2w ago

Alright you nerds, I made the jump to Linux.

I've been a Windows user all my life and had dabbled in the Apple ecosystem for a bit. With the upcoming end of support for Windows 10 in Oct 2025, I figured I'd put myself through a huge challenge of cutting over completely to LInux without a secondary backup drive with Win 10 on it. If I could survive the struggles for a few months, I'd be golden, and if I couldn't, then I could switch to Windows 10 LTSC and be good until 2029. The intention was to completely force myself in without a backup plan - the only way out would be to install a new Windows OS. I chose Linux Mint after careful consideration, especially considering that there's tons of resources and help with this distro, and it's a great onboarding ramp for Windows users. I need the familiarity since I'm in tech full time and just don't have the energy to hassle with my PC after a long stressful day at work.

I also used this as a good excuse to upgrade my PC a bit, too. 😀

After switching in mid December, I'm happy to report that I'm still alive after 30 days. My computer hasn't killed me. And I've been able to do work and game on my PC without too many hiccups. Marvel Rivals still crashes ever since the Season 1 update. Overwatch works perfect. My other games, on both Steam and GOG, work perfectly fine. But I haven't been able to test every game out there, but I know I can use Proton DB if needed.

I even edited this screenshot in GIMP after being forged in the fires of Macromedia Fireworks and Photoshop all my life! I even stripped exif data using command line tools! I even installed this cool neofetch thing that I always saw in people screenshots of their PC or whatever, every time I saw someone's Linux build with their thigh high socks and neofetch on the terminal!

But so far, switching to Linux Mint has been great! I'm excited to deep dive more!

Note:

I backed up all my data from Windows into a USB drive. I'm slowly bringing all that stuff over to my Linux Mint computer and rebuilding my music, video, photos, etc. Lot of work, but it's so cool feeling so liberated!
I may also want help from you Linux nerds from time to time. I'll make posts/memes begging for help when I get desperate. But so far, almost every issue I've had has been resolved via an internet search!
I pray that I won't come crawling back to Windows. I don't expect that to happen with how great my experience has been thus far.

Specs:

Linux Mint 22
Ryzen 7 9800x3d
Thermalright Phantom Spirit
MSI X670e Carbon WiFi
Sapphire Nitro+ RX7900 XTX
Corsair Vegeance 64 GB DDR5-7200
Gen 5 Crucial T700 (?) M.2 x 2
Corsair 5000d
Noctua case fans (Lian Li too problematic on Linux based on all the research I did in advance)
Seasonic Focus Gold 1000W

Old Specs Everything the same as above apart from:

Windows 10 Pro
Intel i7-12700k
Noctua NH-U12A
MSI Pro Z690-A
MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio
Samsung Gen 3/4 M.2
Corsair Vengeance Pro 32 GB DDR4-3600
Lian Li AL120 case fans

232 comments

"You" nerds? It's "we" nerds now, nerd.
- One of us! One of us!
- NOOOOOs very darth vader-y
  And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for your meddling logic.
  
  Welcome to the fucking Linux Thunderdome
  Nerd
- The nerd team!
  
  When there's a call for action, Avengers assemble, do nerds compile?
- "Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"

Bro thank you from the bottom of my heart for the type up. I've been contemplating this for months and this very may well be the final tipping point for me to make the plunge. I'm in pretty much the same boat, tech savvy but don't want to deal with shit I dont have to which has been my main reason for not diving in yet. I've thought of doing exactly what you described as I do love a little challenge, which I get contradicts what I just typed. Anyway, yeah, thanks again for the post! Will be doing my own switch here in the near future.
- Happy to post this! I wish you good luck with your switch!
  My approach was of course to backup all my personal files to a large backup drive. I exported as many as configurations for my programs as I could - like for Handbrake and FreeTube as an example. I backed up those configs so that on my Linux OS I could just import them and have all my programs configured the way I wanted. Before I pulled the plug on my windows, I also wrote down every program I used and saved it into a simple list, so that I can hunt for alternatives.
  That approach I think was great for me since I spent a lot of time planning and carefully backing everything up.
  It’s been very smooth for me with minor hiccups when I first cutover to Linux Mint, but I’m damn happy with how well things have gone.
  Take your time to methodically prepare and I’m sure you’ll do well when you’re ready to commit.
- You have the option of trying without installing. Lots of Linux distros can run straight from DVD or USB without having to be installed. This way you can rest assure that it will either work for you once installed or you can just eject the media without altering or touching anything on your drive.

Pro tip, if you’ve not found it already - there’s a package for gimp called “photogimp” that makes it use the photoshop interface instead of- it makes it so much easier to use! Highly recommend.
- Just installed this and tried it out. THANK YOU. It immediately cured most of the things that drive me nuts about GIMP!
  
  Glad I could help :) It made my life a whole lot easier when I found it so I wanted to share the love.
- Oh that’s so awesome, I had no idea about this! I jotted this down and will definitely try it out tomorrow. Things I take for granted and know so well in Photoshop, I can’t even figure out for the life of me how to do in GIMP. It’s practice what I need, and this package sounds great to help me ease into it again. Thank you!
- Sounds amazing. Using GIMP sounded like the worst part of this whole endeavor.
- Rip it's not in the aur
  
  It's an addon that requires copying files to a specific dot file folder in your home dir, so it's not the kinda thing that would be in AUR. I just came back to this thread to thank the commenter you responded to because photogimp improved my experience a lot! Check out the install instructions here:
  https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP?tab=readme-ov-file#-how-to-install-others
- Can verify that photogimp is brilliant. As well as the interface it also creates photoshop like keyboard shortcuts too. There are one or two things not quite right but on the whole its a life saver.
- This sounds awesome! Thank you for commenting about it

Today Valve published a Proton Experimental update that fixed the Marvel Rivals crash for me. Be sure to set it up in game properties / compatibility.
- You may be my savior because I plan on playing some comp this weekend and don't want crashes.
  Do you just set the game compatibility to force Steam compatibility and then Proton Experimental? Did you get rid of any of the launch options that I saw all over the Steam forums and Proton DB (e.g., steamdeck=1 ) ?
  
  Yes, force the compatibility to Proton Experimental. You can try without the launch options and see if it works. Keep a copy of the launch options just in case though.
  
  For Marvel Rivals
  LD_PRELOAD='' fixed stuttering for me (but this also disables the steam overlay so you'll need to remove it to make purchases in game)
  SteamDeck=1 fixed crashes when booting the game
  Haven't tried the update since I'm away from home though.

Your striped thigh-highs will be delivered in the mail within a month.
- This hit me in the gender
- I must have missed that promotion, any chance I could order some?
  
  It is only for people adopting Linux after 2023
  If you did it earlier, like me, you'll have to purchase your socks separately.

You are a certified penguin now
- Another nail in the Windows coffin.
  Another lost potential customer for Linux hostile gaming publishers.
- Thank you! Now I'm ready to kill the Batman and torrent more Linux ISOs. It will make a fine piece to my collection

I'm thinking of doing the jump this weekend but I'm scurred. I don't want to spend hours debugging an OS like I did over a decade ago. Any reassuring words?
- A direct hop is usually not the best way to move into the Linux world. The best way I've heard (and wished I did myself) is slowly start migrating to programs that will be available and you'll be using, while still on Windows. Get used to how new things work and if an emergency comes up, you can fall back to your tried and true tools. Then, just keep migrating apps until most of what you use is open source stuff, or stuff widely available. (Spotify, Discord, Zoom, etc.) Once you have your workflow worked out, you've found substitutes for things you can't get on Linux, then is a good time to take the plunge.
  Going cold turkey is going to be really rough. I had Fedora on a side piece laptop for years before my first try on my workstation and it was a disaster. Less than a week later I had to go back to Windows. But, now I'm familiar with the tools I use and I've been a full convert for a few months now and it's been great.
  You can do it! Just...take it slow.
  
  Can second this strategy. I still dual boot W10 and LMDE, but every day I find myself booting Windows less and less. All I really use it for is Roblox and Playnite, and Playnite isn't even necessary because I've been getting more and more used to Pegasus on Linux.
  You just gotta get comfy with a bit of program migration, for example I used to use programs like Word, Brave browser, and Playnite, and learned LibreOffice, Librewolf, and Pegasus one at a time until I didn't need the often worse Windows version.
  
  I've been migrating to Foss and cross-platform software recently, so that's good to hear. My only concerns are kernel-level anti-cheat games not porting over and issues with drivers. Nvidia has Linux support for somewhat older video cards, right? I guess I'm about to find out. lol
  E: Extra words, how'd they get in there?
- It depends on what kind of software you usually use. You should look up the programs you use regularly/can't live without to see if they have Linux versions or if they have decent replacements. If everything there checks out, find an LTS distro. Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives (PopOS or Mint) or fedora and derivatives (I don't know any fedora derivatives) would be good.
  I started using PopOS last year for a gaming machine and all the tinkering I did, I did because I'm a nerd and I wanted to. If I wanted an easy experience without even looking at a command line I think I could've.
  One more thing. Most (maybe all?) Linux distros can be booted and viewed in a live environment from a USB without having to erase your whole drive (just make sure you don't go through the setup and actually erase your drive (unless you want to))
- I mean, it's not like I haven't spent hours debugging windows. Why is the sound crackling? WHY?
  Never solved it and Linux just worked
  
  Hmm, my only issues with Windows over the years have been hardware-related, although cryptically, so maybe that's why I'm not as upset. But I feel you, not knowing what the problem is drives me nuts.
  Linux just worked
  I'm crossing all my appendages! 🤞
  
  I had bunch or games start working and stop crashing once I moved to linux. Also my graphics tablet and audio devices stopped having driver issues. Even simgear works. Only thing missing is vr support but seems I am the odd one out in that case.
  
  I had the same issue, it was a security update that made some wireless sound devices get rice krispied. Took me way too long to debug and when I found out Microsoft was responsible, I reverted my Windows and have been waiting for a solid jump off point. I might just back everything up on a HDD, then format my boot drive and go Linux. I'm tired of being tired of Windows.
- Linux Mint has been set and go for me personally. You will thank us later.
  
  Ohh, I think I'm gonna make a list of a few distros I want to try out before I settle with one. This one's next after Pop!OS. Thanks for the suggestion!
- I’m sure others have mentioned this and you know it by now. But just in case, it is possible to run a complete Linux desktop from DVD or USB without installing. It is a good check to make sure your hardware is compatible and everything works for you.
  I think one failure of the Linux community is not communicating that this feature has been around for two decades now.
- Agree with both commenters.
  Make a live USB, see if you like it, and then install Linux alongside Windows in a dual-boot configuration. Note that it is recommended to use two different physical drives for the respective operating systems, but one will do as well.
  Then do everything in Linux while feeling safe that there is still Windows to fall back to.
  
  Note that it is recommended to use two different physical drives
  Oh, that's perfect! I have two SSDs ready for that, and a third HDD where I've kept all my media. I feel like I accidentally set myself up for success on this one. lol
  
  I recommend using windows tools to shrink windows partitions if you only have one drive and read about manual partitioning for your Linux install - though the "use free space" option should work fine after windows shrunk itself.

One of us
- ONE OF US!
  
  One of us!

I figured I'd put myself through a huge challenge of cutting over completely to LInux without a secondary backup drive with Win 10 on it.
Exactly how I did it coming up on a year ago. Still going strong!
- Seriously glad to hear that. It just sounded like the best way to go into this. It was very scary at first because I encountered a few hiccups that I had to do a lot of research to figure it out, but so far I've been great.
  
  I did the same thing right around the same time as you, still loving it :)
- Same, did a rebuild of my PC when I cannibalized my old one into a media server (really only kept the drives, so not really more like just built a new one...), bought two nvme drives for it with the intent to put Linux on the first and Windows on the second, but held off on putting Windows onto it to force myself to stick with it until I got a real sense for what I'd need it for...
  A couple months later I decided I'd just use that second drive for more storage. Hasn't run Windows once in over ten months of use and I've yet to miss it.
  Only took me sixteen or eighteen years of saying I'm going to switch to actually do it...
  
  Yep, that was pretty much me. In my case, I bought a new PC, and I decided I just didn't want to put windows on it. I've been on linux ever since. And yeah, that was after a couple of decades of trying to do that and failing :)

It might not be a feature you're interested in re: your music (or photo) collection, but one thing I missed when switching from Windows was the folder previews showing album cover art. I've been using Cover Thumbnailer (on Linux Mint 21.3) and it's been working great.
- Ooh that sounds cool! I'll check that out!
- What file explorer does Mint use by default? Pretty sure Dolphin has this option built-in...
  
  Cinnamon uses Nemo.

Hell yeah! I'm proud of you nerd! Trust me i know it can be overwhelming but you're doing amazing figuring all these things out! :)
- Thank you! I only wish I discovered all this back when I was a teenager and had much more free time! I could have been a wizard like all these other nerds posting here!
  Ah well, I'm never late or early, as I understand the lore. Picard or Dumbledore said that, it's true.

Have fun with it! This is how it starts. :)
But seriously, whether you stick with it in the long run or not, toying with Linux from time to time is a great experience for any computer nerd and now is really a great time to do it.
Feel free to ask questions!
Also save yourself some hassle by using the right terms when you search for things, for example, searching for "How to X in Linux Mint" or "How to Y in Cinnamon Desktop". A lot of people do searches for "Linux" and end up frustrated when the bulk of the results are terminal commands, but familiarizing yourself with the different pieces that make up your system is I think a big part of learning "Linux".
- Also important to know is, us that Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. The majority of Stuff that works on Linux Mint should work the sane way on Debian and Ubuntu(except UI solutions OFC). So if you're stuck try exchanging "how to do XYZ in Linux Mint" to "how to do XYZ in Ubuntu/Debian"
- Even though I was aware of it, this was one of my challenges. I was using Bazzite, which is obviously so niche that few tutorials would be specific. So, I tried to understand which distro was the base layer for it, and based my searches around that. Even then, a lot of things felt inapplicable, or needed to go through its containerized compatibility structure.
  
  For Bazzite , I search for "how to do X in Silverblue", or "how to do X in KDE"
  Bazzite is built on the same technologies as Fedora Silverblue (immutable base, ostree, btrfs etc).
- I'm working on learning all the terminology, which I'll figure out over time as I immerse myself.
  Things that catch my attention are distro hopping. As a hopefully former Windows user, the idea of being able to switch your OS to another distro just baffles me. Without having any understanding of this, I would imagine it's possible switching from a Debian to a different Debian distro. But if I switched from an entirely new "framework" (no idea what to call original Linux distros), such as Fedora to Debian or something, that baffles me. I don't expect to distro hop but who knows!
  And then I learned you can switch things out like KDE, Gnome, and even learned that Gnome is not pronounced like the traditional word, but like "Guh-Nome" as a play on the acronym "GNU". LOL
  I'm very much a novice with this system. In the past I tried to roll Pop_OS! and also Ubuntu, but they were so glitchy and didn't work great for me. After having my Steam Deck and seeing just how stable Linux is, I felt much more confident going all in on Linux Mint (appreciating Steam Deck is Arch).
  Anyway, the point of my rambling is unknown. If you made it this far, I'm proud of you.
  
  Though I had a negative experience on my last go of it, and a "root"-based filesystem still confuses me, this was one of the big solid advantages last time I checked a few distros. I followed some advice of putting the system-level directories on one partition, and my user content on a different one. When I got fed up with one distribution, I cleaned and reinstalled things onto the system-level partition, leaving the user directory alone; I just had to inform it where those directory mappings would go.

I'm sorry to tell you that you are also a nerd now that you've installed linux

Sexy!!
- Don't make me blush bro
  
  What are you doing step-Linux Bro?

Hey I just wanted to share how I was able to get Marvel Rivals running, although I'm on a different distro it should work for you:
In the Launch options (right click game > properties > general tab) enter this:
SteamDeck=1 %command%
Then, it tricks the game into believing you are on steam deck, and it should run. If you want to disable the performance metrics, just press right shift+f12.
I'm a recent lifetime windows user to Linux but loving it! I've dual booted so I can still play stuff like fortnite/call of duty but surely those will come around as the user count climbs :)
Edit to add: I found this fix on protondb.com - you can usually find others posting helpful stuff there relating to any Linux game!
- Thank you for this! I jotted down your launch options along with what some of the other persons here were posting. Hoping of course NetEase can get this addressed in a coming update so we don't have to use this workaround.
  Congrats on the cutover! I don't play Fortnite any more but my spouse wants to give it a go some time. If I play with them, I may have to install a Windows drive as a secondary device after all. Totally forgot about this game because I don't think I currently play any games that can't work on Linux.
  
  If you have a dusty old console lying around, Fortnite is cross play. That was my solution for the odd match with friends.
  
  If you are a gamer you should really just make the switch to bazzite though.
  https://bazzite.gg/
  https://docs.bazzite.gg/Gaming/index.html
- This also skips the launcher, which is nice

omg you chose the wrong distro aaahahhhh~~~
Seriously, though, I'm glad you're enjoying the switch, hope you also enjoy the mandatory thigh-highs!
- It's the one I recommend, but honestly have never actually used. I've gotten a few people to successfully switch with it and got a few others away from Ubuntu (my first distro), hence why I keep recommending it.
  
  Isn't Mint a fork of Ubuntu anyway?
  Either way it's what I'm running on my Thinkpad and it's been fine for me.
  
  I’ve used it for a short time, to get a feel for it. It’s really intuitive, so it’s a good springboard into the wilderness of Linux distros.

I've been running Mint about a week now, same story and similar hardware. I came from substantially older hardware than you did.
As I understand it, Mint started using a much better kernel with version 22, so hardware support so far has been perfect.
Also having a great experience so far. Biggest challenge has been finding replacements for done utilities but I've had good luck there too so far.
- I felt like such an old dude when I made a list of all the programs I used on Windows so that I could begin looking for replacements on Linux lol. Some of the ones that I still have to get setup are things like MakeMKV, as I love backing up all my purchased physical movies.
  Candidly there was no need for me to change my hardware out. But if I was going all in, I figured I'd go all in. My 12700k and RTX 3080 were working flawlessly on Windows, but I always heard AMD generally works much better. New OS, new hardware, new me.
  
  MakeMKV comes as a Flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/com.makemkv.MakeMKV
  
  Same, but I was running an i5-6600K, 16GB RAM, and a 6800XT. Replaced with this: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Vraylle/saved/YWC66h
  Right now I'm still setting it up for work, so the tooling I'm replacing is dev-related (Remmina instead of mRemoteNG, NetPad instead of LinqPad, etc.).
  Also grabbed InputLeap to share the same keyboard/mouse between old and new PC while I do this, and set up a local SSH server on the new so I could just SCP files directly to it over local network instead of popping USBs....
  Been a lot of work but disturbingly fun.

A bit of unsolicited advice now you're in to tinkering. Set up some kind of NAS.
Having everything available wherever and whenever you need it is so much better than messing about with thumb drives.
- That's how they getcha. First you install Linux because it looked fun, then you buy a small NAS to protect your most important data, next thing you know you have a server rack in your basement and a half petabyte of storage. Don't listen to him, OP! This is the path to many financial woes. Run while you still can!
  
  It hasn't been a year and I already overfilled my fist cabinet.
- Appreciate the advice. I'll be looking into something like that for sure to have some kind of on-prem storage solution. NAS might be the best way to go so I'll be looking into that this year as I get more comfortable.
  Edit: I realise I said USB drive in my post lol. I meant I'm using a large external hard drive for all my media rather than thumb drives! :) My external HDD is a "USB drive" I guess, it's just a big one.
  
  You don't have to have anything particularly special. I just have nextcloud via yunohost on a raspberry pi. It's apparently possible to just plug the harddrive in and use it as external storage, but I've mounted it in place of my home folder.

Great to hear you switched. I just switched from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. I had actually used Ubuntu circa 2007-2009, but switched to Windows because it was just easier. I never really loved Ubuntu. Linux Mint seems amazing so far. Very intuitive and user friendly. I can see non techies in my family using it on their Windows 10 machines later this year.
- That's what I like the most about it is that it's mostly familiar. I think it's an excellent OS to bridge users leaving Windows.
  Years ago I experimented by dual booting pop_OS! and also Ubuntu. But they always ran so poorly for me, despite having great hardware at the time (i7-7700k and GTX 1080). It was just super frustrating so I abandoned it.
  Last year as part of my preparation and research to get off Windows, I rolled VMs of Zorin OS and Linux Mint. Zorin was good overall, but Linux Mint just felt better to me. There's so much information available online for Mint, and over time as I get comfortable with the Linux ecosystem, I probably won't be using internet search terms like "install error XYZ someprogramhere on Linux Mint". 😀
  
  as I get comfortable with the Linux ecosystem, I probably won't be using internet search terms like "install error XYZ someprogramhere on Linux Mint".
  Lol don't be so sure...

Protip.once you have it setup make a snapshot or backup. You will be trying stupid shit out and breaking the system as you explore.
- Always great advice. I set up Time Shift to take daily and weekly snapshots. Is that all I need or is there a "backup" thing I need to engage.
  My history of this in Windows was System Restore, but that was always hit or miss for me back in the Windows XP days. Although I was a teen so I probably didn't know fully well what I was doing.
  
  I would also set it up to make a new timeshift anytime you add or remove apps. That's when things tend to break.
  
  Timeshift is just for the system itself. BTW in Preferences you might want to turn on Automatic Maintenance/Remove obsolete kernels and dependencies (in the Automation tab). This keeps old kernels from filling up your drive.
  For backing up my data, I use Lucky Backup (in the repositories) set with the default profile to back up my entire home folder to a secondary hard drive and another profile that backs it up to a USB drive. It's basically a user-friendly front end for rsync.
  
  You probably already know this, but just to be clear; Timeshift (by default) only backs up your system, but not your data, documents photos etc . Basically everything outside your Home directory.
  You can probably tell Timeshift to also backup your home directory, or install a separate backup app for that.
- My first month was finding out how to unbreak that thing I shouldn't have touched, knew I shouldn't have touched, but touched it anyways. Step 1 is snapshots.

9800x3d gang say wooooo
- Heck yeah, and I got it for retail price! Best gaming CPU, and my first AMD since like... Athlon days.
  
  Same here! I've been cheering on Zen for a while. Glad to finally be back aboard Team Red.

Gabba gabba we accept you, one of us! One of us!
Welcome to the club! One bit of advice: Be not afraid of the terminal. Learn to use it, it's a powerful tool and very useful. I recommend going to youtube and following along with a "bash basics" or "linux terminal basics" type video or two as if it were a class, it'll help familiarize you with some of the more commonly used tools to navigate your system and stuff.
- Woah now there buddy. This fellar just starting down the long trail of Linux and you are already trying to shanghai them to terminal land?
  
  Yes.
- When I studied I had classes in bash lol. So when I tried out distro of linux, I found myself relying more on terminal than desktop x_x (then proceeded to terminally kill my desktop enviroment, damage some wifi apps, change shit up and had to reinstall :| )

Nice hope to do the same when windows 10 goes end of life.
- Why wait?
  
  If you know something works it's hard to want to fix it.
  
  he needs more challenges in his life
  
  I'm in similiar boat. I just don't wanna bother 'till I have to. I don't mind Win 10, and I am not ideologically inclined for linux so the only motivation really is simply end of updates. So, currently, there is no motivation.

I don’t think you can jump to Linux. Don’t you have to strut there wearing sexy tights?
- Not sure I'm hot enough to pull that look off
  
  It is not the man or woman behind the socks that is hot. It is the socks that make the man or woman hot.

Welcome to the penguin side! I made the switch over a year ago and it's honestly been fantastic.

If you want to game on Linux check out protondb.com/ you can find what games work and even fixes. Also proton-ge works well, MangoHud for stats but it requires some config but you can use Goverlay to configure it a lot easier. Also of course read documentationarch wiki is the best but keep in mind it's for a different distro so paths might be different
- Thanks bud, saving some links for reference. I've heard about proton-ge, and from some quick high-level reading, it appears to be some kind of fork of steam's proton, but has some other fixes that I believe are community oriented or address things that Steam cannot. I'm gonna doing some reading into that to understand more about it and see how it can help me in other games.
  The others are helpful! I remember MangoHud from Steam Deck, but only at a surface level. Didn't even think about putting that onto my new system as I've just been using System Profiler to see some metrics when I play! I come from the MSI Afterburner crowd, so I'm hoping MangoHud will meet my performance monitoring needs!
- The proton db site is very confusing to me. I tried submitting a report but the UI is just so wonky. It needs a little love, but it seems like a really good resource still.

Time to build your server
- Serious question. Why? I see that it’s the first step in the learn Linux course on Reddit. Lots of people talk about it.
  I’m damn near considering getting that started but I’d still have no idea why other than curiosity and stubbornness 😆
  
  It only started for me because I wanted to have the convenience of a cloud password manager but without it being publicly open on the internet or hosted outside my network.
  I set up Vaultwarden and Tailscale on a Raspberry Pi.
  Now I've got 2 servers and a (very fucking slow Linksys NSS4000) NAS for backups hosting my life at this point (Nextcloud, Invidious, Beaver Habits)
  
  Also it’s just fun to run all your own stuff
  
  I originally did it to move my qbit and Jellyfin services to run 24/7 to stream my media to my phones and tv.
  Then I got more into it and started to learn about other services I can run, backup my files, and just tinker around. It’s great because my server and computers all run fedora so it carries over very easily.
  There are tons of docker container services that can change your life haha
- And with these specs, this server will be so powerful that it will actually serve other servers. Even servers that don't exist yet. It'll be so fast that persons will be like "whoa, this is too fast, please slow it down!"

Welcome aboard! I did same like a year before, and it's been a blast!
If you were me from the past, I would've definitely recommended you to try out tiling WMs (Guess AwesomeWM is a good start) ASAP! I can't stress enough how good they're, especially if you prefer using keyboard shorcuts over mouse navigation.
Also, if you'll find linux mint problematic, I want to suggest you to try out EndeavourOS (i wish i would've done it sooner myself). It's installation is as simple, but it's based on arch, and arch has one of the most comprehensive wikis, which allows you to troubleshoot basically any problem. Also. newer software versions get there faster, and finally AURs, that will allow you to forget about manual software installation at all.
- Thanks for the suggestion on tiling, I will look into that as well. I remember one thing I heard about Pop_OS was it's excellent implementation of tiling, so this sounds interesting to me.
  Curiously I forgot to try EndeavourOS. I'll roll Linux Mint for now and then if my use case changes, I'll explore it. So far I've only recently tried Pop_OS!, Zorin, and Ubuntu. Linux Mint felt best for how I currently use computers. I'm interested in the idea of whatever an "AUR", so I'll do some research on that too and log that away for some ideas.
  
  Well, i mean, if mint works for you, its perfect! My suggestions come from my personal experience, demands and regrets, so be ware that they might not suit you, though i believe that one should try everything.

Welcome and good luck. The community is large and we generally like to help each other.

Old Specs Everything the same as above apart from:
Windows 10 Pro
Intel i7-12700k
Noctua NH-U12A
MSI Pro Z690-A
MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio
Samsung Gen 3/4 M.2
Corsair Vengeance Pro 32 GB >DDR4-3600
Lian Li AL120 case fans
Brother, that's a whole new computer. Anyway, have fun and, if you haven't already, you should install KDE Connect and Syncthing. I don't know what you use your computer for but I have yet to meet someone who wouldn't benefit from it.
- Definitely will be taking advantage of those two softwares. I tried dabbling with Syncthing when I got my Steam Deck, because I wanted the save files for my... er, Linux ISOs, to sync with my Windows PC. I couldn't get it to reliably work (user error probably). So this time I'll try again and hopefully it will be much better!

You could have kept the 3080 and would have still be good to go with mint 😇every nvidia with 4 digits name that ha x0xx syntax is working good on Linux (except if you do not want any closed source software on pc)
Edit: someone pointed out that there are legacy cards with 4 digits name as well 🤪
- Good to know! Somewhere in this thread I mentioned that I heard AMD typically works better, so it gave me an excuse to also upgrade my video card and pick up an RX 7900 XTX. Lesson learned though! But I can't complain too much as I got a big uplift along with a massive improvement in VRAM - 10 GB to 24 GB.
  I installed my RTX 3080 into my home theater PC where my spouse and I will game on from time to time when we want a couch TV game on PC. We recently set up PS VR2 on that PC, and with the 3080, the games run so great.
  
  I didn't have a clean Linux mint experience on my 2080, and am currently deciding which AMD GPU to upgrade to for that reason
  
  Very nice 😃
  😏so you already have a target for your next Linux installation
  Well, to be fair, I know nothing about compatibility of different VR headsets yet and if VR works on Linux well…
- What about my GeForce 6600 GT?
  
  😮they where 4 digits before already
  Interesting, what they gonna do after series 50🫢
  Ahh, I see there is none with 60xx 😄
  Well then

I've been doing the exact opposite approach to Linux for a little while now. lol:
I've installed Mint onto my two "used parts" PCs and also an ancient laptop i have.
My gaming PC will stay Windows until Win10 EOL for the sake of game compatibility.
I do more and more on Linux as things come up!
- I’m curious which of your games doesn’t work on Linux? It’s usually the ones with a particular anti-cheat system.
  
  Yeah I think some people really don't know how far it's come... Windows versions running on Proton often work better than native Linux runtimes.
  
  Oh, i haven't really looked into it. I'm sure most of them do.
  I just don't want to deal with it right now. lol
  
  I've recently switched to kubuntu and one of the games that didn't work well was vermintide 2. Curiously, their next game, darktide, works fine :V
- To each their own my friend! I thought of riding out Win 10 and installing Linux Mint on an old computer, such as my really old Macbook Pro from 2012. But for my use case, forcing myself to use it and work through hurdles seemed to be best because after a long work day I was afraid I wouldn't spend time trying out Linux.
  Thankfully, I've had basically 99% perfection while using Linux Mint. The 1% were the little unique problems that I'm still trying to solve, such as getting OpenRGB to work and detect my devices. Inability for CoolerControl to control my case fans, no way to control my AMD GPU fans, etc. I'll invest time into figuring these out, but for now, all my games work and I just ignore the RGB I can't control via software.

Linux gaming and selecting a non wayland distro seems an unusual choice. If gaming is your main usage, something with wayland and especially gamescope would be better. Beside that, welcome to the other side!
- Fullscreen Xorg windows that use the gpu bypass everything, so it should be the same. Wayland could even be "worse". Both also support direct input.
  I use wayland only because moving windows around is smoother. It's still a bigger pain overall. "Not quite there yet" is how I would describe it.
- I have no idea what Wayland is but I will do some research on that tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback as that will help me do further investigation and exploration in the Linux world. Eager to learn!
- Which distros would you suggest?

Have you tried Krita? It's made for digital art, but I find that the UI is pretty similar to Photoshop, so I like it for image editing
- I use Krita a ton, much more than gimp. I find it much easier.
- Haven't tried it, but I'm downloading it now so I can give it a go next time!

Nice. ProTip, checkout ProtonPlus or ProtonUp-qt. They manage different versions of Proton for you. They both do the same things in about the same ways. ProtonPlus will match better with Gnome based Desktop Environments and ProtonUp-qt will match the Kde like environments.
- This is helpful, I will do some research into these. So because I'm on default Linux Mint, I believe my desktop is Gnome (especially considering my screenshot which also says Gnome). KDE, I only recognise from my Steam Deck - at least I hope that's KDE lol.
  I'll learn these terms one day. I feel ignorant, but I'm hungry to learn. The exciting part about cutting over is that it reminded me when I was learning about computers as a kid, and moving around connectors on PATA drives as a pre-teen. :) So I'm enthused to try a lot of stuff! Thanks dude
  
  No problem. I use Gnome as well for my desktop and yes that is KDE on your Steam Deck. If you've got a Steam Deck then protonup-qt is definitely a must have. Maybe it was more important when the Steam Deck first released, but it's still handy to manage Proton versions for games that are already rock solid on older versions.
- Lutris would be a more universal pick, as it manages Wine, Proton and a lot more, has more settings and is generally more user-friendly.
  
  Does Lutris manage Proton for just Lutris or will Lutris manage proton for all your other launchers?

Y'all really choose hard mode for switching over. Having Windows on a partition sure is nice when a software requires it and wine doesn't support it.
- Yep, I definitely chose hard mode. I wanted to minimise the chance of me giving up and reverting to Windows. By eliminating it entirely, I've made it much more difficult for myself as I'm forcing myself to manage, learn, and try to get things working in Linux.
  At some point, perhaps months down the road, where I find that I'm fully comfortable, then I'll most likely add a secondary drive with Windows on it for those edge-cases that I can't get working on Linux.
  
  Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux. Yes, it is liberating, isn't it?
  I found keeping Windows on a dual boot system when I first migrated to Mint was enough to make me never want to use Windows again. It kept fucking things up and I wiped it off my system shortly thereafter.
  Rather than add a secondary drive, why not run a Windows virtual machine? I created a Win7 VM just for those two pieces of software that Linux doesn't have. I have blocked it from internet access and so it does everything I need on the rare occasions that I require it.
  
  That's fair. I have my work always pulling me back to Linux so my motivation was different.

My condolences, and welcome!

Congrats and welcome to the camp! It will only get better as you familiarize yourself more with the system.

Congrats. I made the switch to Ubuntu in 2016, you are spoiled these days with Proton. I want to concur with the advice to learn the terminal. You dont need it yet, but you will eventually. It'd be wise to do some research on your package manager too. You're on Mint, so it should be apt.
Also, word of advice for future OS swapping if you- say- wanna try a new distro someday. Find yourself an external drive for your files like music and documents. Its better to not need to rebuild your library in the first place if you can, and its safelyoff the OS drive if something goes wrong. I got a cheap Mybook backup drive, 4TB for 90 bucks, and formatted it.

We have almost the exact same PC

Welcome nerd!

Yay, welcome to freedom! Glad it's working for you and feel free to ask for help here. Of course Linux Mint has its own forums where I've almost always found an answer already there whenever anything has come up for me, and it feels pretty friendly.
Enjoy!

GNU/Linux thank you very much
- Go away, Richard

You love to see it. I also switched my home machines cold turkey from win10 to Linux Mint last month!
I have been using it at work for a long time, but just didn’t do enough on my home desktop PCs for it to be worth fiddling with them and setting servers and stuff back up. But now that I made the switch, I am actually using my PC more at home because it’s smoother and more fun to use now!
The main one is an i7-9700k (8c/8t) with 32 gigs of ram and a GTX 1080. It has such a long life left ahead of it. Heck the other machine is a 2500k (4c/4t) with 16GB from like 2011 and it’s excellent for desktop use or non-demanding games.
I see myself sticking with Mint with Debian & Ubuntu upstream for the foreseeable future. But I do wonder several years from now SteamOS will push many of us to use something with Arch upstream if not just SteamOS itself.

That's a pretty nice set up you got there. Glad it's working out for you. Welcome to the nerdy side, fellow nerd. 🤓
- Also neofetch is no longer maintained. You can replace it with fastfetch.
  
  Thank you! And great to know about fastfetch! I'll check that out tomorrow!

Hey Congratulations! I just started my linux journey a couple years ago too, just the same way you did without any duelbooting! I'll share one thing I found out recently: apparently neofetch was abandoned by it's developer, and now is no longer maintained. instead, a lot of people suggest using fastfetch! it works the same except its faster and still maintained! otherwise I hope you continue to enjoy your linux journey, welcome to team penguin!
- There's also hyfetch (https://github.com/hykilpikonna/hyfetch) which comes with cool pride flags

Welcome to the cool side my friend

I'm addicted to .net, I need it to breathe

I like your background looks good. I've been using Linux on my laptop for a long time, newer distros and softwares have come a long way since when I started, but I'm unfortunately still rocking Windows on my main art station until Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC runs out of security updates.
Maybe longer if I just unplug it from the internet.

Yeah I changed a bit back but I went to new hardware. Ill be accessing the windows likely for months until I get my lazy ass in gear.

My display support HDR400, But I don't see much difference between Windows 10 and Arch Linux.

I dunno if this is the best approach to compeletely cut off your windows access? what if you need it for some unexpected critical reason? Would be a ball ache installing it again. I main Linux but I've kept my old windows install on it's own drive. I barely use it but very very occasionally I have (and it has just been for gaming but I got the game working in Linux in the end). It's Win 10 and I have no intention of "up"grading it to Win11.
I do actually have Win 11 set up to run in a KVM virtual machine from within Linux (I bought a Win11 key cheaply just for convenience with the activation nonsense tbh). I made the VM partly because I wanted to see how well it'd work as I like tinkering (it works fine, little bit laggy but does the job) and also to give me some easy access to the full MS Office suite in-case I want them and can't be arsed to go to my work device. I barely ever use it (2 times so far, both just to use full Powerpoint of web powerpoint). If you have your Win 10 license you could potentially do the something similar to avoid a total block should you ever need to access windows for something and wine doesn't cut it?
- I dual booted for 6 months just in case. Went to windows like 3 times. Made the switch completely to Mint like a year ago and never looked back.

Now you're a nerd too 😀 Welcome!
Anti Commercial-AI license

Congrats. I think Mint will treat you well.

For those making the switch to Linux for the first time, especially Mint, one of my favorite YouTube hosts is currently filming/releasing a series where he does the same.
Check it out: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXHMZDvOn5sU4nw1wdWGXQf5-Fj0k2N7n

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