This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Literally moved everything to Linux (Nobara) like 3 weeks ago and the only thing I can't get to work is Bizhawk which I can easily get around. It's insane how far Linux has come for gaming and whatnot.
I was thinking how, back in the day, the most popular web browser was IE, which wasn't on Linux. Now the most popular browser is Chrome, which has been on Linux since 2009 or whenever it was.
And of course lots of other big software is on Linux, like VS Code, Zoom, Slack, Skype. And Linux is on the Steam Deck. So yes I agree, Linux has come a long way.
mine hasnt been updated for about 3.5 years now. not having online access has its moments
But you had to fax this comment in.
see? your limited understanding of the many ways to communicate are on full display
To be fair, I may have stopped getting updates anyway? I suspect what happened is typical, that some Win10 update bugged the update process and I was supposed to either roll it back or get the next one by hand and just... didn't.
It is my intention to start looking at linux distros and have one installed by Summer 25...assuming I haven't immolated in a wildfire or been sent to a detention center by then.
Already switched to linux. I still have one windows drive that I haven't booted for about a year. Haven't relied on virtual machines or anything.
I've turned a few older neighbors on to Linux when they complained that window updates caused their PC's to run too slow.
I'd tell them 'before you go out and buy a new computer, let me install Linux if you don't like it, you lose nothing. In the end, each one of them was happy their computer was running like new again.
Frankly, I don't care.
I'm going to keep using Windows 10, updates or not, until I absolutely have no other choice, hoping against hope that the cracks in the Recall/AI monolith with have spread wide enough that a future Win 12 or 13 won't have them in it. I don't run a business. I don't keep sensitive information on any internet capable devices and my work uses the AS400 system.
I know Linux is a thing, and about a dozen years ago I spent a year using Ubuntu exclusively. While appreciating the OS, I got tired of chanting magic spells at computer every time I wanted to use software I liked on it, and so went back to Windows.
These days, despite being a reasonably tech savvy person approaching 60, I'm getting to the point where I'm just not up to learning/relearning an OS unless there is a critical need, and using Windows 10 there just isn't. At least not for me.
The days of "chanting magic spells at computer" being synonymous with the Linux experience are far gone. I recommend you just make a Fedora installer and take it for a spin on the live test system! You don't need to commit to it to just try it
[Children of the Omnissiah plays]
Some questions:
What version of Linux does Fedora install? Is it directly compatible with Windows software such as games and OBS, or does it require modifications/compatibility installations such as WINE? Does it have documented support online or is it a matter of haunting forums and such for when problems occur? And no matter how solid an OS is, I will tend to break it, generally by doing stupid shit, but I will break it. Before putting it back together. Which is generally how I tend to learn software.
If you are going to play games you might as well go and try Bazzite instead! It's built on a Fedora base with some good additions:
It's atomic: this basically means that everytime yov boot your computer you'll have the choice of booting onto the newest version of your system, or the one before. If you fuck up anything it's as easy as reverting to the last version where things were alright!
It comes with a bunch of preloaded drivers and compatibility layers: makes compatibility with modern games and software as good as you can get it without having to tinker heaps. It's pretty seamless.
The installer includes many programs by default. Just tick a few boxes and you can choose to have Spotify, OBS, Discord or Darktable automatically installed in your computer
As for the documented support you can probably go a long way with the Arch, Gentoo and Fedora wikis. Other than that I'm afraid it's gonna be relying on forums and Reddit. I've never irreversably broken my Fedora system for what is worth, and I don't consider myself that tech savvy!
Game support is also really good these days. Anything that you can play via Steam will basically run. And performance is better for some games on Linux these days! Itch.io also has good support I think. You should be able to run most things that don't use shady anti-cheat, but forget about League of Legends, Valorant or Fortnite.
I'm not sure what you mean by Linux version! But Fedora (and Bazzite) belong to their own "branch" of Linux, apart from Debian and Arch. Their philosophy is a balance between rock-solid stability (Debian) vs bleeding-edge software (Arch) that many people, including me, think hits the sweet spot quite well!
If there's anything I missed or you are curious feel free to ask more questions :)
What version of Linux does Fedora install?
Whatever resides in its repositories for the specific release of Fedora. What exactly do you need the specific version for? I'm sorry, but this question sounds as if you were trying to imitate some kind of savvyness.
Is it directly compatible with Windows software such as games and OBS,
Linux doesn't present Windows NT ABI, if that is your question. It's a different operating system, and it would be a very weird expectation of it to do that.
or does it require modifications/compatibility installations such as WINE?
Wine is a userland implementation of Windows subsystem for NT, only for Unix-likes.
So yes, if you want to run Windows applications, you are going to use Wine.
Does it have documented support online or is it a matter of haunting forums and such for when problems occur?
Good documentation is present, unlike with Windows. Haunting forums is generally not our way of doing things. However, that will yield better results than Windows, too.
And no matter how solid an OS is, I will tend to break it, generally by doing stupid shit, but I will break it. Before putting it back together. Which is generally how I tend to learn software.
I'm not sure you're an adult. I'm also not sure you've written a single line of code in your life.
I upgraded to 11 and honestly it's about the same. Very familiar and fast. I've had no problems with it in the 3 years I've been using it. If I had the preference I'd use 10 but only by a very slim margin as they are virtually identical in day to day usage. I do think it's faster.
Graphic card ist what get's me nervos
This will be the best thing that ever happened to Linux. Hell, it might even make it up to 4.5% market share.
Linux is already at 4.5%
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/
Last I heard it was 4%.
Maybe it will make 5% next year, then.
I'm definitely migrating to Linux at some point before then
With the different distros of Linux, do different things support different distros? Like Zoom is support on Arch but not Mint, and Steam is supported in Mint but not Arch; or if an app supports Linux, it is on all distros? And if there is differences, do you have different partitions for different types of Linux?
All distros are equivalent, as far as software is concerned. They all have access to the same open source software, and Flatpak; AppImage; and Snap can be used for extra portability.
Think of a distro like a pre-configured image of linux. You can always change the configuration later, if you desire. For example, the Desktop Environment. All you have to do is just install a different DE package (usually via command line)
The DE has a major impact on user experience. Use KDE plasma for a more windows-familiar experience, or Gnome for a more Mac-familiar experience. Or experiment with others
The Linux Experiment is a good resource
Distributions are all of the same operating system, they differ in the set of applications and installation management tools. Except for those with different libc than glibc, things will generally work everywhere. Maybe with some effort.
When an app supports linux, it can do so by either:
or
These last ones are sandboxed environments. That means they have their own dependencies isolated from your system, so they dont have to deal with every distros pecularities at the cost of using more storage space. This is very useful for developers and in your case benefitial for the user because you can have both steam and zoom via flatpak on mint, arch or any obscure distro that has flatpak available, without any major problems.
Edit: Formatting
My biggest worry for this is, there's probably dozens of black hats out there that have found some very large exploit for Windows 10, and are holding off on abusing it until the day Microsoft ends support.
Currently, my plan is to make a partition for Linux Mint, set up dual boot, see how much of my daily computer obsession I can execute through there, and then try to slowly transition while slowly moving stuff from Windows. (I am vaguely worried I'll run into that Windows issue where files accessed from outside the OS login are security-restricted. That has even screwed up my Windows reformat fixes)
Mint's sweet I switched from 10 a few months back. Biggest difference is getting use to the different file system, only 2 games have been unplayable (didn't try to make them work tbh).
