Fine. You Win. I'll Try Linux.

After literally hundreds of comments telling me I need to try Linux, I decided it was time to give it a go, and try using it for about 30 days and see if modern Linux is good enough for me to switch over.

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[maladamedialabs]

As a long time Linux user - who almost *never* uses the command line, I like to say, "I can fix all your Windows problems with this Linux install... then you'll have Linux problems." LOL. Honestly, Linux has gotten better and better while Windows has remained... well, Windows. If you don't use fussy third party apps, have older hardware and are only interesting in email, web surfing and light gaming, Linux is a good choice. Having choices is good.

[TheWhosBlue]

By the way, to solve the issue at 6:30 (can only play Linux games on Steam) you can...

1. Open Steam
2. In the top right of the Steam window, click "Steam." It should have the Steam logo next to the text.
3. In the drop down window from said button, press "Settings."
4. Find "Compatibility" on the side bar of the window that just opened. It has the Steam logo next to it.
5. Enable the toggle on "Enable Steam Play for all other titles."
6. Press "Restart Steam."

Then you can play all your Windows only games on steam!

[Beryesa.]

Best way to switch to linux is first using libre programs on Windows and seeing if you can do without adobe until Adobe and stuff decide Linux market share worthy enough. I personally learned all of my hobbies with foss programs to start with even before knowing about Linux, so it was awesome to switch!

[DouglasWalrath]

the first try with pop os, the errors may have been due to the iso getting corrupted somehow during download, thus why redownloading it completely made the errors disappear

[cybroxde]

The end of the video is just so relatable... I've been using Linux at work for years but I always used (mainly) Windows at home for gaming and office stuff. Recently, Windows has started acting more and more strange with my TV connected to the PC (resolution issues, wrong app scaling, taskbar resizing, tray icons being the wrong size...). I didn't have any plans to switch my home PC to Linux but when Windows started freezing on Win+Arrow moving windows from/to TV and wouldn't stop pestering me to upgrade to windows 11 with TikTok preinstalled, I just had enough.

I'm actually surprised that setting everything up was relatively easy and I've had way less issues than I thought I would. I'm not really a good comparison for "out of the box" experience as I insisted on using Arch just like I do at work but I think I can weigh in and say I am surprised that everything *is there* and in good enough shape.

Drivers for my graphics card? No problem. Drivers for my HP printer? Surprisingly no big problem. Gaming? Works really well thanks to Steam+Proton.

There are still some things I miss but Linux has come a long way as a Desktop platform.

[jonaskeepauthor]

“It installed and worked perfectly first time, but I refused to use it because it wasn’t my first choice”
I get the impression that this attitude will set the tone for your experience.

[matthewjones]

For me using Linux is almost like a hobby. I find it makes using a computer so much more fun. Whereas most Windows machines are nearly identical, no two Linux [desktop] installs are quite the same especially after you've been using it for a bit. You slowly tweak and adjust and add extensions and things until you've crafted an experience that's exactly how YOU want it. That takes time and effort and a real interest so it's understandable why most people who aren't interested in that type of thing don't tolerate weird bugs and compatibility issues as some sort of challenge but instead see them as roadblocks.

[butchygra]

Great to hear someone trying Linux and admitting that their issues are likely due to lack of knowledge/experience and not that “Linux is terrible”.

I spent years swapping between Windows and Linux and then swapping back to Windows to play certain games etc, I now dual boot my gaming pc to play games with AntiCheat on windows.

But once you really become familiar with Linux, the CLI becomes a helpful tool - not a hindrance, and you will find yourself preferring Linux over windows.

My advice is try it again in another 6 months, you might like it better then

[techno-sorcery]

Used Windows for the longest time. Tried Linux a couple times (Ubuntu, Arch), but didn't have the patience to figure it out. Finally decided to put Debian on an old ThinkPad I had last year, and actually put the time into learning how to use and customize it. It's way faster using the terminal for a lot of tasks if you know what you're doing since you just have to type a bit of text instead of clicking through a bunch of menus and dragging stuff around. I rarely even use the mouse anymore, since I've got dwm set up to automatically snap+resize windows, and move them between work spaces with shortcuts. Also, having a central repo for all your applications is great- it's real easy to update everything at once. Don't think I use Windows for anything other than gaming, which is slow on my T530 anyway.

[legomovieman]

I will say for me as a formerly massive grotesque Distro Hopper, EndeavourOS was the one that had me to stop doing it.
Whilst it's a lot more "terminal-centric" just being able to search using paru for the program you want is amazing.
Can't go back to Ubuntu PPAs and etc.

[mattiafalappi]

As a long term darktable user and artix linux user, i think that lightroom is limited, darktable is better because it's customizable and packs a lot of modules and settings that can speed up your raw editing.
You can apply different masks for almost all darktable's modules, in my opinion color tuning is really fantastic, better than C1 and lightroom, only silkypix can offer something similar, it lacks lightroom's image blend capabilities.

[LokiScarletWasHere]

For window snapping, if you're using Gnome, the keyboard shortcuts for window snapping are in Settings -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Windows, listed as "View split on left" and "View split on right". By default, they're unset (unless Pop comes with a default setting for them), and you can set them to super+left and super+right if you want.
Currently, splitting into quadrants is not supported in Gnome, but may be supported with an extension or in other desktop environments.

[Nomad-qmzf]

By default, changing desktops is windows+ctrl then arrow keys up or down on popos. You can change it by going to keyboard shortcuts and look for "workspace"

[bryans]

I played around with Raspberry Pi OS (a Debian distro) for a few years simply for the challenge of learning a new operating system. I enjoyed learning the different commands for installing certain apps (although many were already included in the app library, like LibreOffice), and my goal was to try to make the Raspberry Pi a Windows desktop replacement.

[cgtang]

I just bought a cheap used Fujitsu 2 in 1 laptop for drawing on the go. It came with an emr pen. I hopped around so many distros just to taste how it works. I finally got back to with Linux Mint Mate. No error. The printers I have work well. I have samba share folders on my Linux Mint htpc, also works flawlessly. Krita works really well despite the 4gb ram. Only Google Drive that took a little bit of time to set up because I prefer using Rclone.
The things that surprised me so much are the touch sensor of the touchscreen and pen. Even the pen pressure sensitivity, they work right out of the box on every distro I tried. Both live session and fully installed. On Windows, I need to download tons of drivers just to make the touchscreen and pen work, which is more painful to set up.

[kansnex]

From what I know, the dual booting issue comes from the bootloader POP!_OS comes with by default, most distros come with GRUB, which gives you a menu on startup that lets you select what OS to boot. POP!_OS on the other hand comes with systemd-boot which usually does not do this by default, it's possible with some tweaking, but most other distros just make it a bit more convenient. Either way, I wish you the best of luck on your Linux journey :)

[arturorochoa]

That is great you tried Linux! I'm also glad you chose a distribution and stick with it too, 'cause many of the community will give you hate for choosing the "wrong" distribution.

[javierandreiotaku]

I've been using linux as a daily driver and my experience has been really good. This is a very good video and I hope linux keeps getting better to be suitable for your use case

[mikeymayhem_]

Nice video, pop os is going to pioneer their own desktop environment soon and then I might actually switch over. Glad someone's giving linux more attention. Seems that everyone thinks linux isn't new user friendly and requires the command line but it really doesn't

[simhz]

Great video! You gave it a fair shot and I'm happy to see the experience was positive overall. Totally understandable that you switch back to Windows if your workflow depends from Adobe. Maybe keep playing with Linux in a VW and one day you can switch!