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Curious on the experiences of those recently migrating to Linux from Windows 10, Intel-based MacOS, etc. How is it being on Linux? Anything surprise or frustrate you?

OQB @kiol@discuss.online

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[-] cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 59 points 2 weeks ago

I posted this before, but it feels like going back to the best days of PC ownership. It's fast, I'm in control, everything I want works and I honestly don't think about my OS very much.

I chose bazzite since I love gaming, but of course it's just a competent OS overall with which I also do my private office tasks.

Booting up my PC finally feels like a joy again.

Like most people I use Windows 11 at work and the contrast is enormous.

[-] apftwb@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

Like most people I use Windows 11 at work and the contrast is enormous.

Same

Open file explorer. Start a search. Open new tab in file explorer. Notice the folder path didn't change. Observe that you permanently glitched the file explorer path bar until you close file explorer.

I hate using this buggy OS.

[-] meta4@retrolemmy.com 3 points 2 weeks ago

This is my experience to a T. Picked Bazzite for gaming. It just works. Anyone worried about not being able to do the things you think you need Windows for need not worry. You can do all of that and more.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 21 points 2 weeks ago

I've switched systems some 15? years ago. But my mum did it recently, so I asked her this question. (Disclaimer: she isn't the one managing her machine. Guess who does it.)

She claims it's basically the same thing. She was surprised her start menu got different some days ago (when I updated her Mint), but it was the good type of surprise, like, "ah, it shows my profile pic now!". Then she rambled about things that disappear from her email, but that is not an OS issue, it's PEBKAC (she's extremely disorganised). And... that's it.

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[-] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 20 points 2 weeks ago

I think it was two years or so for me now, but honestly, it's going great. I've got alternatives for the windows only apps I used to use, and my games run smoothly.

Every time I have to use a windows computer for some reason, I'm reminded of why I stopped using that OS...

[-] RamRabbit@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago

Overall I'm damn happy. I'm surprised by how many basic things are faster, just opening and deleting files is fast. For some reason, something as simple as emptying the Recycle Bin in Windows is slow as hell; and I didn't realize how bad it was until daily-ing Mint.

Me and several of my friends have switched recently, with others showing interest or partly switching already.

[-] tomenzgg@midwest.social 6 points 2 weeks ago

I'm surprised by how many basic things are faster

I switched 14 years ago but it really is shocking realizing just how much you were either used to or sort of worked around dysfunctionality with Windows because…that's just the OS.

[-] refalo@programming.dev 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Most of the games I play don't work on wine (Teknoparrot), and multiple machines I have are either missing or have broken essential drivers for built-in peripherals like wifi/BT, fingerprint readers etc. So... I had to go back.

One of my laptops has a 10+ year old unfixed kernel bug for the bluetooth not working... and the wifi only uploads at 1mbps under Linux, but works fine on Windows.

I'm sure people that don't happen to have random hardware/software incompatibilities are enjoying linux, but there's also still lots of people that can't switch.

[-] Gabadabs@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 weeks ago

Some of those issues are addressable, even though they definitely suck, depending on how badly someone wants to swap to Linux. I have a PC I connect to my TV, and while it's built in wifi doesn't work on linux, I was able to buy a PCI wifi card and put it in, which works. You can do similar for Bluetooth. Currently I just use it over Ethernet. For laptops, it's a pain but there are USB wifi/bluetooth devices you can get. Fingerprint readers are tougher, I believe, but I feel less critical. Either way, use what works best for you!

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 11 points 2 weeks ago

I'm rocking Bazzite and the only time I wanted Windows was when I got stuck on a boss in Silksong and wanted to use CheatEngine.

[-] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 5 points 2 weeks ago

Cheat Engine is a thing on Linux!

Game Conqueror is bundled for a lot of distros but PINCE is my favorite.

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[-] figjam@midwest.social 11 points 2 weeks ago

My only surprise is how easy it was.

[-] Pencilnoob@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

I switched to Bazzite and I'm really liking it.

I have had a few issues with old SDR software that didn't work.

All in all, I'm very happy with the change and have absolutely no plan to return.

[-] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

I haven't missed Windows one bit. There were a few things that were tricky to get right int he beginning and also I had to get used to using some other software for some of the things I used on windows but honestly it's been worth it.

[-] andioop@programming.dev 9 points 2 weeks ago

I'm happy! It Just Works. Windows 11 -> Linux.

  • I have had ONE WiFi problem that was my computer's fault the whole year; as opposed to half the times I open the computer.
  • One video game didn't Just Work, I had to tinker, but I got it working smoothly with mods.
  • A bit of trouble with flash drives initially because they were not formatted to something compatible with Linux. Once I learned that I managed to shuffle data around and format it to be compatible with MacOS, Linux, and my Windows VM. But Linux actually saved me and let me get an old flash drive working that did not work at all. Love reformatting on my distro, it's easier and more visual than when I tried to do it on Mac or Windows.
[-] ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago

For the future regarding Flash drives. The different filesystems used by Mac and Windows (APFS and NTFS) can be used on Linux.

APFS support is sometimes built in, but if not can be installed by following the guide here(github). Note that this will require building from source, which can be scary if you haven't done it before, but is pretty easy if a bit tedious. This repo in particular has a good guide.

For NTFS support, you can install the read-only ntfs package, or the read-write ntfs-3g package. This utilizes the FUSE so you'll need the 'fuse' tools as well.

For the older Apple HFS+ filesystem you'll need hfsprogs. This is available from the AUR on Arch based distros, or in the Bookworm repo for Debian distros. For other distributions you may need to compile from source which you can find from the Debian package page.

[-] RamRabbit@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I default to exFAT for flash drives. Every OS can use it out of the box, so it is the obvious choice.

[-] ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 weeks ago

This is the logical choice on newly formatted drives regarding interoperability, but you really should use f2fs or another Copy on Write filesystem for your flash drives if it's an option.

[-] andioop@programming.dev 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Hey thank you for the good information; I starred your comment! This is the stuff I like seeing on programming.dev.

And I have built from source before—but considering how un-knowledgeable I feel compared to the average poster here, probably a good thing you included that reassurance that it's not so hard, since I feel just barely technical enough to be able to build from source. It's also friendly to drive-by readers at my level of expertise/knowledge or lower who have not built from source yet.

[-] chocrates@piefed.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

I need them to decide on Wayland or x and make the damn switch. I'm tired of switching servers for apps.

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

They did. It's Wayland. Everything should work in Wayland now. It's the default for everything, even xfce (4.20+), and x compatibility is handled by xwayland.

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[-] Killer57@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 weeks ago

Switched to Bazzite coming up on 4 years ago, and haven't looked back

[-] Peffse@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

Switched Jan of 2025. Already used 99% open source stuff on Windows, so the conversion was nearly painless.

I tried Debian at first, which didn't support my bleeding edge new hardware. So I tried LMDE... which also (unsurprisingly) didn't support new stuff either. It wasn't until I landed on regular Linux Mint that things hit a good stride.

I still mourn the loss of Winamp though... :(

[-] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 weeks ago

have you tried audacious?

winamp/wacup(better) runs fine on wine afaik

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[-] GorGor@startrek.website 7 points 2 weeks ago

I switched to Nobara a couple months ago. My computer is a lot snappier. Overall its great. Some minor difficulties but no show stoppers.

Signal desktop gives me an error that it is keeping credentials in plaintext which is fucked, I tried to get it to not do that but havnt been able to figure out how. (there are tutorials for ubuntu/gnome, but I havnt figured out how to translate those to fedora/kde...

I just started using crow-translate which is amazing, but keep getting a screenshot error message. Something with wayland maybe? again when I search there is a lot of shit about ubuntu/gnome but that doesnt really help.

[-] VaxHacker@programming.dev 6 points 1 week ago

I use Mint and so does my wife.

Two laptops that Win11 doesn't want to support, but we need them both and we don't have the budget to replace them. No problems on mine, but the wife's HP has some issues with closing the lid and I haven't found a good solution to that yet.

Sleep doesn't work because on wakeup the wifi and bluetooth are both dead; bluetooth doesn't matter but the wifi's needed for the internet and the only way to get it back up is to reboot the machine because it insists there's a hardware failure and refuses to accept that there isn't. I've even tried modprobe-ing the network stack but it has to be a full system restart (warm restart, not power cycle).

Hibernate threatens something nasty, can't remember what offhand but I'm not even considering it.

I don't want a lid shut to mean shutdown because shutting the lid shouldn't mean losing work. So I'm left with the only remaining option that shutting the lid does nothing, and the LT stays on, but then if she puts something on top of the LT as she's prone to do, some stuff can end up in a weird state, like taskbar icons following the mouse around even though they haven't been clicked on, and there's no way to stop them doing that without rebooting. I'm not sure how that happens; my hypothesis is that the keyboard and/or trackpad get activated, but no amount of me pressing on the lid in various places reproduces the problem.

Other than that she's had no problem adapting to Linux Mint. Everything's where she expects it. I've had to do some command-line jiggerypokery for various bits and bobs but a bit of DDG-ing finds that easily enough.

[-] FreddyNO@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Switched to arch 1 year ago or so. At first I customized my experience a lot and really enjoyed it. Now I have a stable experience, just game and do some dev work on and off. Really like it.

[-] victorz@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

It's so stable. I've never reinstalled in a decade of use, except only due to hardware failure and when installing on new computers. Love Arch.

[-] AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 2 weeks ago

Was about 2 years ago, but going great. I chose Mint at the time, occasionally eye other distros but I can’t be arsed to switch my perfectly fine desktop. It’ll just be longer before I get HDR support nbd. I installed openSUSE on my old work Thinkpad to try KDE. It’s fine but so far not really better, just different.

[-] Thalfon@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

Went with Linux Mint back in July, set up a dual boot in case I'd need Windows for anything. Figured something or other wouldn't work through wine or some such. Never have booted back to Windows since.

I think the only issue I've had is that my 8BitDo controller won't work via Bluetooth, but it works fine via USB. (Other Bluetooth devices have been fine, not that I have many.)

[-] qwank@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

Switched over almost a year ago, aside from a few hiccups, it's been awesome. Gaming has been smooth, setup jellyfin, and have been developing my media library. I love to tinker around and what not, and it's been a fun experience (especially when you figure out that one issue thats been vexing you for some time).

I was using Linux when I was in school from 2000-2008. Used Linux for a while during the Windows Vista period then switched to Windows 7 and eventually Windows 10. But I always had a dual-boot scenario on my PC. Now with Win 11, I didn't want that malware on my system. Plus now Steam and Proton can allow me to play my games like it was nothing so I went full Linux. Never been happier. Kubuntu is working awesome for me. Though I might switch to Endeavour OS at some point. I'm not sure yet. I'm so used to Debian, I don't know if I want to learn a whole new software management system.

[-] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago

I've been dual booting Windows and Linux (Ubuntu) for a while, and sadly I'm back on Windows after a month and a half of exclusively using Linux. The reason? Ethernet. I need to assign a static IP to a dev board with Ethernet, and while it works fairly easily on Windows, it just doesn't work on Linux, saying it's unavailable in the nmcli output.

Of course, Windows is worse than before. It hasn't fixed the bug where it never updates the system time, forcing me to manually press sync on every boot. And it hasn't fixed the newer bug where my laptop display needs to go down to 768p to display 300Hz, making me to go down to 60Hz to use the full 1080p resolution. All the while Microsoft pushes things nobody wants.

[-] Dogiedog64@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

I went to Fedora in March of 2025. I never looked back. Definitely some frustration with video drivers and hardware issues (bad Samsung monitor), but nothing I haven't been able to work around.

Most importantly, my computer runs great, my games run great, I have more control than ever, and I will never go back to Microslop. Their pivot to "AI EVERYTHING!!!" has been abhorrent, and I refuse to cooperate.

[-] SUDO@reddthat.com 5 points 2 weeks ago

It's great. My only issue is my computer had issues with sleep mode. So, I just disabled it.

On Linux I would need to disable online only accounts, copilot, one drive, recall, bing search, edge, edge again, privacy settings, edge yet again...

Linux is great. Honestly it came a long way over the years.

[-] bdama@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago

After bouncing around a few distros, fedora was the one to make sleep mode work on my laptop

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[-] Mavytan@feddit.nl 4 points 2 weeks ago

It's going great. A bit of a learning curve at the start, but nothing difficult. I had a few minor issues along the way, but it's all worth it, because I no longer get bothered by all the annoyances of Windows. My device is now managed, updated, etc by me instead of big tech that doesn't serve my interests, feels much better.

[-] pleksi@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It’s going well. I started selfhosting most of my services on a debian machine. TV doesnt have internet anymore, it’s hooked to a fedora mini pc that i use to play media. I’ve installed Asahi fedora on my M1 Pro macbook and it’s flawless.

Dont miss anything. The only thing that pisses me off is when i work on a document on nextcloud (using onlyoffice) it doesnt look nice on MS office. So for work stuff i have to sometimes log into ms office account and use their cloud to work on a presentation or something.

I also kind of have to keep the OSX installation for some photography stuff although when i have the time ill look for linux alternatives. Mainly i need something to edit fujifilm raw photos with

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[-] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 weeks ago

I switched to Fedora Workstation 41 a year agoish, and am currently running 43 KDE!

I really like being able to theme my desktop to my liking, esp with KDE, my current theme is using the Catppuccin Macchiato colours (with "Mauve" accent, i.e. purple) and window decorations (solely because they were the only one available with big, colourful buttons. The rest had tiny icons that were hard to differentiate) + a cool black hole splash screen I found that has a date too! I am using the Bibata Modern Ice cursor and Papirus icon pack.

I also like having loads of additional software to pick from. LibreOffice works really well on Linux, Lutris and Prism Launcher are great for the games I play, Okular is nice (though by now someone has told me it existed on Windows, damn!), and there are just some simple tasks where the Linux-native apps that are simply perfect (see KAlarm, Dolphin and Nautilus file managers both having actually useable search that doesn't require a third-party app like Everything on Windows, Elisa music player)

I had no issues with software incompatibility, all of the ones I use either had a (better) Linux alternative or had native Linux support (like Steam, Firefox, OBS Studio). The only thing that I am unable to do on Linux is a) (Re)install Windows for friends and family (weird, I know, but the Installation Assistant is not compatible with Linux. Technically I think you can use CLI tools to write the ISO to flash drive, but I couldn't get that to work. If I had the time I probably would been able to figure it out...) b) Access files from an iPhone, but that's more an iPhone stupid problem than anything. I use an Android phone now, and I have full access to its file system just by plugging it in, and c) Playing Minecraft Bedrock (hmm, I wonder who owns Mojang and how they could benefit from this...) but I have set up a MC Java server with GeyserMC+Floodgate and now my little brother (who plays on an iPad) can play Minecraft with me, which is awesome! There's a bit of lag due to the translation layer, but nothing major.

[-] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 weeks ago

I would like to add more.

I really like being able to just install, update, and remove programs using the "dnf" and "flatpak" commands, it is super nice and simple! I have accidentally removed an audio driver once, but after reinstallation it worked again.

KDE Connect and Localsend are both super awesome, no more words need to be said

I got into self-hosting as well, setting up Radicale, Immich, Forgejo, Nextcloud, Vikunja, and the aforementioned Minecraft server. They work quite well for my use case.

Removing myself from Window's incessant adverts and Microsoft's tracking feels like a breath of fresh air

The printer just works

The fact that you can just change from GNOME to KDE Plasma to whatever else without reinstalling the OS is kind of insane to me. You can even install multiple at once and switch between them!

The OS actually lets you do the things you want to do (the power of sudo is in my hands!)

You're able to install it without signing into an account and without an internet connection, as it should.

The fact that there are no incessant advertising and marketing and all this other crap for no cost! I applaud everyone who develops these super cool software, technologies, and operating systems, and if you can, donate to projects that help you a lot!

[-] Gonzako@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Not needed windows once. Tho I do have to use it on the job

[-] Nikki@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 week ago

i love it, things have been just working lately. it feels like every day something is gonna give but thats just windows trauma

[-] hateisreality@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

I have a dual boot PC with mint and the nvidia drivers crashed the GUI on boot. I haven't resurrected mint yet.

My Surface Book 3 with kubuntu is great but I have to turn it off, sleep will burn up the battery.

[-] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

You might check if "sleep" means standby, i.e. the RAM remains powered, or hibernation, the RAM is written to disc. Setting up the latter should stop battery draining.

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[-] CaperGrrl79@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago

Been using Linux Mint since the summer. I went to create a letter on my newer Acer laptop on Windows 11 because the HP Beats wouldn't go to Windows 11. Office 365 paywalled me. So I looked up Open and LibreOffice (going to try OnlyOffice soon) and got them both, completed the letter.

Then I thought... Windows is getting so crappy with this insult plus AI & ads... I wonder what Linux looks like these days? I had used it in the early 2000s, mostly Mandrake and Suse, as I recall, on KDE.

I was lucky I happened upon Distrosea, so I played with some there. I almost installed ZorinOS, but decided that dual booting Mint on the Beats laptop was better, because the Software Center has ratings and reviews.

There were a few hiccups with the flash drive, Secure Boot and all that. Ended up having to format the iso in Rufus before putting it on the flash drive with Ventoy, but it worked.

Granted, I don't use my personal laptops that often, the last thing I want to do after being on my work laptop (which is Windows 11, but my coworker runs CachyOS and brings up work stuff in ThinkCast) is get on another laptop, especially where I work evenings.

Since then, I've wanted to put it (or smaller distros) on other older machines in the house for fun, but several of them have some issues... old Dell Dimension 2200 psu capacitors popped, so that was a no go... and the Dell Vostro tower we have is beeping at me, gotta have someone look at that... might be graphics card or mobo needs reseat.

[-] Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

I set up a dual boot Win10/Linux system so I would have the option to use windows when I needed. I have not booted into windows for a while now. The only thing I was using it for was to play some older games I could not figure out how to get running in Wine. I may have to use it for tax software if I can't find something that runs under Linux though.

[-] LwL@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Switched almost exactly one year ago. I have a win 10 dualboot for some things (mainly occasional lol/tft, and osu tournaments because for some reason that stutters under wine on my pc even though it runs perfectly fine on my laptop).

The nicest thing is not constantly being annoyed by my OS. I'm forced to use win 11 at work and my god I hate it. Whenever I boot into win 10 at home I also want to rip my hair out, granted it was a lot better on my previous install where I bothered to debloat it.

I'm not really a fan of how "hidden" program installs (at least through package managers) are, but it's all in the same place and windows programs have been moving there anyway, putting everything in appdata, and to make it worse it's often split up and there's random registry entries. So I'm not really bothered by it.

I also have some minor issues with kde, like it deciding to regularly reorder search results (seriously I search for "disc" and always launch discord, but the top spot rotates between discord and discover, so I misclick whenever it changes). Also ever since plasma 6.5 my clipboard has been semi-broken, "copy to clipboard" buttons in the browser don't work, and screenshots don't automatically go into the clipboard either until I click the button for it. If anyone has a fix for either of those things I'd love to hear it.

I also didn't know i needed a dropdown terminal until I had a dropdown terminal and now I can't live without it.

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this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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