I made the switch around this time last year and haven’t looked back. A few things have taken a bit of effort to figure out, but largely it has been a breeze. I should’ve done this many years earlier.
I face some issues with updates on linux breaking things (Arch btw) but it’s usually an hour debugging and then a “hey, someone already made a fix for this as a pull request that you could install now if you compile from git”.
That’s a hassle, but it’s better than spending an hour debugging, realizing the only real solution is to wait for a hotfix from the powers that be, then several more hours trying to get a workaround, then the five stages of grief ending in admitting defeat and waiting for the hotfix that’ll break something else.
On Linux, there’s always a way to do what you want to do, with all the risk and reward that comes with that.
I’ve been pretty happy with being downstream of Debian stable. I’ve only been burned by outdated packages a couple of times, which hasn’t been that bad. I’m much more of a “set and forget” type of user.
that is the beauty of Linux distributions. there is something for everyone
I really like nixos, which will not even tell you to reboot if the kernel is unchanged. Plus it will restart my services correctly when I update or pull new container images on my server.
It’s very very nice.
I moved from Proxmox on my trio of home servers to NixOS a year ago and loved it so much i switched my 2019 intel MacBook as well a few weeks ago. Headless on the servers and Hyprland/Quickshell on the laptop. It’s just so fucking good
Ohh I have an old i9 intel MacBook I could migrate to do this…
Only had 512gb though, it’s an old dev machine.
How’s the Linux support on it? Since it’s all thunderbolt ports I’m wondering how well it works.
Mine’s a t2 so my choices were t2linux or nothing, not sure about yours. As far as support, the only thing not working is bluetooth but that’s because i put zero effort into fixing it since i don’t use it. The install was a PITA but well worth it in the end
EDIT: forgot to mention that all ports are working too. I switch between using just the laptop and 2 external monitors no prob
nixos is one I hear people talking about positively but don’t know much on. What’s so great about it? And is it a niche distro for certain users (the subset who like to tinker with their machines?) or is it good for general use?
The short version is it makes your whole system deterministic and auditable, and that does some automatic stuff that is very nice.
Basically you write a configuration for your computer, then it generates atomic images from your config and manages your system for you. You update by generating then switching to the new snapshot. If anything goes wrong, you roll back, and your system is exactly as it was.
The whole system lives as code, it’s tied to git, and up to hardware specific things, I can checkout the exact same system across machines.
This is really great for people like me who dislike having to manage long term state like a grub config change or managing firewall rules or fiddling with committing systemd changes and managing them directly.
The packages are very well thought out.
For example if you add a systemd service it has rules for starting and stopping and the system is smart enough to know when to use them. That makes things like updating a server really nice, it’s just one command and everything is done for you, anything not affected by an update doesn’t restart, so services run smoothly (I have one config that manages all my services, their URL, firewall rules and healthcheck, and automatically adds them to a system monitoring dashboard for example).
As another example I can manage accounts on my system very easily, and I can clean them up by just removing that user from the nix files, and the system will do all the Linux user management stuff for me. This is great on a server where you want limited permissions users running specific applications — I just define what they should have and it works.
That has costs. Everything has to be thought of as either a system package or a user package, updating system packages is always a snapshot change with lock file update. You’re also locked into using nix packages which can lag releases (though this is most package managers).
Your average Arch Linux user probably doesn’t care or like this, they like the full control and flexibility Arch provides (which is just different tastes/philosophies).
You can install user local applications too outside of your main nix configuration (with something like homebrew, which works great on nix), or you can use home-manager to add more nix and manage your apps and generate user account dot files files.
You can also use nix-env to create reproducible software builds without containers, but I find it a little heavy to manage and haven’t learned it.
Thanks for the thought out reply!
Hey, me too! I ditched W10 for Linux Mint in Sept last year, so much to learn but it’s been a blast. I’ve never experienced having such a smooth working PC.
At first I didn’t understand this because the bottom text was scrolled out of view. Then I scrolled down and was like “OMG YES!” I just love this. I’d totally buy you a beer to celebrate. Virtual cheers 🍻
Desktop linux has never been better.
Haha, yes. Same.
Also the bitlocker issues: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3163280/junes-windows-10-patch-has-a-bitlocker-lockout-problem-again.html
Windows? just get some blinds smh
This is the way
How has nobody developed a distro called Blinds or Curtains yet?
I’ve been watching this shitshow for two and a half and oh boy am I glad I bailed when I did. The last Windows I truly loved was 7 (I’d still use it if I could, but Mint can get close enough for me in terms of look and feel without too much ricing, and, like Win7, things just… work), everything Microsoft has done since has just been a slowly degrading dumpster fire.
I’m a mint guy myself. Never disappoints
Same, Windows 7 was the last one I used too, but I was already dual-booting with Linux before then. Once Microslop rolled out the Windows 8/10/11 idiot parade, I jumped to Linux entirely.
For real, I have little to no patience with the myriad of Windows bitching posts these days. I’d say “skill issue”, but Linux is easier to set up and maintain than Windows. The only work I’ve had to put in was when I decide to fuck with perfectly functional defaults just because I can.
You can say “skill issue” anyway, even if the skill is flashing an image to a USB stick
Finally managed to get most games working on Mint . The only thing I still need Windows for is VR desktop for gaming. Once someone makes a decent Linux version then I’m pretty much done.
That’s my holdout too! But then Windows forcibly removed support for WMR to paperweight those anyway, so…
What headset do you use? They just ported the Oasis driver to Linux for WMR devices (I have a Sumsung Odyssey+) and I can’t wait to try that!
There’s also the “Envision” project that streamlines getting all the drivers and builds and stuff going for various headset software on Linux. Some have better results than others. :)
Some really good guides here, and there’s also a (hrk 🤢) Discord called “Linux Vr Adventures”
Are there partial vision headsets where I can still see what’s going on around me while I can look up and see my apps? Linux only.
That would be super rad but I don’t think something like that exists yet. (Would be COOL to be wrong though!) The best I would think would be how many headsets let you look through the infrared cams.
I’d guess Steam Frame might be the best bet right now just because it’s Linux-first and open, and I think it offers an upgrade for color passthrough cameras.
I can’t even remember the last time I logged in to Windows.
If it wasn’t for work, if never log into windows. At home, pure Linux.
I sometimes have to, but it kind of makes me feel I have to wash my hands afterwards.
Going to linux from windows was eye opening. No more ‘oh you don’t want this well we’ll remind you again in a few days’ or microsoft trying to upsell their services on my own machine or fighting with the operating system in order to do something simple. It is so nice to feel like I own my own machine.
Jumped to Bazzite a few weeks ago and already feeling pretty good about it. Not sure that I could have done it earlier (or at least would have kept Windows for dual boot), since I primarily use my PC for games and the improvements to gaming on Linux the last few years had been astonishing.
I feel this as well. I use arch, btw.
