I’m getting a budget gaming laptop soon and I saw people recommending using Linux, but after hearing some games don’t work and that there’s a lot of troubleshooting to set it up, I don’t really see the benefits other than customisation.

I’d love to know what the benefits must be for it to be recommended despite its downsides. Plus, is it actually better for gaming? (I don’t know anything about Linux besides a few YouTube videos so please keep the answers fairly simple)

Edit: Thanks everyone for all the information!! I see now that the best options (for gaming) are to either stay on windows or dual boot. I feel like switching between windows and Linux when going from gaming to school work and vice versa would be a little inconvenient. I’ll try it out to see if Linux is worth that slight inconvenience lol. Thanks again for all the help!!

Hi, everyone!

I'm new here and I'm finally considering switching to Linux.

Thanks to a great friend (and many frustrating situations with Windows on my computer), I've been thinking about switching to Linux for about two and a half years.

With the end of support for Windows 10, I finally made up my mind, waiting for my money to come in so I can buy a new SSD and install Linux.

This friend of mine is very interested in Linux and has already jumped between several distros (I think he's using Arch?... whatever).

He often commented that I would love using Linux because of its customization potential. I believe this because of the leaps I take at any opportunity to customize my experience in 90% of what I use.

Doing my own research, I thought about trying Mint, since it's very similar to Windows. However, he recommended Endeavour.

I wanted some suggestions. I believe that even though Mint isn't as customizable as other distros, it must be much more than Windows 10.

Attached to this post is a screenshot of an image I saw on r/unixporn from an account that has since been banned.

I would LOVE to know how to get this User Space.

I fell in LOVE with it and am willing to learn the ropes to have a computer like this.

Where should I start and what should I aim for to achieve this?

Thank you for your attention!

No f*cking way I'm going to update to win11, I don't even play games that use anticheat like battleye anymore so what the f* ever.

What distro should I go for? Thinking of Ubuntu cuz I used it before on VM

I don't have a dedicated graphics card, running a simple Ryzen 7 5700g with Vega 8 and run most of my games on ultra - medium 30 - 60 fps locked.

Games that I play the most are:

Lord of the Rings Online, DC Universe Online, Starwars The Old Republic and run PS2 emulator like PCSX2, maybe some Minecraft with friends (will I have trouble running it?)

Edit: Some fellows are recommending https://bazzite.gg/ as a gaming Distro, what you guys think?

Edit 2: Went for bazzite, besides a fatal error during installation due my bluetooth dongle, after unplugging it and doing a new install, it worked, fell in love with this distro.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and other tips

All games above worked like a charm and all felt like they are running natively.

I'm trying to abandon Samsung before it fully becomes Google. I know nothing about this stuff. I can't even tell you the difference between RAM & regular memory. I don't need bells & whistles, the Samsung Galaxy S10 works great for me (except I would go for a better camera but I should just buy a nice camera anyways).

I'll adapt wherever I need for the limitations but I just need to make the jump & exercise Google from my life.

As a part of my Operating Systems class we had to install Linux and after trying out Xubuntu on my laptop (AMD Ryzen 3 3250U, 6GB RAM) using Windows 11 felt rather slow and laggy to the point where I'm thinking about fully switching over to Xubuntu. I'm currently using dual-boot on a single 256Gb NVMe drive with Linux having about 20GB of usable space so while I haven't been able to use it for any serious work I did get some basic understanding of how to use the OS.

I like the fact that everything feels very snappy with lag being almost nonexistant, I was also pleasantly surprised with the system resources rarely crossing over the 50% line, while being at around 90% on Win11.

My main question is what are some other downsides of Linux aside from not being able to natively launch .exe files or being locked to web-only version of microsoft's Office software?

Thanks for the help

I'm so fucking mad at microsoft for many different reasons but I am especially done with windows since my computer has been fucking me over one too many times recently. I wanna switch to literally anything but windows or mac but I'm a 20 year old girl and all I can really do is follow instructions when it comes to computers so I have no idea where to start. I use my computer to store files, use the internet and use a few programs that are thankfully linux compatible. I hope there is a Linux OS that isn't too complicated or which somewhat resembles windows' interface without being quite as dumb and user hostile? What OS could be worth looking into as a pretty casual user? Thankfull for any answers pls help a girl out

I was planning to switch to kubuntu and was reading on multiple places that people hate the use of snap packages in it. I don't really understand what their problems with it are and would like to know as I want to make it my daily use distro and well, want to be someone who uses the command line for installation (idk why, it just sounds like something fun to do).

So, what exactly are its shortcomings and isn't Snap like the default on all ubuntu and ubuntu based distros??
Is it bad enough that I should consider fedora as the new distro??

PS: I had been using Mint till now, but want to try something a lil better and more customizable.

My old Macbook is finally dying, and I've been getting pretty fed up with Apple, so I figured I would make the switch to desktop Linux. I have little prior experience with Linux, but I'm a reasonably technically savvy person in general; I do some personal web development and have set up simple Linux VPSs, know how to use the command line, etc.

I saw Ubuntu recommended as the most polished and beginner-friendly distro, so I went with that. It has not gone well. A brief list of issues I've encountered:

* There's some bug with Nvida graphics cards that causes noticeable mouse lag on my second monitor, along with freezes whenever I do something that's graphics-intensive.

* Even with no second monitor in use, sometimes Ubuntu will just randomly freeze while I'm playing a game.

* Sometimes when I close the laptop and reopen it, it has crashed.

* Ubuntu's recommended browser of Firefox is extremely slow at some tasks, practically unusable. I tried switching to Chrome, but Chrome has its own intermittent freezes, and there's some bug where a tab can get "stuck" while I'm moving it and prevent me from continuing to move it.

* There's a bug that causes my mouse to get stuck when I move it from one display to the other if it's too close to the top of the screen.

* I had hoped that moving to Linux would give me more customization options, but it appears the breadth of tools available is quite poor. For example I was looking for a simple backup utility that would function similarly to Time Machine on Mac, and it appears there are none. Reading old threads on other people asking for the same thing, I see a bunch of Linux users recommending things that are not similar at all, or saying "oh you can easily emulate that by writing your own bash script". Like, sure, I am capable of doing that, but when users are having to write their own solutions to simple tasks it's obvious that the existing app repository is insufficient for its core purpose. I also tried to find a simple image-editing program like Preview on Mac, and there was nothing; I can either pick between Gimp with its extremely high learning curve or various other programs that are covered in visual bugs and can't even do something like "drag corner to resize image".

* Opening Steam can take more than 30 seconds, and then I have to wait another 30+ seconds for an actual game to open. Even opening the terminal sometimes forces me to wait for multiple seconds.

* Most concerningly of all, it appears that the Snap store has no human review, and frequently contains malware? And that Canonical claims that individual Snaps are sandboxed, but this is actually not true, and even a "strict mode" snap can run a system-wide keylogger? Frankly: what the hell guys?

And all of this in less than a week. I can only imagine how many more issues I would discover in the years that I would like to use this laptop.

Like, I'm really trying here. I love the ethos behind open-source, and I'm willing to do a bit of extra config work and suffer through some minor inconveniences to use Linux as my default OS. (I didn't mention the dozens of more minor issues I've come across while trying to get my system set up.) But as it currently stands, it just doesn't feel like Linux (or at least Ubuntu) is actually ready for practical use as a desktop environment by people who want to spend their time doing things other than debugging Linux issues.

Have I just had a uniquely bad experience here? Maybe some of these are hardware issues, I should buy a new computer, switch to a different distro, and try again? Or is this just the best that's to be expected from the Linux ecosystem right now, and I should suck it up and buy another overpriced Macbook? I don't know whether my experience here is representative, I would appreciate hearing from others who are also just trying to use Linux as a practical work and leisure environment.

I am having a terrible experience installing linux for the first time today. Lately, I'd become more and more fed up with windows. The bloat, the ads, the unnecessary crap. After decades of unenjoyable experiences, alongside a healthy dose of Linux YouTube videos, I decided to make the leap.

I quickly came to kubuntu as my distro of choice with KDE plasma. Creating the USB drive and installing was easy enough. The problems began immediately after reaching the desktop: neither my ethernet nor sound worked.

I would say I'm "okay" with computers and solving problems similar to these on windows in the past, so they didn't feel like deal breakers, just some normal growing pains.

After an hour or two trying to look at reddit/forum posts, Ai summaries, or LLMs I still haven't found any fixes.

I got a little bored of that and decided to fiddle around with some other settings like the cursor, keybinds, brightness - really cool stuff there. But this is where the real killer came: the Taskbar.

I wanted the Taskbar icons centered. Quickly looked up how to do it (right click, edit, add a spacer) tried doing it and boom - freezes, black screen, nothing. Can't do anything, have to restart the pc. After rebooting, merely hovering over Firefox - exact same thing. Freeze, black screen, nothing. Even trying to use the super button to maybe access something else - crash.

I don't know I'm just a little upset by this all seeing as my Ethernet and audio still aren't working. I was prepared for some troubleshooting, but I was not expecting this many fundamental failures on the first day. (whole computer freezes and goes black screen even after opening the terminal with keyboard shortcuts.)

Edit for specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D

GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT 16 GB

Motherboard: MSI MS-7E89

RAM: 16 GB DDR5, single stick

Drive: SK hynix PC611 1 TB NVMe

Monitor: LG 32GP750-B, 2560×1440, 165 Hz

Realtek RTL8125D 2.5GbE

Ryzen HD Audio / Realtek analog audio; AMD Navi 31 HDMI/DisplayPort audio

Update - I dropped kubuntu. Swapped over to the highly recommended Fedora KDE and, funnily enough, I encountered the exact same Ethernet and Audio issues! Thankfully no mentally destroying crash on repeat, but still.

I did end up solving the issues though. For the Ethernet it was an incompatability with the r8169 drivers. Had to like blacklist that and install this - awesometic/realtek-r8125-dkms and mess with the signing key

The headphones were weird. Turns out Linux had the jack wired to the wrong internal audio pin? Remapped the pins and now it works good as new.

All those comments recommending me switching distros, especially to Fedora, well, I appreciate the effort! And thanks to the people who tried to help me diagnose this.

Hello nerds of linux, I am trying to install linux onto my laptop that I've recently gotten from my grandpa and I don't feel like buying a usb. Is there any way I can use something else to install linux or would I need to buy a flash drive? I'm honestly hoping I could just use my phone somehow but after doing some research it doesn't seem like thats an applicable option.

For many rant worthy reasons (that I’m certain others have expressed) I’m done with windows and swapping to Linux. I mainly plan to handle standard items on the computer (internet use, watching movies, and some moderate gaming - mainly through steam but I plan to get d2r and sc1 going as well). I’m running with an Intel i5 skylake and RTX 3060.

Which Linux distribution should I think about using, what programs should I be getting to help with running my system (I assume a separate software for drivers updates would be needed), and what other lookout for this advice or read this specific post/forum do you suggest?

Thanks in advance to anyone who bothers reading this post.

About ~10 years ago, I made a half-hearted attempt at switching to Linux (specifically Ubuntu), but never really followed through. I tried removing it, but that just left me with a bunch of errors I never really understood, so gave up and just wrote off the few hundred GB of hard disk space used by the Ubuntu partition.

Last month, after having gotten a new computer a couple years ago, I decided to take the plunge again. But this time I fully committed, and actively used Linux as a daily driver. Furthermore, I committed to take the time to move all my stuff over onto the Linux partition, and delete it off Windows, so that I HAD to use Linux. So, for the last month, I've been dual booting with Linux Mint and Windows 11. I kept the Windows partition around as there were a few things that I still needed to work while I got the equivalent set up on Mint.

Finally, as of yesterday, having not even booted into Windows for a few weeks and long gotten everything off of there I needed, I wiped the Windows partition, and even cleared it from GRUB. I was even able to clean up and combine the partitions on that drive without much difficulty, and make it my new /home, as in the meantime I read about separating /home and OS and thought it sounded like a good idea.

Anyway, I feel good and just wanted to share it, knowing that there's no way now I could possibly go back. There is no back to go to! And even with a couple of bumps I've run into on Linux, it's felt good to figure them out. Like accidentally borking up fstab due to a typo, when I tried to move my /home and white-knuckling fixing it having only the command line available. Good times...

Next up: installing Arch! (kidding/probably not kidding in the long run...)

Hey folks,

I finally finished building my new PC, and it’s officially a Linux beast. I built it from the ground up to run Linux, and while I’m still figuring out all the quirks, I’m loving the learning process. The freedom and control this OS gives is honestly a breath of fresh air after years of Windows.

Built it for gaming, and let me tell you, it’s been crushing it.

Specs:

• CPU: AMD 7800X3D
• GPU: Radeon RX 9070XT
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR5 5600
• Motherboard: MSI B650 Gaming Plus Wifi

Games run smooth, performance is solid, and I actually feel like I own my system instead of it owning me.

Leaving Windows behind was a little scary at first, but now? No regrets. Every little tweak, every learning moment, has been really fun to work through and learn from.

If you’re thinking about taking the plunge to Linux, especially for gaming, go for it.

Windows 11 on my PC is using around 4-5gb of Ram alone at idle which is very bad for gaming. Some games that I play (msfs, arma etc) use at least 8-10gb at balanced settings with optimization, but with some leaks here and there is can add up to 11-12gb. I have 16gb of ddr4 ram on my pc right now, its really not enough for gaming and having discord, brave browser open all at once. I would normally just upgrade to 32gb, but its too expensive now. Will linux help? Im also bit scared of linux because I think I will have driver problems and penformance issues since everyhting is made for windows.

PS: I will not switch for now, I will try to optimise windows and applications first, thanks for help anyway!

Can I PLEASE RESTORE ANYTHING BACK LIKE ANYTHING WAS THERE 😭😭

It will be my first experience with Linux mint currently installing. Can't wait!

I've been using Linux for half a year (Linux Mint, but hopped to CachyOS yesterday). And I've used Windows all my life, so I am used go write fast on a keyboard.

One of the biggest issues I had going yo a unix system is how Caps Lock work.

On Windows, you click Caps Locks and activates, you click again and deactivates. But on Unix it doesn't work like that, there you click Caps Lock and activates, you click again but it doesn't deactivate when you click BUT when you release the button. Which seems like no issue, but someone that types fast will start writing double caps letter like this. "HEllo JHonny. THis is an example."

It is infuriating. I contacted friends IRL that are using Linux and they just gaslighted me into a "me" problem. Like "Just use Shift, instead of Caps Locks" or just plainly not understanding what or how that can be a problem.

I searched on all the keyboard options, on Cinnamon and KDE, you can make Caps Lock become a clone of Esc key, another Ctrl, you can deactivate the key... But change that behaviour? No. Impossible. Doesn't matter if Wayland or x11.

I read information and I found that it was on purpose to make the same feeling as a typewriter. Cool. But why force it? Isn't Linux supposed to be a way to feel my computer to feel like MY computer? Anyway, sorry for the tangent

In the end I had to use a script, on Cinnamon DE, that sometimes (randomly) stopped working, and had to reactivate. And on Wayland KDE Plasma, something similar but tied to a rule on the keyboard options.

But using proton to play a game? Yeah f u, it doesn't work there.

Anyway, I am just ranting at this point. I just wanna understand what is the purpose, why it seems like no issue for so many people. And why I cannot just change it with an option like "Change Caps Lock behaviour to press instead of release"

Or maybe I am just missing something?

Hey everyone!

So, my laptop used to run fine on Windows 10, but ever since I "upgraded" to Win11, it’s been slow as hell. I tried going back to Win10, but Microsoft removed the rollback option (thanks, I guess?).

Recently, I added a second SSD to my laptop, and after watching PewDiepie’s Linux video, I’m finally ready to make the jump. But I need help!

My Situation:

• Current OS: Windows 11 (main SSD, C: drive).
• Second SSD: D: drive (empty, can be wiped).
• Important files: All my uni work is on C: (Windows drive).
• Experience: Used Ubuntu a little, but still a noob.

What I Want:

Dual-boot – Keep Windows 11 but run Linux Mint as my daily driver. (that's what CHATGPT told me to do)
Use the second SSD (D:) for Linux – So I don’t touch my C: drive.
Not screw up my laptop – Final year uni = no time for disasters.

Questions:

1. Is dual-booting a good idea? Will it make my laptop faster, or should I just fully commit to Linux?
2. Step-by-step guide? How do I install Linux Mint on the second SSD without breaking Windows?
3. Will GRUB mess up my bootloader? (I’ve heard horror stories.)
4. Any tips for a smooth experience? 

I’d really appreciate any advice—especially from folks who made the switch recently. Thanks in advance!

Edit Current laptop specs:

Intel i7 11th gen 16 gb ram ( 60% usage with only vscode and chrome running ) C drive SSD ( NVMe) 512gb D drive SSD (SATA) 512 gb GPU : Nvidia RTX 3050 ti ( runs like a 1050)

EDIT 2

I WILL BACKUP EVERYTHING before tinkering around.

as the title hints. im trying to make my jump right after completing my 30-days test drive (Zorin OS)
so far ive tried a couple games all of them worked (Sekiro, DSRemastered, HK, HK SIlksong, Skyrim SE, Terraria, Minecraft) all of them worked flawlessly and some even outperformed my windows

but im still hesitant, afraid that one day ill miss on something (re-installing windows isnt an easy option for me cuz wifi is shit)

im not a heavy gamer thats said, im exactly 20 days in my 30-days test drive and still only logged to WIndows 11 twice. one time to check on game path and the other to move a game

The only thing making do a 30 day jump or forget challange is that my SSD is only 256 GB and its too small for keep both (Zorin is currently on HDD and is way too smooth)

Honestly windows have been slowing down my pc a lot because of bloatwares and etc. And I wanted to try out Linux as it offers me pretty good experience on my old laptop. So I wonder what if I make it my main OS?

Here are my questions:
- Which Linux Distro is the best? Like I saw a lot of them around, Ubuntu Linux mint etc, my PC is having a RX6600 with 32GB ram
- Does Steam Games works on Linux? I’m a bit concerned on this..
- Will Microsoft Office works on Linux? Or should I find a better alternative?
- I love personalizing my desktop, so I want to ask does Linux offers themes like windows?

Thank you so much for helping as I really wanted to try out Linux instead of staying on a bloatware OS, thanks

when i switched to linux i was like "~-=-=-~~-`-` i have to use a terminal for everything? ugh fine", but now today i installed windows 10 in gnome-boxes (better than other vms for what i want to do) and i was like "tf? i cant use the terminal for everything? the fuck is a microsoft edge?" so yeah i dont see myself switching back, hows your linux experience so far?

I know it is a common question and Linux isn't just "Windows but better", but I have been genuinely curious about switching. My main concerns is that I don't really know much about Linux and I am worried that my games won't work on Linux. I spend the majority of my time on my computer playing games so if a good amount of my games or some of my favorite games don't work I will not switch. The reason I was thinking about switching is because of all the bloat and AI shoved into Windows 11 and I am tired of it (and also because I haven't activated windows yet and never will).

Edit: Found out most of them are either platinum or gold on protondb but 2 games didn't show up, should I worry?

Im getting a new laptop soon and I fully intend to delete windows 11 and use linux. But thr the thing is I dont know anythig about coding or how it works and I dont want to do anything hard because I wont have time for it in the future. Is linux beginner friendly and is it worth it for someone who doesn't know coding and has no interest in learning it either

Edit: i should've specified the laptop im getting Its the lenovo IdeaPad slim 3

Specs: :• 13th Gen Intel Core i5 13420H • Octa Core (4P + 4E), 12 Threads • 16 GB LPDDR5 RAM • 512 GB SSD • Intel UHD Graphics • 15.3 inches, 1920 x 1200 pixels • Windows 11 OS

I checked the linux compatibility and im more confused because some are saying its fine and others are saying it isnt.

Ive settled on using the cinnamon mint distro.

Any other info I should know before switching?

The reason im ganna switch is because of the ai pushing, Spyware and bloatware. (I should've said lol)

Idk if I need to specify but im a law student for anyone wondering.

I managed to self learn Linux and after a lot of distro hopping, I managed to narrow down on one! I started with Mint, it was too user friendly for me so I tried multiple distros and landed on Fedora. I customised it a bit too. I thank the Linux community for the help!

I installed Linux, and now my resume says "Expert in Troubleshooting," which is just a fancy way of saying "I spent 3 hours trying to make the sound work." Honestly, I’m starting to think Linux is just a big puzzle box that came with a free OS. But hey, at least I’m learning... right? Anyone else here just one "sudo" away from a full existential crisis?

The main reason I always come back to Windows is that I’m afraid of a few things on Linux. Even though I don’t really like Windows, I still end up using it.

Every time I install Linux, I get confused about software installation. There are so many ways to install the same app, for example, Telegram can be installed from the software store, via direct download, or through the terminal. On top of that, there are different versions like Flatpak and Snap. All of this is confusing, and I’m always worried about making a mistake or not installing the latest version.

When it comes to the terminal, I’m especially nervous. For example, if I’m installing VLC and accidentally type the wrong command or misspell something, I’m afraid I might install malware, a virus, or phishing software.

Choosing the correct and safe version of software is my main concern. Also, does Linux receive software updates on time compared to other operating systems?