well, more like 7 onwards. XP was quite hit and miss unless you did a load of prep first.
Yup. though for GPU drivers you'll need to cleanly reinstall them if you downloaded them separately from windows update (which is a requirement for most gaming GPU users)
At least on linux its [insert distro command here] and it'll have your new drivers up and running for you without bloatware
It must have stopped with Win11. Tried to upgrade one of my family members Laptop. Took the ssd from the old one, put it in the new Laptop and only got to the Windows rescue Window. With Linux. I can setup an ssd with my laptop and when setup, plug it into my headless server and everything works fine.
Blows my mind that anyone would use windows.
People who don't want to / can't tinker, usually.
To be fair, Nvidia support on Linux has been historically quite poor, with users having to manually install drivers (something the average person shouldn't have to think about). Though even that has gotten much better recently, with Debian now allowing forks to have proprietary drivers built in.
Active directory and it's integration with services such as DNS and DHCP is pretty great though. I wish Microsoft started focusing less on cloud and improved the user (or rather admin) experience of their server tools, they are quite awful is some cases.
I swear to god most of Windows Server’s tools have barely changed since NT 4.0
And sometimes they make a new tool that's better, kinda. And then they never bother updating it to make it good. Looking at you AD admin center.
GPedit is the most annoying tool ever. Why the hell can't I just edit GPO settings values from the active settings menu, without having to open the entire GPO and navigate the huge mess of settings.
AD is the easiest in Windows. We can argue about DNS, but DHCP? You can't even change the subnet size after the fact without destroying and remaking the scope.
Or Hod forbit managing IPv6 local space on Windows.
It has a feature with integration with AD. Personally I would just put DHCP on a router or something, but it's an option.
I know hardware compatibility has massively improved, but back when I was messing with Linux in high school compatibility was a huge issue. I managed to end up with two laptops and some desktop hardware that were truly difficult to get running. It's like I somehow found a list of incompatible hardware and chose the worst options.
The most frustrating were an evil Broadcom (I think) wireless card and an AMD switchable card (they did actually make a few). That graphics card wasn't supported for very long and was a bother even in Windows.
Edit to add: I was just saying that to point out why some people might have that opinion, even if it isn't valid anymore. I'm actually thinking of jumping back on the Linux bandwagon.
The only real hardware problems I come across these days with Linux is WiFi cards being shit. As far as I'm concerned, carefully selecting hardware is a problem for the *BSDs at this point. Am I missing something?
Yep, really new hardware is still an issue.
My new Zenbook (AMD CPU/GPU) had pretty major issues until the chip family was around a year old.
Previous to this laptop, I always got older hardware when it went on sale (usually from Dell), chip sets and CPU's that have had a while to "mature" I never had any issues with. Except of course with Nvidia drivers, those are always shit.
If you stick with older hardware, you very likely wouldn't ever experience hardware issues.
I've been running various distributions at my primary OS since around 2006. Hardware support these days is amazing.
Except of course with Nvidia drivers, those are always shit.
Doesn't that depend on the distro? In most cases they should be supplied as a (meta)package and only require installation through the package manager, kernel modules should be built automatically then.
While this is ofc only anecdotal evidence: I haven't had problems with different models of Nvidia GPUs on different distributions (OpenSUSE, Debian, Pop!_OS, Elementary, EndeavourOS) in the last years. With a small workaround, even Wayland works flawlessly - the problem with missing GAMMA_LUT support and night light notwithstanding here.
I bought a new PC recently and put Linux on it. It didn't work with the on-board Bluetooth until I did some research and digging through the logs and compiled and installed a kernel driver and edited some config files as root.
Also the fps on my Nvidia graphics card is really bad in games.
So it does still have driver issues, I'd say.
Also the fps on my Nvidia graphics card is really bad in games.
Are you sure you have the official Nvidia driver installed? Most Linux distros, if not explicitly configured otherwise*, use the open source "nouveau" driver by default. Since that driver doesn't support some vital aspects - such as frequency scaling - of the hardware, the performance is bad.
*Some distros, like Pop! OS and EndeavourOS, offer a "Nvidia install", meaning that the official driver will be installed and configured upon OS installation.
I would place the blame for poor driver support directly on the chip/device manufacturer and not on Linux (whoever that is).
Am I missing something?
No. I think you are correct and mostly even wifi hardware works fine, at least compared to *BSDs. I use Linux across a wide-range of machines, both desktops and laptops, with mostly very recent components. The only other unsupported hardware I have personally come across is some gaming hardware (e.g. Thrustmaster racing wheels) and an add-on sound card (Soundblaster AE9). And of course, some things like DLSS3 with Nvidia do not work.
People say that Nvidia just doesn't work right on Linux. I'd never know that except for everyone saying it. My desktop has Nvidia and all Linux distro I've tried on it are like perfectly fine. Yes for gaming also.
It's a combination of Nvidia not supporting mixed refresh rates and mixed DPIs until like really recently and the open source driver not being nearly as performant as the closed one.
Congrats, You've been blessed with good luck.
Doesnt invalidate other people (like me) who have had tons of trouble with trying to get nvidia cards working/nvidia drivers installed over the years. Even with new distros that bake the drivers in, like Pop!, I still had issues and and headaches that ultimately made it not worth the effort.
What card do you run? I went from a 970 to a 3080ti and both drivers just automagically worked. The 970 used to have dkms issues but it randomly stopped at some point.
Won't deny luck is involved. Everytime I turn any piece of technology on im amazed it works at all considering the fact it's all a cobbled together mess.
I've been running Linux for 100% of my productive work since about 1995. Used to compile every kernel release and run it for the hell of it from about 1998 until something like 2002 and work for a company that sold and supported Linux servers as firewalls and file servers etc.
I had used et4000's, S3 968's and trio 64's, the original i740, Matrox g400's with dual CRT monitors and tons of different Nvidia GPU's throughout the years and hadn't had a whole lot of trouble.
The Nvidia Linux driver made me despair for desktop Linux for the last few years. Not enough to actually run anything different, but it did seem like things were on a downward slide.
I had weird flashing of sections of other windows when dragging a window around. Individual screens that would just start flashing sometimes. Chunky slideshow window dragging when playing video on another screen. Screens re-arranging themselves in baffling orientations after the machine came back from the screen being locked. I had crap with the animation rate running at 60hz on three 170hz monitors because I also had a TV connected to display network graphs ( that update once a minute ). I must have reset up the panels on cinnamon, or later on KDE a hundred times because they would move to another monitor, sometimes underneath a different one or just disappeared altogether when I unlocked the screen. My desktop environment at home would sometimes just freeze up if the screen was DPMS blanked for more than a couple of hours requiring me to log in from another machine and restart X. I had two different 6gb 1060's and a 1080ti in different machines that would all have different combinations of these issues.
I fixed maybe half of the issues that I had. Loaded custom EDID on specific monitors to avoid KDE swapping them around, did wacky stuff with environment variables to change the sync behaviour, used a totally different machine ( a little NUC ) to drive the graphs on the TV on the wall.
Because I had got bit pretty hard by the Radeon driver being a piece of trash back in something like 2012, I had the dated opinion that the proprietary Nvidia driver was better than the Radeon driver. It wasn't til I saw multiple other folks adamant that the current amdgpu driver is pretty good that I bought some ex-mining AMD cards to try them out on my desktop machines. I found out that most of the bugs that were driving me nuts were just Nvidia bugs rather than xorg or any other Linux component. KDE also did a bunch of awesome work on multi monitor support which meant I could stop all the hackery with custom EDIDs.
A little after that I built a whole new work desktop PC with an AMD GPU ( and CPU FWIW ) . It has been great. I'm down from about 15 annoying bugs to none that I can think of offhand running KDE. It all feels pretty fluid and tight now without any real work from a fresh install.
My next build as it stands will be AMD. of course who knows what will be good by the time I get to do that.
I have an nvidia discrete GPU in my laptop. It works fine.
I think that's probably a bit of misunderstanding. Nvidia doesn't work right in gamescope due to some missing vulkan extensions. Linux gaming is primarily focused around using gamescope as a compositor, specifically with gaming focused distros. You can see where the idea comes from following that trend.
But also, fuck you Nvidia.
I don't think I've heard very often that "Nvidia doesn't work right on Linux". It's more that it's missing features compared to Windows and because it's a closed source binary blob you have to wait for Nvidia to release a new driver every time a new kernel comes out.
Ah yes... it is easy as long as you do something difficult first.
Reminds me of that comment on Dropbox where some guy said it's going to fail because he can easily build something similar with an ftp server.
Surely we can admit that Linux is ready for general population on the desktop? It's the better choice overall, but the barrier to entry is very high.
Edit: I mistyped and missed the word "not". It's "not ready for general population on the desktop". Sorry guys.
I want to use Linux at the desktop, but I want HDR and Freesync support. Not sure if Linux supports either in a big way.
Freesync yes, HDR soon™
Freesync and any vrr for that matter is supported on Wayland and X.org. HDR is supported on sway and some other compositors, but I don't think there is too much adoption from apps yet
VRR only works on Xorg if you only have 1 screen. And XWayland is broken on Nvidia.
Valve is working on HDR support for the steam deck's steamOS, which I assume will lead to other distroS following
Linux OSes have always been the ones to run on everything lol, it took Microsoft like a decade to make Windows run on ARM
Linux has better support for the long tail of hardware. Windows has better support for bleeding-edge hardware. The main reason for this is money.
Except for my AMD 1800x that was 4 years old when W11 launched and not supported.
I hate to break it to you but 4 years old is nowhere close to “bleeding edge” when it comes to PC hardware.
Linux is cool and all but can it tell if I'm watching porn and suggest me other porn like windows 11?
I don’t think I’ve met anyone who enjoys windows 11 unless they’re like 75 years old and only click on google chrome and the power off button
You get to choose between hardware dependency hell and software dependency hell these days.
Why not both!
This is Windows 7 users. I just can't understand them. Why use an old os for the feel and look of it when you can just use Linux and customize it to your liking. ( I know, I know software compability and such. )
I've used Linux on my private laptop for the past few years, never had any major issues. Work desktop is running Ubuntu, no major problems except for the odd bit of poorly maintained software (niche science things, so that's not really a Linux issue). Laptop breaks, I get a Windows 11 laptop from work...and I've had so many problems. Updates keep breaking everything, and I've had to do a factory reset more than once since the recovery after those updates also always failed. Wish I had my good old Linux laptop back :(
Windows 11 and its goddamn picky-ass CPU requirements... What the actual fuck, Microsoft? Did someone over there drink a tall glass of stupid juice and think, "Hey, let's royally piss off a chunk of our user base just because we can?" This is tech elitism at its absolute shittiest.
It’s like Microsoft's throwing a party, and instead of a guest list, they've got some half-baked, cockamamie CPU blacklist. "Oh, you're rocking a perfectly functional CPU from a few years ago? Tough titties! Go fuck yourself with a USB stick!"
This isn't progress; it’s goddamn techno-discrimination. It's like being invited to a buffet and then being told you can only eat if your fork is from the latest silverware collection. I mean, who's making these decisions over there? A drunk leprechaun playing darts with a list of CPUs?
Look, I get wanting to advance, to push the boundaries of what's possible. But this? It's like serving someone a gourmet meal and then punching them in the gut for not having the right kind of fucking taste buds.
Windows 11, with its bizarre-ass CPU criteria, is a masterclass in how to cock up a product launch. Dear Microsoft, next time you decide to drop a steaming turd of a decision on your users, at least have the decency to hand out some goddamn air fresheners, because this shit STINKS.
I just put Arch Linux on a tiny laptop that was struggling to run Windows 11 after an upgrade, and it runs smooth like butter now. Feels good.
What DE?
Asking the real questions here.
SwayWM.
The DE used has little to do with it, Windows file system performance is simply terrible.
You installed from scratch or used a distro like Manjaro?
From scratch. It's my second time installing so it was a breeze and I was able to copy all my configs over after.
Isn't the CPU support reason solely specific to a new feature Windows 11 was going to use, and you can just use Windows 10 while it's still in support? Plus Windows 10 knows this and won't even try to update your PC to windows 11?
It's not a really strong argument when most hardware drivers are made with Windows in mind first, and maybe someone is going to write up a Linux driver if they're interested. I mean Linux went for years having to do some hack&slash solution to broadcom drivers until they were finally added in. That affected at least 2 laptops in my lifetime.
I will stop to say that currently, I think Linux is in a good spot. But you can't just pretend the issue absolutely doesn't exist because your specific setup works.
I don't think people are pretending Linux is perfect. More people than expected though, are simping for windows despite the fact that the money and energy spent on it truly ought to have led to a better product than what we got.
Oh no, I believe no one is under any delusions that Linux is a perfect OS that does everything well and has no issues (well, beyond a few nutcases). It's just that on Linux you CAN solve issues, you CAN find causes, you CAN solve things, and in general once it works, it just keeps working indefinitely. Compare this to windows, which has new mysterious shit frequently, that breaks in unfixable ways to the point that even now the standard troubleshooting procedure is still the three Rs: Reboot, Reinstall, Reformat, and which frequently pulls the rug on you related to support of both hardware and software, all the while being full of telemetry and ads.
It's still a pain, just dramatically LESS of one.
In the last five years, I've run Linux across a vast range of differing hardware, and I've encountered no more issues regarding driver support than I have under Windows.
I simply attach the hardware, and it works. At most I installed NVIDIA drivers via my package manager, which was simple and painless; or I downloaded the drivers as .Deb's for my Brother printer and installed them quickly and easily using the supplied script.
I'm sure I'm not the only one with such experience.
That just means you didn't use the hardware that had the issues. Which is entirely possible given the nature of hardware issues. It happens all the time on Windows as well.
I have found Linux to have excellent HW support for all older hardware. Only notable exception is fingerprint readers. Granted, it's been years since I tried gaming.
Yall miss the point. Im guessing willfully. No average desktop user wants to be forced to use command line to do anything.
Linux will never see mainstream desktop usage.
My shoe can practically run Linux as a desktop OS.
Though to be fair, there's no real reason anything that runs 10 can't run windows 11 besides Microsoft's artificial compatibility list.
https://www.abyssapexzine.com/2021/04/dead-badger/
It was published well before 2021, but that's what Google turned up.
My shoe can practically run Linux as a desktop OS.
Okay, I'm stealing this one! Awesome...
I was having no end of troubles when installing Linux on my machine recently.
The hardware was too new. I’d gone with the latest LTS of Ubuntu, and it didn’t really jive with my stuff. 23:04 works like a charm though.
Not as uncommon as you would think. What normally do then is use the 6 month releases until the next LTS
Installing windows on an nvme drive was a pain in the ass for me fairly recently.
I officially switched my desktop and server to Linux. If I could switch my work computer I would. I bought a MacBook Air recently because I didn’t know Linux laptops were getting so popular. But I like the Mac and can still do some Linux like stuff in the terminal.
Just wish I could stop windows use at work.
Persistent live environment on a USB?
Good luck getting that past IT's radar. Most corporate machines run fully encrypted disks and safe boot. Any competent department has their machines in lockdown.
As long as you dont use nvidia linux works really well.
Even that is a myth nowadays. Wayland is still hit and miss, but with x11, it's as good as Intel or AMD.
And, if the guys at System76 keep their promises (and historically, they have), with the release of COSMIC, even that will be fixed for good :)
How is a desktop environment gonna fix Nvidia being incompatible with Wayland?
Well yeah on x11 its pretty good but on wayland its hell. And i use wayland -_-.
Got a Nvidia card. Never had a issue on Linux.
I don't use NVIDIA because of its appalling treatment of the Linux community. Even Microsoft is friendlier to us.
I have a card and no problems, just don’t use wayland
Windows 11 on a Pentium 4 - barely usable, though
A good linux distro(32 bit if needed) will run a lot faster!
I'd love to switch to Linux. I've used Linux off and on for almost two decades now. At one point I was triple booting Windows XP, Windows 7, and Fedora. The one thing holding me back is, strangely enough, game compatibility. I know Proton has made huge strides as I've seen it first hand on the Steam Deck, a lovely little machine. The problem is, I have a huge library, and while I'm okay with slightly less than ideal performance here and there on the Deck (40hz mode anyone?), I absolutely refuse to lose any performance due to running Linux. Benchmarks still show some titles losing 5-15% performance when running through Proton.
Don't get me wrong. I love FOSS. I donate and try to spread the word as much as I can when I find a passion project, and find it particularly useful. Even though this may seem to go against what I previously said, I'm debating on switching to Linux when Windows 10 loses support. I do not want to enable fTPM on my motherboard or update my BIOS if I don't have to. My PC is stable, no thank you. I feel like I'll have to troubleshoot whether I choose Linux or Windows 11. Ugh.
You haven't tried it recently. Every game I play works flawlessly and is just as good or you can't tell vs windows. I've been back and forth for 20 years and now I'm 100% and have been since February. I love it, and I'm happy to have my OS be my OS and do what I want it to do.
Now, to be somewhat fair, I built my new PC with the plan to go Linux. I went team red and a single ultra wide monitor. I wasn't sure about the single monitor at all at first but now, man I love it. I have it setup so when I hit the windows key I can pick a new desktop. The only thing I can't do is watch video's while I play games and it doesn't bother me at all.
Seriously though, outside of work I kicked windows out of my house in 2020 and haven't needed to go back. To be fair, my job doesn't have any software requirements that would tether me to windows, but the gaming performance this year has been nearly flawless for the majority of my library, beyond anticheat some games actually run better on linux when you consider the reduced overhead in a lighter distro
God forbids you ever have to run a game with two or three frames per second less than on Windows. The horror! /s
Joking aside, DRM is the actual roadblock. And it's not even Linux's fault. Just stubbornness and lack of will from developers. Even then, it's just a handful of AAA online games. For some, like me, it has zero effect in my enjoyment of games as I don't play online competitive games. Every other piece in my library actually runs better on Linux no matter how old it is. As Wine/Proton holds a better backwards compatibility than windows 10. Games that no longer run on windows still run on a modern fully specced Linux. No hassle involved. And some modern games actually run as fast or better than on windows nowadays.
Benchmarks also highlight a number of titles actually performing better under Linux than native Windows, especially where Vulkan is concerned. My gaming performance under Linux is fantastic, the advancements in the last five years alone have been astounding.
Very interesting perspective. It's almost arguable that you may be better off keeping a legacy Windows 10 machine and adding a new Linux-based machine for new titles. At this point, most games pretty much just work from my experience...
I am also dual booting because of game compability and Virtual Reality support.
I think once wine-wayland gets fully merged we will see a clear uplift in performance, at least on wayland.
For about the fourth time in my lifetime, VR is floundering under all platforms and in it's death throws.
The first time I experienced VR was on Amiga hardware, back then is was praised as the next big thing...Needless to say, it wasn't.
Now I'm interested in seeing that Win11 $upported CPU list. Anyone got the full link?
Can confirm, Mint was easier to set up and have everything working than Windows. Couldn't believe Linux had better driver support. What a world.
I'll probably transition my AMD 8350 build over to Linux when Win10 stops being supported. As opposed to my mom's FX-8370 build, which I'll probably just have to replace with a new Windows 11 system, as there's no way I'm expecting her (an elderly woman) to learn anything other than Windows. Especially since she's reliant on Windows-only apps.
The actual hardware she's using will probably be converted to a Linux Desktop, but I'll have to migrate her data to a new mini Windows 11 PC or something.
I know someone (86 yeard old) that never had a computer before her mid-70s. I built her several Xubuntu machines over the years, and she manages getting online, social media, e-mail and solitaire games just fine. She didn't need much teaching from me at all. And it goes without saying that support requests are very rare and I've never had to reinstall her system because of some malware ate her files.
Don't underestimate older people.
Waypipe can be a godsend here...
You can just install windows 11 on the 8370 build, if you make the install drive with Rufus you can disable the compatibility checks.
Those mini machines are pretty decent now. The kind you can bolt right to the back of a monitor.
Absolutely! I got a little Ryzen 5 box with 64GB RAM and 1.5TB of SSD for, like, $500 ($300 base 16GB+500GB, IIRC?). I've been used to XPS laptops as my daily drivers for several years, my most recent being less than 2 y/o. It is absolutely shocking to me how much better that little Ryzen is, for how little money.
I haven't checked power consumption on it, but at this point I'm seriously considering just packing one up with a small LCD, a BT keyboard/mouse, and a honking 20k amp battery when I travel, instead of taking the laptop.
There's not a lot of things that stupid people can say, that would genuinely frustrate me, but when you make uneducated, factless statements, and then decide to fanboy about something in the same sentence, that genuinely frustrates me
Just so we are clear, are you hating on Linux or windows fan boys?
Why not both?
All fanboys are annoying, no matter what they're fans of
To whom are you responding to?
I try using Linux on my desktop PC from time to time. Whenever I buy a new rig, I try Linux, as I want to reinstall the system anyway. It never worked. I always tried with brand new hardware -> something is not properly supported -> install current windows. Rinse and repeat every 4 or 5 years whenever I get my hand on a new desktop or laptop. That never changed for the last 20 years.
You are doning it wrong. Whenever I buy new hardware, I read up on linux support before. Formated my last windows partition at home 5 years ago.
This. No one would buy an arbitrary computer and expect MacOS to run on it, for example. Buy a computer with known Linux support. Ask the vendor.
Nah. The OS is not important enough to me. I buy according to specs and price/performance-ratio. If Linux won't easily run, I will just run windows on it. It's only the OS after all.
when you say "something is not properly supported" what do you mean? like nvidia/amd haven't released graphics drivers yet for linux? or some peripheral isn't recognized?
basically, by buying new hardware just after it launches, you're effectively one of the very first people to boot that hardware with linux. you can usually make it work but most hardware manufacturers don't work with the linux devs to make sure support is in place. so devs have to get ahold of the hardware retail and then fix whatever is broken. the exception to this is AMD and Intel - both companies have people working on linux so they will merge support for new hardware into the kernel before that new hardware is even announced to the public. so if you stick to cpus and video cards from those two manufacturers, you'll make your linux life easier.
even then, though, the support might exist in the latest version of the kernel, but the last Ubuntu or Mint release is still several versions behind. so you're effectively forced to use a distro that releases updates much faster (ie rolling release), or be willing to make modifications to the system post-install to get it to work.
tl;dr: you've got a constellation of requirements that can't all be met at the same time. either give it 3 to 6 months after release of new hardware or be willing to learn how to make it work. expecting software to work with hardware it hasn't yet been designed to work with is always going to be a recipe for failure.
either give it 3 to 6 months after release of new hardware or be willing to learn how to make it work. expecting software to work with hardware it hasn’t yet been designed to work with is always going to be a recipe for failure.
No thanks. I can't be bothered with that. I'll just run windows.
One thing to note is that there are different distributions some of wich use older software an focus on stability (debian for example) and some use bleeding edge software (arch for example)
Linux is open source and often only donation financed. They can't always support brand new hardware. If you want support for your hardware you have to pay a company to do it for you (or do it your self if possible)
I actually switched my desktop from Windows 3.11 to Linux. It's always worked fine to me (even if it was a bit hand on at the start) on vast numbers of hardware configurations. I've never used Windows for actual data since, only for games (not really an issue nowadays).
I did the same thing starting probably around the same time as you except that did it start working for me 5 years ago and I haven't gone back to windows.
Just the other day I was posting complaining about a thing I was trying to do that should have been simple but Linux made really hard for some reason. Still prefer it to Windows tbh.
The company I work at only works with windows Servers
Oh, another Linux circlejerk. Man I like my Debian but this stuff is so obnoxious…