this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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Linux

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I'd like to hear people's journeys and motivations from people who switched over the last few months, and if there were particular challenges that were faced.

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[–] rozodru@pie.andmc.ca 4 points 4 days ago

My friends girlfriend had a Win 10 laptop that "technically" wasn't supported to upgrade to 11 (It was) but she wasn't keen on moving to 11 as she didn't like the look of it (panel, etc).

So they both asked me for alternatives and I gave some options and we settled on Fedora KDE. She loves it. Especially when I showed her how she can really customize the look of it and for fun I showed her the Chicago95 stuff that someone did and she was like "wait, can I do that?"

She always loved the Windows XP look as that was essentially her childhood. So with a bit of work we got Plasma to look like Windows XP and she absolutely loves it. says it makes her feel like a kid again when she was really into pc tech stuff and now using linux has sparked that interest again. She's now watching Veronica Explains and Bread videos on youtube about linux shes learned a few terminal commands, how to do DNF (which she loves) to download programs, etc.

And because of her watching Bread youtube videos she's now asking me about switching to Arch. Her boyfriend is also making the switch too on his desktop. So I think next weekend I'm going to help them set up Arch or CachyOS on both their machines.

[–] gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Start of this year I transitioned to Arch Linux. Only regret is Battlefield 6 and I don't really care about that cause Arc Raiders is coming this week lol. Every other game has worked out of the box. Although actually RoboCop didn't work for me which was surprising but I think that's a temporary hitch.

I made a sheet for step for step instructions for my friends, hoping some of them convert soon with my help.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I had zero interest in Arc, I watched a brief video a year or so ago and not much else.

I grabbed the playtest for the server slam last weekend and I have to say that I'm pretty excited for the release. It looks amazing, it runs super smoothly and they've gone a long way towards polishing and updating the game systems so it is fun to play and dying doesn't feel as punishing or unfair. (though, those flying rocket UAVs are the spawn of satan)

[–] gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Ya, I totally get you. I had no idea what it was, got into the tech test 2 based off a YouTube suggestion. Played for a weekend and was immediately hooked. The games got some clear magic. This Server Slam had my friends foaming too, even the ones that weren't normally into PVP style games and now we're taking Friday off to play :D

I hope Embark finds a lot of success with Arc Raiders because I could totally see it being a 10 year game if it's well supported after launch.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I didn't get a chance to see what long-term progression systems were available.

It looks like they were going with the Helldivers 2 Warbonds mini-battlepass system which has some mechanical unlocks (a silencer in the Server Slam) and some cosmetics. If they can keep adding new items and mechanics at a good pace then it can go a long way towards keeping the gameplay fresh.

Either way, I bought it so I'll be playing on launch. :D

[–] addie@feddit.uk 3 points 4 days ago

Moved my father-in-law from Windows 10 to Mint.

Biggest problem was all his 'documents', which were office365 web links rather than 'actual documents'. Linux presents them as the urls that they really are. They open just fine, though, and can be exported as real local docs for libreoffice etc.

Security and privacy were the main selling points for him. He'd done some reading and thought that Mint was among the best choices for a newstart that just want everything to work; no interests in playing games or anything. I agreed that was the most solid choice. I use Arch btw myself, but wouldn't recommend that for beginners.

[–] ptc075@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago

I started baby steps when Steam stopped supporting Windows7. I built my main gaming PC to dual boot W10 & Ubuntu maybe 3 years ago? And that just worked so-so honestly. Felt like everytime I went to play co-op games w my friends, whatever game we picked that weekend didn't work correctly in Linux. But because I had Win10 right there, I also never forced myself to learn anything either. Biggest thing I could find was the problems seemed to be related to the Nvidia drivers, but never could quite figure out how to update them.

Recently I doubled down with a new PC, and this time it's Ubuntu only. Made an effort to find native Linux apps where possible, learned a few terminal commands, forced myself to also learn Bottles (play Windows games), and bought a Radeon video card instead of Nvidia. Learning curve for what I wanted wasn't nearly as high as I feared. If anything, I think it's pushing me to consider distro shopping, as I'm starting to understand why folks don't like snaps. Looks like Mint will be my next stop.

Biggest challenge so far is there's a few apps I use that just don't have a great Linux equivalent. AutoHotKey is the biggest one, but I see there's some new options here I didn't try yet. https://lemmy.zip/post/47337622 I have not dicked around with my 3D printer software yet, but I'm sure that will be a hurdle.

[–] GlenRambo@jlai.lu 3 points 4 days ago

Yep. Me and my parents. I'd tried a few distros in the last but always by as issues. Tried arch BTW but I didnt knlw what I was doing.

Thoght about fedora but I'd have to support family so shared to be on the same distro and its not very windows like.

Moved to mibt and bingo. Very much like windows, hardly need to use the termianl, everything just works.

I want to use a PC not sit in the terminal foxing things. That said, I'm slowly getting into the deeper side of linux.

Parents have 0 issues with mint. Even printers just plug and play.

[–] Horsey@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

My big gaming rig is running great on Fedora. My smaller gaming box running xubuntu had its nvidia drivers borked by a “phased” driver rollout. Overall, I think you gotta pay attention to the terminal when updating things. Maybe it’s just xubuntu being shit lol. Unfortunately, the game I play works best on Debian for now.

[–] errror@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I switched recently because of it. A friend of mine made a workshop for anyone who is interested, to learn how to switch to Linux or Dual Boot. It was the final push for me to switch and loving it so far :)

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago

Glad to hear from someone on the receiving side of recommendations to switch, and that it is going well for you.

[–] svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 days ago

knock knock

Have you heard the good news about our lord and saviour, Linus Torvalds?

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I got an older laptop and set up a Mint dual-boot, just because there are a few things I need Windows for, but I'm on Linux 99% of the time.

I did find in the past that a dual-boot didn't work well on an old Lenovo I owned, so I picked Acer this time, and it works really well. I just don't want to have to worry about my privacy all the time, so Linux + my Proton VPN helps ease my anxiety.

[–] wolfrasin@lemmy.today 2 points 4 days ago

Grew up om mac os, switched to windows about 10 years ago. Switched to Linux this summer.

The first distro that stuck was Manjaro... But the instability became too much of a pita and a risk. Found Garuda Moca amd I'm very happy with the experience. Mostly used for gaming.

I'm never going back to the windows side of my dual boot & should probably reclaim the space. Damn malware hyjacks my bios and trys to start & grab updates every once & a while.

Spouse is working on a private cloud server & once its up I will walk backwards out of the corop data theif hell I inhabit now with both birds blazing.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I've always been interested in Linux, and for my home server it's been my OS for the last decade, but for the workstation I found myself dual-booting. With the advent of atomic distributions such as Fedora Kinoite, Universal Blue, Fedora CoreOS etc using the concept of OS images through OSTree / bootc, combined with containerization through flatpak and podman is a great step forward stability and reproducibility.

My desktop has been switched to Aurora (Universal Blue) for more than a year and I couldn't be happier.

[–] lemmyknow@lemmy.today 2 points 4 days ago

Just helped someone yesterday, though they had Windows 11 already. They ended up with Pop!_OS, probably inspired by me having Pop!_OS (I did not make decisions here, only helped). Now we need to work out why Pop!_OS acting like the laptop can't do Wi-Fi

[–] CamelCityCalamity@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yup. Switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I bought a new NVMe to install Linux on, and a USB enclosure to stick the Windows NVMe in, so I can run Autodesk Fusion and VCarve occasionally. (It boots fine off of USB.)

I write code and browse the web, mostly. Linux is fine for that. I wish more commercial software supported Linux.

I haven't run a single game on it, or even installed Steam, because I have a Steam deck. But I guess you could say I game Linux, too.

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[–] dimjim@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago

I switched from windows 10 to Kubuntu a few months ago, and I've loved the freedom so far! Gaming has mostly been a non-issue, except for the 1 or 2 that won't work due to anticheat nonsense. I have a debloated windows instance that I keep on a separate drive, and I've booted that POS maybe 2 times so far.

I got curious and tried Linux Mint and OpenSUSE, but ended back with Kubuntu because I prefer KDE Plasma and im most familiar with Ubuntu.

Be careful though, once you fall into the rabbit hole you'll start doing things like run your own music server (like navidrome), and hosting your own photo storage server (I've tried both Immich and Photoprism).

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I almost did today. Ran into a setback but will try again soon.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Feel free to take your time, Microsoft's the only one setting deadlines here.

Posting to !linux4noobs@programming.dev could potentially help if your setback is technical in nature, and not like life stuff.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago

Thank you. I may have to post some dumb questions there soon

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago

Just recently, less than a day ago, helped my dad install dual boot Mint ( cinnamon, yay :| ) on his laptop. Now I gotta move my windows partition onto the SSD I bought and had help installing so I can install mint on my desktop. Just in case he needs help with a problem and I can better diagnose potential problems/solutions. I'd rather switch to what I've got on my laptop ( MX w/ Plasma ) but someone has to be able to effectively play IT.

[–] return_void@programming.dev 2 points 3 days ago

Had a relative switch to Linux recently. Lenovo IdeaPad computer running windows 10. The stuff was getting insanely slow and battery life was reduced ton the point that it was being a pain to use. Backed all the documents and data on a local instance of dufs running on home server and installed Linux Mint on it. Had minor issues regarding WiFi and Bluetooth. Solved the wifi one but bluetooth is still a bit unstable sometimes. Came back 1 week later and the user is delighted. Says that everything works 3 times faster than on windows and that battery lasts 3 times longer. They also went on themselves to look for open source alternatives to windows apps they were using and installed them. That's a win !

[–] justdaveisfine@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So far the biggest issues I've faced are League of Legends and funky network driver issues. One of those I can work at, the other not so much.

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[–] anas@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I have some programs that require Windows (still running 10 with ESU) but my Mint partition is now my daily driver.

[–] Professorozone@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I'm in process.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

My wife is the last one in the family to switch to Linux. I started with Linux on PCs (I only used Windows 95 back then in a dual-boot config for gaming only, but did work on Linux back then already), my daughter and my so use Linux for University, and now my wife is the last one to convert over the Win11 fuckup.

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 2 points 4 days ago

Yup. My desktop was the last computer I had running windows 10.

A couple years ago, I installed debian on an old laptop that I'm using as a home server now, and that was my first contact with Linux since 2010 or so. It was an experiment that got from "I'm just trying stuff" to "I use this every day".

Then I got a steam deck, and I saw that gaming on Linux was a thing now. Gaming is one of the things I need my PC for, since I don't have consoles, so that was important for me.

Then I got an old laptop from my sibling and I decided to install Arch to learn a bit more. Another experiment that got out of hand, until that laptop became my daily driver. I spent less and less time in front of my desktop.

This year, with Win10 going out of support, and having no interest in Win11 after having used Linux a bunch, I decided that was it. I did slack for a bit, because I had a lot of files that I needed to review and backup (or delete).
Because of unrelated stuff with my server -I had to empty my external hard drive to reformat it from NTFS to ext4-, I used the opportunity to do the hard work, and when that was over, installing Arch was a breeze.

That was a couple months ago, and I'm still customizing the PC, because life got in the way, and I'm doing things differently to my laptop (using niri instead of hyprland, using btrfs instead of ext4 -which I did wrong and I have to fix to be able to do snapshots-).

But yeah, I'm having fun and I don't miss windows. There's some software that I need sometimes, like the 8bitdo firmware updater and things like that, but it's mostly minor stuff. I did use FL Studio before and I heard it doesn't work great on Linux, but I haven't made music for the past 4 years, and if I want to and can't make it work I can always use Reaper or something :)

[–] piranhaconda@mander.xyz 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yes. I've been dabbling in Linux on and off for 10 years. Finally made the full transition and said fuck my gaming PC, it got swapped to Linux too, if games don't work I just won't play them, I'll get over it. Now my only windows device is my work laptop

[–] BrowseMan@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Recently started testing Linux:

-laptop: Switched an old X1 Carbon to Linux, but had a lot of problem with the WiFi card (Intel Wireless 7265). It's supposed to be Linux compatible, but it simply doesn't work. After a few days of distro hoping I settled for Kubuntu + a WiFi USB adapter(details here if you're furious: https://sh.itjust.works/post/47717768)

I'm still hoping a future update will make the WiFi card work and that I'll be able to remove the USB WiFi adapter. And I'm wondering if 8GB of RAM is enough for KDE (Mozilla regulatory freeze).

-For my gaming rig, I went dual boot with Bazzite and I'll be upgrading W10 to 11 for the software not Linux compatible.

My main problem (and disappointment) is that my Logitech G915 keyboard and JBL quantum headset cannot use their specific software on Bazzite/Linux. The basic stuff works, but all the keyboard (macro keys,...) And headset (spatial sound control, two sources live mixing,...) Handy advanced features doesn't.

[–] functional-tim@fedia.io 2 points 4 days ago

A few friends installes it and work gold with it. I also am tasked with installing Linux for my mother where I will use Linux Mint.

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 2 points 4 days ago

I switched to Endeavor OS a few months ago for my gaming PC. Working great so far. I’m using Linux a lot at work, so the transition has been smooth for me.

Also helped a relative to switch to Linux Mint by their own request. It was a welcome surprise. They really didn’t want to switch to Windows 11.

[–] NorthoftheBorder@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago

I just changed over my work laptop to Ubuntu with the gracious help of a tech-savvy friend. It works like a charm although I haven’t tried to print anything yet. Proton VPN needed installing using the terminal, but it was all ‘cut and paste’ from the Proton website. Tuxedo mini-PC is in the mail and hoping to convert a 2013 MacBook Pro to Mint in the future. So, it is going well.

Yes I have 1 convert and 1 on the edge. The convert said Windows is behind and wanted to use Linux. Probably to be cool and stuff. He's learning the ropes of Arch on Cachyos for now

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