1w ago

Thinking on switching to linux

Approaching the end of window 10 and have no plans on upgrading to 11.

I am trying to find alternatives to applications I regularly use before jumping ship (it is mostly a gaming focused pc) any suggestions?

There’s oculus software for my vr but don’t know what I’m going to do with that

Small update: probably going to do Linux mint as that appears to be the most beginner friendly

Update two: that's a lot of comments, and Thanks for all the info

252 comments

Software	Linux support
AMD driver	✅ open-source drivers for CPU and GPU are included in the Linux Kernel and work very well. If you have bleeding edge news hardware, check online in which Kernel version they are supposed and choose Linux distro accordingly
Web Browser	✅ Chrome/chromium, ✅ Firefox. All are commonly available in your distro software repository by default, or otherwise with Flatpak
Web-based email	✅ not dependent on OS. Local Email client software are available, one exemple is Thunderbird.
Office suite	✅ LibreOffice, or anything web-based such as Google Docs will work independently of the OS
Itunes	Many music players/library managers are available on Linux, I don't have any specific recommendations here, I am self-hosting Jellyfin for my music needs
JBL	not sure what you mean here ? Your headset/speakers ? Don't see why it wouldn't work
Music score reader/editor	✅ MuseScore, I also use Guitar Pro (7, 8) inside Bottle (wine) and it works with some tweaks needed for fixing font bug
Antivirus	✅ ClamAV, arguable if you need an antivirus at all
Python	✅ many IDEs are available, a scary amount of Linux distribution rely on Python under the hood 😅
Remote desktop	✅ RDP protocol (many clients available), ✅ Rustdesk, ✅ anydesk, ✅ TeamViewer)
Game platforms	✅ Steam, ✅ Heroic Games Launcher (for Epic and GOG), ✅ Lutris
VPN	✅ OpenVPN and ✅ Wireguard protocols are supported (maybe others), you can find many providers using these protocols. Most ask you to use their app, but digging a little you often have options to configure the VPN connection without installing anything extra. I know Nord on client works on Linux, I haven't tried other. Mulldav is a very frequent recommendation in Linux communities
Windows games compatibility	✅ Wine/Proton via Steam, Lutris, Heroic and Bottles. The only thing that will block you is competitive multiplayer games with Anti-Cheat

There might be some cases even for single-player games where DRM platform-locks you into Windows but that's rare from my understanding.
- I haven't encountered this problem myself.
  
  Like I said, it's rare especially for games, it's more common in productivity software though.....
  cough Adobe... cough
  The current standard DRM for the games industry, Denuvo, will work in Proton.
@op, they may suggest you to change your kernel version to support newer hardware, don't do this unless you know what you are doing and can undo it from cli. its fine 90% of the time but can cause weirdness or no boot.
- This isn't exactly what I recommend. Only in the case the hardware is bleeding edge, as in, it was released less than 6 month ago, then check in which Kernel version it starts to be supported, as well as check the Kernel version shipping with the distribution you are interested in installing. Distro Kernel version >= Kernel version where the driver starts to be included, no problems. Otherwise, check a distro that has more frequent upgrades.
  Things to check: GPU, CPU, WiFi chip, Ethernet chip. In windows you can find the information in the device manager. On Linux (e.g: test with a live USB) the command lspci with display the information.
  A common case would be: I am interested in Debian because I heard it's the most stable, will my AMD 5070XT work with that ? Probably not very well, better Check Ubuntu non-LTS or Fedora.
  I am not recommending op to modify the Kernel from the Linux distro, just consider this point in choosing the distro.
  
  Even on older kernels, if anything hardware like GPUs will benefit more from running newer drivers than a newer kernel, ie. AMD cards from GCN1 up to present-day RDNA3 are actively being supported by Mesa and the dev branch generally tends to have more optimizations especially for newer cards but also older ones as well, than the latest stable branch.
  The EL distros - CentOS Stream, Alma, and Rocky, all have a package which allows you to install a manufacturer repo that lets you install the latest AMD drivers from, for example, and CentOS Stream 10 and Alma 10 are both on the 6.12 kernel now.
  
  oh my observation comes from the blogs recommending it.
  but i couldnt have put it better myself, except i think you mean 9070 XT

252 comments